Which would you prefer to use in combat?

[Spartan]

While having a shielded fighter is nice; but if those shields come at the expense of speed then you will likely still die. Its like have a more manuverable fighter (airborne-type) vs a faster fighter. It is better to be faster than manuverable. If your just more manuverable all you can do is dodge then other guys fire. With speed you can break contact at will and re engage if need be. In a dogfight the most important thing to know is when to leave, and when you decide too, do it quickly. Similarly as faster (and in space more manuverable) starfighter will dominate a shielded but slower fighter.

Remember, it only takes a couple of hits to blow through an X-wings shields anyway. A TIE interceptor pilot who maintained speed, followed doctrine and ...remained situationally would not only survive he could dominate. Its not just the machine its the character of the man.

TIE Interceptor all the way!

[Fw 190]

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

In ANH Wedge destroyed the TIE Fighter on Luke's tail well enough to fly through the remaining pieces and vapor.

I'm voting for the TIE Interceptor. Higher speed, better maneuverability, and more guns. If the 10 guns on some Interceptors are of equal firepower to those of the X-wing, one should be able to defeat an X-wing's shields in one hit (10 shots). I know the number of guns on the Interceptor is debated, but I firmly believe some models carry 10 guns.

[Rogue 9]

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.

Name a TIE that uses an astromech.

[Pablo Sanchez]

I'd grab the interceptor. I played both the X-Wing and TIE-Fighter games back in the day, and while I loved them both TIE-Fighter was clearly the better game, and imperial ships were just much more fun to play as than the rebels'. My favorite was the assault gunboat (cower before my firepower!) but the interceptor and classic TIE were also fun. They're skin-of-your-teeth skittering across the starfield, playing your maneuverability for all it's worth. Attack runs against capital ships in an unshielded TIE were the shit.

I wish that Lucasarts would make another TIE-fighter game, with modern technical improvements and all that, but it's never going to happen .

[Rogue 9]

I'd grab the interceptor. I played both the X-Wing and TIE-Fighter games back in the day, and while I loved them both TIE-Fighter was clearly the better game, and imperial ships were just much more fun to play as than the rebels'. My favorite was the assault gunboat (cower before my firepower!) but the interceptor and classic TIE were also fun. They're skin-of-your-teeth skittering across the starfield, playing your maneuverability for all it's worth. Attack runs against capital ships in an unshielded TIE were the shit.

I wish that Lucasarts would make another TIE-fighter game, with modern technical improvements and all that, but it's never going to happen .

They're never going to continue the X-Wing series, period. Damn them. Damn them to hell. And thank God for the XWA Upgrade Project. They've even got updated TIEs out, along with (a first!) Vader's Advanced X1.

[Wicked Pilot]

Excepting that that's but a tiny fraction of kills scored throughout the whole battle. So those tallys are anything if not inaccurate.

Well we'll see if you have anything better.

Here's a run-down of the forces as suggsested in ANH.
30 Rebel Ships (15 X-wings, 15 Y-wings)

There is never shown more than 17 Rebel ships on screen at once. 14 X-Wings, and 3 Y-Wings to be exact, so the number is at least 18.

13 Imperial Fighters (12 TIE Fighters, 1 TIEx1)

No more than six are shown in the origional deployment. Vader's and his two wingmen don't count because they never saw action in open space.

The total fighter count so far is 14 X-Wings to 6 TIE Fighters. On screen we see two TIE Fighters gunned down to only one X-Wing lost. That leaves 13 to 4 remaining. Out of those 13 X-Wings 7 are accounted for, either surviving or dying by other means, leaving at least 6 X-Wings and 4 TIE Fighters whose fates are unknown.

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

We never see more than 3 Y-Wings on screen at once, so it is possible that were only 4 and none were lost dogfighting with TIEs or shot down by surface guns.

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.

Not necessarily, the lone surviving Y-Wing never made a trench run, and yet it wasn't destroyed beforehand, or at all.

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.

Once again Vader's kills don't mean jack shit because it wasn't a straight up fight. A Mig-21 could easily gun down an F-22 in similiar circumstances, but that doesn't make it a better fighter. The screen evidence shows a 2-1 X-Wing advantage, and ROTJ shows similiar numbers. Everything else is speculation, your hand waving does not change that fact. Come back when you have something better.

