the thing is, you did not even need a death star to annihilate a planet, a single ISD could glass an entire planet in a few days with its turbo lasers alone, when cranked up to full power, isd turbo lasers are about as destructive as a barrage of tactical nukes, without the radioactive fallout.
agree wholeheartedly. while I spend most of the video comparing these ships to the ISD compliment, even if they kept all star destroyer numbers the same, simply avoiding even 1 of the death stars would have allowed several hundred thousand ships to be constructed instead.
except that the death star was meant to be seen as an absolute threat. in "catalyst : a rogue one story" and "rogue one", we read that krennic wanted it to be an experiment, an innovation. but yet Tarkin insisted that it be only a weapon like a star destroyer.
Maybe. But the Death Star wasn’t built to be practical; it was meant to be a symbol. People have a tendency to hyper-focus on the planet-destroying superlaser while overlooking the things ridiculous size. Without that preprogrammed flaw, the Death Star would’ve been damn near indestructible. Even if the entirety of the Imperial Navy were thrown at it, the Death Star probably would’ve come out on top even without the superlaser. Star Destroyers could be brought down. The Death Star was supposed to be so large and powerful that even trying to imagine taking it down through conventional means was impossible.
Ignoring the Victory-2 Star Destroyer was one of the Empire’s greatest errors. A well armed fairly speedy star destroyer that costed 1/3rd the price of the ISD and was designed to operate in tandem with Venator and Arquitens as a capital ship. Theres also the Secutor, which is effectively a Venator that fixes its survivability issues, which was sidelined for the ISD family. And then theres the Ton Falk, which is a star destroyers hangar with engines and some quad lasers.
Personally, I think they should've made a Victory-3 and balanced turbolasers & ion cannons, plus added point defense lasers, and brought back at least some of the missile tubes from the Victory-1, and maybe even added a few heavy proton torpedo tubes to the front (similar to where the Acclamator had its torpedo tubes)
The Lancer frigates were some mean mofo's as well for counter insurgency operations against the Alliance. Hardly surprising when you consider that Lancers were literally designed to chew up entire wings of snubfighters with somewhere on the order of 20 quad laser turrets spread over the hull. They were basically a rebel attack wing's worst nightmare and when deployed were the perfect defense screen for ISD's against strike fighter attacks. Granted Lancers as a result had no real anti capital ship punch, but that wasn't what they were for, their mission profile was to screen for the bigger ships so they could start pummeling anything bigger than a frigate into the dirt.
The artificial inflation of crew sizes by the Empire is known to be intended so that as many civilians as possible are directly employed by the Empire and involved in its defense. This serves the dual purposes of keeping the Imperial economy a closed circuit, and reducing the likelihood of rebellion in civilian populations due to the fact that their own people are taking part in protecting the Empire. Overall, I think you've done a good job of highlighting and explaining many of the ships that the Empire underused or misused. The only ships I really would add are the Carrack cruiser and the Lancer corvette. Granted, both could use refitting, the Lancer in particular being a little slow. If nothing else, the Empire could certainly use the Corellian CR90/CR92 and DP20 in conjunction with the Raider corvette.
Something you should have added about the Venator is the comparison of point defenses. The venator had 52 point defense batteries, which, when facing off against a force that is primarily made of small craft, would have done way more than focusing on larger weapons that the ISDs had
@@InvictusMatrix So the ISD-2 traded its point defense systems for bigger guns and more TIE Fighters? That was really dumb, anyone with two brain cells to rub together would know that a ship of that size needs to have point defense system, even if it’s just barebones. Thrawne was right to think the Death Star was a waste of the taxpayers money.
I wouldn't say the empire had it completely wrong, An ISD (especially in legends) is easily able to hold its own in a fight. What they missed is a combined ships strategy, A single ISD with a small fleet of smaller cruisers, DHC's, Arquitens or VSD's and few carriers like the Venator or the Ton Falk. It isn't a lumbering ship, it is just misused.
Even still a star destroyer can't be in 10 different places at once. Furthermore how dangerous does a threat have to become before it warrants the attention of a star destroyer? The only reason why the Rebellion work is because the Empire underestimated them in some key aspects and overestimated them in others which drastically impaired their decision-making skills when it came to the Rebellion
@@mariaragonese2543 Thats why the Empire had other support craft my guy, Arqutiens, C-ROC Gozanti, Victory 1 and 2s, Remaining Venators in use, Raider 1 and 2 Corvettes among other ships.
The Empire's problem, at least superficially, resembles that of the U.S. during WW1 lots of big capital ships, basically no escorts. Utterly unforgivable newbie mistake.
The Acclamator I and II would have been excellent patrol and pocket Star Destroyers, since they were multirole heavy frigates and had Class 1 Hyperdrives, as well as a decently large weapons suite for both light and heavy combat, and can be kitted out for troop transport and carrier roles.
The Acclamator IIs were not immediately scrapped like the Venators and Acclamator Is and actually saw service well into the Galactic Civil War. Acclamators weren’t really all that well known by the Galactic public and were in no way comparable to the bombastic reputation of the „mighty Venator“, that and their extreme effectiveness in Space Combat were probably the arguments that convinced Palpatine and the Imperial Navy to keep the Acclamator II in service.
even the Victory-class would have been a good choice, much as it had poor sublight speeds, it had a class 1 hyperdrive, so if you needed to rapidly put a star destroyer in system, the victory could do that
I agree, though I think a refit would've been in order. An Acclamator III, perhaps. Keep a focus on versatility and efficiency by keeping the balanced and varied armament and low crew requirements, while adding hangar space for at least a couple squadrons of fighters, and keeping a moderate amount of space for ground forces.
Yeah, they actually had class 0.6 hyperdrives, by far the fastest ship in hyperspace, and the facilities and infrastructure for manufacturing and maintaining them would be already established, compared to all the systems and facilities needed to do the same for newer ships like ISDs. Simply make the ships more modular and modernize the weapons and other critical systems, and you have a relatively cheap and incredibly versatile ship that can be made with mostly pre-existing methods and minimal R&D or crew retraining. My making them modular you could have a bunch of different variants tailored to whatever the mission needs, such as your classic assault/invasion type, an antiship variant with more armor that replaces the internal hangar space with generators and fuel reserves for turbolasers, PD lasers and missile stores, an interception carrier with ore hangars that has a complement of exclusively fighters and interceptors to lock down an area and prevent rebel ships from escaping, a cargo variant that just uses the space to carry around goods quickly and more securely than any regular freighter, a defense-oriented version with extra armor and extra internal shield generators, meant to escort and cover other ships or carry HVTs, or even something like a variant with an interdictor well on each side of the hull.
There is also the procursator, (pocket star destroyer)and I really like the vindicator and enforcer classes which would work well as patrol and rapid response vessels
Don't limit yourself to Disney Canon. The Empire had its own version of the Corellian Corvette in Legends, called the CR92A Assassin class Corvette. Other lighter roles were filled by the Carrack Cruiser, Lancer class Frigate, Strike class Cruiser, and a few more obscure ships (mainly from Comics) like the Imperial-II class Frigate.
Well issue with legends is simply the empire seemingly had every type of ship for every situation some were extermely obscure i think sticking to canon helps the video stick within line of visually known media as of current.
@@andrewperkin7192 True enough. It’s entirely possible with time that more Legends ships will be added into the current canon as well, though how their role and history will change will remain to be seen.
The TIE Defender had a Hyperdrive, imagine a rapid response force compared of defenders and U-Wings carrying elite Stormtroopers. Whenever the alarms go off, the clock starts to tick for the Rebel alliance.
I think a lot of people forget about one big advantage the Nebulon B escort frigate had over a lot of these designs: it was a ship with a relatively low cost, that was fairly fast, maneuverable, had quite effective sensors and ECM systems, well armed, armored, and shielded that could easily act as a pocket fighter or other support ship carrier and repair or maintenance facility. More importantly, it had a big advantage that seldom gets mentioned: the empire already tons of them, as the ship design dated from the late republic period, and was still being actively produced until fairly late in the empire's history, and many of it's component parts were already widely found on other craft already in service, meaning they were relatively cheap and easy to repair modify, or return to active service. In it's default configuration, it was also quite well suited for anti fighter, anti corvette, and anti smaller frigate operations, being equipped with a dozen fairly powerful for the ship's size and powerplant turbolaser cannon turrets, another dozen rapid fire laser cannon turrets capable of acting as dedicated anti fighter/ point defense lasers, a pair of capital ship scale concussion missile launcher tubes, and two extremely powerful and accurate tractor beams. The ship also had repulsor lift engines allowing it to function far more effectively in in atmosphere or near atmosphere conditions, as well as a hangar that could carry up to 24 TIE advanced sized or smaller fighter craft, plus a pair of sentinel or lambda class landing shuttles. Exterior docking collars at several points on the ship allowed it to let corvettes, light freighters, and certain other craft dock and even catch rides for transportation, as well as the direct connection of specialty equipment modular cargo or crewspace containers, and more. The ships were also designed with the capacity for long term patrols away from a support base specifically in mind, with many having ample on board storage availabity for food, water, spare parts, and more. A number of Nebulon b Escort frigates in both imperial and rebel alliance service were modified for roles as diverse as bulk troop transports, systems patrol and interdiction craft, mobile medical or sattelite and ECM support vessels, and more. It's also worth noting that the sheer maneuverability and speed at sublight of the craft for frigates allowed Nebulon B frigates used by the rebel alliance to work in groups of two or four ships, to directly counter imperial star destroyers just with their onboard weapons. Some Nebulon B frigates were even used to tow small space stations and orbital defense platforms like the Gollan II into place. Even brand new, the empire could buy or build between 17-23 Nebulon B escort frigates for the cost of one imperial star destroyer depending upon the specific type. It was in many ways pretty much the perfect craft for an empire that needed a cost effective, efficient, multi role capable vessel that could fulfill a wide variety of missions effectively. And instead the empire largely retired them early in favor of imperial I and II star destroyers or a wide variety of fairly cost prohibitive far to limited in number, and absurdly specialized corvette and frigate designs. The rebel allianceironically because of that was quite well position to literally steal, or in some cases directly buy mothballed Nebulon B frigates out of various used ship or scrapyards, and made very effective use of them against the empire.
