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The "canon vs non-canon" debate brings up an interesting point: Ships like the IG-2000, Mist Hunter and Punishing One didn't appear in the films, did they? How are they now affected?

Right, they aren't... So I'd say perhaps those may be the last ships we see from the pre-Disney EU but only time will tell. Surely, the Disney deal had already gone through before those were designed and at the factory to be produced? There can't be that much lead time for FFG?

At the end of the day, I'd like to see interesting ships. Off the top of my head, I can't think of anything from the prequel films that sticks out. Venator-class Star Destroyers, maybe. Droid control doughnuts, maybe. Nothing else sticks as being cool like the OT-era ships.

chaos0xomega wrote:
FFG clearly does care about the canon (they would have to as everything they do now has to go through the canon approval process in addition to licensor approval), hence their creation of the Imperial Raider as a canonical vessel classification, as well as their excuse that there are no prequel-era ships because the game is set within the canon of the Rebellion era of the Galactic Civil War (which was always a BS excuse because even in the old EU there were prequel era starfighters and capital ships turning up in Imperial Remnant and rogue Imperial Warlord fleets decades after the Battle of Endor, not to mention the fact that they're now doing ships pulled from a point in the canon set 30 years after their stated focus point).

Okay, you misunderstood what I meant by "FFG doesn't care about cannon."

Nearly every character and most of the ships are all from sources that aren't G-canon (video games, books, comics, etc.), and G-canon overrides everything else. The pull from every level of canon for their games and have no issues mixing things for the sake of the game; they are not bound by the different levels of canon.

The "canon" thing doesn't seem to be that important. As well as the ships Lord Corellia mentions, the RPG has mention of planets, locations and species only referred to in the "old, non-canon" EU, such as Bakura, Byss, the Deep Core and Corporate Sector*, Verpine, etc, etc.

Depending on how seriously you want to take all of this, it could be claimed that their appearance in books published since the Disney takeover means those entries are canon again, if that's important.


As for variety, put it this way; the original trilogy had the Star Destroyer and Super Star Destroyer, as well as five varieties of TIEs and the shuttle for the Imperials, and five starships, four fighters and the Falcon for the Rebels. You could bump that up a bit by including the odd "off-model" ship prop.

In the prequels, you've got the Acclamator and Venator capital ships, the diplomatic shuttle and four starfighters on the side of the Republic (plus the Naboo's own ships ifyou want) against three capital ships and two droid starfighters for the Confederate side. It's not that lacking in designs compared to the original trilogy, and that's only counting what appeared in the films; the Clone Wars added some more.

"Cool" is in the eye of the beholder; I'd much rather have had the Naboo royal yacht or a BTL-B Y-Wing than a lot of the stuff that's appeared recently. A lot of the Eu ships, in my opinion, suffer from poor design compared to the films (a problem common to other works such as Star Trek and Babylon 5).

 Lord Corellia wrote:
?

Right, they aren't... So I'd say perhaps those may be the last ships we see from the pre-Disney EU but only time will tell. Surely, the Disney deal had already gone through before those were designed and at the factory to be produced? There can't be that much lead time for FFG?

Debatable. The factory that FFG uses to produce/pre-paint the minis used for X-Wing is fully booked on FFG products alone for something like the next 3 years. I know this because a friend of mine is a game publisher and had inquired about the possibility of utilizing their services. Mind you, this doesn't necessarily mean that the models are designed and paid for 3 years in advance as FFG could simply be reserving their services under forecast product or whatever the term is, and we also have to consider the effect of 2nd waves on production schedules, but it is still possible that the models jsut released were in effect designed and ready to roll out 3 years ago if it weren't for production backlogs.

At the end of the day, I'd like to see interesting ships. Off the top of my head, I can't think of anything from the prequel films that sticks out. Venator-class Star Destroyers, maybe. Droid control doughnuts, maybe. Nothing else sticks as being cool like the OT-era ships.

And arguably the Venator (beside being a cool design shape) was mostly great to see because it made you think "Star Destroyer".

