Size Comparison between the Executor and the Eclipse

[Fetid Corpse]

In the new screenshots at Gamespot, the ecilpse seems enormous compared to the Executor.

 

According to some statistics the Executor was about 1 or 2 kilometers longer than the eclipse but far far thinner.

 

Please could someone clarify this for me

[Darth Anarch]

And the debate rages on...

 

It's an extremely long and convoluted story, but the size of the Executor has been given as anything from 8,000 metres to (I believe) 19,800 metres, depending on the source material. I think the current official size is something like 19,000+ metres. The Eclipse stats were first recorded in the Dark Empire Sourcebook from West End Games and was given as 17,500 metres or something close to that.

 

From the scale of things I'd say that Petroglyph went with the 17,000+ metres size for the Eclipse and something between 8,000 and 12,000 metres for the Executor; at least judging by the relative sizes in the screenshots.

[popcorn2008]

And dont forget, the scale in EaW isnt super exact, because if it was then fighters would barely be visible. So while the scale is enough to make us see the differences in size visually, it isnt accurate to a "T", or in this case a "G" (George Lucas I know... Im pretty clever j/k).

[Fetid Corpse]

thank you very much,

 

oh well, can always edit it in XML

[IonFizzle07]

The Executor's length being considered 8,000 meters is the most rediculous of all. I've seen people stand steadfastly by that length. but it's easily disproven. Watch The Empire Strikes Back, and observe the Imperial Mark I Star Destroyer passing over the Executor's right rear engine bank. The Impstar is 1,600 meters, and it is TINY next to the Executor. If the Exec was 8,000 meters it wouldn't even look that large next to Impstars.

 

Executor is the longest, at I think 19.8km, but is very thin. (though, 'thin' in this case is entirely subjective, as even this 'thin' star destroyer is MASSIVE)

 

Eclipse is second-longest, at I think 17.6km, and is positively massive, like a monolith or something. Terrifying ship.

 

Sovereign (not in game) is around 15km, and was designed to be a higher-production Eclipse. It's still really massive.

 

Yeah, the Executor is misquoted a LOT, but it is without a doubt the longest of any SSD.

[Thrawn]

They're both freakin' huge, that's all I really need to know:D

[jedi3112]

The normal SSD is according to the XWA library 8.0 Km compared to an ISD 2.0 Km. It doesn't really match the movies, and I think the Executor would be around 12-16 Km. I can't imagine an Eclipse being smaller than the SSD though. I think a logical length for the Eclipse would be 28 Km and for the Sovereign it would be 24 Km. However without actually having seen any of these last 2 ships, we can only guess at it. And quite honestly, nearly all the given sizes on any site or in any game are wrong if you compared them to other ships.

[conmanguyler]

dont forget that the executor was vaders flagship it would only make sense to make it larger than the eclipse and better =D

[Admiral Sith]

Watch Return of the Jedi. One of the scenes has an Executor and ISD lined up perfectly, allowing for size comparison. The Executor is exactly 11 ISDs long, or 17.6km.

[Darth Balatu]

The Executor is smaller than the Eclipse, by a good amount. The Executor is between 15km-16km long, while the Eclipse is about 19km long, the Eclipse is also wider than the Executor as well. I has a Superlaser that is capable of cracking a planets crust. The Eclipse is the largest capital ship in the Star Wars Universe, pre Endor and post Endor, it was only surpassed by the Eclipse II, after the first Cloned Emperor was killed, and he had another one comissioned so that it could face the entire New Republic Fleet with no other ships assisting it.

[Jan Gaarni]

The Executors lenght has been a debate in the Star Wars community for a good 10-15 years now. Since 1980 it's lenght has been listed as anything from 4 to 12 times as long as a standard star destroyer. The most commonly used lenght has been 5 times, or 8km, long.

 

The Eclipse-Class' first mentioned lenght, which was also the first time it appeared if memory serves me right, was stated to be around 17km long in the Dark Empire comics. Later publications has taken the Executor-Class' erroneous lenght of 8km which has circulated for many many years and simply stated that the Eclipse is twice as large/long. This in itself is not entirely false, atleast not if you use the term large. The Eclipse does have a much larger tonage value. While it may not be longer, it is definatly wider in most other directions (up/down and to the sides).