Vindicator Class Heavy Cruiser, more interdictor class, Tie Hunter, Nebulon B2, several of the game ships basically. The assault transport and normal transport from the X-wing/Tie Fighter PC game series come to mind.
Great breakdown! I especially love the inclusion of the Gladiator in the list. I run a Star Wars roleplaying game with my friends. They don't have a ton of respect for the ISD, as they can deal with it's limited TIE complement, and then get in close with corvettes and snubfighters where its lack of point defense weapons becomes fatal. The Gladiator, though, despite being smaller and less armed, terrifies them, with plenty of point defenses and a seemingly endless amount of fighters pouring out of it. It's one of my favorite star destroyer designs, and I'm always happy to see it included.
The terror of seeing 1 victory-2, a venator, 2 interdictor and 3-4 arquilen or Raider plus escort could have easily being terifying in the idea how can you defeat such good balance fleet. The early rebel alliance fleet we see during rogue one would have possibly be screw the moment they arrived. All this would be close to or a little over 2 ISD class and would be more cost effective for the lessent number of loss.
I agree, the Empire's downfall was in not incorporating smaller, faster support vessels with their ISD main ships. Yes, am ISD might deter a planet or system to stop their rebellious people, but if each ship came with a slew of support ships that acted as pickets to the larger vessels, they could have lasted longer. Venators, Carrack cruisers and the like could have been a better alternative to the just build big doctrine.
Surprised to not see the Lancer class frigate on this list, I guess it hasn't made the jump to the new cannon? It was pretty much a hard counter to the rebels' reliance on fighters and if I remember right some of the Rogues figured the only reason it didn't save the empire was that too few came in to service to late to salvage things. Adding a few of them as an escort to a fleet along side a CAP of TIEs pretty much eliminated "Trench Run Syndrome".
Yup, this would be #1 on my list. #2 would be TIE Defenders. They weren't produced in nearly the numbers they should have been... TIE-D's should have been the primary space superiority fighter of the Empire.
I personally really like the Vigil Corvette for the empire 255 meters long, class 2 hyperdrive a few hundred crew and costs a couple million credits with a pair of twin heavy turbolasers and half a dozen laser cannons plus a tractor beam, not offical info but in empire at war they can also carry a few tie fighters aswell.
@@TheeGreyGalaxies Haven't seen anything in the new canon that would indicate this in the materials I've seen - books and the Rebels show only had Nebulon-Bs being with Rebel factions, while the Imperial Navy is still stuck with the same formula of Star Destroyers and TIE Fighters.
Great video! However, one of the things that has always bothered me about Star Wars' ships is their prices. If an LAAT costs 85,000, how can the Raider corvette cost a mere 3,000,000 to 4,000,000 and an Imperial class star destroyer only 150,000,000? I know that I'm being boring and introducing real life into a fantasy setting, but... given its armour, complexity and weapons could increase its cost to the square of its current cost, or more. That would also make building smaller, less complex, less heavily armoured ships far more affordable. Apologies to those I've offended or bored!
it does sound a little crazy at first, but think about the current closest equivalent we have. compare a F35 fighter at just shy of 80 million dollars per plane, compared to the cost of a Freedom class LCS (essentially a Corvette), at 362 million per ship, the ratios are actually pretty generous when comparing to a modern analogue.
The New Republic's Nebulon Class Star Destroyer. If the Empire decided to research and create advanced warships, this would be the result. Also, you forgot about Thrawn's Tie Defender fighter ships.
@@dimitris2936 In the Clone Wars cartoon, we see LAATs disembarking from Venators in orbit over Muunilinst, and flying down to ground level before disembarking troops and vehicles.
The biggest problem with the Empire's doctrine was that it relied so heavily on the ISD's operating on their own as a kind of jack of all trades rather than as an anchor point for a battlegroup or flotilla. Pair it up with some of these smaller vessels that can cover its bases and suddenly your fighting ability goes up dramatically. Hell, even just pairing a Venator with an ISD would make them far more effective given the Venator is at heart a carrier and the ISD a battleship.
Speaking of bloated crew complements, one bit of lore I'd love to hear explained is how the Rendili Dreadnaughts required a crew of 16,000. What would sixteen thousand people even DO to operate one capital ship?
Tartan class, carrack, raider, cr92a are underated imperial ships. Raider I - people look over its 4 double turbolasers matching the firepower of the standard cr90, plus concussion missles and 6 laser double cannons. I imagine that the hangers of the corvus are an ungrade and the standard raider doesn't have that. Instead, it uses the extra reactor space to equip maybe 1 to 3 more double laser cannons on the underside. Tartan - literally a better lancer. Same size and armament, but is fast, matching starfighters in speed. Lancer is very slow, limiting its effectiveness. Carrack - can be outfitted to be a capital or corvette killer or another anti starfighter frigate. Is fast too like the tartan. Very well protected Cr92a - probably most underated. Is dedicated war ship when compared to the cr90. Is modular, having 8 implacements (a mix between quad lasers and double turbolaser). Has proton torpoes. Is fast and well protected.
The Imperial Navy is the classic case of preparing for the previous war. The Clone Wars had plenty of capital ship fights, but The Rebellion had few capital ships. Even after getting rid of the Venator, i'm pretty sure any one of us could design something more useful than the ISD.
Could you make a video on what the Empire could have done with their fighters, like the TIE variants, etc.? That would be interesting. Thanks for this video, by the way. Very Entertaining and informative.
More Gozanti patrol vessels would help maintain Imperial presence across populated worlds. Drop out of hyperspace, launch 4 TIE fighters, monitor how a planet is operating. Are Trade vessels being inspected? Are proper protocols being obeyed? Make random inspections on various worlds. Maintain a fleet of a hundred thousand Gozanti craft performing operations like those across the Galaxy, and you ensure that the population will know that it’s being observed.
The weirdest part about ISDs are how damn fast they are. Honestly ISDs are great as the flagship of a fleet because they can keep up with their corvettes a full speed and still provide turbolaser coverage to protect them from other capital ships. If I had a fleet it would need to be pretty big. Some lancers maybe, CR22s, a CR20 for consular stuff, Imperial Nebulon frigates as maybe a medical frig/support ship, a couple of dedicated carriers, an ISD, 2 Victory 1s and 2 Victory 2s, 2 Dreadnoughts and 2 Arquetins and finally 1 Interdictor and 1 Broadside for those sweet sweet boron missiles to ruin a mon cal cruiser's whole career.
No mention of the Vindicator cruiser? I suppose that it was more of an equivalent of the Gladiator but still a very nice escort cruiser that was quite well armed and shielded! Or the Strike Cruiser - modular, quite simple to retrofit to different types, small crew, quite heavily armed and shielded for a ship it's size? Nice list!
I was surprised not to see the Strike Cruiser listed. At least in Legends sourcebooks it was always listed as one of the great "no so secret" weapons of the Empire.
Yeah, the Strike Cruiser is a very effective cruiser (for a ship it's size) with a decent armament and shielding. The modularity of it made it a lot more versatile, and the switching of modules could be done very quickly. They were also very cheap to produce and could be built quickly. It also had a very small crew (compared to other Imperial ships of it's size) so was clearly more efficient to operate.
The Acclamator had ability to land and deploy troops and cargo directly onto a planet, without the perilous and inefficient mode of sending small LAATs and similar dropships. Exactly what you need to deliver an occupation force.
TIE Defender. One way to defeat X-wings is to simply out-X-wing them. If they'd have funded Thrawn's little side project instead of the DS1, the Rebels would've run out of snubfighters real quick.
problem with the defender was its price-tag. you could build 10 standard ties for the cost of a single defender, and we all know how the empire liked their canon fodder programs...
so if the empire really wanted to win the war, they should have let Thrawn be in charge of the navy. Thrawn was a genius and could have easily destroyed the rebel alliance given proper materiels
the Interdictor cruiser for obvious reasons, the Imperial Nebulon-B as interpreted by Fractalsponge would have made another very effective patrol craft and convoy escort. the Tie Hunter and Tie Defender both specifically designed to deal withe Rebel Starfighters. the Lancer-Class Frigate would make another fantastic Flak Boat useful against pirates and for use in Venator Carrier battlegroups or convoy escort. Another opton worth consdiering would also be to keep the very low crew CIS ships especially the Recusant-Class Frigate which didn't even need a crew at all as there where plenty of them up for grabs and no reason not to use them other then poltical and ideological ones. in fact simply reusing the huge emounts of droid from the CIS in backwater systems would have been avery effective cost-cutting measure and avoided putting living beings at risk as well. Mixing droids with livng crew or troops instead of an all droid force would be a GREAT force multiplier espeically in out of the way areas with low populations and proabbly very boring posts.
