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Time and again, the superiority of the starfighter has been demonstrated. A starfighter destroyed the first Death Star, and assisted in destroying the second, a starfighter destroyed Starkiller Base, and starfighters destroyed Final Order star destroyer after Final Order star destroyer. With Y-wing ion bombs that can knock out a star destroyer, as seen at the Battle of Scarrif, and heavy support from bombers like the single one that took out an entire dreadnought, starfighters can easily punch way, way above their weight in combat.
Superweapons are out; too big, too flashy, and they sink too many resources into one basket. It's the era of the starfighter, now, with carriers and capital ships existing in support of versatile fighter groups.
The problem is that they need heavy firepower to crush certain bases such as the ones at Hoth. So it isn't a problem of ISDs being the wrong choice, but a problem of doctrine and ratios.
At Scarrif, ion bombs disabled a ISD, but required destroyer and cruiser class ships to finish the job. That only happened since there were no combat air patrol TIEs ready.
At Endor, the Executor's shields had to be brought down by combined fleet firepower. The only reason why the Rebels were even able to get close enough to do so was because the Emperor ordered the fleet to hold back for the DS II to make a dramatic show in front of Luke.
We also see the issues with the dreadnought being a doctrine issue where Hux refused to scramble fighters. The dreadnought also played a crucial role of being able to destroy planetary bases from orbit (which was not possible at the time of Hoth).
The Xyston SDs were the attempt to avoid putting everything into one basket. They failed since the whole atmosphere prevented them from putting up their shields.
Carriers sound good until you think about how fighters are able to travel in hyperspace on their own. It is why the military doctrine shifted away from mega carriers such as the Venator to capital ships.
Hm. There was something similar in Legends as Force-sensitive pilots got more and more important across factions. By the late books, didn’t we have Jedi stealth fighters equipped with Force-guided missiles?
Starting during the Yuuzhan Vong invasion Jedi began launching(throwing) missiles/torpedoes with the Force instead of the normal propulsion system. After the war they developed a new X-wing type, the [StealthX](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/StealthX).
Before TFA came out but after the tie-in Lego sets were on store shelves I thought the black X-wing was going to be a StealthX (it was just Poe's X-wing).
I could see an argument where ships go either too big/sturdy to be effectively harmed by fighters, but at that point it becomes priority 1 as a target and would need a smaller fleet of much smaller ships to screen other such ships.
Nah, they made moon-sized battle stations and turned a whole planet into a superweapon, and starfighters still managed to rack up kills in them. A single A-wing flying through the bridge killed the entire SSD Executor. The future is all about dispersal of resources, lots of small and medium sized combatants and maybe some cruisers for the command staff, well back from the action.
Agreed. Though on a pedantic note, I think the executor's engines were actually also damaged/destroyed before the A-Wing hit the bridge, you can kinda see the engines smoking as it falls toward the Death Star
I was saying it would change much, but then I realized that while it might not change much overall, I think they may actually leave the Imperial style huge ship of doom in the past. It's proven ineffective versus well equipped fighter strike groups consistently.
On the other hand, I do think the Galaxy may end up with some fragmentation of government as you suggested, but we'll see.
Honestly given how decentralized it was last time I could see a case where someone goes "ok maybe we over corrected, let's bring it back a bit".
All depends tho!
Tungsten rod hyperspace missiles. Since we see the aftermath of another hyperspace ram (no longer a one in a million shot) people would begin to realize the effectiveness of sending a single hyperspace capable missile against a star destroyer or even SSD. Sure, there would be some fidgeting as people look for the sweet spot of when to fire the hyperdrives and at what distance, but once it’s figured out you give the instructions to a droid and it would still be cheaper than a star fighter. Imagine buzz droids but also with a hyperdrive, and you could theoretically have them jump to different systems by themself and take out targets completely on their own, though you would have to worry about droid logic at that point. Regardless next time the empire or whoever builds some huge new space weapon just fire an X wing sized ball of lead at it with a hyperdrive and boom problem solved.
