Imperial SD versus Venator SD image - Rise of the Droid Empire mod for Star Wars: Empire at War: Forces of Corruption

Well i guess if you scaled up the Venator and modernized its weapons fighters ect. you would be right but over wise the Imperial Star Destroyer stomps being twice the size and having modern equipment. If you were to look it up online you would probably find the ISD would beat the Venator.

But then again, due to its smaller size, the Venator is more agile and harder to hit if I'm not mistaken, thus giving it another advantage over the ISD, as long as the ISD doesn't use its tractor beam.

Even if it is smaller , the Venator is not that much of an agile ship.

it was fast enough to chase down blockade runners though

I mean the Venator.

All ISD IIs were outfitted with auxiliary command bridges located deep in the main super structure.

Good job on giving negative karma for someone who just made a case for one part in the discussion that's based on facts and documented sources. Typically the internet to do such a thing.

the main battery have longer range than hull mounted guns so as long the venator keep secondary guns on the ISD out of range

GCW upgrades like the mon calamari cruisers
they need to be rebuild not refited XD like a venator in order to kill a ISD 1

modernized venator vs a Liberty class is auto win for the venator if they vere fitted whit same tech like tripple layers shields

if a Liberty class was a mach for the ISD 1 then a venator mark 2 (GCW refit) then yes I think so if they keep the range needed

at point blank range ISD 1 ofc even tho the venator have Heavy proton torpedo and a unknown amount of Turbolaser cannons hull mounted secondarys
the ISD have 60 turbolaser that are hull mounted that are Taim & Bak XX-9 and 60 Borstel NK-7 ion cannons

vs starfighters the venator is the best it got
Point-defense laser cannons 52 ISD 1 non
and it have the best starfighers and the numbers

It doesn't say anywhere the Venator has longer ranged guns than the ISD does, on the Venator the wiki says that it has 8 long range heavy turbos, the ones on the side of the bridge, and that they equal the firepower of the main batteries (also 8 guns) of the ISD. The ISD has 60 TLs and 60 ICs in addition to this, while the Venator has mainly anti fighter weaponary. It cannot in anyway outgun, outrange or outmaneuver a ship that has that much more firepower. That and there is no data on which ship is faster, so we can't say that it could outrun the ISD even if it tried.

Also the fighter complement of the Venator is made irrelevant by the fact that the Venator itself (the mothership) will be destroyed long before the fighters will be able to do any decent damage to the ISD. As it can't run if it engages the ISD its doomed from the start. 60 ion cannons tear through shields pretty quick and then the many other weapons of the ISD can easily dispatch a 1.1 KM sized frigate. Only the 36 ARC 170 fighter/bombers that the venator could carry could pose a problem after the Venator itself is destroyed. All the rest are just fighters with laser cannons, which aren't going to do anything vs an ISD. And with about 75 turbolasers in total firing at those 36 bombers they'd eventually shoot them all down. If I could pick which vessel to command in this battle, I would without a second of hesitation pick the formidable and utterly devastating ISD. There's a reason it's the successor to the Venator after all. ;)

If the Venator could get under the ISD's belly then it could rip it to shreds. That and the SPHA beam.

The Venator seems to have more powerful sublight engines than the ISD. It is also smaller, presenting a smaller target and carries more fighters. the ARC-170s were the primary fighters carried by the Venators, which had a rear-gunner and a torpedo load to serve as a bomber as well as a heavy fighter. They also had shields. This means they could both outnumber the TIEs and not have much of a weak spot with the rear gunner and shield generator. Once they had taken care of the TIEs, what is left of the fighters can drop their torpedo and bomb payload onto the weakened shields of the ISD (from combat with the Venator) and crush them. After that the Venator would have the advantage even if it didn't have the SPHA beam. Also, only a few ISDs had proton torpedo launchers, while Venators were fitted with four of them. The Venator would lose its shields first, being weaker than the ISDs, but the torpedo tubes would be all but untargetable as they don't project from the hull as turrets do. The Venator might be damaged enough it can't go to hyperspace, but it would have a 65% chance of victory against an ISD.

