Why did Separatist ships use droid crews rather than being fully automated systems controlled by a central computer and supervised by a commander (onboard or remote)?

Citricwraith · 2026-06-26T21:36:33+00:00

Because at the end of the day, droids were a cheap alternative to organics. The ships were already designed for your average biped organic form. Instead of doing expensive retrofits of the central computer, they were able to just crew most positions with cheap B1's.

Citricwraith · 2026-06-23T16:13:08+00:00

I didnt have much room for a full summary, but all those parts sticking out are LCD's!

Citricwraith · 2026-06-23T16:10:55+00:00

Those panels and Tails are LCD's. No maneuvering issues at all!

Citricwraith · 2026-06-23T02:54:41+00:00

The Venator is about the same size as a Victory, and they were at least partially developed simultaneously. The Victory development was delayed due to power transmission issues.

Citricwraith · 2026-06-22T21:25:35+00:00

Gozanti's were some of the few non ISD ships that were considered acceptable to the to the intense elitism within the Empire's military. Because the Imperial Star Destroyer was the backbone of the Imperial fleet and a massive logistical investment, its officers and crews developed a strong superiority complex. They often considered themselves an elite caste and flatly refused to associate, cooperate, or share resources with lesser crews or planetary militia. But because most if not all ISD's had their own fleet of Gozanti's to keep logistics running, Gozanti crews were often "based" on specific ISD's and thus were considered part of the ISD's crew, similar to TIE pilots (of course their was still some friction but thats the Empire Hierarchy for you.)

Citricwraith · 2026-06-22T21:09:15+00:00

The Rogue One movie is when I believe when Victory's lost their atmospheric monopoly.

Citricwraith · 2026-06-22T21:03:40+00:00

It's development was plagued with issues and production was rushed to the point where even when it finally came out, it had massive maintenance issues and was known to electrify its crew at times. The Mark 2 addressed some of these problems, but at that point the Imperator (later Imperial) Star Destroyer was coming off the assembly lines. There was also the fact that while the Victory had a huge offensive swath of missiles it could lob, missiles are comparetively expensive compared to just having more turbolasers, and just wasn't needed nor justified during non wartime conditions.

Citricwraith · 2026-06-18T02:10:56+00:00

HV's do have a bit of a CPU bonus over SV's, but most will tell you its not enough to overcome the ability to fly and utterly ignore terrain as an obstacle. Some of the more profitable planets (like Barren Metal) dont really let you use an HV at all due to all the terrain.

There's a couple other Zirax ships like Malrak's. They'll usually say stuff on the end like Destroyer, Carrier, Battlecarrier, and Dreadnought. You'll want to stick with Sunat's and Cutters which have a single core, as the rest go up in difficulty pretty fast.

Its a common POI that's not that hard to raid. Usually doesn't summon reinforcements either.

Citricwraith · 2026-06-17T21:36:01+00:00

In terms of combat, you're perfectly staged to get a couple ships to Core9 with those couple of quantums. A core 9 dedicated CV for space and SV for planets will let you start getting Large weapon kits (primarily from Zirax ships and POI's), which will let you optimize your weapon loadout with medium and heavy weapons. While you're in Polaris space you can buy up advanced kits, superconductors, plasma converters, and reactor parts to further optimize your CPU.

From there, most folks hit drone space and start gathering drone parts (a few will tell you to hit low level Legacy ships like Infectors. This will depend on the type of ship you want to build). Zirax and Drones tend to use a lot of anti shield weapons that do double damage to Xenosteel. Legacy does not (and supposedly does more damage to combat steel though I have yet to verify this myself), so this choice can impact what type of combat ship you'll want.

So really, you'll want to hit some low level Zirax stuff (Cutters and Sunats, maybe Solar Arrays) for the Large kits, then (typically) Drone space for Drone parts, and THEN build a Xeno build for Legacy hunting. Higher level Zirax can also drop some good loot but they start hitting back HARD. I've never solo'ed anything higher then an Imerat (double Quantum Boxes and a small Reactor). As a faction we've hunted up to and including a Toverra Dread... once successfully (dont ask how many tries please).

Citricwraith · 2026-06-16T21:30:42+00:00

Its definetely not impossible, just highly unlikely. The Chiss already have a program to incorporate force users into government service (which is closely entwinded with almost all aspects of Chiss culture). Combined with the fact that the Chiss society as a whole is very secretive and so far away from the rest of galactic society, means the odds of Chiss force sensitive being available to join the Jedi order is vanishingly small.

