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Well, there's the rub. If it's going to be slow, it had better be tough. The Lancer isn't.

True enough, shame is we haven't found anything about the Lancer itself.

On to a new ship time I think. Have we done the Tartan yet? If not then that should be our next bet IMO.

Can't remember it.

Was that ever really featured in the EU? I've only seen it in the EAW games.

Don't know if it was from anywhere other then the EAW games.

Mikey wrote:It doesn't even make sense for the Imps to worry about starfighters

The problem is that a lot of the EU has been disproportionately influenced by various games that were themselves disproportionately influenced by the special circumstances of the Death Star runs, and drew the wrong conclusions from the loss of the Executor. The result is a body of evidence that's grown up, completely unsupported by the films, that fighters are a threat to capships.

then to field an anti-fighter frigate without shields. Not to mention a crew of over 800...

They aren't that bad - they're definitely shielded, although they aren't enough to withstand a full squadron salvo, and 800 is about what you'd expect of a ship that size. They're certainly better than Neb-Bs in that respect - a smaller crew despite being over twice the size.

Captain Seafort wrote:The problem is that a lot of the EU has been disproportionately influenced by various games that were themselves disproportionately influenced by the special circumstances of the Death Star runs, and drew the wrong conclusions from the loss of the Executor. The result is a body of evidence that's grown up, completely unsupported by the films, that fighters are a threat to capships.

You took half my statement and treated it as a complete statement on its own. I know the lore that's grown up regarding the potential threat which a starfighter embodies. What I said is that it doesn't make sense to consider that fact then go ahead and make an anti-starfighter ship that's patently vulnerable to starfighters.

Captain Seafort wrote:They aren't that bad - they're definitely shielded, although they aren't enough to withstand a full squadron salvo, and 800 is about what you'd expect of a ship that size. They're certainly better than Neb-Bs in that respect - a smaller crew despite being over twice the size.

Yes, it seems I misspoke. It appears that X-Wing Alliance et. al. have the Lancer-class with shields.

Mikey wrote:You took half my statement and treated it as a complete statement on its own. I know the lore that's grown up regarding the potential threat which a starfighter embodies. What I said is that it doesn't make sense to consider that fact then go ahead and make an anti-starfighter ship that's patently vulnerable to starfighters.

Fair enough. I misread your sentence as listing the problems with the ship, rather than as a single issue.

Honestly, if you're going to make an anti-fighter starship why not resort to concussion missile spam?

Tyyr wrote:Honestly, if you're going to make an anti-fighter starship why not resort to concussion missile spam?

Storage space. You'll only be able to carry hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of missiles, while hypermatter has sufficient energy density to be considered a limitless source of ammunition. Assuming single-digit to low double-digit Mt/shot, a ship the size of a Lancer should be able to have a RoF of several million/second.

That's an incredibly poor argument. Several hundred thousand missiles could easily be carried on something the size of this ship. More than enough ammunition to last it for a half dozen engagements or more even at the most ludicrous levels of full rock and roll. Conc missiles also have something vital, a hell of a lot more range than the weapons the thing's got right now. And since the goal is to help defend other ships from fighter attacks range becomes very important especially if you're not fast enough to guarantee you'll always be in the right position.

If that's the argument, then why not just use a butt-load of diamond-boron missile tubes? Since we're now, apparently, considering logistics to be no factor at all, the cost of those missiles should be a non-consideration as well and they're a hell of a lot better against fighters than concussion missiles.

Tyyr wrote:That's an incredibly poor argument. Several hundred thousand missiles could easily be carried on something the size of this ship. More than enough ammunition to last it for a half dozen engagements or more even at the most ludicrous levels of full rock and roll.

True. Having said that hypermatter does appear to be pretty cheap by comparison, while physical weapons seem to be pretty rare things, relatively speaking.

Conc missiles also have something vital, a hell of a lot more range than the weapons the thing's got right now. And since the goal is to help defend other ships from fighter attacks range becomes very important especially if you're not fast enough to guarantee you'll always be in the right position.

Evidence? According to the EGWT concs have a maximum range of 700m - substantially less than the 2.5 km at which a Y-wing was expected to have no chance of survival against a Lancer.

Mikey wrote:If that's the argument, then why not just use a butt-load of diamond-boron missile tubes? Since we're now, apparently, considering logistics to be no factor at all, the cost of those missiles should be a non-consideration as well and they're a hell of a lot better against fighters than concussion missiles.

Logistics are important, however so is protecting capital ships. Given the cost difference between a capital ship and a concussion missile I'd say that if the conc missile does a better job than a blaster you take the conc missile. The other side of the issue, longevity, these ships could easily carry tens or even hundreds of thousands of missiles. They aren't going to be running out even through the course of several battles.

True. Having said that hypermatter does appear to be pretty cheap by comparison, while physical weapons seem to be pretty rare things, relatively speaking.

For good reason most of the time. As you've said, hypermatter is cheap and given the outputs of Wars energy weapons there wouldn't be much point in not using them in most situations.

Evidence? According to the EGWT concs have a maximum range of 700m - substantially less than the 2.5 km at which a Y-wing was expected to have no chance of survival against a Lancer.

700m... seriously? That's Travis level stupid.

Tyyr wrote:Logistics are important, however so is protecting capital ships. Given the cost difference between a capital ship and a concussion missile I'd say that if the conc missile does a better job than a blaster you take the conc missile. The other side of the issue, longevity, these ships could easily carry tens or even hundreds of thousands of missiles. They aren't going to be running out even through the course of several battles.

And what happens when they get to the end of those several battles? One conc is nothing, but hundreds of thousands of missiles times tens or hundreds of thousands of Lancers is going to cost a bob or two.

700m... seriously? That's Travis level stupid.

700m maximum range. 300m effective range. Yeah.

That's the thing with Star Wars. At one end of the scale you've got planet-shattering BFGs, heavy guns that can cross a solar system, and tens of thousands of ships in single battles.

At the other end you've got three million man galactic armies, warships a minute fraction the size of the Death Star bankrupting the Empire, and missiles outranged by AK-47s.

Yes, the concs cost money, but again, the entire point of this thing is to protect starships a single one of which could keep a squadron of conc Lancers in missiles for a few centuries. This is also the faction that built the Death Star without anyone noticing.

I can't argue with a 300m effective range, it's too stupid to even try so I'll just concede.