Corrected Executor

[Kayle Skolaris]

Okay, first thing's first...

WEG screwed up a lot. We all know this. But they tried. They gave us a lot of fun and enjoyment for a very long time and while they did screw up, they also should not be raked across the coals quite as enthusiastically as they sometimes are.

Second, when WEG screwed up, they screwed up big time! They purposely distorted both the Executor and ISD images to fit their concepts of both ships. They cut down the Executor and shaved off the ISD's lateral turrets.

Third, damned near everyone ELSE screwed up by accepting WEG's mistakes over the evidence of their own eyes. They (and this means gamers, EU authors, and video game makers) all accepted the same crap as the Word of George for years and it took an Australian astrophysics student to turn the tide of stupidity. What did our enterprising Aussie get for his troubles? A couple book deals with Lucasfilm and a LOT of people who hate him 'just because'.

Now then, to the Executor...

Well, that crew needs to increase right off the bat. Even for an 8 kilometer boat, that's way too few. You could walk around for weeks and never actually MEET anyone!

The Hull and Shields should improve, but I'm not sure by how much. The Executor is relatively thin and fragile in comparison to, for instance, an ISD. Scale an ISD up to 19 kilometers and you'll see what I mean.

Like the crew, the weapons suite needs to be drastically upgraded. The original stats were absolutely laughable even for an 8 kilometer ship, they'll never do for a 19 kilometer ship.

Gry, Firehawk, or whoever else cares about this subject, if you're still interested in figuring this one out, I'm game to help. Fair warning, though... Math is my Enemy, so I won't be doing any heavy calculations.

As for the Eclipse, Sovereign, and even the ISD (which needs work), that's all for another thread.

[Gry Sarth]

Well, I'm indeed still interested, though I'm fresh out of ideas....
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"He's Gry Sarth, of course he has the stats for them."

[Pel]

I'm not so sure about the weapons being deficient for an 8 km ship. Various sizes aside, I'm going to presume that it's still 8 km for the purposes of this post only.

250 each of turbolasers, heavy turbolaser batteries, ion cannon, and concussion missile launchers is nothing to sneeze at. Tractor beams aside, that's still more than four times the armament of an ISD, just in turbolasers and ion cannon alone. Toss in the heavies and the missiles and this thing can outgun an entire fleet.

Let's further our flight of fancy for a moment and assume that the heavy turbolaser batteries are all targeted on a single rebel ship (maybe the rebel owes some money). I don't have the Executor stats in front of me, but if memory serves, they have 0D fire control and 10D damage. Let's go with that for our example.

If we use the 2nd Ed. rules (the only version I have handy at the moment) and all 250 are successfully coordinated, that's +11D to hit and to damage. Even if we use the R&E rule of applying the bonus to one or the other, that's still 21D damage vs. some pansy Mon Cal Cruiser. Those nice backup shields don't do much good if the ship is annihilated on the first salvo. And that's just the first weapons system on the first round.

I'm not going to pretend that all 250 batteries could face the same way at the same time, but with all the weapons in a given fire arc, damage on the scale mentioned is possible.

With stats like that, I guess I don't see the point of making it more invincible. True, with larger size probably comes more weapons, shields, and engines, but then what are you going to get to kill it? If the thing is that massive, some suicide run by an A-wing probably won't do much more than scratch the paint.
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Aha!

[masque]

If you correct the scale without correcting the armaments and defenses you open up various spots that are completely undefended, or seriously weaken your shield defense. It's not a matter of making it more invincible, it's a matter of maintaining its defensive and offensive capabilities.

As for suicidal A-Wings, that's what Force Points are for, .
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Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.

[Kayle Skolaris]

The A-Wing suicide run was a fluke, just like the destruction of H.M.S. Hood. The shields had just gone down and the A-Wing skidded straight into the bridge deck. This caused a thruster mis-fire that shoved the entire ship into the Death Star. Total Deux Ex Machina situation.

Pel, are you willing to try an experiment to prove your assertion? Open up a Windows Paint (or the Mac equivalent if that's what you use) file and make a rough silhouette sketch of an ISD. Now duplicate it so you can have an 'underside' silhouette. Place the weapons WEG says it has on the ship in 'logical' places that still cover the WEG-mandated fire arcs.