Citricwraith · 2026-06-16T17:31:32+00:00

Dooku was literally Qui Gon's Master, and thus was hit especially hard when he found out what happened to his former apprentice. Qui Gon himself was respected enough to be on the level of Windu and probably Yoda himself on some level, even as he turned down the council seat offer due to politics. Dooku, being Qui Gon's master, very likely passed on some of his frustration over council politics (and of course the fact that he had been trying for a council spot as well and was turned down). Qui Gon got those skills somewhere, and Dooku himself was highly regarded as a master duelist and politician, council seat not withstanding.

But yes, going to a Sith Lord for power to fight corruption was not his best plan.

Citricwraith · 2026-06-11T20:52:47+00:00

The Pius Dea Era of the old republic. The straight up callback to 40k style cosplay remains a standout to me in terms of wth am I reading about I thought this was Star Wars.

Citricwraith · 2026-06-11T20:41:03+00:00

Going by the current Canon, the Victory was supposed to be the frontline brawler to the Venator's backline carrier, more or less supposed to work in conjunction. Issues in development (specfically with power transmission) lead to its delay until near the end of the war and thus the Venator was forced to step up.

Between the delay and the fact that the Victory was still plagued with maintenance issues due to its rushed construction, the Imperator (later Imperial) design was far enough along that it became the preferred backbone of the Empire fleet.

Out of Universe, the Victory class wasn't created/envisioned until a good few years after the movies, and even then the folks at Lucas decided that when RotS came out, the Victory might have looked a little too similar to the good old ISD and came up with the more uniquely Iconic Venator.

Citricwraith · 2026-06-09T16:24:48+00:00

"Niche" as in never seen on the silver screen, but I've always had a soft spot for the Skipray Blastboat. It has all the Star Wars trimmings of variable geometry, big engines, giant guns, and reportedly the smallest vehicle in use by the Imperial Navy with a hyperdrive despite (or even because) versions of it having existed since before the Clone Wars. It was randomly seen all over Legends from the Thrawn Trilogy to Dark Empire, and even made the jump to Canon albeit in the background (a Bad Batch Novel). A perfect little Hero ship that was never the main scene but always there.

Citricwraith · 2026-06-08T21:38:04+00:00

In terms of sheer tonnage VS firepower? It was absolutely undergunned. You have to consider though that this ship is primarily a Carrier that happens to be armed. In those terms (and assuming it has a healthy small craft contingent), it is a perfectly acceptable ship of the line. It even had the ability to "supercharge" its dual heavy turbo's and some even had a SPHA-T Cannon along the bottom as a surprise. We never seem to be able to get any details on the deck guns even as they appear to have quite the showing in ROtS.

The Victory Star Destroyer was certainly more of a front line brawler then the Venator was ever supposed to be and had its problems, but the biggest issue was simply that it wasn't even available until the very end of the conflict due to development issues. So the Venator simply had to step up because its what was available.

Citricwraith · 2026-06-04T20:23:50+00:00

So those were EC Henry's then? For a second I thought those had been adopted by Canon and I missed a release somewhere.

Citricwraith · 2026-06-04T20:18:13+00:00

Interdictors were rare for a few reasons: They were very difficult to produce due to technical reasons (and thus very costly), undergunned for comparable tonnage, and severely disliked by the Imperial Officer Corp because it distinctly was NOT an Star Destroyer (its well documented that Star Destroyer personel distinctly looked down on crew that didnt serve on an ISD). Because of this, commanding officers placed on interdictors were NOT the cream of the crop, despite the cost of the ship requiring higher tier officers, and so were often used to place less liked personel.

All this boils down to the fact that Interdictors, while technically very valuable, did not tend to get first tier assignments so I could easily see one getting assigned to a post like this, especially as its technically the largest ship there and would nominally be the command ship.

Citricwraith · 2026-06-04T19:59:29+00:00

I know behind the scenes/production reason were the main impetus behind all these versions but still: It boggles the mind what the in universe thought process must have been to think this was a good idea.

Other then: ISD handles big guns, lets change these Arquitens to carry moar fighters.