Still probably going to get into Armada when Wave Two comes out, if mostly for the full-size star Destroyer (duh!), and because the Raider allows for some mix-up in the normally "all large" Imperial Fleet. Although I would still like to paint up an Imperial Nebulon-B, even if it just uses the Rebel stats. I like my Imperial Wedges, but I also like design variety that's also canon.

It's also hard to be convinced that Armada is "idiotically expensive" when the Imperial-Class Destroyer can be pre-ordered from Miniature Market for 35 bucks. I used to willingly pay that for an unpainted plastic Space Marine Dreadnought 10 years ago.

 AegisGrimm wrote:


And arguably the Venator (beside being a cool design shape) was mostly great to see because it made you think "Star Destroyer".

Still probably going to get into Armada when Wave Two comes out, if mostly for the full-size star Destroyer (duh!), and because the Raider allows for some mix-up in the normally "all large" Imperial Fleet. Although I would still like to paint up an Imperial Nebulon-B, even if it just uses the Rebel stats. I like my Imperial Wedges, but I also like design variety that's also canon.

It's also hard to be convinced that Armada is "idiotically expensive" when the Imperial-Class Destroyer can be pre-ordered from Miniature Market for 35 bucks. I used to willingly pay that for an unpainted plastic Space Marine Dreadnought 10 years ago.

But that translates to around $50 at your FLGS.

I do think that expense is still a valid concern in regards to Armada, especially when you're buying both factions like I am.

I'm wondering if our preference for the original trilogy doesn't stem from our age bracket, more than anything else. I much prefer episodes IV to VI, but in frequent conversations with kids in school (between 2010 and 2014, ages 16 and under), they couldn't care less about that trilogy. To them, it was all dialogue, fake-looking space fights and ridiculous lightsaber battles. The fact that they were narrative devices and hinted at a deeper universe was mostly lost on them. FFG may be secure in our segment of the market, but they might be able to cash in on a younger segment (that will soon have disposable income).

It would also tide them over between movies to release prequel-era ships.

Just my two cents. I could barely believe it myself. They generally hate the original trilogy. Well maybe dislike/are indifferent to.

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
Just my two cents. I could barely believe it myself. They generally hate the original trilogy. Well maybe dislike/are indifferent to.

That's heresy!

As I said before, I wouldn't mind some prequel era ships. Trade Federation Battleships would at the very least be vastly different, visually, than anything else on the table and thus add some diversity. I definitely didn't hate a lot of those ships, and even the Naboo fighter would be awesome in a more weathered, less banana colour scheme.

It was the script that let the prequels down. The acting didn't help (there was great and horrible acting in all three films) but the ships were definitely cool, imo.

Oh, the prequel films were absolutely terrible (funny, a year ago I thought otherwise and that everyone who hated the films did so to be cool, then a friend made me watch the Red Letter Cinema review and I realized just how gakky they were), but aside from the (lack of) characters and the (lack of) plot, everything else about the movie was pretty good.

I tried watching the prequels over again just trying to like them. There is not to much to like about them.. The acting is some of the worst I have seen. The young Anakin is the worst, that young kid did a terrible job. The pod race was the biggest waste of 20 minutes of a movie trying to much to be like Ben Hur. Guess growing up in the 70's and 80's those movies (besides return of the Jedi the worst out of the original) set the bar to high for me. Hopefully the next movie won't let me down.

I have heard that before Matt. My wife read about a study that came to the same conclusions. They liked the newer special effects and the glitz as opposed to roughing it with what we grew up with.

Personally I hold the EU as canon. Doesn't count for much but Mara Jade continues to be the most awesome female character in the series, if not all sci-fi literature.

Prequal stuff I can easily see happening in the future. It would surprise me greatly if a year or two(provided the game continues) or after the initial blitz of Episode 7 stuff, you will see Prequal factions coming out. On the RPG side of the house it is canon now for the Rebels to be using salvaged and left over prequel era ships. So even if they do not create new factions, we should in theory see at least some of the older ships.