Now draw a silhouette of an 8 kilometer Executor that is to-scale with your ISD silhouette, duplicate it for an underside view, and do the same thing with the weapons. I've done this before and the problems became apparent almost immediately. Making the Executor 5 times longer than an ISD does not merely make it five times more voluminous, it makes it dozens of times more voluminous.

Another example that I've looked up for you... I.J.N. Akizuki was the lead ship in the Akizuki-class Destroyer line during WW II. It is a contemporary of I.J.N. Yamato.

Akizuki is 134.2 meters in length and displaces 3,700 tons at full load. Her armament consists of eight 100mm guns, fifty-one 25mm guns, and four 610mm torpedo tubes.

Yamato is 263 meters in length and displaces 72,800 tons at full load. Her armament consists of nine 460mm guns, six 155mm guns, twenty-four 127mm guns, one hundred sixty-two 25mm guns, and four 13mm guns.

Yamato is merely twice the length of Akizuki, so by your standards, Pel, it should merely have twice the armament. Instead, Akizuki has 63 weapon emplacements while Yamato has 205 emplacements. We won't even get into the actual firepower differential between eight 100mm guns and nine 460mm guns...

[Pel]

I get the whole length vs. mass thing. What you've said makes perfect sense, I just don't see the need for any of it. When players are faced with a SSD, regardless of actual size and armament, they usually do the only sane thing and run.

Other than filling a need for accuracy, the only application I can see for this is in a detailed sort of fleet engagement, where correct capital ship stats are very helpful. Kind of a 'Star Wars Battles'.
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Aha!

[Kayle Skolaris]

Well, a few of us do appreciate accuracy for accuracy's sake. Additionally, some of us have been known to game out fleet actions using D6.

[Pel]

Ok, that's cool.

So, the proper length of an Executor is 19 km, yes? I'm going to ignore weapons and shields for the moment and save the fun stuff for last.

Are you looking to keep the same space speed or something slightly slower? Also, what level of automation are you assuming this ship has? With more automation, less crew are required.

IIRC, the Executor carries an entire Stormtrooper corps? Might want to bump that to the next level, whatever that is (don't have my Imp Sourcebook handy or I'd make more useful suggestions ).
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Aha!

[Firehawk0220]

I am interested in correcting the armament as well. The solution proposed as an experiement below seems like the way to do it. Additionally the crew and other resources would need to come up as well.

Really you can almost just take a regular SSD, and multiply it x11 or however many ISD's it would take to equal the Executor and there you have it.

Obviously one could make adjustments knocking that down or adjusting some to correct for differences in ships geometry and design. As far as speed goes I would keep it about the same as it is now compared to regular ISD's. The reason for this is that the ship would have bigger engines to compensate for the increased size. In reality in space, an Executor of proper design could in fact out run many lesser sized ships.

This is evidenced in the movies when the Falcon has trouble outrunning the ISD's at sub-light velocities. In order for some balanced mechanics, and that Star Wars physics and technology seem to be sci-fi versions of WWII era equipment, vehicles and ships, one should probably leave the Executor's speed where it is.

Personally I have made mine 75% the speed of the ISD's. I think that's realistic and something that players can still exploit if the need arises.

[Gry Sarth]

Well, Wizards' website has just posted stats for the Executor with the corrected length of 19 Km. The texts gives a short in-universe explanation for the whole "Super-class Star Destroyer" "Executor-class Star Dreadnought" mixup. But comparing these new stats with the ones on Starships of the Galaxy, the only difference I can see is the size and designation, everything else remains the same...
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"He's Gry Sarth, of course he has the stats for them."

[Kayle Skolaris]

You know what's funny? Back when Agents of Gaming still existed along with their Babylon 5 Wars wargame, the excuse given by WotC for the Executor is almost identical to the excuse given by AoG for the Omega-class Destroyer's 'destroyer' designation when it's clearly larger and more capable than the Hyperion-class Heavy Cruiser.

[Graybacca]

Well, Wizards' website has just updated the Executor & the Viscount, correcting the armament for both. And on the forums over there we were told LG approved the changes.

[Gry Sarth]

Thanks a bunch for the heads-up!

It seems the only change to the Executor is the addition of 100 Point Laser Cannon Batteries, right? Since the WEG stats already stated that it had 250 turbolaser and heavy turbolaser BATTERIES, not emplacements...
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"He's Gry Sarth, of course he has the stats for them."

[Graybacca]

That's right 250 turbolaser and heavy turbolaser BATTERIES equaling 2000 all together and 100 Point Laser Cannon Batteries