[Wicked Pilot]

For those of you interested, my numbers so far have come from the unaltered trilogy. As you should know there are some changes with ANH SE. The only one of significance is that the max number of Rebel ships shown on screen is 30, 22 X-Wings, 8 Y-Wings. TIE counts remain the same. The screen results give us the same 2-1 favor to the X-Wing, but this time with 16 X-Wings unaccounted for, and 4 Y-Wings unaccounted for.




EDIT: After quickly going throught the ROTJ DVD I found another kill, an A-Wing popping a TIE Interceptor, causing it to slam into a star destroyer. That puts the A-Wing at 2-1, the TIE Interceptor at 1-6.

[Sharpshooter]

They're never going to continue the X-Wing series, period. Damn them. Damn them to hell. And thank God for the XWA Upgrade Project. They've even got updated TIEs out, along with (a first!) Vader's Advanced X1.

That, or someone finally gets off their duff and does a Star Wars mod for Vega Strike. There's one that used to be in the works, but I think it's dead as of now - bah.

Still, could you imagine Wars with that engine? You could be cruisin' along in a YT-1300 watching as other ships of all sorts go about doing their business, there's a cruier or three from he system's dominent faction hanging around when a pirate force appears out of the middle of nowhere: all of a sudden, there's a dozen X-Wings or TIE Fighters flyin' around in heated combatm and then this big-ass cruiser (to scale) lumbers up and starts fragging every enmy in sight. And God allmighty, think about if smeone set up a scenario with the Battle of Endor: you're got hundreds o fighters zipping around, star destroyers and the Executor wailing on the Rebel fleet, the Death Star's picking off cruisers at its leisure, there's actually a long and winding path through th superstructure leading to the core, and if you fail to blo up the Death Star in time, it turns and blows up Endor (you can blow up facilities - just give planets an insane amount of health and damage resitance and all that jazz)...

...and all that on freeware.

[Cal Wright]

Shields are over rated. Brainbugs are for Star Trek


Squint all the way.

[Sephirius]

just fyi, in the case of the TIE Defender, TIE stands for Triple Ion Engine

there are definitely 3 on the back of it, which is why it has the 120~ MGLT speed

[Lancer]

I'll take the X-Wing. It appears more forgiving to the novice than the T-I.

Good manouverability (the TIE has superior manouverability, but realistically speaking, I'm probably not even at a level to take full advantage of the X-Wing's manouverability. I don't know how I would even begin to handle a T-I).
Control system pretty intuitive (joystick and foot pedals, as opposed to the strange steering-wheel looking assembly TIEs have).
Weapons: ISC gives the X-wing slightly longer weapons ranges than the TIE.
Shields: while they'll probably only soak up a few glancing shots, I'd much more rather have rudimentary shields along with good handling than rely on insane speed and handling that I can't fully take advantage of.

[McC]

With no offense intended, it's somewhat amusing to find people saying, "I'll pick the X-wing 'cause I suck too much to pick the TIE."

[Crossroads Inc.]

With no offense intended, it's somewhat amusing to find people saying, "I'll pick the X-wing 'cause I suck too much to pick the TIE."

Whats wrong with tthat? I'm not ashamed to admit it...

If you suck with the TIE, Your dead!
If you suck with the X-Wing, your X-Wing gets totaled, but you can still make it bake alive!

Nothing to be ashamed of there~!

[McC]

Whats wrong with tthat? I'm not ashamed to admit it...

If you suck with the TIE, Your dead!
If you suck with the X-Wing, your X-Wing gets totaled, but you can still make it bake alive!

Nothing to be ashamed of there~!

Oh, I didn't mean to imply there was any shame to be had. I'm simply amused that the people advocating the X-wing tend to do so out of their desire to be safe when they lose a battle rather than choosing it out of a desire to win a battle. Those picking the TIE tend to be ones who intend to emerge victorious, while those picking the X-wing tend to be ones who intend to emerge alive, regardless of the outcome.

[Molyneux]

One thing that hasn't been addressed, so far as I can tell...

If the dogfight takes place close to or in the atmosphere of a planet, I would say the X-wing has a definite advantage. It's been established that it can handle much more easily in atmosphere than a TIE can.

Aside from that, I would still pick the X-wing, for the abovementioned reasons (shields, hyperdrive, astromech).

