Let's revamp bad canon ship designs!

[Kemper Boyd]

Inspired by the K-wing thread, I decided to post this.

While there are lots of good and smart ships out there, some canon stuff is just really really bad. Here's an example: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Imperial_II-class_frigate

About as big as an ImpStar, nearly 20k crew required, carries as much planes as an ImpStar, but is severely undergunned with only four turbolaser batteries, four ion cannon batteries and four point defense laser batteries.

Also it's supposed to be a frigate. Somehow.

I'd say that to fit the profile of a frigate, it should be smaller, carry maybe half the planes it's supposed to carry and have a much much smaller crew to make any sense at all. And have a decent weapons loadout.

My suggestion would be this:

Around 550 meters long, a crew of about 2000 with a passenger capacity of two companies. Carries three squadrons of TIE's, two shuttles and has at least ten turbolasers, ten ion cannons and a number of point defense batteries.

Another bad design which comes from WEG is the light corvette: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Imperial_Customs_corvette

It just seems to be enormous for what it's supposed to be, and has a very small crew. It should either be smaller or get upgraded to a proper capital ship instead of a huge starfighter-scale ship.

[CRMcNeill]

I'm with you on this.

With regards to the Type II, I would put it in the 350 to 400 meters range, which puts is closer in length to the Nebulon B and the Lancer. In fact, that may even be too much, as the Carrack Light Cruiser is 350 meters long.
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[Kemper Boyd]

[CRMcNeill]

[Gamer]

Don't know were 1600 meter length comes from but It's supposed to be based on the Acclamator and is also referred as a battlecruiser so I'm going with at least the size of the acclamator.
But I am lowering the crew from over 19k, WOTC writers seem to love making crew sizes rediculously larger than they should be.
Its supposed to carry 36 fighters,a couple shuttles, various support vehicles for its 4,400 troops so it needs to be fairly decent sized.
The pictures of it in Empire:darklighter series also have it in the region of 750-800m.

I don't mind the Customs frigate being that large nor that it is still starfighter scale. might add a couple dice to the hull but other than that I'm fine with it, it's not a fleet action ship and isn't meant to be.

[CRMcNeill]

[Gamer]

[Bren]

A worthwhile project, though it may be hard to get folks to agree on what the stats should look like.

[CRMcNeill]

[garhkal]

Agreed. If we were to base some ships on their size for scale, then many freighters (YOU BULKS) would be cap not SF scale..
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[Bren]

Scale is based on both size and power or toughness.

[Hellcat]

[Fallon Kell]

[vanir]

Okay well firstly corvette, frigate, destroyer, light and heavy cruiser, battlecruiser, battleship, escort carrier, fleet carrier and flagship are all utilitarian terms. They do not relate to craft specifications, tonnage or armaments and equip.

In fact craft of one specification were frequently reclassified historically to suit contemporary encounters, deployment and refit.

For one example, take a Queen Elizabeth-class Dreadnaught of 1941 refit into the Mediterranean or the Indian Ocean and it is a battleship. Take the very same ship, don't change a damn thing into the Atlantic or the North Sea in that very same year and it's a battlecruiser, unfit for combat with contemporary battleships. Take it into the Arctic Ocean and it's a battleship again. Park it off New York Harbour and it's a heavy cruiser.

ie. utilitarian classifications. That's the Navy for you.

Then you have the Merchant Navy and the Military. Then you have Escort Fleets and Ships of the Line. Then you have carrier battlegroups and task forces and surface action groups, marine landing task forces, cruiser squadrons, corvette flotillas and so on.
All of these will vary classification on the very same statistical warships for purely utilitarian purposes. It describes their role for a given strategic objective, not their stats. Take a frigate, put it somewhere else and it's a light cruiser, put it somewhere else again and it's a destroyer. It's the same ship.

So firstly a Customs Corvette is not a Ship of the Line, for all intents and purposes it is part of the Merchant Navy. A freighter with some guns bolted on. It's a destroyer-escort at best. In military terms it's...well nothing really, it won't stand up to anything in combat, not anything, you wouldn't even use it, you'd tell the Captain to fly away somewhere and contact you when it's all over.

A Customs Frigate is at best a military Corvette. Only if it has good fit. Corvettes are small, fast and can bother teensy vessels. You can shoot up crews with them, they're like oversized gunboats. You use them for coastal actions, shallow water operations. You do not use them in blue water combat if you can help it, a Destroyer has just as much speed and about ten times the fighting prowess and twenty times the damage soaking capability.

You might call a Corellian Gunship a light frigate or a medium cruiser. You might call a Corellian Corvette a light cruiser. You might call a Nebulon-B a heavy frigate or a heavy cruiser. You might call a Lancer Frigate a medium cruiser.

The label depends on how you're going to use it, whom you're going to use it with, and what your strategic objective is for using it, plus the tactical benefits of using it for that particular strategic objective in that particular formation.

[Bren]