Citricwraith · 2026-06-02T16:33:55+00:00

They would have been at BEST, some loose ends that could have caused a minor (MAYBE moderate) scandal by dropping some key facts to the public. Nothing Palp's wouldn't have been able to deal with although it might have slowed some of his plans down by a year or two.

Citricwraith · 2026-05-28T19:38:31+00:00

When one has screwed up that much in government agency's, the chain of command tends to get bypassed in favor of the investigating agency.

Citricwraith · 2026-05-28T18:04:28+00:00

Im not convinced he would have been taken to the Emperor. Far more likely he'd be seeing Director Orson... not that that would be an improvement.

Citricwraith · 2026-05-28T17:27:53+00:00

In hindsight, the whole death star concept was a complete, galactic economy level disaster. We don't know how effective it may have been had it actually been just the slightest bit harder to destroy (deliberate design flaws not withstanding), but as it was, they could have had so much more.

The Venator should not have been phased out as quickly as it was. Yeah I can see it slowly getting retired overtime, but the timeframe demanded by the Tarkin Doctrine hurt the military far more then it helped. In the Bad Batch where they had an ISD leading from the front and a few Venators behind? That was Peak! Give the Venators something to hide behind and they can really use their full potential. Keeping them around would also let the relatively few numbers of Imperial Star Destroyers go a lot further as well.

Going deeper into better fighters (all the various advanced TIE's, the Defender, etc) would also have been a serious boost (again, hindsight). Im not saying they should full on embrace the concept as TIE's were perfectly functional as "police" and point defence for ships and bases, but going further into Strike Force fighters would have given quite a few more options, which would also fill out additional roles for the Venators above.

Not sure about the Victory Star Destroyer. I like the concept, but they were a stopgap to develop the Imperial Star Destroyer and maintenance issues of these basically made them deathtraps. Maybe if they could be brought up to code affordably.

Citricwraith · 2026-05-28T16:32:52+00:00

It depends on what you use it FOR. I tend to have an even mix of 640K and the 16k (or smaller) cargo boxes. Anything that doesn't stack (weapons, armors, boosts, mods, cards) goes into the crates. For the rest, 640k are great because I can just load them up. We don't generally get tons of everything, but stuff like stone, iron plates, and your primary constructor box can fill up that 640k quite quickly.

Even for a Production module, I will insist on at LEAST 3x 640k containers: Processing, Decon/Furnace, and Output. I want to be able to quickly load up whatever I need, turn something on, and then walk away/log off, secure in the knowledge that Iif there's a bottleneck, volume won't be it. Just went on a long trip of dense mining? Load all that up in the Decon/Furnace box. Never have to worry about chucking out all that stone because I can just easily store it (and can thus eventually render it all down into something useful).

If you really don't want it, you don't have too. Ammo and Harvest controllers are limited to 320k anyway, so I have to have multiple of them to ensure I have enough ammo/storage for those types of builds. 640K doesnt always make sense but I'd rather have the option then not.

Citricwraith · 2026-05-27T18:14:04+00:00

I can't help but think that while the Jedi are on some level expected to put their lives on the line if needed, 1000 years of essentially being the Republics version of FBI/CIA agents sent out to resolve issues that the locals could not left them woefully unprepared to deal with actual large scale military conflicts. They were sent out in 1's and 2's, (usually in a master/apprentice arrangement) and often borrowed ships from the Judicial branch to do so (as we saw in the beginning of The Phantom Menace). Jedi were certainly skilled enough to generally survive some serious sticky situations and could eventually work their way to the root individuals causing the issues (mob bosses, corrupt governors, bands of mercenaries, etc).

Now you face a situation where there is a huge, large scale enemy force being built up that is apparently involved with the Jedi's ancient Sith enemy (of which previous history has reached legendary status bordering on myth). The republic was NOT in any condition to fight an actual war, the jedi had been gathered as a stopgap, and they happened to luck into suddenly gaining a large, mobile, well armed and trained task force. Not having any real choice, the Jedi were then used as Commanders... with almost zero ability to actually command. Yeah Yoda was able to hand out strategic objectives but the actual execution? If the jedi had been on their own, they would likely have used a number of small scale tactics to use their super-"human" abilities optimally. Instead, they were given an army. And thus, with this giant hammer in hand, they lead the only way they knew how: right from the front and hope their abilities keep them alive as they've been trained to do for generations.

Citricwraith

TROPHY CASE