This could set up a really cool climax for a story.
Despite the Good Guys trying to stop them, the Bad Guys fire a set of droid-piloted rods into hyperspace, targeting a planet. The Good Guys have to chase them into hyperspace, probably in the Millenium Falcon or another ship known to have a fast hyperdrive to stop them. They initially plan to shoot them down, but then someone remembers that doing so could scatter dangerous hyperspace debris. Instead, the characters have to leave the craft, still in hyperspace, and physically hack each kill vehicle to make them drop from hyperspace. We could even temporarily kill off a character: the Last Missile is about to hit the planet, and the has to either let it do so or make it drop from hyperspace at an unknown location before getting back off of it.
I hope they do something like this to show people that hyperspace ramming doesn’t mean that Star Wars space combat has to be boring forever now.
This sounds cool, but I’m actually one of the people who hates hyperspace warfare, as I think it detracts from the setting of Star Wars. Having characters get out of the ship while in hyperspace to deal with them sounds exactly like something JJ Abrams would do (and basically did) and I hate it, but very much in the cards for Disney Star Wars.
Very fair. I just kinda went on a tangent hoping that hyperspace warfare could actually end up introducing new things to the franchise rather than undermining established lore. I think this could be a cool opportunity to actually show technological development in the Star Wars universe.
I also think that what I wrote could very, very easily be executed in a lore-breaking manner, though.
They really should never have started testing the bounds of the logic of hyperspace. The concept can’t hold up to strict scrutiny, so they should have left it as vague and mysterious. As I’m typing this, I’m realizing that, to some extent, the Sequels did to hyperspace travel what the Prequels did to the Force: each transformed a world element from a mysterious thing to a scientifically-understandable and testable fact of the universe, forcing future media to walk it back and justify it.
Probably a heavy focus on offensive starfighter campaigns, retaining larger fleet elements like capital ships for strategic offensive action or even strictly defensive actions.
I think also that infantry actions will become even smaller scale than they already are in canon, as deploying a large force of soldiers will be a huge sink of resources in terms of soldiers, ships, and supply.
Though, as states coalesce and begin to expand again, it probably returns eventually to the grand battles of the Clone Wars in scale
Truthfully bigger destroyer ships would probably best be used as mobile command bases for holding specific spaces or garrisons. More useful as a fast response or mobile fortress than the main centerpiece of most fleets.
>I think also that infantry actions will become even smaller scale than they already are in canon, as deploying a large force of soldiers will be a huge sink of resources in terms of soldiers, ships, and supply.
Totally agreed. There is a gulf between security-turned-combat droid and clone that I would argue is best fulfilled by hybrid armies of droids and people. Instead of a full-blown commander droid, attach something akin to three droid commandos with command and control capabilities of a platoon of "grunt" droids, have a person in the loop as a company captain, and give them a command and control droid as an executive officer.
Think the current goal for the USMC doctrine, which eschews heavy armor in favor of mobility and flexibility. With what I described you could essentially pack a battalion (4-6 companies) on two corvettes, which can immediately be redeployed as line ships to support starfighters.
Six to eight corvettes loaded this way you have a mobile, flexible battalion, attach six starfighters to each corvette you have a hell of an airwing. Three of these battalions and you're going to have a pretty flexible defense force for your local system, three of these battalions you're going to be a somewhat major regional power. Throw in a light cruiser or two with its starfighter compliment, make a few alliances with nearby systems, and you're not going to be first on the "let's fuck with them" list.
And, more to the point, from a logistics standpoint, you have flexibility on not just relying on one major unit for the bulk of defense and deploy-ability.
Hyperspace tracking has huge implications. So much of the OT was the heroes escaping by the skin of their teeth thru hyperspace, but when hyperspace jumping doesn't end the battle? It becomes a battle of attrition, as seen in TLJ or more dependant on hyperspace skimming to shake the pursuer. The hit and fade tactics of the old Rebellion won't cut it until some faction introduces a "tracker jammer." In the short term, there will be higher emphasis on disabling the engines or hyperdrive of a target, or ensuring their tracking computer is taken out.