I'm going to agree with the Venitor, not that they should have necessarily kept making them so much as just kept them around. Imagine having 2-3 Venitors along with 1 star destroyer instead of 2 star destroyers, heck keep some of the separatist ships around too as they frequently had more guns and armor though less fighters than the Venators.
of course the biggest difficulty with replacing Imperial-class star destroyers with smaller ships is the need to provide a much larger number of warship commanders, and to trust them not to go rogue
true, but smaller ships are typically commanded by less-than-captain ranking individuals so you don't need to flood the imperial navy with captains and admirals for these smaller ships. commanders and LT commanders would flip the bill, especially with smaller craft like corvettes.
@@TheeGreyGalaxies even so, in a navy which already has a culture of distrust and surveillance, that's a lot more officers that need to be vetted by Imperial Intelligence and/or the ISB because they have command of a ship with a hyperdrive and the supplies to go on extended patrol (or drop of the grid entirely for a couple of months)... considering that the empire disliked giving their fighter pilots access to such amenities as hyperdrives or even landing gear as a means of forcing them to come back to base, placing enough trust in that many junior officers to have them command hyper-capable corvettes would be difficult for the existing culture of the imperial navy
An ISD could make sense in the form of the heart of a sector response squadron but the way it was deployed in universe as the mainstay of the Imperial fleet means that its potential was wasted since it was deployed into roles that it was simply neither designed or suited for.
I believe if naboo manufactured their fighters for the republic, the empire would've found them superior to the tie fighters and would have to use something more effective.
If i would be the Empire - i would use a combo between Gladiator-Class / Arquitens-Class - both Ship Hangars filled with Tie Interceptors/Tie Defenders ( as replacement for the Tie Fighter/Tie Bomber ). And only a small amount of Imperial Star Destroyers - only as Flagships or so.
Pretty solid analysis. I would however like to point out the absence of the Quasar-Fire cruiser/carrier. 1.75mil credits, 340m long, class 2 hyperdrive, and carried 8 squadrons of fighters(96 total). We have seen them several times in things like the Rebels series, TIE fighter comic, Alphabet Squadron book, etc. Not including fighter accompaniment, a Quasar-Fire escorted by 2 Arquitens would only cost about 10mil credits and could still handle any rebel/pirate threat up to a capital ship. Perfect for “peacekeeping” while still being able to put out overwhelming force.
Insanely well produced video for a channel of your size. To be honest I was expecting the mic quality of a Fortnite kid in his mom's basement but the fact this is as well made as channels with 500k+ subs has got to be a good sign. Keep it up bro, I'd love to see more deep dives on Star Wars ships/ lore
One reason to use the 'less efficient' ships in the Empire is that they would be easier to turn rebellious. A venator, if stolen, would be a great boon to rebels. The centralization of authority also underlines a fear that probably ranked higher for the Empire, A warlords period where the de-facto power is decentralized.
This. It's the same argument with the TIE fighter - lacking hyperdrive, an independent maintenance droid, and even landing capability in some versions, it's basically impossible to defect in one as you're utterly dependent on your home base.
Tie Defenders, Tie LA V1s and a metric ton of “gladiator” class ships, maybe backed up by “victory 2” ships. The victory was estimated to be able to 1v1 even MC80 cruisers save maybe the carrier wing. Gladiators could easily 1v1 any rebel ship except the MC80 and were not crew intensive. That and a simple upgrade to the Tie series in the form of the advanced V1 not to be confused with Vader’s advanced X1. The V1 was an all around marginal upgrade in performance but was equipped with shields, life support, a hyperdrive, and could carry secondary ordnance. To top it off the V1 cost a little more than half a T65’s price. Finally the tie defender or “advanced V7” speaks for itself. More firepower and shielding than any bomber while being faster and more maneuverable than any interceptor. Imagine gladiators carrying wings of them. Fortunately for the galaxy, Tarkin and Palpi McScrotumface were immune to ideas that did not involve megalomania.
The Venator, Acclamator and Raider would have been the best additions. They are much better suited to countering the Rebel's fighters and light warships. The Arrestor would have been good too
Definitely needed to have more corvettes, more dedicated carriers, and more bases. I think Raiders, Venators, & Lancer-class Frigates working together would be far more effective than any ISD.
The Strike Cruiser. Medium sized, it was a perfect blend of modular capabilities and armaments, and while it's modularity had exposable weaknesses seen early on, these could and were covered for, making for a ship you could have a dozen of in place of any one ISD, that combined had more firepower, could haul more troops, more supplies, were faster and could divide into smaller flanking kill-teams. It's modularity could also make it the de-facto work-horse for the empire - the battle-line version, the cargo version, troop-transport version, the long-range scouting version, the tractor-beam policing version and so on an so forth. This should could easily, in a dozen variants, be the single most iconic vessel in the empire needing only a few bigger capital ships for "what if" capital-fight situations and several smaller designs like Empire-tuned CR-90's or another analogue to them like the Raider and Lancer corvettes - the Lancer for instance was a fighter-craft murdering machine nearly without equal, a squadron of 4-5 Strike cruisers and the same number of Lancers would massacre any rebel group they ran into with grotesque ease.
I think the biggest flaw the Venator had in the eyes of the Imperials is that the ship was kinda a symbol of the Republic, because as a carrier the ship was perfect.
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the thing is, the ISD would have faired better in the clone wars, where there were a lot of broadside battles. while the venator would have been an absolutely oppressive force in the empire due to how well it could patrol a sector
What's interesting to consider is that the Empire was inefficient in allocating its resources, but only with respect to the threats we see. Had the empire behaved differently the issues that would have threatened them would change, to some degree.
Thing with Venator SD, it wasn't retired because of "doctrine". It was discarded as a remnant of old, corrupted Republic. Galactic Empire was supposed to be different from both Republic and CIS. Same with Pelta class, LAAT, likely with DP-20 and CR-90. Gladiator and Raider would fit, however. Not sure why they or similar ship weren't produced more, as escorts for ISD. For "one ISD for thousands of systems", pretty sure Empire would barely cover all those systems even if it managed to produce a ship for each system. Plus unlike ISD, lesser ships would be more vulnerable to direct assault and destruction. All Empire needed to do (and what it likely attempted) was to cover key systems, ones with important economies or serving as "hyperspace lane crossroads". Tax just those and you control lots of economy. Rebels can hide on frosty moons all day, it won't matter if they can't actually strike any significant target (plus you have Vader and inquisitors to seek and destroy anyone actually dangerous in hiding). Insufficient amounts of smaller ships made it easier for smugglers and fighters to do their jobs, however, which is where Raider and Cantwell would help.
but under that logic, wouldn't they have also gotten rid of the acclamator, the arquitens, the Gazonti, and the Dreadnought as symbols of the old? all served well into the imperial era and were heavily utilized.
@@TheeGreyGalaxies if those Gozanti and Arquirens were heavily utilized, then there's no real issue with lack of support ships for ISDs, no? It's more likely that ISDs did have ships to serve as their escort, but left those escorts behind or didn't have them joined in a first place. More fault of imperial fleet structure than of "lack of some ubership that would save the Empire"
Major problem is that Empire was never going to deviate from the tarkin doctrine or case of bigger is better when it came tio main capital and smaller ships it relied on in regards to naval warfare and were always doomed to failure. However even if they had changed things up, their weakness in fighters vs those of the alliance would syill have cost them dearly in any engagement.
If Palpatine had seen the intrinsic flaws of the Tarkin doctrine after the loss of the DS 1 and instead of building dozens of new SSDs and the DS 2 listened to Admiral Thrawn and ordered the production of a few million TIE Defenders then the Rebellion would have been slowly but surely chocked to death with every engagement.
@@AnonD38 Oh totally, if the empire had massed produced tie defenders from the getgo for a couple of years before Yavin, then certainly the rebels superiority in starfighters and ability to use hit and run tactics would be greatlynullified.
It was astonishing how much First order copied Tarkin's doctrine. They raised ships in qualities but again Supremacy lead 1 super - battleship + 30+ Resurgents. Nothing learned from Admiral Thrawn or Admiral Ackbar No frigates, Corvettes, gunships, freighters, smaller destroyers. Only Resurgent and Xyston.
Here's a theory (which is likely true). Most vessels that are either cruiser, frigate, or support ship size are used in large numbers by the Empire but we hardly hear of them so widely mentioned because they are overshadowed by the Star Destroyers. Even in lore, (Canon wise though I think this goes for Legends) The star destroyer was seen a peak in career to be stationed aboard or to command. Support vessels weren't so much if not frowned upon. But back to the star destroyer overshadowing them. Much like the Navies of ww2, where you almost always heard of battleships, because they were the beefy boys that brought the firepower to the table and were used as common propaganda pieces (Bismark and Terpitz being common german pieces and Britain having their own which I forgot the names of). They overshadowed almost all other support vessels. I'd even say the Bismark overshadowed the U-boats which were among the major heavy hitters for the german navy, atleast these are my thoughts from hearing school history. Again, in todays time, in the US Navy, we'll think of the aircraft carriers because they are the big boys that bring in a form of heavy support that overshadows most other ships and since the US has placed the battleships in dry docks for lack of use in our current era (given war on terror and lack of conventional wars), the Aircraft carriers retain the major attention.
This is a common theme in the real world as well. Battleships were replaced with entire fleets of destroyers and corvettes which were far cheaper to build and man but also easier to train crews for as the crew requirements themselves were much smaller. Overall the cost of operating a single battleship is many many times that of a fleet of destroyers. The empire really should have known that. Too bad the bad guys must always fail horribly.
Yes in the x wing vs tie fighter games the empire had a more armored version of the corellian corvette and nebulon B frigates are empire system patrol escorts.