With a grand total of 149 turbolaser cannons pitched against the venator? Once its shields go down it'll be ripped appart, those 60 TLs are duals remember? And they're of the heavy variant. Regardless of how many fighters the Venator has it'll be ripped appart once its shields go down in just a few bursts of the ISD due to pure raw firepower alone. The venator is destroyed, this much is certain. It's wether or not the ISD survives that's up for debate. The Venator sadly has a 0% chance of surviving the encounter.

Winning doesn't necessarily mean surviving. If the goal is to destroy the ISD then it will still win. And if it was outfitted with the SPHA like other Venators toward the end of the war then it would take out the ISDs shields and tear it apart before its own shields fell.

Let's agree on this.
Without SPHA, the ISD destroys the Venator with only a slight ammount of damage taken.
Without SPHA with fighters, the ISD destroys the Venator and the fighters have a 50-50 chance of destroying the ISD.
With SPHA, the ISD will take heavy damage but has a 50-50 chance of giving the Venator damage.
With SPHA and fighters, the Venator destroys the ISD and has a chance of taking some damage.

This entire story is nonsense, here is why:

The SPHA is only usable if the ISD is in a very specific position, on the bottom of the Venator. In this position, the venator isn't able to use ANY of its weaponary besides the SPHA and whatever weapons it's got mounted on its belly, which isn't much. The ISD on the other hand will be able to fire for full effect. In this case, it'll target the hanger, the weakest spot on the Venator and it'll break in about 5 seconds of sustained fire.

If the ISD is in any other position, the SPHA is not usable, but other weaponary can fire at the ISD. This is sadly still not enough, as it's missing its strongest weapon, the SPHA.

The DPS of the ISD is so much greater than that of the Venator that it stands no chance by definition, the only issue are the fighters, which have even lower DPS but are hard to kill with turbolasers alone.

This is how the battle would go:
Both ships deploy squadrons.
Both ships start firing at the other vessel, squadrons engage.
TIE squadrons gets obliterated by supperiour numbers, meanwhile shields on the Venator are already down because of 60 ion cannons firing for full effect.
While the bombers try their hardest to take out critical weapon systems on the ISD, the ISD can finally bring all the descructive firepower of its turbolasers to bear on a single ship, that in less than a day can also liquify a planets surface. (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Base_Delta_Zero)

Though the ISD is taking more and more damage from the bombers, it's completely blown off the bridge of the venator class and is nibbling away at other pieces with its 149 turbolaser cannons. Shortly after, the Venator is utterly wasted while the ISD is getting bombed from all sides by bombers. (ISD armor is far heavier than that of the Venator, the ISD is known for heavy armor but weak shields)

What happens after that is pretty much up to how well the turbolasers can hit the bombers. In any scenario the Venator is either blown in 2, reduced to an empty carcass, or simpely blown up. As I mentioned, the ISD may eventually get worn down by the bombers, after which those have no place to go, but that's really up to accuracy. If surviving does not equal winning, but winning equals destroying your opponents mothership, than the ISD has a 100% chance of winning at any situation, while the Venator has always less than 100%, which makes it inferiour by definition.

The ISD also has twice the reactor output, which certainly indicates its shields are a magnitude stronger than the Venators.

Upgrade to the Imp Star Deuce, and those 4 octuplet heavy turbolaser turrets on each side of the command structure would annihilate the outdated Venator in a minute.

ship to ship the Venator will lose for deferent but it would lose but it would win due to the fighter complement. The ISD 1 and 2 carry far few fighters to compete with the Venators fighters, and as proven in real life warfare and in the SW universe fighters rule

The dominance of planes in naval combat does not apply to Star Wars, seeing as all ships are shielded and have generally proficient point-defense systems.

While the ISDs carry less fighters, that doesn't mean they carry worse. TIE fighters alone are more than a match for any Clone Wars-era starfighters, and have proven this by being able to go toe-to-toe with X-Wings, which are leaps and bounds ahead.

This doesn't even take into account Star Destroyers present in later years, where some under control of the New Republic, such as the Allegiance, carry letter-winged fighters, and the Imperial ones outfitted with advanced star fighters such as the interceptor, defender, and others.

