Which would you prefer to use in combat?

[The Original Nex]

Here's a run-down of the forces as suggsested in ANH. (Tear it apart if you must, I haven't seen the movie in a while)

30 Rebel Ships (15 X-wings, 15 Y-wings)
13 Imperial Fighters (12 TIE Fighters, 1 TIEx1)

Imperial Kills Seen Onscreen

1 X-Wing was destroyed by the gun turrets after his computers ceased responding. That leaves 29 Rebel Fighters.

Lord Vader and his two wingmates destroy 7 Rebel Fighters (3 Y-wings, 4 X-wings), leaving 22 Rebel Fighters.

We see 1 X-Wing destroyed by a TIE Fighter.

Rebel Kills Seen Onscreen

Red 5 destroys a TIE Fighter (12 TIEs left)
Wedge Antilles destroys a TIE Fighter (11 TIEs left)

The Millenium Falcon destroys 1 TIE Fighter, a second crashes from the distraction (9 TIEs left including Vader)

There may have been more Rebel kills offscreen, but as we don't see the final number of TIEs onscreen that is left to speculation.

Offcreen Analysis

None of the other Y-wings make the trench run other than the 3 destroyed by Vader, meaning they were all destroyed beforehand.

Likewise, none of the other X-wings made the Trench run besides the Shield Trios under Red Leader and Red Five. Meaning the others must have been destroyed beforehand.

Results

The survivors include 2 X-wings and 1 Y-wing.

13 of the 15 X-wings were destroyed and 14 of the 15 Y-wings were destroyed.

If 7 were destroyed by Vader, and is 1 destroyed by Turbolasers, and 3 fighters survived, we can determine that the TIE Fighter squadron destroyed the 19 remaining fighters, and that the TIE squadron itself suffered minimal casualties.
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[Sharpshooter]

Glory to the TIE Defender!

All hail the mighty meat be - er, the TIE Defender!Missile Boats are cooler.

Give me an Intercetor any day ofthe week - the X-Wing may have shields that can protect it from a hit or three, but with the rate at which weapons fire, that won't mean a thing if a decent pilot can keep the sight on the target for half a second. With higher speed and maneuverability, it doesn't nessecarily even need shields: to paraphrase, "Not getting shot is the best shield of all."

...though, I have to admit, I wouldn't mind having one from the more recent manufacturing lines - you know, just in case.

The lack of protons isn't a big deal - the Empire already has a dedicated craft for using such - and even if it can't use a hyperdrive, I'll get the comfort of open space as I'm travelling as opposed to being stuffed in what could become a flying coffin at any second.

[squidman001]

i have never heard of tie defenders, what the heck are they, any pics?

[The Original Nex]

TIE Defender

Google is your friend.

[Crossroads Inc.]

i have never heard of tie defenders, what the heck are they, any pics?

4-laser cannos
2-ion cannons
shields
hyperdrive.

All around pretty Shnazy fighter Now, granted an Imperial GunBoat can deal out far more Raw Damage, but, well, for fighter v fighter there is only one choice.

[The Original Nex]

i have never heard of tie defenders, what the heck are they, any pics?

4-laser cannos
2-ion cannons
shields
hyperdrive.

All around pretty Shnazy fighter Now, granted an Imperial GunBoat can deal out far more Raw Damage, but, well, for fighter v fighter there is only one choice.

And a mini tractor beam to boot Probably used for pinpoint accuracy and extra maneuvering (like it needs it) like the Geonosian Fighters.

[Sharpshooter]

i have never heard of tie defenders, what the heck are they, any pics?

(Had an image, but Nex beat me)

The Defender, in a nutshell, is one of the more wanked-up fighter designs to be seen in Star Wars. Four laser cannons, two Ion cannons, missile launchers, shields, possible tractor beam, hyperdrive - it does everything nearly every other starfighter can do, and better (of course, at one fucker of a pricetag). It was designed for use by elite units, might have possibly been distributed bit further had industria capacity and research lowered production costs, but that fell ou after Palps got the chuck.

