Help: Onager-class Star Destroyer

[shootingwomprats]

Need help with this one people. Not sure how to create a superweapon designed to take down planetary shields. Anyone? CRMcNeill?

Onager-class Star Destroyer
After the Clone Wars, the Empire needed a warship that could shorten the costly and prolonged process of planetary sieges The Onoger-class Star Destroyer was developed to swiftly and brutally counter the planetary shields of Separatist holdouts and rebellious Core Worlds. Also known as the Imperial Siege Breaker, the Onager has a tapered wedge shape like many Star Destroyer designs, but with a large hammerhead-like structure at the bow. This wide, forward hull mounts the Onager's siege-breaker weaponry, either a pair of capital-scale mass-driver cannons or high-powered composite beam turbolasers. Advanced targeting and sensor arrays help direct these devastating weapons These large systems, and the power amplifiers to use them. take up much of the vessel's interior. As such, the Onager carries only a fraction of the additional armaments, starfighters. and troops of comparable Star Destroyers.
The Onager's heavy weapon systems require massive amounts of power, and the power conduits are susceptible to attack. A focused strike to the main weapon system can cause a catastrophic failure to the ship's systems, critically damaging or even destroying the warship outright. To protect against this, the Onager mounts more than half of its shield generators forward. This does leave the ship's flanks and engines vulnerable. but designers consider the trade-off acceptable.

USING THIS VEHICLE
The Onager-class Star Destroyer is an uncommon warship, used for specific operations. It is encountered most often over dissident worlds protected by planetary shields. The warship deploys at long range against such planets, using its primary cannons to breach and destroy the shield generator and other ground-based defenses.

Against fleets, the Onager strikes at the largest enemy ships. If equipped with the composite beam turbolaser, the Onager focuses on burning through a single target or to sweep through multiple targets as a cutting beam. If equipped with mass drivers, the Onager attempts to shatter the most dangerous enemy vessel outright.

In either case, an Onager is deployed with screening vessels to protect its flanks and aft. Its starfighters ward off enemy fighters that attempt to line up a critical strike to the cruiser's bow.

ADVENTURE AND ENCOUNTER SEEDS
1. A Moff has ordered an Onager to destroy a PC's home city from orbit. The PCs only have access to a small force of starfighters and must attack the Onager's bow to try to take out the ship before it destroys the city.

2. A Rebel base has gone silent. Scout ships dispatched to the area report the base was annihilated in a single blast. Has the Empire successfully mounted a miniaturized Death Star superlaser on an Onager, or did something else destroy the base?



Onager-class Star Destroyer
Craft: Rothana Heavy Engineering Onage-class Star Destroyer
Type: Star destroyer
Scale: Capital
Length: 1,204.44 meters
Skill: Capital ship piloting: Onager
Crew: 25,200; skeleton: 730/+10
Crew Skill: Capital ship piloting 5D+2, capital ship shields 5D, sensors 3D+1, astrogation 4D, capital ship gunnery 5D
Passengers: 240 (troops)
Cargo Capacity: 16,000 metric tons
Consumables: 1 year
Cost: 376,000,000
Hyperdrive Multiplier: x1.75
Hyperdrive Backup: x6
Nav Computer: Yes
Maneuverability: 1D+1
Space: 3
Hull: 5D+2
Customization Points: 2
Shields: 3D+2 (1D must always be placed front)
Sensors:
-- Passive: 50/1D
-- Scan: 100/3D
-- Search: 200/4D
-- Focus: 6/4D+2
Weapons:
2 Heavy Mass Drivers
-- Fire Arc: Front
-- Skill: Capital ship gunnery: mass driver
-- Fire Control: 1D
-- Space Range: 2-15/45/90
-- Damage: 8D
6 Twin Heavy Turbolaser Batteries
-- Fire Arc: 3 (front, left), 3 (front, right)
-- Skill: Capital ship gunnery
-- Fire Control: 0D
-- Space Range: 3-15/35/75
-- Atmosphere Range: 6-30/70/150 km
-- Damage: 7D
24 Heavy Turbolasers Batteries
-- Fire Arc: 12 (front, left), 12 (front, right)
-- Skill: Capital ship gunnery251
-- Fire Control: 1D
-- Space Range: 3-15/35/75
-- Atmosphere Range: 6-30/70/150 km
-- Damage: 5D
20 Point-Defense Twin Laser Cannons
-- Fire Arc: 5 front, 5 left, 5 right, 5 rear
-- Scale: Starfighter
-- Skill: Starship gunnery
-- Fire Control: 4D
-- Space Range: 1-5/10/20
-- Damage: 4D
Game Notes:
1. Overload Vulnerability:
2. Docking Bays: 2
3. Complement: 36 TIE/ln, 6 Lambda shuttles
Source: Starships and Speeders (p.141), D6 mechanics by +Oliver Queen
_________________
Don Diestler
Host, Shooting Womp Rats
The D6 Podcast
http://d6holocron.com/shootingwomprats
@swd6podcast, Twitter

[shootingwomprats]

This might work:

2 Orbital Bombarment Particle Cannons (fire-linked)
Fire Arc: Forward
Scale: Capital
Skill: Capital ship gunnery: superlaser
Body: 7D (capital scale)
Space Range: 1-10/20/50
Damage: 2D to 12D*
Game Notes:
1. The Onager's power systems can generate 2D of damage per 12 rounds (1 minute). The Onager's mass drivers can only fire at maximum power.
2. Overload Vulnerability: When the particle cannons is Heavy damage or worse and 6 comes up on the wild die, roll whatever energy has been stored against the Strength of the cannons.
_________________
Don Diestler
Host, Shooting Womp Rats
The D6 Podcast
http://d6holocron.com/shootingwomprats
@swd6podcast, Twitter

[Xain Arke]

I don't know if you used this as a base for your example above, but the
Imperial Torpedo Sphere basically does the same thing as this ship. If you
haven't already, maybe the Torpedo Sphere stats are a place to start.

[CRMcNeill]

The Torpedo Sphere works because it hits a momentary weak spot on a planetary shield with a massive burst of energy from 500 proton torpedoes that have been specifically tuned to disrupt planetary shields. This causes a momentary opening (opening itself being a relative term; it's more of a micro-second long power fluctuation), through which a heavy turbolaser can be fired through the shield to knock out the shield generator itself.

The Onager, as it stands, just isn't up to that task. It masses far less than the Torpedo Sphere and by all accounts has to use a brute force method to try to overcome planetary shields, whereas the TS uses a bit more finesse by attacking the shield generator instead of trying to overcome the shield itself.

I don't see a fix to this without making major changes to the official information on the ship. Either it needs to be much larger (with a commensurately larger reactor and energy cannon to justify its ability to brute-force a planetary shield), its weapon system needs to be rethought in such a way as to justify some sort of finesse attack ala the Torpedo Sphere, or its mission needs to be drastically reduced (such as making it a dedicated orbital bombard platform that requires a Torpedo Sphere to bring down the shields first).
_________________
"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

[CRMcNeill]

Something occurred to me recently...

A while back, I posted a crossover concept from the computer game Dreadnought. In particular, I posted two different versions of the Artillery Cruiser, one based on an Interdictor hull, the other on a Strike Cruiser. The idea was a ship with a main energy weapon that could stand off at range and bombard enemy ships or installations. The Interdictor variant was written up as more of a proof-of-concept platform, while the Strike was written up as an actual limited run production craft.

However, the concept might fit well with the Onager. Atleast, the Onager in the size range that official stats make it...
_________________
"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