I've always wondered what it would be like if the U-wing was designed with drop-in/drop-out modules. Need a QRF transport? The base version we see has you covered. EW support? Replace the troop compartment with a section full of scanners and jammers. CAS module with heavier "door" guns and ground-attack munitions. Heck, you could make a module that's just racks and racks of missiles. Don't need to dogfight or worry about low firepower when you can just spam missiles from range.
I do hate the Empire, however... Cantwells for system protection, full fighter compliment. Venators for mobile fighter carriers. Arquitens with a larger fighter wing area. Lots of Gladiators, 120 starfighters base, would help. Some kind of Hyperdrive equipped starfighter. And LOTS of LAAT's. LOTS. That is one fine transport. Acclimators would especially help that LAAT compliment! The problem with the system defense is that 10,000+ systems per ISD.
The Super Star destroyers were intended to be mobil fleet bases. They were the right ships,the Empire didn't build enough or use the ones they had properly.
The Gladiator-class star destroyer was reworked by KDY from the Support Escort role of the Republic to the anti-piracy brawler we see now. They cut back the fighter complement to just what they thought it would need for that mission role. Also 300 anti-warship missiles taking up a bunch of room.
Thraw tie defender project gave birth to one of the greatest, well could have been the greatest vessel and fighter the empire had due to the fact it was stated in Cannon is superior to every version of Tie Fighter. with the six heavy cannons, four missile launchers, shielding, and Hyperdrive. it was by far was the most perfect vessel there was, and one of them alone nearly defeated the rebellion during an early stage of the Civil War. it literally took Hera quick thinking to destroy this one tie defender. It truly felt like the project was shut down out of spite for thraw By Tarkin. because it stated multiple times Tarkin despise thranw, because thrawn was better than Tarkin in every way.
I personally would of used the Acclamator class star destroyer as it is a fantastic troop transport / supply ship and can deploy every type of ground force including a full size base very quickly combine that with the Venator class star destroyer as a carrier and the victory one class star destroyer and your pretty much sorted and I believe that all three are cheaper than an ISD.
If the Empire had switched in large numbers from the TIE Fighter over to Admiral Thrawn’s TIE Defender design with heavy cannons, missiles, hyperdrive, and shields, the Rebellion wouldn’t have stood a chance.
@@merafirewing6591 Not sure that the Rebellion has the resources needed for the massive R&D that would have required. Plus, the Defender wasn’t cheap; You’d have to think that the Rebel version would have been too expensive to keep up with the Empire ship-for-ship.
If they had gotten some of the advanced prototypes of Tie Fighters into actual production; like the Tie Defender would definitely have made a huge difference.
Just like everyone else, I thought that the ISD looked awesome. But, it just looked to dang big! It has so much mass and the guns are so small! I know it's supposed to have a lot of guns but none of the movies ever really give the feeling of scale for the number of guns it's supposed to have. Either the guns should have been bigger or someone should have been drawing a lot more little red lines on the film.
There are three ships that I can think of that you haven't featured here. The first is the Nebulon-B Frigate. It was so easy to manufacture and was so effective against both fighters and capital ships alike that it would've been a real game-changer. It was, after all, designed to be a convoy escort ship and you'd be hard-pressed to find a group of Rebels who were crazy enough to attack a convoy that was defended by these ships. The reason that it wasn't used much was the fact that it didn't really fit the Tarkin Doctrine as it didn't look all that menacing despite how great a ship that it was. The Rebels demonstrated this as the Nevulon-B was their principal capital ship type during the Galactic Civil War. Remember that the Rebels only got the MonCals much later in the game. For many years, the Nebulon-B was the biggest and baddest capital ship in the Alliance Navy. The second was the brainchild of Grand Admiral Thrawn, the TIE Defender. Thrawn had Sienar Fleet Systems very excited about the prospect of producing this ship because it would've been the only Imperial TIE that could rival the mighty B-Wing when it came to firepower. It was faster and more agile than the B-Wing but, of course, the B-Wing's shields were an order of magnitude more potent than those of the TIE Defender. Still, it wasn't the B-Wing that broke the back of the Imperial Navy (well, except for at the battle of Endor where B-Wings ate ISDs for lunch), it was the X-Wing, a fighter that was clearly inferior to the 3-winged TIE. You mentioned the Corellian CR90 Corvetter but, as you like to show footage from Empire at War (and who can blame you, that game is AWESOME!), the Empire had their own equivalent to the CR90 in the Tartan Corvette. They could've just built a whole slew of those instead for probably far fewer credits than they'd have to pay for the CR90. Other thoughts: I'm pretty sure that "Arquitens" is pronounced "Ark-it-tens". It's not as bad as when I heard Eclhat's Ladder call the Lucrehulk the "Loose-re-hulk". Man, that was grinding on the ears! LOL
Imperial strategy was probably to have a battle-line that appeared 'undefeatable' against most foes, and if consolidated into fleet action would be competent against a surprise robot/clone army. Pirate interdiction and customs enforcement wasn't big - navy's problem, that'd be the local garrisons responsibility, and dealing with that on the ground makes for a vastly smaller space to have to regulate. Having the biggest ship yards, and fielding the biggest ships, ups the buy-in price for resistance that wants to try and stand against the navy or worlds that would openly revolt. Losing reputation every time a rebelling system or Hutt manages to knock over a frigate just doesn't play well if you are portraying yourself as a unexhaustable juggernaut.
hmm yes the carriers misused by the space wizards are obviously a problem, not the space wizards with no military training. for best results the clone wars venators and their air groups were actually very well set up for policing actions. arc170s and other clone wars fighters have their own ftl drives. so venators could actually cover the space isds were asked to. they just park somewhere and sortie arc170 squadrons out to patrol various routes through their sectors.
There are a few ways to combat the incompetence of the Imperial Navy. One of the biggest things they could have done without too much effort is to put just a little more money into the TIE fighter. It's ridiculously cheap as it is, but if you add shields, a single ion cannon, and a third engine, you have one of the best fighters available. The shield generator doesn't have to be the biggest/best, just enough to not die immediately from any simple mistake. The ion cannon is there to soften up larger targets, and the third engine is there to keep the speed/maneuverability advantage that the fighters were supposed to have. Speed would likely increase by a third or so, and the cost would be likely fifty percent more than the standard TIE. Still no need for a hyperdrive, though I certainly can see the uses. Wouldn't really need the other variants then, would you? (though the Defender is awesome) A slight redesign of the Lancer-class frigate would make a lot of sense, as they would keep the pressure off of the ISDs. Though having a few more point-defense cannons on the ISD would be welcome, too. Having a number of small craft - like the Skipray blast boat - designed to keep up with fleeing craft and stop them from escaping would be ideal for most anti-pirate missions. Having them paired with the Venator (which is one of my favorites) just seems like good sense. After that, the usual needs - Interdictor comes to mind immediately, as does simply *more* of everything - can come slower, so long as they get there.
the thing is, you did not even need a death star to annihilate a planet, a single ISD could glass an entire planet in a few days with its turbo lasers alone, when cranked up to full power, isd turbo lasers are about as destructive as a barrage of tactical nukes, without the radioactive fallout.
agree wholeheartedly. while I spend most of the video comparing these ships to the ISD compliment, even if they kept all star destroyer numbers the same, simply avoiding even 1 of the death stars would have allowed several hundred thousand ships to be constructed instead.
except that the death star was meant to be seen as an absolute threat. in "catalyst : a rogue one story" and "rogue one", we read that krennic wanted it to be an experiment, an innovation. but yet Tarkin insisted that it be only a weapon like a star destroyer.
Maybe. But the Death Star wasn’t built to be practical; it was meant to be a symbol. People have a tendency to hyper-focus on the planet-destroying superlaser while overlooking the things ridiculous size. Without that preprogrammed flaw, the Death Star would’ve been damn near indestructible. Even if the entirety of the Imperial Navy were thrown at it, the Death Star probably would’ve come out on top even without the superlaser. Star Destroyers could be brought down. The Death Star was supposed to be so large and powerful that even trying to imagine taking it down through conventional means was impossible.
Ignoring the Victory-2 Star Destroyer was one of the Empire’s greatest errors. A well armed fairly speedy star destroyer that costed 1/3rd the price of the ISD and was designed to operate in tandem with Venator and Arquitens as a capital ship. Theres also the Secutor, which is effectively a Venator that fixes its survivability issues, which was sidelined for the ISD family.
And then theres the Ton Falk, which is a star destroyers hangar with engines and some quad lasers.
Harrow SD, an improved VSD is also interesting option, as member of DS flotile for example
Personally, I think they should've made a Victory-3 and balanced turbolasers & ion cannons, plus added point defense lasers, and brought back at least some of the missile tubes from the Victory-1, and maybe even added a few heavy proton torpedo tubes to the front (similar to where the Acclamator had its torpedo tubes)
The Lancer frigates were some mean mofo's as well for counter insurgency operations against the Alliance. Hardly surprising when you consider that Lancers were literally designed to chew up entire wings of snubfighters with somewhere on the order of 20 quad laser turrets spread over the hull. They were basically a rebel attack wing's worst nightmare and when deployed were the perfect defense screen for ISD's against strike fighter attacks. Granted Lancers as a result had no real anti capital ship punch, but that wasn't what they were for, their mission profile was to screen for the bigger ships so they could start pummeling anything bigger than a frigate into the dirt.
The artificial inflation of crew sizes by the Empire is known to be intended so that as many civilians as possible are directly employed by the Empire and involved in its defense. This serves the dual purposes of keeping the Imperial economy a closed circuit, and reducing the likelihood of rebellion in civilian populations due to the fact that their own people are taking part in protecting the Empire. Overall, I think you've done a good job of highlighting and explaining many of the ships that the Empire underused or misused. The only ships I really would add are the Carrack cruiser and the Lancer corvette. Granted, both could use refitting, the Lancer in particular being a little slow. If nothing else, the Empire could certainly use the Corellian CR90/CR92 and DP20 in conjunction with the Raider corvette.