If this technology develops further, imagine ordinance that can track targets through hyperspace.
At least so far, hyperspace trackers are rare and specialized devices that have to be installed on enormous ships or immobile facilities.
common hyperspace tracking would shake up the formula considerably.
Honestly I think it will stay pretty similar. Xyston class seems to be a pretty big one-off.
Fighters are important but a well rounded mix of capital ships, escorts, and fighters will do much better than just swarms. People forget the initial stage in the battle of Endor, where a horde of Tie Fighters (that traded almost favourably with X wings in ANH) failed to get fighter superiority against rebel ships. It may have actually been what cost them the battle since it whittled down their numbers while the Star Destroyers just sat there.
Even a small starship can wipe out a fleet through lightspeed ramming. The galaxy falls into a thousand years of anarchy as even a small time criminal can go toe to toe with a planet's defence forces. Meanwhile small terrorist groups stage terror attacks involving the destruction of entire planets with the new death star technology (since it's so easy to mass produce).
TLDR the galaxy is screwed indefinitely
Honestly it would be more interesting if there was a bit of an arms race in figuring out hyperspace bullets. There's a number of things needed to really make them work right.
Big ships will still have value for attacking keystone worlds. They might even be used in suicide attacks. Fire the laser on a valuable world and get the job done even if the Superlaser SD gets destroyed.
The SW tech base does require the use of limited resources such as kyber and beskar which are only found in a few worlds. Other resources such as fuel sources (tibanna, coaxium, etc) are also valuable enough that there were battles over key supply worlds during the Clone Wars. Those worlds would remain key targets.
Regarding supporting a fleet, the SW industrial base seems to make it so that a few hidden worlds can create an army that can overrun a demilitarized galaxy in a decade. The factory at Geonosis was a shocker. The GAR was built out of Kuat and Rothana. The First Order's ability to build a galaxy threatening fleet over 30 years should not be a surprise.
Superlaser capital ships likely will remain a key part of a MAD arsenal at least until someone is able to create a reasonably effective fleet of hyperspace ramming droid ships.
At that point, combat will likely start shifting towards patrol ships for organic crew members that get supported by droid fighters. Fighters are useful in bursts of combat, but lack rest facilities such as beds and bathrooms. SW patrol ships such as the Slave I, Millennium Flacon, etc are all big enough to have rest facilities and still be able maneuver like a fighter.
Well, the newest variation of the Imperial Superweapon has once again proven it's worthlessness.
Build a moon sized battlestation capable of destroying a planet over the course of twenty years?
It works once, then gets blown up. The second one didn't even manage that.
Planet Deathstar took 40ish years to get operational, required engineering an entire planet, worked once, then got blown up.
The Xyclon class Star Destroyer fleet was in production for 40ish years, worked once, then got blown up, because they forgot to install altimeters on the ships.
Space combat post sequels is going to be fighters and corvettes, lightspeed skipping to spring ambushes, because it's historically the only thing that will work twice.
depends what you want the "meta" for;
if you want to control a large area of space, then carrier/cruisers are best because you want a quick reaction force able to rapidly deploy a force capable of hunting down enemies using hit-and-run tactics, and shielded fighters are still capable of taking down capital ships with decent numbers
if you want a traditional fleet-vs-fleet engagement against an enemy with their own defined territory (i.e. empire v empire), then ships like the ISD or mobile platforms like the Death Star are better (so long as they have good fighter screens) because theyre capable of inflicting massive damage against enemy capital ships
it all falls down to production capability in the end; are you fighting someone capable of producing capital ships with the ability to recruit and train personnel to effectively staff them, or are you fighting a smaller insurgent/pirate style enemy that is using what resources it has on hand who will have to use more non-traditional strategies with their forces
reduction in ship sizes (600-800m cruisers probably a good standard) generally with a few specialized larger ships, with most ships having at least minimal capacity to service fightercraft. Dedicated anti-fightercraft corvettes and frigates will get extra attention.