At the very least, I wouldn't be surprised to see "salvaged" versions of prequel era ships show up in S&V or even Rebel factions.

The RPGs already have stats for B1 Battle Droids, and certainly artwork if not stats for ARC-170s and the like, so they're not averse to using the designs from the prequels.

Was there any point to the "s-foils" of the ARC-170, aside from giving old timers a pre-x wing boner?

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
Was there any point to the "s-foils" of the ARC-170, aside from giving old timers a pre-x wing boner?

No.

Though I will say that the ARC-170 is one of my favorite spaceship designs from the prequels.

That bar was pretty low, SPJ. Although being a bit of a vintage geek, I adored the sleek streamlined nubian crafts.

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
Was there any point to the "s-foils" of the ARC-170, aside from giving old timers a pre-x wing boner?

The same point as on every other craft w s-foils, heat dissipation.

I'd think the advantage being in space would have to be pretty minimal. Especially when you consider the size of them things. I could almost understand the big ones on the X-wing...

... I just checked images. Uh. They are much bigger than I remember.

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
Was there any point to the "s-foils" of the ARC-170, aside from giving old timers a pre-x wing boner?

No.

Though I will say that the ARC-170 is one of my favorite spaceship designs from the prequels.

Have to agree with you. The ARC-170 is the only prequel ship I'd like to see in X-wing (as part of Scum and Villany, of course).

From Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith Incredible Cross Sections (via Wookiepedia):

The ARC-170 also possessed an S-foil system, which helped to radiate heat, something that aided the fighter's shielding. This also provided additional stability during atmospheric flight.

That attempt at justifying it still doesn't make sense; they'd just end up radiating the heat right back onto the wings.

Things that move look cool; same reason Voyager's nacelles moved up and down.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
That attempt at justifying it still doesn't make sense; they'd just end up radiating the heat right back onto the wings.

Greater surface area allows greater heat dissipation.

It wouldn't radiate back onto the wings, due to the lack of atmosphere, there really isn't much to radiate *to* to begin with, so any heat that is radiated would quickly be lost to the vacuum of space rather than building up in the vicinity of the wings.

A more apt statement would be that the S-foils wouldn't be nearly large enough to dissipate all the heat generated. The ISS for example has something like 8 radiator wings, each of which is something like 50-75 ft long. The ISS really isn't generating all that much heat when you think about it, not compared to, say, a starfighter with an advanced ray shielding system firing particle beam weapons and riding the thrust of a set of fusion engines and packing *another* engine capable of bending space-time to achieve faster than light travel through an alternate dimension.

 Ghaz wrote:

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
That attempt at justifying it still doesn't make sense; they'd just end up radiating the heat right back onto the wings.

Greater surface area allows greater heat dissipation.

When you're in an atmosphere, most of your cooling comes from convection, so yes you would want to maximize surface area. The ARC-170's s-foils would work better in their open position if the ship were flying in an atmospehre. But in a vacuum, radiators work only through radiative heat transfer, where you want the radiator to be basically perpendicular to the ship (otherwise it's just radiating heat right back onto the ship). Opening the ARC-170's s-foils doesn't help them radiate heat any better, because the undersides are just toasting the wings anyhow.

The panels on a TIE fighter are a good example of how to build good radiators (presuming that the inside surfaces are not also radiating, in which case you would just cook the cockpit). The TIE Advanced v1 is an example of how not to design radiators - you want the radiating surface on the outside!

Granted, I don't think the artists give this much thought when they're coming up with ship designs.

TIE fighters have no obvious radiators. What you are mistaking for radiative panels on their wings are in fact the opposite, solar/photovoltaic panels.

I would like to see the Lancer frigates and Cacarrack Cruisers brought back, as well as the release of cards in both x-wing and Armada allowing for the use of the Nebula-Bs and the Correllian Corvettes as imperial ships... which is where the rebellion got them in the original cannon.