Something you should have added about the Venator is the comparison of point defenses. The venator had 52 point defense batteries, which, when facing off against a force that is primarily made of small craft, would have done way more than focusing on larger weapons that the ISDs had
The ISD-1 actually had point-defense turrets, but the ISD-2 was made without any, for some godawful reason.
@@fadelsukoco3092 I believe it had something to do with the tie interceptor
@@InvictusMatrix So the ISD-2 traded its point defense systems for bigger guns and more TIE Fighters? That was really dumb, anyone with two brain cells to rub together would know that a ship of that size needs to have point defense system, even if it’s just barebones.
Thrawne was right to think the Death Star was a waste of the taxpayers money.
Still a very poor reason. A ship still needs point defenses. Imperial designers really suck at designing ships.
@@TheGary108 Agreed
I wouldn't say the empire had it completely wrong, An ISD (especially in legends) is easily able to hold its own in a fight. What they missed is a combined ships strategy, A single ISD with a small fleet of smaller cruisers, DHC's, Arquitens or VSD's and few carriers like the Venator or the Ton Falk. It isn't a lumbering ship, it is just misused.
Even still a star destroyer can't be in 10 different places at once. Furthermore how dangerous does a threat have to become before it warrants the attention of a star destroyer? The only reason why the Rebellion work is because the Empire underestimated them in some key aspects and overestimated them in others which drastically impaired their decision-making skills when it came to the Rebellion
@@mariaragonese2543 Thats why the Empire had other support craft my guy, Arqutiens, C-ROC Gozanti, Victory 1 and 2s, Remaining Venators in use, Raider 1 and 2 Corvettes among other ships.
The Empire's problem, at least superficially, resembles that of the U.S. during WW1 lots of big capital ships, basically no escorts. Utterly unforgivable newbie mistake.
@@Melody_Raventress “basically no escorts”
Clearly someone hasn’t kept up with Star Wars
@@Melody_Raventress If the Lancer, IPV, Arqutiens, VSD's, Gozanti, Raider, TPC, Dreadnought Cruiser, Ton-Falk, Quasar and others didn't exist you'd be right.
The Acclamator I and II would have been excellent patrol and pocket Star Destroyers, since they were multirole heavy frigates and had Class 1 Hyperdrives, as well as a decently large weapons suite for both light and heavy combat, and can be kitted out for troop transport and carrier roles.
The Acclamator IIs were not immediately scrapped like the Venators and Acclamator Is and actually saw service well into the Galactic Civil War.
Acclamators weren’t really all that well known by the Galactic public and were in no way comparable to the bombastic reputation of the „mighty Venator“, that and their extreme effectiveness in Space Combat were probably the arguments that convinced Palpatine and the Imperial Navy to keep the Acclamator II in service.
even the Victory-class would have been a good choice, much as it had poor sublight speeds, it had a class 1 hyperdrive, so if you needed to rapidly put a star destroyer in system, the victory could do that
I agree, though I think a refit would've been in order. An Acclamator III, perhaps. Keep a focus on versatility and efficiency by keeping the balanced and varied armament and low crew requirements, while adding hangar space for at least a couple squadrons of fighters, and keeping a moderate amount of space for ground forces.
Yeah, they actually had class 0.6 hyperdrives, by far the fastest ship in hyperspace, and the facilities and infrastructure for manufacturing and maintaining them would be already established, compared to all the systems and facilities needed to do the same for newer ships like ISDs. Simply make the ships more modular and modernize the weapons and other critical systems, and you have a relatively cheap and incredibly versatile ship that can be made with mostly pre-existing methods and minimal R&D or crew retraining. My making them modular you could have a bunch of different variants tailored to whatever the mission needs, such as your classic assault/invasion type, an antiship variant with more armor that replaces the internal hangar space with generators and fuel reserves for turbolasers, PD lasers and missile stores, an interception carrier with ore hangars that has a complement of exclusively fighters and interceptors to lock down an area and prevent rebel ships from escaping, a cargo variant that just uses the space to carry around goods quickly and more securely than any regular freighter, a defense-oriented version with extra armor and extra internal shield generators, meant to escort and cover other ships or carry HVTs, or even something like a variant with an interdictor well on each side of the hull.
There is also the procursator, (pocket star destroyer)and I really like the vindicator and enforcer classes which would work well as patrol and rapid response vessels
Don't limit yourself to Disney Canon. The Empire had its own version of the Corellian Corvette in Legends, called the CR92A Assassin class Corvette. Other lighter roles were filled by the Carrack Cruiser, Lancer class Frigate, Strike class Cruiser, and a few more obscure ships (mainly from Comics) like the Imperial-II class Frigate.
Well issue with legends is simply the empire seemingly had every type of ship for every situation some were extermely obscure i think sticking to canon helps the video stick within line of visually known media as of current.
@@andrewperkin7192 True enough. It’s entirely possible with time that more Legends ships will be added into the current canon as well, though how their role and history will change will remain to be seen.
@@CFRF13 I'm always glad when legends things get re used and re worked tie defenders for example being a more rarer ship lead by thrawn
In Legends the Empire even used regular old CR90 corvettes, like Lialic II and Empire Forever. WEG liked them.
@@andrewperkin7192 I wouldn't be surprise if the Rebel have some kind of Executer Super Star Destroyer.
Don't forget the TIE Defender, a starfighter more than match for any Rebel or Pirate fighter.
The TIE Defender had a Hyperdrive, imagine a rapid response force compared of defenders and U-Wings carrying elite Stormtroopers. Whenever the alarms go off, the clock starts to tick for the Rebel alliance.
This video is EXTREMELY well done!
Hope you blow up in subscribers. Info quality is definitely up there with Ekharts Ladder.
I think a lot of people forget about one big advantage the Nebulon B escort frigate had over a lot of these designs: it was a ship with a relatively low cost, that was fairly fast, maneuverable, had quite effective sensors and ECM systems, well armed, armored, and shielded that could easily act as a pocket fighter or other support ship carrier and repair or maintenance facility. More importantly, it had a big advantage that seldom gets mentioned: the empire already tons of them, as the ship design dated from the late republic period, and was still being actively produced until fairly late in the empire's history, and many of it's component parts were already widely found on other craft already in service, meaning they were relatively cheap and easy to repair modify, or return to active service. In it's default configuration, it was also quite well suited for anti fighter, anti corvette, and anti smaller frigate operations, being equipped with a dozen fairly powerful for the ship's size and powerplant turbolaser cannon turrets, another dozen rapid fire laser cannon turrets capable of acting as dedicated anti fighter/ point defense lasers, a pair of capital ship scale concussion missile launcher tubes, and two extremely powerful and accurate tractor beams. The ship also had repulsor lift engines allowing it to function far more effectively in in atmosphere or near atmosphere conditions, as well as a hangar that could carry up to 24 TIE advanced sized or smaller fighter craft, plus a pair of sentinel or lambda class landing shuttles. Exterior docking collars at several points on the ship allowed it to let corvettes, light freighters, and certain other craft dock and even catch rides for transportation, as well as the direct connection of specialty equipment modular cargo or crewspace containers, and more. The ships were also designed with the capacity for long term patrols away from a support base specifically in mind, with many having ample on board storage availabity for food, water, spare parts, and more.
A number of Nebulon b Escort frigates in both imperial and rebel alliance service were modified for roles as diverse as bulk troop transports, systems patrol and interdiction craft, mobile medical or sattelite and ECM support vessels, and more. It's also worth noting that the sheer maneuverability and speed at sublight of the craft for frigates allowed Nebulon B frigates used by the rebel alliance to work in groups of two or four ships, to directly counter imperial star destroyers just with their onboard weapons. Some Nebulon B frigates were even used to tow small space stations and orbital defense platforms like the Gollan II into place.
Even brand new, the empire could buy or build between 17-23 Nebulon B escort frigates for the cost of one imperial star destroyer depending upon the specific type. It was in many ways pretty much the perfect craft for an empire that needed a cost effective, efficient, multi role capable vessel that could fulfill a wide variety of missions effectively.
And instead the empire largely retired them early in favor of imperial I and II star destroyers or a wide variety of fairly cost prohibitive far to limited in number, and absurdly specialized corvette and frigate designs. The rebel allianceironically because of that was quite well position to literally steal, or in some cases directly buy mothballed Nebulon B frigates out of various used ship or scrapyards, and made very effective use of them against the empire.
Thanks for this however really I think for most people this would be a TLDR comment.
Vindicator Class Heavy Cruiser, more interdictor class, Tie Hunter, Nebulon B2, several of the game ships basically. The assault transport and normal transport from the X-wing/Tie Fighter PC game series come to mind.
Great breakdown! I especially love the inclusion of the Gladiator in the list. I run a Star Wars roleplaying game with my friends. They don't have a ton of respect for the ISD, as they can deal with it's limited TIE complement, and then get in close with corvettes and snubfighters where its lack of point defense weapons becomes fatal. The Gladiator, though, despite being smaller and less armed, terrifies them, with plenty of point defenses and a seemingly endless amount of fighters pouring out of it. It's one of my favorite star destroyer designs, and I'm always happy to see it included.
The terror of seeing 1 victory-2, a venator, 2 interdictor and 3-4 arquilen or Raider plus escort could have easily being terifying in the idea how can you defeat such good balance fleet. The early rebel alliance fleet we see during rogue one would have possibly be screw the moment they arrived. All this would be close to or a little over 2 ISD class and would be more cost effective for the lessent number of loss.
