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shinsengumi

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  1. Oops! That was a little misunderstanding on my part ^_^' Heh, it's been quite a long time since I last had Rebellion installed, and even longer since I last played around with making and loading cards with RebEd. Next time I go home, I guess I'll take a look for my old Rebellion CD and give it a spin and see what I can whip up. I can only hope that whatever cards I toss together for your EU ships do your amazing modeling work justice!
  2. It's funny, isn't it, how a mistake, left uncorrected, goes and takes a life of its own. I disagree that the DSD indicated in the Starships of the Galaxy is a different vessel, because of two things. First of all, the concrete specifications of the two are just about identical (the D20 sourcebook rounds off the crew size to the nearest thousand and uses a value of 6 months instead of 5 for the consumables, though everything else, from cargo capacity and passenger capacity down to the exact number of weapons is identical). Second of all, doing conversions from D20 to D6 tends to result in inflated figures, particularly for damage, something that Gary Astleford noted in his extensive D20 to D6 conversions and something I found out myself when I tried my own hand at doing conversions when the Revised Core Rulebook came out. As much as the Nebula-class designation is the correct one, I know that the incorrect Defender label will not go away, as the snowball has gotten so large and has gained so much momentum that a little twig like me has no chance of stopping it. My aim in bringing up this point here was not to try to get you to change the name of your ship, but just to help spread awareness that in fact in the novels where the particular vessel originally appeared, they were designated Nebula-class Star Destroyers, and that the background material written by WEG and WotC writers for their DSDs is largely material they whipped up themselves to try to flesh out the lie that they were unwittingly perpetuating. In short, don't take my words too seriously, but rather think of it more as trivia than anything else. Cheers!
  3. You are correct: the Republic Star Destroyers that appear in Episode II -- which, incidentally, are sometimes referred to by Lucasfilm as Republic Attack Cruisers -- are the Venator-class Star Destroyer and have nothing to do with the Republic Star Destroyer being discussed in this thread. Given the various naming schemes, I can understand why there can be some confusion. I was disappointed that Lucas decided to use a new ship instead of the Victory-class Star Destroyer that had been introduced in the Expanded Universe, but the dichotomy has been reconciled by explaining that the two designs were contemporaries forwarded by competing companies (KDY and Rendilli), and it was Kuat that won the government contract. Lucasfilm notes that Lira Wessex designed both the Venator and the Imperator for Kuat while her father designed the Victory for Rendilli. To move further along my tangent, I just have have to note that the Venator is interesting, however, because it is the direct functional predecessor of the Endurance-class Fleet Carrier, both being slightly over one kilometer long and (despite the Star Destroyer designation of the Venator both are dedicated fleet carriers, with very little anti-capital weaponry and emphasis on anti-starfighter defense, and which carry a large number of fighters (possibly around twelve squadrons on the Endurance and a few dozen on the Venator.)
  4. I do not have any of my sourcebooks or novels with me this year at university, as I stopped being an active Star Wars fan as the prequels were being released, but from what I remember from the various source materials, the New Republic Defender starfighter is a short-range territorial defense fighter. In other words, it lacks a hyperdrive and is only effective as either a planetary defense or a carrier-based fighter craft. You are correct that it is a two-seat fighter with one pilot and one optional gunner (in the Hand of Thrawn Dualogy, Mara Jade flies her Defender alone), though its weapons load-out is not very good (it has two or three forward-mounted laser cannons). Its hull and shields are also extremely poor as well, though it does have a decent turn rate (slightly better than an E-Wing but not as good as an A-Wing) though it isn't particularly fast (its speed is approximately at parity with the T-65 B X-Wing, which is more or less obsolete by the time of the Dualogy. All in all, when compared to most fighters used in the Defense Force in the era from Black Fleet Crisis on through the Hand of Thrawn dualogy (T-65 AC4 X-Wings, E-Wings, and perhaps A-9 Vigilance Interceptors), the Defender is a very poor fighter, but you hit the nail on the head when you suggested that it's perhaps cheaper to produce and maintain than any other fighter, as I recall it being listed as being less than 50,000 credits while most front-line fighters cost upwards of 150,000 credits. I do want to stress again that there is absolutely no evidence in any source other than Cracken's Threat Dossier (which, like I pointed out earlier), is rife with flaws, that the Defender starfighter had anything to do with the New Class modernization project. At the very least, the Fifth Fleet, the first of the fleets to be composed entirely of New Class capital ships, carried no Defender starfighters and instead carried only X-Wings (probably of the AC4 variant), E-Wings, and K-Wings. In short, despite what is written in CTD, I would urge against considering the Defender as a carrier-based fighter, at least for front-line fleets like the Fifth, as its specs make it seem more ideal for the planetary defense forces, particularly for outlying systems.
  5. The Republic-class Star Destroyer is listed in Cracken's Threat Dossier as being manufactured by Rendilli StarDrive and not Kuat Drive Yards. The cruiser in the New Jedi Order novels are most likely an entirely different vessel altogether. More importantly, however, the existence of the RSD is another example of a misunderstanding of the Black Fleet Crisis novels by a West End Games writer with an overactive imagination. Simply stated, the Rendilli StarDrive Republic-class Star Destroyer doesn't exist. The reason it was put into Cracken's Threat Dossier is because the writer of the Black Fleet Crisis chapter did not realize that when Kube McDowell wrote "New Republic Star Destroyer" in the opening chapter of the trilogy he meant the Nebula-class Star Destroyer (the only Star Destroyer in the New Class modernization program) and not an entirely different ship class, and therefore set off to whip up a set of stats and some backstory. Cracken's Threat Dossier is a great sourcebook because it's chock full of material, but the problem is that it was whipped together really quickly after West End Games realized that it didn't have enough time to put together individual sourcebooks for the various books ultimately covered by the final document. As such, in many places it directly contradicts the information in the original source novels and the supplemental notes that authors such as McDowell made. Unfortunately, because of its popularity many of its errors have become conventional wisdom even though anyone who has done a careful reading of the original novels would know otherwise.
