In-House Ship Classes

As pertaining to the New Toys thread, this is for gathering our various in house creations for the Alliance and Empire (and anyone else really) into one thread and then possibly discussing their merits and detriments. I'll go first with the ones that I've remembered doing so far;

Alliance - Tempest Engineering Works Product Line; https://theholo.net/wiki/index.php/T...ineering_Works
Bulwark MK3 Battleship - A retrofit for the old Bulwark Battleships once used by the CIS, used during the campaign to liberate the Atravis Sector. Design is outdated by this point in time.
Vindertan Dreadnought - A heavy assault starship used to break through heavy defenses or strong blockades.
Constitution Star Frigate - Upgraded version of the EF76 Nebulon-B Frigate with revamped weaponry, reinforced spine, and additional ship carrying capacity.
Emden Star Frigate - Upgraded version of the EF77 Nebulon-B2 Frigate similar to the Constitution.

Empire -
Saint Tarkin Heavy Cruiser - Rebuild of the older Dreadnought Heavy Cruiser; https://theholo.net/wiki/index.php/S...Heavy_Cruisers
Imperial-III Star Destroyer - Deep Space Combat version of the ISD, replaces the ground troops with additional hangar space; https://theholo.net/wiki/index.php/I...Star_Destroyer
Victory-III Star Destroyer - Rebuild of the Victory-I Star Destroyer; https://theholo.net/wiki/index.php/V...Star_Destroyer
Victory-IV Star Destroyer - Rebuild of the Victory-II Star Destroyer; https://theholo.net/wiki/index.php/V...Star_Destroyer

Technically, the Bulwark Mk 3 is an EU/Legends design already, not in-house. Also, TransGalMeg owns the design/rights, which is a company owned by Ambassador Wrath, my Hutt. The "don't illegally make stuff" clause from the Treaty should prevent us from constructing these anyway, but it also doesn't quite jive with the idea that the Alliance is buying Rothana Heavy Engineering and Czerka Arms products from that same Hutt, while not buying Bulwarks from him the legit way.

What is the rationale behind the Constitution and Emden Frigates? When you say they are "upgraded", do you mean that they started off as a stock Nebulon-B and Nebulon-B2, and were modified/upgraded by the Alliance, or are they like a knock-off designer handbag, where we're building these ships from scratch? How are we dodging the legal issues / aka why is Kuat Drive Yards letting this slide, raher than trying to sue the Alliance for stealing proprietory tech? Why would the Alliance choose to build a Constitution or Emden rather than an MC30 or a Vakbeor (where we 100% own the design)? Where are these ships being built, and which design blob ("up north", "down south", former Imperial, etc) do they fit into?

Do you have any visuals of the Vindertan Dreadnaught, or does it exist only as a name? When you say "Dreadnaught", are we talking in the Star Dreadnaught sense, the Dreadnaught Heavy Cruiser sense, or is this just a Blockade Runner with a different name? What sets a Vindertan apart from other available/existing designs, like a Mon Calamari cruiser, or the Dauntless and Liberator from SoroSuub?

Generally speaking, the Empire moved away from buying ships from Rendili StarDrive, shifting it's bias heavily towards Kuat Drive Yards and Sienar Fleet Systems. Like the Arquitens, Gozanti, and Venator, the Victory and Dreadnaught designs are old Clone Wars ones that are still kicking around, and as such they serve a certain narrative purpose: if an officer commands a Victory, or if a planet is protected by them, etc, that communicates to the audience that this is a less prestigious Captain or a non-critical system. After so long spent favouring KDY for almost everything, what's the rationale for the Empire going back to Rendili after two decades to get updated versions of these old designs (designed for large scale starship-on-starship combat), and what makes them preferable to an Enforcer/Immobilizer/Vindicator (which are more geared/suited to dealing with starfighter-heavy Alliance tactics)?