The Rebel Fleet would still give the well balanced fleet more than a bloody nose.
I agree, the Empire's downfall was in not incorporating smaller, faster support vessels with their ISD main ships. Yes, am ISD might deter a planet or system to stop their rebellious people, but if each ship came with a slew of support ships that acted as pickets to the larger vessels, they could have lasted longer. Venators, Carrack cruisers and the like could have been a better alternative to the just build big doctrine.
Surprised to not see the Lancer class frigate on this list, I guess it hasn't made the jump to the new cannon? It was pretty much a hard counter to the rebels' reliance on fighters and if I remember right some of the Rogues figured the only reason it didn't save the empire was that too few came in to service to late to salvage things. Adding a few of them as an escort to a fleet along side a CAP of TIEs pretty much eliminated "Trench Run Syndrome".
Yup, this would be #1 on my list. #2 would be TIE Defenders. They weren't produced in nearly the numbers they should have been... TIE-D's should have been the primary space superiority fighter of the Empire.
@@Madwand99 even tie interceptors would have made a world of difference, though, the tie hunter, my beloved, should have been THE imperial starfighter
I personally really like the Vigil Corvette for the empire 255 meters long, class 2 hyperdrive a few hundred crew and costs a couple million credits with a pair of twin heavy turbolasers and half a dozen laser cannons plus a tractor beam, not offical info but in empire at war they can also carry a few tie fighters aswell.
Would also add the Nebulon-B frigate to this list. In fact in the old pre-Disney canon, the Nebulon-B was originally designed for the Imperial Navy.
I think that part is still canon, but I could be wrong.
@@TheeGreyGalaxies Haven't seen anything in the new canon that would indicate this in the materials I've seen - books and the Rebels show only had Nebulon-Bs being with Rebel factions, while the Imperial Navy is still stuck with the same formula of Star Destroyers and TIE Fighters.
Great video! However, one of the things that has always bothered me about Star Wars' ships is their prices. If an LAAT costs 85,000, how can the Raider corvette cost a mere 3,000,000 to 4,000,000 and an Imperial class star destroyer only 150,000,000?
I know that I'm being boring and introducing real life into a fantasy setting, but... given its armour, complexity and weapons could increase its cost to the square of its current cost, or more. That would also make building smaller, less complex, less heavily armoured ships far more affordable.
Apologies to those I've offended or bored!
it does sound a little crazy at first, but think about the current closest equivalent we have. compare a F35 fighter at just shy of 80 million dollars per plane, compared to the cost of a Freedom class LCS (essentially a Corvette), at 362 million per ship, the ratios are actually pretty generous when comparing to a modern analogue.
@@TheeGreyGalaxies Maybe... I'll think about it.
The New Republic's Nebulon Class Star Destroyer. If the Empire decided to research and create advanced warships, this would be the result. Also, you forgot about Thrawn's Tie Defender fighter ships.
This was really well done. Kudos to you
Lancer is the one that comes to the forefront.
I do believe the laat could fly in space. As it had seals on the bay doors
It cannot. It’s in the name.
@@dimitris2936 In the Clone Wars cartoon, we see LAATs disembarking from Venators in orbit over Muunilinst, and flying down to ground level before disembarking troops and vehicles.
@@tbotalpha8133 That’s a fair point. So they could in legends at least.
Just found your video in my recommendation feed. Hope to see more from you!
I'm a Gladiator fan, much prefer it to the Venator class myself.
The biggest problem with the Empire's doctrine was that it relied so heavily on the ISD's operating on their own as a kind of jack of all trades rather than as an anchor point for a battlegroup or flotilla. Pair it up with some of these smaller vessels that can cover its bases and suddenly your fighting ability goes up dramatically. Hell, even just pairing a Venator with an ISD would make them far more effective given the Venator is at heart a carrier and the ISD a battleship.
I always enjoy seeing the Republic Gunships and Venator Star Destroyers.
Speaking of bloated crew complements, one bit of lore I'd love to hear explained is how the Rendili Dreadnaughts required a crew of 16,000. What would sixteen thousand people even DO to operate one capital ship?
Tartan class, carrack, raider, cr92a are underated imperial ships.
Raider I - people look over its 4 double turbolasers matching the firepower of the standard cr90, plus concussion missles and 6 laser double cannons. I imagine that the hangers of the corvus are an ungrade and the standard raider doesn't have that. Instead, it uses the extra reactor space to equip maybe 1 to 3 more double laser cannons on the underside.
Tartan - literally a better lancer. Same size and armament, but is fast, matching starfighters in speed. Lancer is very slow, limiting its effectiveness.
Carrack - can be outfitted to be a capital or corvette killer or another anti starfighter frigate. Is fast too like the tartan. Very well protected
Cr92a - probably most underated. Is dedicated war ship when compared to the cr90. Is modular, having 8 implacements (a mix between quad lasers and double turbolaser). Has proton torpoes. Is fast and well protected.
Lancer has a better point defense vs bomber though.
The Imperial Navy is the classic case of preparing for the previous war. The Clone Wars had plenty of capital ship fights, but The Rebellion had few capital ships. Even after getting rid of the Venator, i'm pretty sure any one of us could design something more useful than the ISD.
Could you make a video on what the Empire could have done with their fighters, like the TIE variants, etc.? That would be interesting. Thanks for this video, by the way. Very Entertaining and informative.
Good breakdown! Im looking forward to more starwars ones & Similar breakdowns for other science fiction
More Gozanti patrol vessels would help maintain Imperial presence across populated worlds. Drop out of hyperspace, launch 4 TIE fighters, monitor how a planet is operating. Are Trade vessels being inspected? Are proper protocols being obeyed? Make random inspections on various worlds.
Maintain a fleet of a hundred thousand Gozanti craft performing operations like those across the Galaxy, and you ensure that the population will know that it’s being observed.
The weirdest part about ISDs are how damn fast they are. Honestly ISDs are great as the flagship of a fleet because they can keep up with their corvettes a full speed and still provide turbolaser coverage to protect them from other capital ships. If I had a fleet it would need to be pretty big. Some lancers maybe, CR22s, a CR20 for consular stuff, Imperial Nebulon frigates as maybe a medical frig/support ship, a couple of dedicated carriers, an ISD, 2 Victory 1s and 2 Victory 2s, 2 Dreadnoughts and 2 Arquetins and finally 1 Interdictor and 1 Broadside for those sweet sweet boron missiles to ruin a mon cal cruiser's whole career.
No mention of the Vindicator cruiser? I suppose that it was more of an equivalent of the Gladiator but still a very nice escort cruiser that was quite well armed and shielded!
Or the Strike Cruiser - modular, quite simple to retrofit to different types, small crew, quite heavily armed and shielded for a ship it's size? Nice list!
I was surprised not to see the Strike Cruiser listed. At least in Legends sourcebooks it was always listed as one of the great "no so secret" weapons of the Empire.
Yeah, the Strike Cruiser is a very effective cruiser (for a ship it's size) with a decent armament and shielding. The modularity of it made it a lot more versatile, and the switching of modules could be done very quickly. They were also very cheap to produce and could be built quickly. It also had a very small crew (compared to other Imperial ships of it's size) so was clearly more efficient to operate.
The Acclamator had ability to land and deploy troops and cargo directly onto a planet, without the perilous and inefficient mode of sending small LAATs and similar dropships. Exactly what you need to deliver an occupation force.
TIE Defender. One way to defeat X-wings is to simply out-X-wing them. If they'd have funded Thrawn's little side project instead of the DS1, the Rebels would've run out of snubfighters real quick.
problem with the defender was its price-tag. you could build 10 standard ties for the cost of a single defender, and we all know how the empire liked their canon fodder programs...
@@TheeGreyGalaxies Fair point, but you could build 47 sextillion TIE Defenders for the cost of one Death Star.
Approximately.
@@andyb1653 fair point.
@@andyb1653 it would be funny if the rebels made a fighter to out-defender the Defender.
@@merafirewing6591 The X-treme-wing...?
Another good ship on this list would be the vindicator class heavy cruiser.
so if the empire really wanted to win the war, they should have let Thrawn be in charge of the navy. Thrawn was a genius and could have easily destroyed the rebel alliance given proper materiels
Lancers should have been #1 on this list
Well, Luthan took care of 7:38 ship 😂🥃🔥
the Interdictor cruiser for obvious reasons, the Imperial Nebulon-B as interpreted by Fractalsponge would have made another very effective patrol craft and convoy escort. the Tie Hunter and Tie Defender both specifically designed to deal withe Rebel Starfighters. the Lancer-Class Frigate would make another fantastic Flak Boat useful against pirates and for use in Venator Carrier battlegroups or convoy escort. Another opton worth consdiering would also be to keep the very low crew CIS ships especially the Recusant-Class Frigate which didn't even need a crew at all as there where plenty of them up for grabs and no reason not to use them other then poltical and ideological ones. in fact simply reusing the huge emounts of droid from the CIS in backwater systems would have been avery effective cost-cutting measure and avoided putting living beings at risk as well. Mixing droids with livng crew or troops instead of an all droid force would be a GREAT force multiplier espeically in out of the way areas with low populations and proabbly very boring posts.
I'm going to agree with the Venitor, not that they should have necessarily kept making them so much as just kept them around. Imagine having 2-3 Venitors along with 1 star destroyer instead of 2 star destroyers, heck keep some of the separatist ships around too as they frequently had more guns and armor though less fighters than the Venators.
of course the biggest difficulty with replacing Imperial-class star destroyers with smaller ships is the need to provide a much larger number of warship commanders, and to trust them not to go rogue
true, but smaller ships are typically commanded by less-than-captain ranking individuals so you don't need to flood the imperial navy with captains and admirals for these smaller ships. commanders and LT commanders would flip the bill, especially with smaller craft like corvettes.