[squidman001]

i kicked myself, i forgot all about starwars.com and im looking at it now

[Rogue 9]

The one in the rear.

[Crossroads Inc.]

And a mini tractor beam to boot

Meh, As much as I may like the Defender, that always seemed to be pushing things a bit, I GUESS there may be some use for it, bu it seemes needleslly excessive for such a small craft...

And yea, The Defender is kinda a Wankfest, you REALLY have to wonder since the Ball-Modual is no bigger then a Standard TIE, where they put all the extra stufdf for shields, hyperdrive and extra power generators...

[The Original Nex]

And a mini tractor beam to boot

Meh, As much as I may like the Defender, that always seemed to be pushing things a bit, I GUESS there may be some use for it, bu it seemes needleslly excessive for such a small craft...

And yea, The Defender is kinda a Wankfest, you REALLY have to wonder since the Ball-Modual is no bigger then a Standard TIE, where they put all the extra stufdf for shields, hyperdrive and extra power generators...

It's engine cowling is extended much further than a TIE/ln, but yes, it is a bit fan-wankish. . .

[squidman001]

i just read that starwars.com thingy on it and i saw no mention of tractor beam... check for yourselves http://www.starwars.com/databank/starsh ... index.html

[McC]

Read the Rogue Squadron books sometime. Sure, it can only take a couple hits, but it's better than taking NO hits.

Stackpole states openly that game mechanics were his reference. Game mechanics are unreliable as a reference material, and as such may entirely invalidate his depiction of space combat (however entertaining it is to read -- I avidly followed and enjoyed the X-wing series).

You sound like Darkstar

That is fucking low, dude.

They never had a reason to- in all the big battles we see, the X-wings of course ALWAYS save the torpedoes to throw at the big ships. It's overkill vs a fighter.

However, in the case of X-wing vs TIE, if there are no capships to save torps for, it provides a huge advantage.

It provides an advantage. The degree of that advantage is disputable. I contend that missiles designed to attack capital ships are going to be of limited effectiveness against starfighters. As far as I'm aware (though I'm totally willing to be proven wrong on this point), you can't convert an A2S missile for A2A purposes with modern aircraft, and/or doing so would severely limit the performance of said missile. Anti-ship missiles launched from fighters are designed to blow up ships, not blow up other fighters.

Go read some EU sometime.

Right, I'll be sure to do that, considering I don't have two shelves-full of Star Wars books.

[Sharpshooter]

i just read that starwars.com thingy on it and i saw no mention of tractor beam... check for yourselves http://www.starwars.com/databank/starsh ... index.html

It was a feature introduced in Tie Fighter, where the Defender's design initially stemmed from, IIRC. It and the Tie Advanced were both equipped wth the buggers (though whether or not they're canon is an issue, as you just indicated, but that's a topic for another day).

So: which would you choose?

[squidman001]

well after just learning about the defender, definitely the defender, although otherwise a good old x'ey

[Stark]

If there were non-massive wankfest stats for TIE-Ds, they're a fun ship. I'm not stupid enough to waste half my hardpoints on ion guns, but that's just me. Since they AFIAK orginated in games, where they had shielding on par with small warships, I'm going to totally ignore them.

Frankly, since shields aren't that great and TIE-Is have 10 guns with better rates of fire, in addition to being faster, I'd go them. Even in those stupid games where X-wings could take 20ish hits I prefered the superior agility of the Empire's finest.

Given how much trouble SW fighters have hitting people with guns at very short range, I'd give them 'fuck all' odds of even locking a target at long range, let alone successfully engaging one.

[SpacedTeddyBear]

I'd take the X-Wing. If I ever get marooned on some swamplike planet after dusting a squadron of Tie-Is' , I'd like to have an R2 unit to talk to rather than a volleyball with a smiley face on it, or that creepy green midget with a maglight attached to his belt.

