Imperial Assault Shuttle image - Rise of the Mandalorians mod for Star Wars: Empire at War: Forces of Corruption
The Empire has fallen and a New Republic is born out of the conflict. But in the ashes of civil war, yet another life stirs...
A variant of the familiar Lambda-class shuttle, the Assault Shuttle is equipped with some degree of light stealth technology in addition to an assault umbilical affixed to the ventral side of the craft. The attaching end of the umbilical was lined with razor-sharp and durable corusca gems, which although extremely rare and expensive, where able to cut through the armored hulls of even capital-class starships. Due to the rarity and high cost of the gems, the assault shuttles were not produced in high quantities, most being reserved for use by the Shadow Knights, when the dark Force users were sent on missions to covertly destroy high priority targets.
According to Legends canon, this ship is a bit larger than it's Lambda counterpart but the size never seemed to make sense to me, when reading the ship's description. We all know Star Wars is full of scaling discrepancies anyway... That said, it will be the size of a regular Lambda-class in the mod.
In-game, the ship merely acts as a transport for the Shadow Knights and Dark Jedi heroes of the Remnant. However, I really want to include boarding action as some kind of ability for this ship when used in space battles. I am working on a system for that now... Will update with videos after successful testing.
Looks beautiful. The empire symbol on the top wing looks nice, will it stay white or will it become team color?
Since this unit is primarily a Galactic Conquest thing (only used to deploy dark Jedi in skirmish) it actually has no team colorable areas.
I completely forgot that lol
Anyway, its looking great! Cant wait to see it deploying units on the battlefield!
Now this is a novel concept for EAW. I love the concept and your design is beautiful, but it seems like it couldn't possibly carry enough troops to take over a capital ship... Will boarding only be an option for smaller ships like frigates? Or could you potentially target a capital ship with multiple assault shuttles?
The standard Lambda-class holds at least 20 passengers with additional room for 6 crew members. Since the ship is a specialized variant, having a specific gunnery officer and engineer aren't entirely necessary. In fact, a Lambda can be crewed by a single person if necessary and in this case (infiltration role vs transport) having the same crew configuration doesn't make a lot of sense. Maybe a pilot/copilot and comm officer. That frees up space for additional passengers.
Now, take into account that these aren't just stormtroopers on board but Dark Jedi and other highly specialized infantry (Nova Troopers, Shadow Troopers, insert elite unit here) I'd say that a passenger count of 25 or so is more than enough to take any ship.
Why not 4 to 6 s̶p̶a̶c̶e̶ ̶m̶a̶r̶i̶n̶e̶s̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶t̶e̶r̶m̶i̶n̶a̶t̶o̶r̶ ̶a̶r̶m̶o̶u̶r phase 3 darktroopers that would be able to take direct blaster hits while not being vunerable to explosive or gas weapons.
Dark Troopers won't be in the mod. They weren't really around in 24 ABY. Dark Jedi can just pull a Phantom Menace and hold their breath while deflecting shots though, I guess.
Ah, okay, I could see that. I guess I was thinking of the old days when ISD's carried thousands of ground troops and assault vehicles by default.
25? Are capital ship crews really that small or incompetent?
25...force users and highly trained special forces. Even if it were 5 dark Jedi and 20 spec ops troops, I'd say that were plenty to take a ship.
Looks beautiful, but seems uncomfy to land it. :s
You raise a very good question, maybe the umbilical retracts so it can sit flat beneath the shuttle?
It's never really addressed in canon but my head canon just says that it has modified landing skids that allow it to land normally, it just sits higher off the ground than a regular Lambda.
stunning
Couldn't you equip the Imperial Assault Shuttle with the same "capture" ability that Chewbacca uses in order to "capture" vehicles?
This would be less flashy than the Zahn Consortium's "bribe" ability and unlike the Emperor's "Corrupt" ability which affects an area, the "capture" ability is individualistic, just like a boarding party would be.
That's one idea on the table, for sure
Do you want the unreleased v4 build of AGD? Iirc that included working space vehicle boarding via Chewie's ability.
I don't necessarily need the entire build but if you have the XML code for an example unit, that'd be cool. Just PM it to me.
Hmmmm. Went digging for it and I can't find the build. When I do will pm it.