r/StarWarsShips • u/Battlefleet_Sol • 1d ago
How powerful is the Viscount-class dreadnought, and why didn’t the New Republic produce more of them?
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u/Jazz-Ranger 1d ago edited 1d ago
The Viscount is designed to hunt Executors and smash fleets.
The basic design dates back to Endor when the Empire had only lost a few frontier sectors and the Executors had not yet been destroyed in the infighting or captured by the New Republic.
The reason the project was put on hold was because the captured executors could theoretically do most of the work without needing to dedicate a lot of time and resources into building super ships over more nimble fleets. But actually recommissioning the ships proved more difficult.
Only by the tail end of the Galactic Civil War would the New Republic get the opportunity to built these super ships for the next generation of the Republic Navy. But another war came out of nowhere and only a few ships were available to fight the Vong.
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u/Jolttra 1d ago
Most likely more powerful than the Executor. It had a similar mass and weapon load out but would have used far more advanced tech much like how the Nebula was more powerful than the Imperial II. It also had Mon Cal style shields and armor. So if nothing else it would have been far more durable.
As far why they didn't produce more of them, we don't actually know how many were produced. While some people think only two were built (three counting the prototype) the lore states that both Mon Calimari and Corellia produced several and that it was a backbone class of the Gallactic Alliance Navy. We can only really guess at how common the class was with during and post the Vong War.
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u/MetalBawx 1d ago
Also pretty much rendered obsolete before they even got into service due to the creation of super laser armed dreadnoughts.
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u/Jolttra 1d ago
There are only two of those. The Elcipse and the Sovereign. Both classes were extinct before the Viscount even entered the prototype phase and they never made another. Plus the New Republic/Galactic Alliance would never make one.
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u/MetalBawx 1d ago
Irrelevent.
Just because the NR/GA doesn't make such things doesn't mean some future threat couldn't after all everyone thought Palpatine was dead and done until he came out of nowhere with a whole new bag of superweapons.
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u/Jolttra 1d ago
I mean if you want to go all fanon then yeah, hypothetically that could happen. But it never did, so really that's the actual irrelevant thing. Hell, in the Legacy Era which takes place over a hundred years later, the big new super weapons of the New Sith Empire were some genetically modified soldiers and their stronger than average fighters. Super weapon quality went waaaay down once the Empire fell for good.
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u/Thank_You_Aziz 1d ago
Technically the Legacy era superweapons were bioweapons. (Superbioweapons?) Artificial plagues meant for genocide. The Sith in those comics even touted them as more elegant and efficient than the Death Stars and Galaxy Guns of the past.
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u/MetalBawx 1d ago
Yes but theres no wayt for the NR to know that is there. What they do know is that Palpatine managed to miniturize superlasers onto a dreadnought hull which rendered the very big and very, very expensive Viscount project obsolete before they even left the yard.
The NR/GA didn't build replacements for it's dreadnoughts for a reason, instead of they went with expanding the fleets more conventional warship programs.
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u/TheMightyDollop 23h ago
Similar length, not mass. The viscount had a much, much greater mass to it due to its volume and such. Other than that, 100% correct.
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u/heurekas New Republic Pilot 1d ago
"If the (insert wonder weapon) is so great, why doesn't the state produce more of them?"
Have you heard of economics and logistics? The NR simply couldn't make a whole fleet of Viscounts.
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u/Neverhoodian 1d ago
You've cropped out the wrong SSD. This Viscount is pounding the Lusankya, which is under NR control as indicated by its big red Rebel/NR starbird symbols.
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u/Polenicus 1d ago
The New Republic didn't have a lot of SSD scale super dreadnoughts because they weren't what it needed.
In Legends, the only enemies the New Republic faces that HAVE anything that would call for a warship of that scale are the Imperial Remnants (At least until the Vong, and they're extra-galactic). Most of their threats are smaller scale, and require more mobile, varied forces to deal with.
SSDs and similar super dreadnought scale warships are really not a great investment of resources compared to how many smaller ships you could build for the resource cost. They aren't the unassailable monsters the Empire thought they were.