  6. After having posted a note about Defender-class Star Destroyers in the Majestic-class Cruiser thread, I noticed that there was already a DSD thread, so I guess I should have left my comment here instead. This is a nitpicky point, but contrary to what has become accepted as conventional wisdom, the Defender-class Star Destroyer does not exist in the Star Wars universe. The source trilogy and the author's notes clearly indicate that the New Class Star Destroyer is designated the Nebula-class, after the first vessel of the class. This originally arose from a misunderstanding on the part of a West End Games writer, who then, thinking that there were three New Republic starships given the "Defender" designation (a starfighter, an assault carrier, and the unintentionally misnamed star destroyer), then made up a rationale for the naming scheme. In all honesty, the Black Fleet Crisis trilogy seems to be among the less popular of the extended universe novels, and therefore most looking for information on the New Class vessels have gone straight to Cracken's Threat Dossier for information, bypassing the novels entirely. Because WEG never had the chance to publish errata before it lost the licence to publish Star Wars Roleplaying Game material, the incorrect name has stuck.
  7. Like many Star Wars fans, my favorite set of Expanded Universe novels is the original Thrawn Trilogy, but the Black Fleet Crisis Trilogy sits at a close second because of two things: the comparatively detailed look at the mature New Republic administrative organization and the New Class military modernization program. For that reason, I really like Cracken's Threat Dossier, because the section on the Black Fleet Crisis Trilogy focuses on the two aspects of the novels I enjoyed the most. However, Cracken's Threat Dossier contains many significant inconsistencies with the source material that it is based on, and so approximately five years ago I began writing a revised and corrected Black Fleet Crisis chapter taking into consideration the notes I had taken during close readings of the text, unpublished supplementary information that Michael P. Kube McDowell (the author) wrote, and references to the New Class in other expanded universe novels. I finished most of the revisions, but then after graduating from high school and getting into university work stalled, but after seeing how far this mod project has gotten, I may very well dig up my old notes and finish my corrections. Anyhow, for the sake of accuracy, I just want to address some of the points and misconceptions made earlier in this thread, so here goes! The Majestic-class Heavy Cruiser is less than half the size of an Imperator-class Star Destroyer. Cracken's Threat Dossier estimates the length at 700 meters, a length that is consistent with the general descriptions given in the Black Fleet Crisis Trilogy. Contrary to popular belief, the Defender-class Star Destroyer does not exist. The source trilogy and the author's notes clearly indicate that the New Class Star Destroyer is designated the Nebula-class, after the first vessel of the class. This originally arose from a misunderstanding on the part of a West End Games writer, who then, thinking that there were three New Republic starships given the "Defender" designation (a starfighter, an assault carrier, and the unintentionally misnamed star destroyer), then made up a rationale for the naming scheme. Note that absolutely no mention is ever made of the Defender starfighter in the Black Fleet Crisis trilogy. In the Hand of Thrawn dualogy, the only source I can think of where both the New Class starships and Defender starfighters both appear, there two are mentioned in entirely different contexts (Mara Jade flies a Defender starfighter to investigate the Hand of Thrawn, while Endurance-class Fleet Carriers are mentioned as being part of the Diamala fleet over Bothawui). While most of the vessels in the New Class were designed for specific tasks, two ships, the Sacheen-class Escort Frigate and the Majestic-class Cruiser were intended as modern all-purpose capital combatants. It is true that the Majestic has more advanced systems and as heavy armor and shielding as Imperator Mark I Star Destroyers, but it is understood that in a one-on-one battle, the Imperator would likely win, as of the New Class vessels, it is clearly indicated that only the Nebula-class has a good chance of victory going one-on-one with an Imperator-class Star Destroyer. You are right that this is a very confusing statistic. There are two ways to reconcile this problem, of which you pointed out one, namely that the Majestic could simply be substantially more expensive to build and maintain than the Defender-class Assault Carrier. Given that five is a very odd (and very high) number of squadrons for a heavy cruiser with so much space already devoted to weaponry and shielding to be holding, some have taken a different approach, namely that the five squadron figure is probably incorrect and that the Majestic-class probably carries somewlere closer to three squadrons (one complete New Republic fighter wing). Personally, I find the latter to be more compelling, but as there has never been any further clarification in more official sources, which of the two explanations to accept is an entirely personal choice. That's all for now, I guess. Let me know if you have any questions or if you would like me to elaborate on any further aspects of the New Class vesssels. P.S. As a final note, don't take the illustrations in Cracken to be any kind of authority. The New Class vessels are supposed to be built off of common hulls to reduce production costs and to increase production efficiency, but the illustrations in Cracken of pairs of ships that should be built off of the same hull often look absolutely nothing alike, so what many have tended to do is to pick the more plausible of the two (as you have here with the Majestic and the Defender) and assume that both ships look more or less like that same model.

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