In-Universe History
The Gozanti-Class freighter is one of Corellian Engineering's most successful designs. In parallel a smaller version was conceived called the Spectre-Class. Originally a heavy freighter to fit between the YT-1300 and the Corvette with higher speed than the Gozanti. Rebel engineers eventually discovered that the class was hugely capable as a heavy gunship. The four engines provided enough speed and power to maintain 10 heavy weapons allowing a ship of this size to hold its own against larger ships such as the Arquitens-Class.
Real World History
I have many friends who are military pilots and love Star Wars. As a fun little project I wanted to turn the C-130 into a gunship based on the Spectre Gunship AC-130 that operate globally. I had visions of it flying in orbits above an Arquitens like the specters do in real life. However, this was a hard design to nail down. I knew I wanted to keep the general layout of the nose and the engines, but that was about it. I originally had a more direct-copy of the C-130 but it looked not quite as good. What ended up working out was moving the engines from mid-body to the rear in order to align with the designs of other Corellian Courier/Heavy Freighter designs. That was the easy part.
I actually enjoyed doing the engine emplacements. I made the decision to directly model the Allison engines that sit on a C-130, but without the propellers. I found that they made for a very good in-universe design.
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| Four Burning, none turning! |
Following that I began to do gun emplacements and docking rings. For me, docking rings are a part of the practicality of a design. Ships that exist in space would need a way to connect to each other to transfer supplies and, in more extreme circumstances, perform rescue operations. I actually use the docking ring as a control point for scale. The size comes directly off of the X-Wing Millennium Falcon model. The X-Wing models are all very good to scale with each other and you can easily see the interface between the Falcon, Ghost, and Outrider models. I use that as a critical part of my own design language because engineering brain says they should be there. In later designs, I have started to incorporate them in other locations rather than the side. Critically, docking stations need to have clearance against other items to make it make sense. This became a part of how I ended up placing the guns. I originally wanted to do cannons like the Spectre gunships use, however turret designs made more sense. Turrets on either side of the nose would be able to cover the forward area, whilst twin turrets emplaced on the sides would be able to cover nearly all fields of fire. The only area not covered would be the rear.
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| Sitting on this dock in the bay might be lethal... |
This brought me into doctrine and how these sorts of things would be employed. To me, this weapon system would be employed with a fighter escort. Heavy firepower put against heavier fire power. "Air Superiority" type missions would still need to be handled with a fighter escort. Unlike the Celestial Fire which should be able to hold its own for a bit alone and unafraid, this should be able to take some punishment while engaging in continuous fires against a larger adversary. Given that doctrine, I decided against a tail gun, preferring instead to deploy fighter escorts.
Adding little details are always some of the most fun parts. Paneling are a key part of the Star Wars design since it adds that little bit of hand-built realism. However, Sketchup's limitations were in full effect. The nose area required a lot of curves, and putting paneling on them was almost a non-starter. This design was a large part in my decision to move permanently away from Sketchup to Fusion 360.
Unfortunately, the nose area of the vehicle is rather smooth compared to the rest of the design which tends to make it look less complete or less uniform.
The other little details that I liked to do on this were the access ports taken from the Millennium Falcon, but in this case placed on the pylons leading to the engines. 
These are pretty easy to make consisting of a circle and some basic shapes. Connect them via a line and extrude it vertically and you're done! But they add so much to the design and imply other function. Its no wonder that they were included on the original design.
Finally, needing a name, I looked at the names of real AC-130s and settled on the Ultimate End.
When packaged up, the overall design is pretty good. I wish that I had a better way to do panneling on the forward section, but it continues to work. This is my last design in Sketchup; after this I moved to Fusion for more advanced designs.
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