You sound like Darkstar

Hey now, no need to go that low ok? Lets keep this civil.

[NecronLord]

Did I mention ejection seats at all?

The claim that they lack ejectors is from the same source as the claim that they lack shields. Both are anti-imperial rhetoric of dubious canonicity.

Besides hull wise TIEs seem much more fragile. They're pilot rarely seem to survive to use the ejectors.

Same with X-wings. Dual TIE laser shots blow them up good.

Look at ANH. When X-Wings and Y-Wing get blast they didn't to exploded and stay more or less in one peice. TIEs just go boom and theres nothing less.

The whole things exploding is only when they're hit by the Falcon. Which has more powerful weapons than either ship.

When was the last we saw TIE take hits and actually survive. X-Wings even some piloted by noname flight officer survive hits.

TIEs just go boom.

We've seen several TIEs take hits and spin off screen.

[Danny Bhoy]

I reckon X-Wings are like F-15Es. Not the newest airframe, fastest or even the best in its various individual roles, but proven to be decently good enough for a bag of missions. So I go for it.

For pure space superiority, the TIE/In is probably ahead, but the lack of a hyperdrive I personally feel is a bit of a bugger. Actually if the movie TIEs had hyperdrives, I would think of them as Japanese Zeroes, long-range, fast, maneuverable, but somewhat delicate.

As burds, I might like a 9.5 Weeks style ONS with a TIE/In, but I'd want the X-Wing to have my babies.

[Crazedwraith]

We've seen several TIEs take hits and spin off screen.

When? I can only recall ones that were emersed in fire or lightening about to explode?

[Danny Bhoy]

We've seen several TIEs take hits and spin off screen.

I reckon that such TIEs are pretty much mission-killed hence spinning off screen (I assume your choice of the word spin was more than just textual flavour). Not quite just go boom, but pretty much fucked as far as combat is concerned. Whereas X-Wings appear to be able at times to trundle along onscreen in more or less controlled flight despite hits.

[Stark]

Ugh. Do we really have to disprove 'TIEs are made of tinfoil' again?

Now TIEs don't have hyperdrives: they have something better. Huge ass capital ships. Why run away? You're in the Empire now! I can see why the Rebs use jump-fighters, but the Empire doesn't have to, since it can expect to have a superior fleet in-system.

The ball on a TIE is slightly larger than the hull cross-section of an Xwing, right? (taken through the R2 port) And both TIE-Is and TIE/lns use the same ball, right?

[Stofsk]

I take the X-wing, easily.

• Hyperdrive, for all those fights you can't win and retreat is the better course of action.
• Shields. Not the 'be-all, end-all' of protection I readily admit, but it's more than what the TIE's got.
• Astromech. For inflight repairs.

Not that I dislike the TIE or anything, but I always saw the X-wing as a more versatile vessel. That's valuable to me, to keep my options open.

[Crossroads Inc.]

I take the X-wing, easily.

• Hyperdrive, for all those fights you can't win and retreat is the better course of action.
• Shields. Not the 'be-all, end-all' of protection I readily admit, but it's more than what the TIE's got.
• Astromech. For inflight repairs.

Not that I dislike the TIE or anything, but I always saw the X-wing as a more versatile vessel. That's valuable to me, to keep my options open.

Thank you for laying that out Stofsk, Really, this shouldn't come down to another "X-Wing vs TIE" since they are BOTH good ships, the TIE is NOT made out of Tinfoil, and X-Wings are NOT the wankers some make them out to be... What this comes out to is what systems make a fighter good.

Hyperdrive, Shields, Astromech Droid.

Theres plenty of other fgighters that have these items, and make use of them better then an X-Wing. And there are several Imperial TIES that utilize these systems as well.

[wautd]

In pure dogfighting I'd take the 'ceptor. Even if it doesnt has any shields, its still harder to hit thanks to its speed and manoeverability (and shields just give limited protection anyway)