I feel it is worth mentioning that thanks to the new retcon of the universe, the Rebel Alliance is more of a out gunned military than a guerilla movement. The Star Wars Commander mobile game is considered Cannon by Disney, thus granting the Rebellion access to larger military hardware. So the Rebellion is actually very well funded. just a thought.

 Corpsman913 wrote:


I feel it is worth mentioning that thanks to the new retcon of the universe, the Rebel Alliance is more of a out gunned military than a guerilla movement.

This has always been true. Granted, some writers of the EU interpreted it slightly differently, but for the most part this was the assumption that the EU operated on.

chaos0xomega wrote:
TIE fighters have no obvious radiators. What you are mistaking for radiative panels on their wings are in fact the opposite, solar/photovoltaic panels.

I've seen them variously described as radiators or solar panels - again, I don't think the artists who created the model were applying much logic beyond the Rule of Cool. They would make much more sense as radiators, since photovoltaics could never provide significant energy to propel a starship. And in any case, the Inquisitor's TIE would STILL be a stupid design even if they were solar panels.

chaos0xomega wrote:

 Corpsman913 wrote:

I feel it is worth mentioning that thanks to the new retcon of the universe, the Rebel Alliance is more of a out gunned military than a guerilla movement.

This has always been true. Granted, some writers of the EU interpreted it slightly differently, but for the most part this was the assumption that the EU operated on.

New Hope era alliance was more guerrilla-esque, but by the time of the Battle of Endor they were manufacturing capital ships. They were legit enough that we have a large-scale space battle game for them

They were so outgunned it wasn't funny even by the Battle of Endor. The rebels generally tried to avoid open fleet engagements and stuck to guerilla actions. The fleet present was most of the ships in the Rebel fleet and only represented a much smaller percentage of the Imperial fleet. The corvettes were an ancient design and everyone and their mother used them, from traders to military and were relatively easy for the rebels to acquire, the normal ones were not dedicated warships. Those would be the Corellian Gunships which were made by the same company and the rebels got their hands on a few of them as well. Neb Bs were military and were being phased out of the Imperial Navy, not sure if the Rebels had access to the shipyards building them, they were fairly obsolete, compared to the Assault Frigates which were updated and pretty nasty warhsips. Armada has changed it but they aren't supposed to be a whole lot bigger than Nebulon Bs since if I remember, they used the same chassis. Mon Cal cruisers were built in the open as cruise ships and were modified after leaving the yard and the eyes of the Imperials stationed there. Be willing to bet that if Endor had gone differently Sullust and the Mon Cal planets would have been high on the list of planets for the Death star to blow up.

Unfortunately I do not think we will see Lancers. They were developed after DS1 to counter that massive rebel threat of fighters that the Navy was suddenly gunshy about. But with the Xwing release and the Armada release of that little ship whenever this next release finally arrives, that little ship has the same role as a Lancer. While Lancers were a cool concept, I think the reality of them did not meet expectations of the Navy when the threat of rebel fighters ended up not being the boogey man they thought they would be.

The Mk II (like the Mk I) were actually twice the length of a Nebulon B, as they were based on the Dreadnought Class design, the Mk I being a stripped down version, whereas the Mk I was a further evolution of the Mk I created by re-arming and re-fitting the stripped down Mk I.

The likely cause of the belief that the Assault Frigate is related to the Nebulon B is likely the result of the exposed internal structure protruding out from below the MK IIs hull. Thats simply what the 'guts' of a starship looklike once you peel away the armor and external plating. The Nebulon B (in Rebel use) is similarly stripped down, and one would presume Imperial variants would look a bit sleeker, I think a good comparison would be the Y-Wing, during the Clone Wars it was sleek and aerodynamic, by the time of the Rebellion the fairings and external plating has been removed to expose its inner workings.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
also, Im not certain the Rebel Fleet at Endor was their entire military spacefleet, its been my understanding that it was only what they were able to muster under the circumstances, as other elements of the fleet were involved in other operations elsewhere. Also worth noting that certain sources of fiction have the Rebel Fleet at endor being considerably larger than the hodgepodge collection of a half-dozen ships shown on-screen.