MC80 Home One Size

the Mon Cala city-ship and the "trap" of thinking it's the same size as the Liberty

There's no Home like One

One thing that sets Mon Calamari ships apart from all others is how each one is unique unto itself. Unlike the copy & paste mode of the Empire where "familiarity breeds compliance", every Mon Calamari ship felt like a different home. Even for the same class of ships, the exteriors might have different weapons, or the interiors would have different compartments. Often, these variations represented what the captain or commanders wanted. However, a lot of these design changes were actually caused by the Empire.

Wait, what?

Well, when the Empire attacked Mon Cala and drove the Mon Calamari out of their homeworld, they took their homes with them. Essentially, their homes were their ships. Entire underwater cityscapes looked like a collection of MC80 cruisers all sitting vertically across the sea floor. Of course, lifting off wasn't as easy as hitting the ignition switch. Yet, the Mon Cala were incredibly smart and resourceful; they knew the Empire was coming. So, converting their cities to star cruisers seemed the best way to be prepared for their eventual exodus.

The result, every ship felt like home in a way. It was as unique as the families and culture it carried. And Home One was no different. Acting as the flagship of the Mon Cala fleet and later Rebel Fleet, Admiral Ackbar's cruiser was as a city. Water-filled tubes ran throughout the ship acting as passageways for the Mon Cala. In the center was a giant atrium complete with a lake and vegetation from Mon Calamari. Additionally, she carried 20,000 tons of cargo, 2 years of food, and over 5,000 crewmembers. Two passenger shuttles, the size of smaller cruisers, could detach from the upper hull. Three massive hangars, interconnected and sandwiched between the upper and lower hulls, could field over 100 ships including large shuttles and freighters.

A Ship to Hanger Out With

Before we look at measurements, it's worth noting that the Home One has 3 visible hangars based on the ILM and subsequent models. There are 2 on the port side, and 1 on the starboard side, which seems a bit larger than the other 2.

In every instance I'm aware of, we only see ships coming and in and out of the starboard-side hangar. I would imagine that this is the primary hangar for larger ships, whereas the 2 port-side were only for starfighters. Regardless, don't assume what you see of the starboard hangar applies to the other side.

Mon Cala Fleet
Home One ILM Model
Home One from Rebels
Home One Cross Section

"Not A Scratch"

Between Return of the Jedi and Ahsoka, we know of 5 large ships that can fit in the starboard hangar of Home One: the Millennium Falcon, the shuttle Tydirium, the Ghost, an Eta-class shuttle, and Ahsoka's T-6 Shuttle. Of those, we only have sequences of 3 of them either leaving or landing: the Tydirium, the Ghost, and Ahsoka's Shuttle. All of them have plenty of room to land without a scratch.

Lambda-class shuttles:

T-6 shuttles:

  • 22.8 meters long (canonical length)
  • 31.76 meters wide when landed (estimated based on measuring Mel's Miniatures 3D print)

The Ghost:

  • 43.9 meters long (canonical length)
  • 34.2 meters wide (canonical width)

Bear in mind that the canon length for the Home One is about 1300 meters.

Shuttle Tydirium leaving
Ahsoka’s T-6 Shuttle arriving
T-6 Shuttle landed
Ghost landed
Ghost leaving

A lot of Estimates

OK, stay with me because this is crazy. You have to take a lot of steps to estimate the length. The first issue is that the Blueprints use the full-size set and estimate the wing length/height. This results in longer wings and a shorter cockpit angled more downward. On the other hand, the ILM model has shorter overall wings and a flatter/longer cockpit overall. For curiosity, the Blueprints suggest 17.7 meters long, and the ILM model canonizes 20 meters long. I'm including both here to create an estimated range.

Step 1 - determine the height of the Tydirium Shuttle

Step 2 - determine the shuttle height from belly to top (gear in)

  • ILM model shows 18.5 meters & Blueprints show 20.44 meters

Step 3 - determine height of hangar from RotJ still based on shuttle height

  • the hangar should range between 34.19 meters to 37.77 meters

Step 4 - determine width of hangar and length of ship based on hangar height

  • if the hangar is 34.19 m high, then the ship is 3019.4 m long
  • if the hangar is 37.77 m high, then the ship is 3335.6 m long

"It's a Trap"

So, there's a lot of issues with my estimates above. Firstly, I'm using software to estimate how many pixels each ship or object is. I'm using 2 different shuttle sizes that vary significantly. Also, I'm using a forced-perspective shot of the shuttle. And, I'm assuming it's lined up with the hangar. Oh, and I hate math too.

That's a lot of assumptions.

However, I redid these estimates several times using different pixel points of the lines.

I estimate it ranges anywhere from 3000 meters to 3500 meters.

So, why do I use 3200 meters for scale estimates? Well, it's an easy number to use. It still fits some estimates from blueprints. It also fits the Empire at War game. And, 3200 meters makes it shorter than the newer MC85 Raddus, which I imagine it would be shorter.

Other Homies

Home One did make an appearance in the game Empire at War, where it was shown to be the length of 2 Imperial Star Destroyers.

In the game X-wing: Alliance, you see the Rebel Fleet with a Home One-styled ship called the Defiance. From the side perspective, the Defiance seems enormous, but it's hard to tell how far away other ships are.

The "Rebels" Scale

Rebels concept art gives us one fly in the ointment. It shows the Home One being around 1900 meters, 300 longer than an Imperial Star Destroyer.

How is this wrong?

Well, a 1900 meter ship would make the hangar 63.5 m wide, barely big enough to fit the Ghost, much less both the Falcon and Imperial Shuttle. This is where you have to look at the screenshots and think how such a small hangar could fit everything.

The second pic on the right shows the Micro Machine MC80 Liberty vs the Armada Home One, both are scaled to each other almost perfectly if you assume the 3200 meters. So, what do you think?

Rebels Home One
Micro Machine vs Armada

6 Comments

  3. As an amateur 3d modeler, I had built a Home One for a game mod. Based on sizing of the imperial shuttle, and the bridge conference room, I also came up with a 3200m at the time. Later I did a similar analysis as you, coincidentally using many of the same images (prior to finding this site). Again, I came up with 3200m. So, it seems that 2800-3600 (which I’ve seen in other places) is an appropriate size range.

    • Awesome. Thank you for sharing that. It makes me feel better knowing others came to the same conclusion.

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