@@TheeGreyGalaxies even so, in a navy which already has a culture of distrust and surveillance, that's a lot more officers that need to be vetted by Imperial Intelligence and/or the ISB because they have command of a ship with a hyperdrive and the supplies to go on extended patrol (or drop of the grid entirely for a couple of months)... considering that the empire disliked giving their fighter pilots access to such amenities as hyperdrives or even landing gear as a means of forcing them to come back to base, placing enough trust in that many junior officers to have them command hyper-capable corvettes would be difficult for the existing culture of the imperial navy
An ISD could make sense in the form of the heart of a sector response squadron but the way it was deployed in universe as the mainstay of the Imperial fleet means that its potential was wasted since it was deployed into roles that it was simply neither designed or suited for.
Surprised the Lancer wasn't mentioned.
I believe if naboo manufactured their fighters for the republic, the empire would've found them superior to the tie fighters and would have to use something more effective.
If i would be the Empire - i would use a combo between Gladiator-Class / Arquitens-Class - both Ship Hangars filled with Tie Interceptors/Tie Defenders ( as replacement for the Tie Fighter/Tie Bomber ). And only a small amount of Imperial Star Destroyers - only as Flagships or so.
Pretty solid analysis.
I would however like to point out the absence of the Quasar-Fire cruiser/carrier. 1.75mil credits, 340m long, class 2 hyperdrive, and carried 8 squadrons of fighters(96 total). We have seen them several times in things like the Rebels series, TIE fighter comic, Alphabet Squadron book, etc.
Not including fighter accompaniment, a Quasar-Fire escorted by 2 Arquitens would only cost about 10mil credits and could still handle any rebel/pirate threat up to a capital ship. Perfect for “peacekeeping” while still being able to put out overwhelming force.
Great Video, right up there with Eckardsladder etc. :)
Instead of using ISDs they could have had more Gladiator class ships and be more of a threat.
Insanely well produced video for a channel of your size. To be honest I was expecting the mic quality of a Fortnite kid in his mom's basement but the fact this is as well made as channels with 500k+ subs has got to be a good sign. Keep it up bro, I'd love to see more deep dives on Star Wars ships/ lore
One reason to use the 'less efficient' ships in the Empire is that they would be easier to turn rebellious. A venator, if stolen, would be a great boon to rebels. The centralization of authority also underlines a fear that probably ranked higher for the Empire, A warlords period where the de-facto power is decentralized.
This. It's the same argument with the TIE fighter - lacking hyperdrive, an independent maintenance droid, and even landing capability in some versions, it's basically impossible to defect in one as you're utterly dependent on your home base.
Tie Defenders, Tie LA V1s and a metric ton of “gladiator” class ships, maybe backed up by “victory 2” ships. The victory was estimated to be able to 1v1 even MC80 cruisers save maybe the carrier wing. Gladiators could easily 1v1 any rebel ship except the MC80 and were not crew intensive. That and a simple upgrade to the Tie series in the form of the advanced V1 not to be confused with Vader’s advanced X1. The V1 was an all around marginal upgrade in performance but was equipped with shields, life support, a hyperdrive, and could carry secondary ordnance. To top it off the V1 cost a little more than half a T65’s price. Finally the tie defender or “advanced V7” speaks for itself. More firepower and shielding than any bomber while being faster and more maneuverable than any interceptor. Imagine gladiators carrying wings of them. Fortunately for the galaxy, Tarkin and Palpi McScrotumface were immune to ideas that did not involve megalomania.
As an EaW fan, the Broadside Missile Frigate & Tartan Cruiser should also be considered.
The Venator, Acclamator and Raider would have been the best additions. They are much better suited to countering the Rebel's fighters and light warships. The Arrestor would have been good too
Definitely needed to have more corvettes, more dedicated carriers, and more bases. I think Raiders, Venators, & Lancer-class Frigates working together would be far more effective than any ISD.
I second that, with perhaps a Carrack type frigate or 2 of em as a forward picket for the Venator,
The Strike Cruiser. Medium sized, it was a perfect blend of modular capabilities and armaments, and while it's modularity had exposable weaknesses seen early on, these could and were covered for, making for a ship you could have a dozen of in place of any one ISD, that combined had more firepower, could haul more troops, more supplies, were faster and could divide into smaller flanking kill-teams. It's modularity could also make it the de-facto work-horse for the empire - the battle-line version, the cargo version, troop-transport version, the long-range scouting version, the tractor-beam policing version and so on an so forth. This should could easily, in a dozen variants, be the single most iconic vessel in the empire needing only a few bigger capital ships for "what if" capital-fight situations and several smaller designs like Empire-tuned CR-90's or another analogue to them like the Raider and Lancer corvettes - the Lancer for instance was a fighter-craft murdering machine nearly without equal, a squadron of 4-5 Strike cruisers and the same number of Lancers would massacre any rebel group they ran into with grotesque ease.
This is great stuff! Keep 'em coming! 👍
Good video, with a voice that belongs on radio. I sincerely appreciate your diction and pronunciation. Liked and subbed.
It's always funny to see all these unrealistisc numbers star wars lore makes up.
The Venator always comes across as such a perfect ship in these comparisons, you have to wonder what hidden/obfuscated flaws are we missing?
The armor and/or the shields isn't very strong and it had much less firepower than the cis ships.
I think the biggest flaw the Venator had in the eyes of the Imperials is that the ship was kinda a symbol of the Republic, because as a carrier the ship was perfect.
How do you only have 188 subs? I absolutely love your content. I'm glad UA-cam recommended this video. Definitely subscribing! Keep up the hard and amazing work
(I do have one suggestion though, try to make a bunch of videos then upload them. That way the UA-cam algorithm knows people like you and you get a lot of veiws and view time. Thank you!!)
the thing is, the ISD would have faired better in the clone wars, where there were a lot of broadside battles. while the venator would have been an absolutely oppressive force in the empire due to how well it could patrol a sector
What's interesting to consider is that the Empire was inefficient in allocating its resources, but only with respect to the threats we see. Had the empire behaved differently the issues that would have threatened them would change, to some degree.
Lovely video. Will you be a video on imperial ground troops? Such as changes in stormtrooper/ imperial army armaments, doctrine, or vehicles.
maybe someday, the channel is still young and I have a lot of ideas on the boiler plate, I'll add it to my idea list.
Imperial class Gozanti (the one with 5 engines). It could do a lot of low level yeomen work in logistics and small skirmishes.
A few modes on venator class eg shields heavier weapons and it would have more cost effective because they already had them
Thing with Venator SD, it wasn't retired because of "doctrine". It was discarded as a remnant of old, corrupted Republic. Galactic Empire was supposed to be different from both Republic and CIS. Same with Pelta class, LAAT, likely with DP-20 and CR-90.
Gladiator and Raider would fit, however. Not sure why they or similar ship weren't produced more, as escorts for ISD.
For "one ISD for thousands of systems", pretty sure Empire would barely cover all those systems even if it managed to produce a ship for each system. Plus unlike ISD, lesser ships would be more vulnerable to direct assault and destruction. All Empire needed to do (and what it likely attempted) was to cover key systems, ones with important economies or serving as "hyperspace lane crossroads". Tax just those and you control lots of economy. Rebels can hide on frosty moons all day, it won't matter if they can't actually strike any significant target (plus you have Vader and inquisitors to seek and destroy anyone actually dangerous in hiding). Insufficient amounts of smaller ships made it easier for smugglers and fighters to do their jobs, however, which is where Raider and Cantwell would help.
but under that logic, wouldn't they have also gotten rid of the acclamator, the arquitens, the Gazonti, and the Dreadnought as symbols of the old? all served well into the imperial era and were heavily utilized.
@@TheeGreyGalaxies if those Gozanti and Arquirens were heavily utilized, then there's no real issue with lack of support ships for ISDs, no? It's more likely that ISDs did have ships to serve as their escort, but left those escorts behind or didn't have them joined in a first place. More fault of imperial fleet structure than of "lack of some ubership that would save the Empire"
Major problem is that Empire was never going to deviate from the tarkin doctrine or case of bigger is better when it came tio main capital and smaller ships it relied on in regards to naval warfare and were always doomed to failure. However even if they had changed things up, their weakness in fighters vs those of the alliance would syill have cost them dearly in any engagement.
If Palpatine had seen the intrinsic flaws of the Tarkin doctrine after the loss of the DS 1 and instead of building dozens of new SSDs and the DS 2 listened to Admiral Thrawn and ordered the production of a few million TIE Defenders then the Rebellion would have been slowly but surely chocked to death with every engagement.
@@AnonD38 Oh totally, if the empire had massed produced tie defenders from the getgo for a couple of years before Yavin, then certainly the rebels superiority in starfighters and ability to use hit and run tactics would be greatlynullified.
It was astonishing how much First order copied Tarkin's doctrine. They raised ships in qualities but again Supremacy lead 1 super - battleship + 30+ Resurgents. Nothing learned from Admiral Thrawn or Admiral Ackbar
No frigates, Corvettes, gunships, freighters, smaller destroyers. Only Resurgent and Xyston.
Here's a theory (which is likely true). Most vessels that are either cruiser, frigate, or support ship size are used in large numbers by the Empire but we hardly hear of them so widely mentioned because they are overshadowed by the Star Destroyers.