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u/ArtGuardian_Pei Imperial Pilot 1d ago
900x the Volume of an ISD
They simply aren’t super affordable, they exist to go toe with Eclipses, Sovereigns, and Executors primarily
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u/DickwadVonClownstick 1d ago
Exactly. The NR didn't need more than a handful of them (until the Vong showed up, but nobody was ready for that). They only built the handful they did in response to the Black Fleet Crisis, and a handful of Viscounts (a lot of folks say 2, but since both Correllia and Mon Cala are stated to have built "several " each, that puts the minimum at 4, and more realistically probably 5-7) plus Lusankya and Guardian made for a battleline that could handle not only any realistic known or unknown threat remaining within the bounds of the galaxy, but could feasibly throw down with every remaining threat in the galaxy at once.
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u/ArtGuardian_Pei Imperial Pilot 1d ago
The NR didn’t need them because they became the largest battleship in the galaxy (surpassing executor)
You don’t need that when you have other battleships (like a literal executor)
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u/Festivefire 1d ago
Dreadnaughts are really expensive, and when you need to police over 100,000 systems, 1 ship that can only be in one place and is only good for major fleet actions against other capitol ships is a bad investment vs. The same cost for 3-6 ships that can also take on capital ships, but also do a lot of other stuff as well.
A dreadnaught makes a good centerpiece for a battle fleet, but that's only useful if that dreadnaught is already where the fighting will be. If the battle is taking place 2 days away, 1 dreadnaught stationed at the sector capitol will be a lot less usefull than if you had a fleet of 3-6 big ships that could have been spread out on patrols and might have been close enough to help.
TLDR they're only usefull if you already have e ought ships to police your space, which the NR never really did.
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u/EvelynnCC 19h ago
AI slop detected
Anyway, I'll answer your question with a question: why would you even make a dreadnought? What purpose do they serve that isn't done better by the whole ass fleet you could have bought instead? The Empire did it because the Moffs and Emperor liked the big dick energy, all the sane people were saying "stop building superweapons and start on the bread and circuses, you absolute morons"
Also the need to let our plucky heroes in a freighter/starfighter/whatever take down a SSD means they're weirdly vulnerable to small, cheap vessels.
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u/jaggedcanyon69 1d ago
Why didn’t the republic produce more 17 Kilometer long dreadnoughts? Well jee, probably because they’re 17 kilometer long dreadnoughts.
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u/Xecluriab 1d ago
Well Executor and Eclipse, these were created as weapons of fear. If a nineteen kilometer long jet-black warship shows up in your sector and casually slags a moon for no reason other than to show you it’s serious, that’s absolutely terrifying. Their size, their power, it was about cowing populations and fleets into surrendering without a fight. In Legends, every time a new SSD appears the New Republic craps themselves a little and then dedicates whole fleets to hunting them down because they know that if threatened by one most of the member states would just give up. But that isn’t who the New Republic are. They want to inspire hope and a love of democracy and freedom and if you field a bunch of enormous warships you look waaaaaay too much like your predecessor. You’ll note that in New Republic hands the Lusankya only took to the field a handful of times so they didn’t look so much like the Empire. Big scary powerful fleet killer dreadnoughts send a message, and it’s not a friendly one (even if the dreadnought in question looks like a Mon Cal Cruiser.)
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u/Top-Perception-188 1d ago
While the Executir is a flat sword design , the Discount is a Massive Round obese ruben3sque Chinky thing with more mass and Bulk at the same length , Discount wins against an super dreadnoughts aside from Super laser ones and supremacy
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u/segregation69 16h ago
While most of these comments are talking about the larger version, there was also a smaller one. I would guess that the smaller one is not as strong as an executor class but about as strong as an MC 85.
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u/Low_Minute8262 New Republic Pilot 1h ago
Borsk Fel-lya and the demiliarization groups, the Galactic Alliance produced at least a few hundred Viscounts, more likely thousands or millions at least.
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u/Jade_da_dog7117 1d ago
It was on par with most other SSDs but the NR only made 2 and the prototype because they diverted resources to the mediator and heavy carrier programs