Fighters will always rule, unless you have a strong anti-fighter defence most battleships will take damage. The Rebels proved this, it took down 2 death stars with fighters, and god knows how many SD's and help take down a few SSD's. ISD's are battle ships and there weakness is over reliance on heavy weapons that are not able to hit a fighter precisely. The Tie's were just meant to cannon fodder and were meant to overwhelm the enemy which is half the reason why they lost the GCW

Well you just proved that the venator stands no chance.

"ISD's are battle ships and there weakness is over reliance on heavy weapons that are not able to hit a fighter precisely."

Exactly, which is why the venator would be dispatched without much effort.

The Rebels took down the first Death Star with a one-in-a-million shot by the galaxy's stronger force user, using a weakness that took years to find. And even then, that barely worked.

The Second Death Star was incomplete, and had a gaping hole, serving as an access shaft, going strait to the main reactor. And still, it took a commando raid and the entirety of the Rebel fleet to assault the DS2.

Excluding Rogue Squadron, which never flew off a Venator, it is very rare for starfighters alone to take out a Star Destroyer. It took thousands of coralskippers coupled with a yammosk to destroy the Star Destroyer at Helska IV. ARC-170s would be canon fodder for the much, much faster TIE fighters, and any other GAR starfighter wouldn't be able to scratch the shields.

A squad of B-wings bombers took down 2 ISD's during the battle of endor Starwars.wikia.com
its simple, who said its not ARC's fighting. Bombers take out the ISD, Intercepters take out the fighters and bombers other due to overwhelming no. of fighters from the venator, According to this Starwars.wikia.com
it could carry over 100 intercepters and 36+ ARCs where at best a ISD could carry 72 tie series star fighters.
yes without star fighters the venator would be toast against a isd but one can never forget the importance of fighters, thats why the empire lost in the first place (and the ICW as well)

WalkerOfTheSkies, X-Wings didn't have a rear gunner, but the ARC-170s did, and the V-Wings were nearly as agile as the TIEs but shielded. V-19 Torrents are fair game for the TIES but can shoot some down, and the Eta-2s killed just about everything and a few clones were proficient at flying them, even if they didn't have Jedi reflexes.

The point being, yes, the Venator does have a star fighter advantage.

But the advantage is not enough for one to beat a Star Destroyer.

Also, the ARC can't compare to the T-65 X-Wing. Put it up against something like an XJ, and it would stand a snowball's chance in hell.

(Oops, wasn't logged in to post this- Walkeroftheskies)

But remember, it has a rear-gunner AND 100+ V-Wings/V-19 Torrents for support. V-Wings are slightly slower than TIEs, but also have shielding. ARC-170s carry proton torpedoes, and V-19s carry concussion missiles of an anti-fighter caliber. The V-Wings alone will outnumber the TIEs, of which there are only 48. Shields AND numbers AND rockets will make up for slower speeds and less agility, meaning the ARC-170s will have a large payload to take out the shields and then some still to bombard the armor. The fighters will be able to aim for the main turrets and the bridge, ensuring that the ISD is destroyed.

So the ISD wins in a 1v1 engagement. In a more realistic battle there will be several of these ships. In a 5v5 conflict the Venator has a much better chance of maneuvering to use its SPHA and the numerous bombers would easily take down an ISD on their own. I think that when solitary, the ISD will always win, but in battle groups the Venators have a great advantage due to the chance to use their SPHA and the number of fighter/bomber ARC-170s. If it was later in the Empire, the TIE Avengers would overcome the ARC-170s shields and rear gunner, assuring total destruction of the Venator battle group with only a possibility of light damage to just ISD. If we add the usual frigate escort (VIctory-Is and Acclamator-IIs) the missiles of the Victory would easily overtake the Acclamators, which would then turn onto the Venators as space artillery in a sense. No damage to the Imperial battle group.

Sometimes media creates interesting discussions, which is quite fun, pick a side and join the discussion I'd say! ^^

If we're debating which ship is the more powerful then it shows people are interested in the picture, and by extension, your mod.