 

A few official sources, such as X-Wing: The Bacta War novel and the book From STAR WARS to Indiana Jones, has indeed stated the Executor-Class to be 11 times as long as an Imperator-Class (most commonly known as the Imperial-Class or simply ISD) star destroyer in the mid-90's.

Meanwhile, some of LEC's own games Dark Forces and Rebel Assault II defied the 8km value with their models, pitching them to be around 11 times as large as the ISD.

 

Measurements taken in 1998 of the model used in the movies, aswell as screen photo evidence, makes the Executor to be around 17.6km long. This if you take into account that Kuat Drive Yards built all their star destroyers, big and small since the Imperator-Class, with the same specs for the command tower (meaning, while they may look different, they are built after the same specifications (length, width, depth, etc....)).

 

The same year, StarWars.Com upgraded the Executors lenght to 12.8 km. This is coincidently the same as 8 miles long, suggesting that it's an effort to amend the 8km falacy to only appear as if simply the wrong unit value has been used (km instead of miles). Atleast that's my opinion of it. For whatever reason they did it, the value was further supported in the Behind the Magic multimedia-cd LucasArts released the same year. Still, the 8km falacy did lure its way onto the cd anyway, as you'll find in some places the Executor is stated to be 8km long, and in others it's 12.8km.

 

Roughly a year ago StarWars.com stated they did their own measurements of the model used in the films and ended up with a lenght of around 19km, or 12 times an ISD. It is unknown if they took into account the constant command tower specs, but most likely they did not.

Either that, or David West Reynolds did not make exact enough measurements 8 years ago.

Little info is known on how they came to that conclusion (atleast I haven't found anything), but atleast we know they have measured the model this time.

 

In either case, saying it is 11 or 12 times as long as an ISD is the correct statement and noone can really arrest you for this.

If you use anything lower or higher though then you better be prepared to back it up with rock solid proof.

 

And for those not completly sure how long an ISD is, it's 1.6km, or 1 mile.

 

 

EDIT: Changed typo Dark Comics books to Dark Empire comics.

[ImpElite]

Wow, I guess I'm late for SW History 101..... LOL JK.

 

But really that was cool info.

[Darth_Torpid-PG]

Initially we pretty much went with the 12x Imperial length, and the con tower was measured by the modeler to be exactly the same size. However, when trying to get it to work correctly as a fully functional unit, we found that 12x was just too large to work well in the game, so we lowered it to about 8x. It's still big and impressive, but now functional too With the Eclipse, we went with the measurements found in The New Essential Guide books. Again, we had to scale for playability, but it wasn't as much of an issue since the Eclipse doesn't move like a normal unit - this accounts for the scale weirdness.

 

Also, the Eclipse is on a much lower plane than the Executor, which is lower than the Imperials, so the vertical height can make the scale look off in screen shots as well.

[Darth_Extas]

Intersting thanks for the information! It was all an interesting debate to read.

[Darth Anarch]

Also, the Eclipse is on a much lower plane than the Executor, which is lower than the Imperials, so the vertical height can make the scale look off in screen shots as well.

That's what I thought, but it was good to have it confirmed. Something like the Eclipse participating in combat would have been a little too much.

[Elryc]

Another sort of retcon statement amends that the Executor itself was its own class of ship, larger then remaining SSDs, though this doesn't fly since its sister ship, Lusankya, is listed at 8km long. Apparently the original discrepency comes from a quote where a SSD is stated to be 5 times as powerful as an ISD. However, keeping the size at 8 km caught on because A) a SSD doesn't even carry 10x the weapons of an ISD MkII, and B) a SSD only carries double an ISD's fighter complement. Additionally, the 8km value is useful from a scaling standpoint ingame, as well as a way of making a larger differential between it and the Eclipse's length (listed in the Essential Guide to Vehicles and Vessels at 17.5 km).

[Jan Gaarni]

The 8km caught on cause newer sources kept repeating what the previous source stated, that's the reason why the 8km fallacy survived so long.

And the armament figures of the Executor is low because it was based on the 8km lenght, not the other way around. You mess up one value, you are ultimatly going to mess up other values of a unit.