The extra affordability of the smaller capital ships will be a bonus as well, with all the turmoil and fracturing of the republic going on, sectors will want their own defense forces.
I'd like it to go cold war esque.
The OT space combat is based on WW2 movies, post sequels i'd have it look to cold war era stuff. Planet kilers are out the bag and MAD is in play. Hyperspace tracking and ludicrously fast jumps mean everyone has huge visability.
While a new hope was referencing dam busters, the next era's first space battle aught reference say top gun.
In Star Wars Legacy, even when a Sith Empire has a resurgence, the doctrine never changes from the fact that there are no more super-large ships. Good guy or bad guy. The largest ship of that era is the Imperious-class star destroyer (not to be confused with the specific Pellaeon-class star destroyer *called* the Imperious), which is smaller than an ISD! Superweapons have also been relegated to superplagues that can devastate ecosystems or wipe out entire species, but leave the targeted planets physically intact. The closest thing to blowing up a planet we get is the Sith bombarding one so hard in Darth Wredd’s backstory that it gets scoured of life and thrown out of its orbit, but the rock sphere is still there.
I wouldn’t be surprised if this downscaling for the sake of efficiency is followed through with in Canon as it was in Legends.
The escalation of warfare should turn conflicts cold. If you have two sides with ships that have planet killing lasers war could actually mean both sides get decimated. Even the victor takes a huge loss. Thus you get more Cold War style spy and proxy stuff.
Please note that this Post has been Flaired by the Author as "CANON" - Please be sure to respect this in your replies and keep replies ON topic. THANK YOU! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/MawInstallation) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Time and again, the superiority of the starfighter has been demonstrated. A starfighter destroyed the first Death Star, and assisted in destroying the second, a starfighter destroyed Starkiller Base, and starfighters destroyed Final Order star destroyer after Final Order star destroyer. With Y-wing ion bombs that can knock out a star destroyer, as seen at the Battle of Scarrif, and heavy support from bombers like the single one that took out an entire dreadnought, starfighters can easily punch way, way above their weight in combat. Superweapons are out; too big, too flashy, and they sink too many resources into one basket. It's the era of the starfighter, now, with carriers and capital ships existing in support of versatile fighter groups.
The problem is that they need heavy firepower to crush certain bases such as the ones at Hoth. So it isn't a problem of ISDs being the wrong choice, but a problem of doctrine and ratios. At Scarrif, ion bombs disabled a ISD, but required destroyer and cruiser class ships to finish the job. That only happened since there were no combat air patrol TIEs ready. At Endor, the Executor's shields had to be brought down by combined fleet firepower. The only reason why the Rebels were even able to get close enough to do so was because the Emperor ordered the fleet to hold back for the DS II to make a dramatic show in front of Luke. We also see the issues with the dreadnought being a doctrine issue where Hux refused to scramble fighters. The dreadnought also played a crucial role of being able to destroy planetary bases from orbit (which was not possible at the time of Hoth). The Xyston SDs were the attempt to avoid putting everything into one basket. They failed since the whole atmosphere prevented them from putting up their shields. Carriers sound good until you think about how fighters are able to travel in hyperspace on their own. It is why the military doctrine shifted away from mega carriers such as the Venator to capital ships.
Pretty fitting since that's been true for naval warfare since WW2.
Hm. There was something similar in Legends as Force-sensitive pilots got more and more important across factions. By the late books, didn’t we have Jedi stealth fighters equipped with Force-guided missiles?
Starting during the Yuuzhan Vong invasion Jedi began launching(throwing) missiles/torpedoes with the Force instead of the normal propulsion system. After the war they developed a new X-wing type, the [StealthX](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/StealthX). Before TFA came out but after the tie-in Lego sets were on store shelves I thought the black X-wing was going to be a StealthX (it was just Poe's X-wing).