I really like the idea of the Imperial III. It seems like a smart adaptation: the Empire responding to the Alliance's heavy reliance on starfighters by squeezing more fighters into its Star Destroyers. With the exception of the barracks where those ground forces are accomodated though... isn't this mostly just a tweak to the ship's loadout, taking out the walkers and landing craft and filling that space with TIEs instead? To my mind, the difference between an Imperial I and an Imperial II is like the difference between the USS Enterprise in The Original Series, and in the movies: it's a major physical/structural overhaul, with enough significant changes to be considered a new class. Is the Imperial III different enough to be considered a new class, or is it just an Imperial II with upgraded shields? Is this something that requires a starship to be heavily modified to complete the conversion, or is it something we can hot swap with a little bit of personnel and resource transfer? Could I not just take an ISD from Corellia, deploy the ground forces to the surface, and then park a few extra TIEs in the temporarily empty space? For the Imperial Blockade, and the fight with the Ssi-Ruuk, an easy swap like that might offer a bit more interest, value, and flavour than a tweak that requires the ship to become a whole new class.

[quote]Also, TransGalMeg owns the design/rights, which is a company owned by Ambassador Wrath, my Hutt. The "don't illegally make stuff" clause from the Treaty should prevent us from constructing these anyway, but it also doesn't quite jive with the idea that the Alliance is buying Rothana Heavy Engineering and Czerka Arms products from that same Hutt, while not buying Bulwarks from him the legit way./quote]

These weren't new builds but were rebuilds of former CIS ships waiting to be broken up at some random scrapyard planet in the Outer-Rim.

What is the rationale behind the Constitution and Emden Frigates? When you say they are "upgraded", do you mean that they started off as a stock Nebulon-B and Nebulon-B2, and were modified/upgraded by the Alliance, or are they like a knock-off designer handbag, where we're building these ships from scratch? How are we dodging the legal issues / aka why is Kuat Drive Yards letting this slide, raher than trying to sue the Alliance for stealing proprietory tech? Why would the Alliance choose to build a Constitution or Emden rather than an MC30 or a Vakbeor (where we 100% own the design)? Where are these ships being built, and which design blob ("up north", "down south", former Imperial, etc) do they fit into?

These were upgrades of the existing B1's and B2's that were in Alliance service and are not fresh builds.

Do you have any visuals of the Vindertan Dreadnaught, or does it exist only as a name? When you say "Dreadnaught", are we talking in the Star Dreadnaught sense, the Dreadnaught Heavy Cruiser sense, or is this just a Blockade Runner with a different name? What sets a Vindertan apart from other available/existing designs, like a Mon Calamari cruiser, or the Dauntless and Liberator from SoroSuub?

I drew up a simple MS paint side profile of a Vindertan for the wiki entry but there's not much to be said for the image apart as a straight up ovoid and more of a Dreadnought Heavy Cruiser sense and in role, at 1,000 meters she sits right on the border of the Anaxes system between a Heavy Cruiser and a Star Destroyer. As for the other designs in the same general size category you mentioned, Vindertan is a more specialized ship that both takes in and deals out far more punishment but in return is pretty focused on that particular mission and doesn't carry any starfighters or troops.

Generally speaking, the Empire moved away from buying ships from Rendili StarDrive, shifting it's bias heavily towards Kuat Drive Yards and Sienar Fleet Systems. Like the Arquitens, Gozanti, and Venator, the Victory and Dreadnaught designs are old Clone Wars ones that are still kicking around, and as such they serve a certain narrative purpose: if an officer commands a Victory, or if a planet is protected by them, etc, that communicates to the audience that this is a less prestigious Captain or a non-critical system. After so long spent favouring KDY for almost everything, what's the rationale for the Empire going back to Rendili after two decades to get updated versions of these old designs (designed for large scale starship-on-starship combat), and what makes them preferable to an Enforcer/Immobilizer/Vindicator (which are more geared/suited to dealing with starfighter-heavy Alliance tactics)?

The Saint Tarkin wasn't for new builds but rather was to upgrade the remaining Dreadnoughts in Imperial service.

