One of the most striking features of Mon Calamari ship design is that no two Calamari vessels are precisely alike. Each vessel in a particular class is subtly different from its sister ships, not pressed from a standard mold but handcrafted as an original work of art. While aesthetically pleasing, this eccentricity causes large headaches for non-Calamari maintenance and repair personnel.

While Calamari excel in creating small and mid-sized vessels, they have from time to time built very large vessels. Recently, they have begun producing warships for the Rebellion, but as these will take several years to complete, the Calamari have concentrated upon converting already-built vessels into combat warships.

One of their first ventures into ship conversion was the MC80 Star Cruiser, a long, almost cylindrical ship built to carry Calamarians to the stars in search of peaceful coexistence with other beings. The vessels have a long and honorable history and are held in reverence by all Calamarians - now, because of the desperate needs of the Rebellion, many have been retrofitted for war.

The MC80 appears almost organic, as if it were grown, not built: it is covered with pods, bulges, and bumps arranged in a seemingly haphazard pattern. These pods contain sensor arrays, recessed weapons batteries, shield generators and observation decks.

Originally, the ship was literally covered with transparent viewports that allowed those within to look upon passing stars. While this certainly made the Star Cruiser a pleasant ship in which to ride, it had a rather detrimental effect upon the vessel's survivability in combat. Thus many of the ports have been covered over with pieces of hull, heavy blast doors, or anything else available to provide extra protection. (Needless to say, this doesn't improve the MC80's appearance any. This rather pains the artistic Calamari, but they recognise that, in wartime, sacrifices must be made).

An integral part of the Calamari ship design theory is system redundancy. For example, the MC80 has three times as many shield generators as an Imperial ship of comparable size. Each generator is weaker than an Imperial shield unit, but together, they provide equivalent protection. Although this makes the MC80 difficult to service and maintain, it also makes it much more reliable in combat. If one system goes down, the MC80 simply shuts it off and rechannels power through the remaining links in the chain. A rechanneled shield is less powerful than a complete chain, but at least the shield remains intact. An Imperial Star Destroyer that loses a shield, loses a shield. It cannot divert power to backup systems, but must refocus its remaining shields to compensate.

The abundance of multiple systems requires constant maintenance to keep the MC80 at peak efficiency. Mon Cal spacers work continually to keep their ships in top-notch shape. Their dedication, combined with their love of the stars, makes them a spacefaring race rivaled only by the Corellians.

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