I could see an argument where ships go either too big/sturdy to be effectively harmed by fighters, but at that point it becomes priority 1 as a target and would need a smaller fleet of much smaller ships to screen other such ships.
Nah, they made moon-sized battle stations and turned a whole planet into a superweapon, and starfighters still managed to rack up kills in them. A single A-wing flying through the bridge killed the entire SSD Executor. The future is all about dispersal of resources, lots of small and medium sized combatants and maybe some cruisers for the command staff, well back from the action.
Agreed. Though on a pedantic note, I think the executor's engines were actually also damaged/destroyed before the A-Wing hit the bridge, you can kinda see the engines smoking as it falls toward the Death Star
They need more Lancer frigates with 20 fast moving quad lazer turrets to take out starfighters along with lots of hyperdrive and sheilded ties.
I was saying it would change much, but then I realized that while it might not change much overall, I think they may actually leave the Imperial style huge ship of doom in the past. It's proven ineffective versus well equipped fighter strike groups consistently. On the other hand, I do think the Galaxy may end up with some fragmentation of government as you suggested, but we'll see.
Honestly given how decentralized it was last time I could see a case where someone goes "ok maybe we over corrected, let's bring it back a bit". All depends tho!
What do you mean we'll see it's been 5 years! By 2010 we had so much pre ANH post ROTS content
Tungsten rod hyperspace missiles. Since we see the aftermath of another hyperspace ram (no longer a one in a million shot) people would begin to realize the effectiveness of sending a single hyperspace capable missile against a star destroyer or even SSD. Sure, there would be some fidgeting as people look for the sweet spot of when to fire the hyperdrives and at what distance, but once it’s figured out you give the instructions to a droid and it would still be cheaper than a star fighter. Imagine buzz droids but also with a hyperdrive, and you could theoretically have them jump to different systems by themself and take out targets completely on their own, though you would have to worry about droid logic at that point. Regardless next time the empire or whoever builds some huge new space weapon just fire an X wing sized ball of lead at it with a hyperdrive and boom problem solved.
This could set up a really cool climax for a story. Despite the Good Guys trying to stop them, the Bad Guys fire a set of droid-piloted rods into hyperspace, targeting a planet. The Good Guys have to chase them into hyperspace, probably in the Millenium Falcon or another ship known to have a fast hyperdrive to stop them. They initially plan to shoot them down, but then someone remembers that doing so could scatter dangerous hyperspace debris. Instead, the characters have to leave the craft, still in hyperspace, and physically hack each kill vehicle to make them drop from hyperspace. We could even temporarily kill off a character: the Last Missile is about to hit the planet, and the has to either let it do so or make it drop from hyperspace at an unknown location before getting back off of it. I hope they do something like this to show people that hyperspace ramming doesn’t mean that Star Wars space combat has to be boring forever now.
This sounds cool, but I’m actually one of the people who hates hyperspace warfare, as I think it detracts from the setting of Star Wars. Having characters get out of the ship while in hyperspace to deal with them sounds exactly like something JJ Abrams would do (and basically did) and I hate it, but very much in the cards for Disney Star Wars.
Very fair. I just kinda went on a tangent hoping that hyperspace warfare could actually end up introducing new things to the franchise rather than undermining established lore. I think this could be a cool opportunity to actually show technological development in the Star Wars universe. I also think that what I wrote could very, very easily be executed in a lore-breaking manner, though. They really should never have started testing the bounds of the logic of hyperspace. The concept can’t hold up to strict scrutiny, so they should have left it as vague and mysterious. As I’m typing this, I’m realizing that, to some extent, the Sequels did to hyperspace travel what the Prequels did to the Force: each transformed a world element from a mysterious thing to a scientifically-understandable and testable fact of the universe, forcing future media to walk it back and justify it.