I really like the idea of the Imperial III. It seems like a smart adaptation: the Empire responding to the Alliance's heavy reliance on starfighters by squeezing more fighters into its Star Destroyers. With the exception of the barracks where those ground forces are accomodated though... isn't this mostly just a tweak to the ship's loadout, taking out the walkers and landing craft and filling that space with TIEs instead? To my mind, the difference between an Imperial I and an Imperial II is like the difference between the USS Enterprise in The Original Series, and in the movies: it's a major physical/structural overhaul, with enough significant changes to be considered a new class. Is the Imperial III different enough to be considered a new class, or is it just an Imperial II with upgraded shields? Is this something that requires a starship to be heavily modified to complete the conversion, or is it something we can hot swap with a little bit of personnel and resource transfer? Could I not just take an ISD from Corellia, deploy the ground forces to the surface, and then park a few extra TIEs in the temporarily empty space? For the Imperial Blockade, and the fight with the Ssi-Ruuk, an easy swap like that might offer a bit more interest, value, and flavour than a tweak that requires the ship to become a whole new class.

Mostly a difference in loadout for weapons, shields, and as you say hangar capacity, I'm not really sure how the interior configurations work apart from needing to have racks for the TIE's versus pods for the AT-AT's/AT-ST's. You could easily call it a subclass of the Imperial-II, like the Imperial-IIb.

Most of my designs date from 2013-2015 and revolve around upgrading older ships, either to extend their service lives and/or to enhance their capabilities. That may be my inner naval historian leaking into my love of the fandom. Tempest Engineering Works, as a smaller shipyard facility versus Sluis Van or Mon Calamari, was mainly to be used to refit the Alliance Navy or build the smaller of the new designs. Have to given some thought on which New Class design(s) they might go after.

If they are upgrades of existing designs, why are they not the "Dreadnaught II" or the "Nebulon-B3"? Renaming the class may be more in keeping with real world naval traditions, but it doesn't seem to fit the pattern as far as what Star Wars usually does.

Something I am in the process of doing on the wiki is reworking the ship pages so that there is more of a focus on narrative information. The wikipedia page for the F-16 is a good example of what I am going to be aiming for: it has some technical data at the start, but most of the specs and variant information comes further down the page. We don't need a separate page for each iteration of the Imperial Star Destroyer, because a lot of that information overlaps anyway, and a lot of the time a post is probably just going to say "X-Wing" or "Imperial Star Destroyer" without specifying what letter or numerals follows, so it is probably going to be more user-friendly to combine that information into one page, rather than several. Knowing the number of guns, the hull rating of a ship, and things like that is also much less important on the boards these days, and the formatting of the pages should probably reflect that, and make that information as easy to find and navigate as possible.

With that in mind, would it be fair to say that the Vindertan is the only one that would require its own page, and that the others would all be subsections of whatever base design they are based on?

Something I am in the process of doing on the wiki is reworking the ship pages so that there is more of a focus on narrative information. The wikipedia page for the F-16 is a good example of what I am going to be aiming for: it has some technical data at the start, but most of the specs and variant information comes further down the page. We don't need a separate page for each iteration of the Imperial Star Destroyer, because a lot of that information overlaps anyway, and a lot of the time a post is probably just going to say "X-Wing" or "Imperial Star Destroyer" without specifying what letter or numerals follows, so it is probably going to be more user-friendly to combine that information into one page, rather than several. Knowing the number of guns, the hull rating of a ship, and things like that is also much less important on the boards these days, and the formatting of the pages should probably reflect that, and make that information as easy to find and navigate as possible.

With that in mind, would it be fair to say that the Vindertan is the only one that would require its own page, and that the others would all be subsections of whatever base design they are based on?

Yes, yes, and absolutely yes on the Vindertan part. I don't want to toot my own horn, but I believe I originally asked for the same thing back when the wiki was created, only to be told that there was no need since there was no limit to the number of pages available to be made. We certainly don't need five separate pages for the configuration of a Strike Cruiser and if you're going through reorganizing the wiki in such a manner I'll be jumping onboard quicker than the Rogue one crew did the U-wing to escape Jeddha.