Even in lore, (Canon wise though I think this goes for Legends) The star destroyer was seen a peak in career to be stationed aboard or to command. Support vessels weren't so much if not frowned upon.
But back to the star destroyer overshadowing them. Much like the Navies of ww2, where you almost always heard of battleships, because they were the beefy boys that brought the firepower to the table and were used as common propaganda pieces (Bismark and Terpitz being common german pieces and Britain having their own which I forgot the names of). They overshadowed almost all other support vessels. I'd even say the Bismark overshadowed the U-boats which were among the major heavy hitters for the german navy, atleast these are my thoughts from hearing school history.
Again, in todays time, in the US Navy, we'll think of the aircraft carriers because they are the big boys that bring in a form of heavy support that overshadows most other ships and since the US has placed the battleships in dry docks for lack of use in our current era (given war on terror and lack of conventional wars), the Aircraft carriers retain the major attention.
This is a common theme in the real world as well. Battleships were replaced with entire fleets of destroyers and corvettes which were far cheaper to build and man but also easier to train crews for as the crew requirements themselves were much smaller. Overall the cost of operating a single battleship is many many times that of a fleet of destroyers. The empire really should have known that. Too bad the bad guys must always fail horribly.
This channel will grow like wild-fire if they keep the quality this high
Yes in the x wing vs tie fighter games the empire had a more armored version of the corellian corvette and nebulon B frigates are empire system patrol escorts.
I've always wondered what it would be like if the U-wing was designed with drop-in/drop-out modules.
Need a QRF transport? The base version we see has you covered.
EW support? Replace the troop compartment with a section full of scanners and jammers.
CAS module with heavier "door" guns and ground-attack munitions.
Heck, you could make a module that's just racks and racks of missiles. Don't need to dogfight or worry about low firepower when you can just spam missiles from range.
ISDs make sense for the Emperor's plans for defense against a threat from beyond the Rim.
I do hate the Empire, however...
Cantwells for system protection, full fighter compliment.
Venators for mobile fighter carriers.
Arquitens with a larger fighter wing area.
Lots of Gladiators, 120 starfighters base, would help.
Some kind of Hyperdrive equipped starfighter.
And LOTS of LAAT's. LOTS. That is one fine transport.
Acclimators would especially help that LAAT compliment!
The problem with the system defense is that 10,000+ systems per ISD.
The Super Star destroyers were intended to be mobil fleet bases.
They were the right ships,the Empire didn't build enough or use the ones they had properly.
Personally I would loved to have seen the Harrower - class dreadnought, along with the silencers
I think the Ton-Falk-class Escort Carrier would have been a nice fit for the Empire, letting them carry alot of Tie Fighters and Bombers.
The ISD should have been kept as the core of a multi ship battle group, operating with several cruisers, frigates, a fighter carrier and smaller ships
The Gladiator-class star destroyer was reworked by KDY from the Support Escort role of the Republic to the anti-piracy brawler we see now. They cut back the fighter complement to just what they thought it would need for that mission role. Also 300 anti-warship missiles taking up a bunch of room.
So, am I the only one who remembers Interdictor cruisers?
Thraw tie defender project gave birth to one of the greatest, well could have been the greatest vessel and fighter the empire had due to the fact it was stated in Cannon is superior to every version of Tie Fighter. with the six heavy cannons, four missile launchers, shielding, and Hyperdrive. it was by far was the most perfect vessel there was, and one of them alone nearly defeated the rebellion during an early stage of the Civil War. it literally took Hera quick thinking to destroy this one tie defender. It truly felt like the project was shut down out of spite for thraw By Tarkin. because it stated multiple times Tarkin despise thranw, because thrawn was better than Tarkin in every way.
I personally would of used the Acclamator class star destroyer as it is a fantastic troop transport / supply ship and can deploy every type of ground force including a full size base very quickly combine that with the Venator class star destroyer as a carrier and the victory one class star destroyer and your pretty much sorted and I believe that all three are cheaper than an ISD.
great content this video is great its as good as some star wars youtubers who have 100k subs great job
This was an interesting video, thanks for sharing!
If the Tarkin lead UPS - he'd be trying to deliver packages with only a 747 and a hand cart.
If the Empire had switched in large numbers from the TIE Fighter over to Admiral Thrawn’s TIE Defender design with heavy cannons, missiles, hyperdrive, and shields, the Rebellion wouldn’t have stood a chance.
It was expensive so a mid ground
Also don't forget there will be a matter of time until the Rebellion makes a fighter that can best the TIE Defender.
@@merafirewing6591 Not sure that the Rebellion has the resources needed for the massive R&D that would have required. Plus, the Defender wasn’t cheap; You’d have to think that the Rebel version would have been too expensive to keep up with the Empire ship-for-ship.
@@griergentry8777 also they would eventually learn how to counter it anyway. Just that it will be an even more challenging opponent.
Fenomenal video!!!
The LAAT could absolutely be used as a strike aircraft and was
For the 546 I’ve heard reports saying the it was roughly 550-600 meters long.
The Venator will always be my favorite SD, but its always good to see the Arquentins (ugh spelling) and the Gladiators get a mention.
If they had gotten some of the advanced prototypes of Tie Fighters into actual production; like the Tie Defender would definitely have made a huge difference.
Just like everyone else, I thought that the ISD looked awesome. But, it just looked to dang big! It has so much mass and the guns are so small! I know it's supposed to have a lot of guns but none of the movies ever really give the feeling of scale for the number of guns it's supposed to have. Either the guns should have been bigger or someone should have been drawing a lot more little red lines on the film.
There are three ships that I can think of that you haven't featured here.
The first is the Nebulon-B Frigate. It was so easy to manufacture and was so effective against both fighters and capital ships alike that it would've been a real game-changer. It was, after all, designed to be a convoy escort ship and you'd be hard-pressed to find a group of Rebels who were crazy enough to attack a convoy that was defended by these ships. The reason that it wasn't used much was the fact that it didn't really fit the Tarkin Doctrine as it didn't look all that menacing despite how great a ship that it was. The Rebels demonstrated this as the Nevulon-B was their principal capital ship type during the Galactic Civil War. Remember that the Rebels only got the MonCals much later in the game. For many years, the Nebulon-B was the biggest and baddest capital ship in the Alliance Navy.
The second was the brainchild of Grand Admiral Thrawn, the TIE Defender. Thrawn had Sienar Fleet Systems very excited about the prospect of producing this ship because it would've been the only Imperial TIE that could rival the mighty B-Wing when it came to firepower. It was faster and more agile than the B-Wing but, of course, the B-Wing's shields were an order of magnitude more potent than those of the TIE Defender. Still, it wasn't the B-Wing that broke the back of the Imperial Navy (well, except for at the battle of Endor where B-Wings ate ISDs for lunch), it was the X-Wing, a fighter that was clearly inferior to the 3-winged TIE.
You mentioned the Corellian CR90 Corvetter but, as you like to show footage from Empire at War (and who can blame you, that game is AWESOME!), the Empire had their own equivalent to the CR90 in the Tartan Corvette. They could've just built a whole slew of those instead for probably far fewer credits than they'd have to pay for the CR90.
Other thoughts:
I'm pretty sure that "Arquitens" is pronounced "Ark-it-tens".
It's not as bad as when I heard Eclhat's Ladder call the Lucrehulk the "Loose-re-hulk". Man, that was grinding on the ears! LOL
The Empire wouldn't lose as long as Old Palpy and Vader is alive.
Imperial strategy was probably to have a battle-line that appeared 'undefeatable' against most foes, and if consolidated into fleet action would be competent against a surprise robot/clone army. Pirate interdiction and customs enforcement wasn't big - navy's problem, that'd be the local garrisons responsibility, and dealing with that on the ground makes for a vastly smaller space to have to regulate. Having the biggest ship yards, and fielding the biggest ships, ups the buy-in price for resistance that wants to try and stand against the navy or worlds that would openly revolt.
Losing reputation every time a rebelling system or Hutt manages to knock over a frigate just doesn't play well if you are portraying yourself as a unexhaustable juggernaut.
I think smaller starship would of help the the empire win the war against the rebellion such as Tartan-class patrol cruiser,
hmm yes the carriers misused by the space wizards are obviously a problem, not the space wizards with no military training. for best results the clone wars venators and their air groups were actually very well set up for policing actions. arc170s and other clone wars fighters have their own ftl drives. so venators could actually cover the space isds were asked to. they just park somewhere and sortie arc170 squadrons out to patrol various routes through their sectors.
There are a few ways to combat the incompetence of the Imperial Navy.
One of the biggest things they could have done without too much effort is to put just a little more money into the TIE fighter. It's ridiculously cheap as it is, but if you add shields, a single ion cannon, and a third engine, you have one of the best fighters available. The shield generator doesn't have to be the biggest/best, just enough to not die immediately from any simple mistake. The ion cannon is there to soften up larger targets, and the third engine is there to keep the speed/maneuverability advantage that the fighters were supposed to have. Speed would likely increase by a third or so, and the cost would be likely fifty percent more than the standard TIE. Still no need for a hyperdrive, though I certainly can see the uses. Wouldn't really need the other variants then, would you? (though the Defender is awesome)
A slight redesign of the Lancer-class frigate would make a lot of sense, as they would keep the pressure off of the ISDs. Though having a few more point-defense cannons on the ISD would be welcome, too.
Having a number of small craft - like the Skipray blast boat - designed to keep up with fleeing craft and stop them from escaping would be ideal for most anti-pirate missions. Having them paired with the Venator (which is one of my favorites) just seems like good sense.
After that, the usual needs - Interdictor comes to mind immediately, as does simply *more* of everything - can come slower, so long as they get there.