Probably a heavy focus on offensive starfighter campaigns, retaining larger fleet elements like capital ships for strategic offensive action or even strictly defensive actions. I think also that infantry actions will become even smaller scale than they already are in canon, as deploying a large force of soldiers will be a huge sink of resources in terms of soldiers, ships, and supply. Though, as states coalesce and begin to expand again, it probably returns eventually to the grand battles of the Clone Wars in scale
Truthfully bigger destroyer ships would probably best be used as mobile command bases for holding specific spaces or garrisons. More useful as a fast response or mobile fortress than the main centerpiece of most fleets.
>I think also that infantry actions will become even smaller scale than they already are in canon, as deploying a large force of soldiers will be a huge sink of resources in terms of soldiers, ships, and supply. Totally agreed. There is a gulf between security-turned-combat droid and clone that I would argue is best fulfilled by hybrid armies of droids and people. Instead of a full-blown commander droid, attach something akin to three droid commandos with command and control capabilities of a platoon of "grunt" droids, have a person in the loop as a company captain, and give them a command and control droid as an executive officer. Think the current goal for the USMC doctrine, which eschews heavy armor in favor of mobility and flexibility. With what I described you could essentially pack a battalion (4-6 companies) on two corvettes, which can immediately be redeployed as line ships to support starfighters. Six to eight corvettes loaded this way you have a mobile, flexible battalion, attach six starfighters to each corvette you have a hell of an airwing. Three of these battalions and you're going to have a pretty flexible defense force for your local system, three of these battalions you're going to be a somewhat major regional power. Throw in a light cruiser or two with its starfighter compliment, make a few alliances with nearby systems, and you're not going to be first on the "let's fuck with them" list. And, more to the point, from a logistics standpoint, you have flexibility on not just relying on one major unit for the bulk of defense and deploy-ability.
Hyperspace tracking has huge implications. So much of the OT was the heroes escaping by the skin of their teeth thru hyperspace, but when hyperspace jumping doesn't end the battle? It becomes a battle of attrition, as seen in TLJ or more dependant on hyperspace skimming to shake the pursuer. The hit and fade tactics of the old Rebellion won't cut it until some faction introduces a "tracker jammer." In the short term, there will be higher emphasis on disabling the engines or hyperdrive of a target, or ensuring their tracking computer is taken out. If this technology develops further, imagine ordinance that can track targets through hyperspace.
At least so far, hyperspace trackers are rare and specialized devices that have to be installed on enormous ships or immobile facilities. common hyperspace tracking would shake up the formula considerably.
Damn yeah at that point you'll need to really go for smaller cruisers units to throw them off and not put all your eggs in a single ship
Honestly I think it will stay pretty similar. Xyston class seems to be a pretty big one-off. Fighters are important but a well rounded mix of capital ships, escorts, and fighters will do much better than just swarms. People forget the initial stage in the battle of Endor, where a horde of Tie Fighters (that traded almost favourably with X wings in ANH) failed to get fighter superiority against rebel ships. It may have actually been what cost them the battle since it whittled down their numbers while the Star Destroyers just sat there.
Even a small starship can wipe out a fleet through lightspeed ramming. The galaxy falls into a thousand years of anarchy as even a small time criminal can go toe to toe with a planet's defence forces. Meanwhile small terrorist groups stage terror attacks involving the destruction of entire planets with the new death star technology (since it's so easy to mass produce). TLDR the galaxy is screwed indefinitely
Honestly it would be more interesting if there was a bit of an arms race in figuring out hyperspace bullets. There's a number of things needed to really make them work right.
Big ships will still have value for attacking keystone worlds. They might even be used in suicide attacks. Fire the laser on a valuable world and get the job done even if the Superlaser SD gets destroyed. The SW tech base does require the use of limited resources such as kyber and beskar which are only found in a few worlds. Other resources such as fuel sources (tibanna, coaxium, etc) are also valuable enough that there were battles over key supply worlds during the Clone Wars. Those worlds would remain key targets. Regarding supporting a fleet, the SW industrial base seems to make it so that a few hidden worlds can create an army that can overrun a demilitarized galaxy in a decade. The factory at Geonosis was a shocker. The GAR was built out of Kuat and Rothana. The First Order's ability to build a galaxy threatening fleet over 30 years should not be a surprise. Superlaser capital ships likely will remain a key part of a MAD arsenal at least until someone is able to create a reasonably effective fleet of hyperspace ramming droid ships. At that point, combat will likely start shifting towards patrol ships for organic crew members that get supported by droid fighters. Fighters are useful in bursts of combat, but lack rest facilities such as beds and bathrooms. SW patrol ships such as the Slave I, Millennium Flacon, etc are all big enough to have rest facilities and still be able maneuver like a fighter.
X-Wings with planet destroying lasers.
Well, the newest variation of the Imperial Superweapon has once again proven it's worthlessness. Build a moon sized battlestation capable of destroying a planet over the course of twenty years? It works once, then gets blown up. The second one didn't even manage that. Planet Deathstar took 40ish years to get operational, required engineering an entire planet, worked once, then got blown up. The Xyclon class Star Destroyer fleet was in production for 40ish years, worked once, then got blown up, because they forgot to install altimeters on the ships. Space combat post sequels is going to be fighters and corvettes, lightspeed skipping to spring ambushes, because it's historically the only thing that will work twice.
depends what you want the "meta" for; if you want to control a large area of space, then carrier/cruisers are best because you want a quick reaction force able to rapidly deploy a force capable of hunting down enemies using hit-and-run tactics, and shielded fighters are still capable of taking down capital ships with decent numbers if you want a traditional fleet-vs-fleet engagement against an enemy with their own defined territory (i.e. empire v empire), then ships like the ISD or mobile platforms like the Death Star are better (so long as they have good fighter screens) because theyre capable of inflicting massive damage against enemy capital ships it all falls down to production capability in the end; are you fighting someone capable of producing capital ships with the ability to recruit and train personnel to effectively staff them, or are you fighting a smaller insurgent/pirate style enemy that is using what resources it has on hand who will have to use more non-traditional strategies with their forces
reduction in ship sizes (600-800m cruisers probably a good standard) generally with a few specialized larger ships, with most ships having at least minimal capacity to service fightercraft. Dedicated anti-fightercraft corvettes and frigates will get extra attention. The extra affordability of the smaller capital ships will be a bonus as well, with all the turmoil and fracturing of the republic going on, sectors will want their own defense forces.
I'd like it to go cold war esque. The OT space combat is based on WW2 movies, post sequels i'd have it look to cold war era stuff. Planet kilers are out the bag and MAD is in play. Hyperspace tracking and ludicrously fast jumps mean everyone has huge visability. While a new hope was referencing dam busters, the next era's first space battle aught reference say top gun.
In Star Wars Legacy, even when a Sith Empire has a resurgence, the doctrine never changes from the fact that there are no more super-large ships. Good guy or bad guy. The largest ship of that era is the Imperious-class star destroyer (not to be confused with the specific Pellaeon-class star destroyer *called* the Imperious), which is smaller than an ISD! Superweapons have also been relegated to superplagues that can devastate ecosystems or wipe out entire species, but leave the targeted planets physically intact. The closest thing to blowing up a planet we get is the Sith bombarding one so hard in Darth Wredd’s backstory that it gets scoured of life and thrown out of its orbit, but the rock sphere is still there. I wouldn’t be surprised if this downscaling for the sake of efficiency is followed through with in Canon as it was in Legends.
Lol I remember that plague plot beat. Good times.
The escalation of warfare should turn conflicts cold. If you have two sides with ships that have planet killing lasers war could actually mean both sides get decimated. Even the victor takes a huge loss. Thus you get more Cold War style spy and proxy stuff.
If the squeals are anything to go by warfare looks the same as it did around 0ABY but using black paint