[Uraniun235]

Why are people saying TIEs have no shields? I was under the impression screenshots from ANH proved that even the lowly basic TIEs had shields. Besides, despite what the games tell us, shields aren't going to make that much of a difference unless you're supremely lucky.

If I'm going to be a military combat pilot, I'll sign with the Empire and get a hot new TIE-Interceptor for maximum lethality. Plus, that means I'll probably get training... you know, that stuff that lets you take full advantage of your ride.

If I'm going to be a private agent, I'll take the X-Wing for sheer versatility.

[Stofsk]

Why are people saying TIEs have no shields? I was under the impression screenshots from ANH proved that even the lowly basic TIEs had shields.

TIE/ln fighters attached to the Death Star have shields, but that doesn't necessarily contradict the EU which says most TIEs don't come equipped with shields. Basically, some models 'ave 'em, some don't.

TIE interceptors I believe don't, at least there wasn't anything in the movies to suggest they do (unlike the TIE fighter, which has visual evidence).

Besides, despite what the games tell us, shields aren't going to make that much of a difference unless you're supremely lucky.

Shields help a lot, especially against 'flak' or grazing hits. Any extra protection is better than nothing. It's the direct strikes which they don't help against.

[Alexus]

There are shielded TIE interceptors, okay? Thrawn had all his squints shielded, and shielded hyperdrive equipped inties were mentioned in Iron Fist and Solo Command. So ner. Ner ner ner.

[Crazedwraith]

There are shielded TIE interceptors, okay? Thrawn had all his squints shielded, and shielded hyperdrive equipped inties were mentioned in Iron Fist and Solo Command. So ner. Ner ner ner.

The Ones in X-Wings books had hyperdirves only and where very shitty fighters. They were officers escape ships only. The hyperdrive comes at the cost of nullifying your speed and manuverabllity advantages.

[nightmare]

Those picking the TIE tend to be ones who intend to emerge victorious, while those picking the X-wing tend to be ones who intend to emerge alive, regardless of the outcome.

Okay, I never use other people's quotes as siglines, but that was pretty damn schweet. It had to be said.

[Lord Revan]

of the Standard TIE models, Figther, interceptor and bomber don't have shields as default (though they can be upgraded to have them).

[Lancer]

There are shielded TIE interceptors, okay? Thrawn had all his squints shielded, and shielded hyperdrive equipped inties were mentioned in Iron Fist and Solo Command. So ner. Ner ner ner.

There are shielded TIE-I's. They just don't come that way standard and are far from what you can expect to get.

[Crossroads Inc.]

There are shielded TIE interceptors, okay? Thrawn had all his squints shielded, and shielded hyperdrive equipped inties were mentioned in Iron Fist and Solo Command. So ner. Ner ner ner.

Really? Well Shuckie Darn! I'll take a couple of those then over the X-Wing!

[McC]

Those picking the TIE tend to be ones who intend to emerge victorious, while those picking the X-wing tend to be ones who intend to emerge alive, regardless of the outcome.

Okay, I never use other people's quotes as siglines, but that was pretty damn schweet. It had to be said.

Thanks

[The Original Nex]

Well we'll see if you have anything better.

I tried.

There is never shown more than 17 Rebel ships on screen at once. 14 X-Wings, and 3 Y-Wings to be exact, so the number is at least 18.

"We count THIRTY Rebel ships Lord Vader" There were thirty.

No more than six are shown in the origional deployment. Vader's and his two wingmen don't count because they never saw action in open space.

I assumed that there's no reason to believe only half a squadron would be launched. I believe it's be stated in the literature that only Vader's personal squadron was launched in the battle.

Fine, there were 10 TIEs dogfighting.

The total fighter count so far is 14 X-Wings to 6 TIE Fighters. On screen we see two TIE Fighters gunned down to only one X-Wing lost. That leaves 13 to 4 remaining. Out of those 13 X-Wings 7 are accounted for, either surviving or dying by other means, leaving at least 6 X-Wings and 4 TIE Fighters whose fates are unknown.

Again, you're ignoring the thirty Rebel ships quote. And assuming that only half a TIE Squadron was launched, which is just plain illogical.

We never see more than 3 Y-Wings on screen at once, so it is possible that were only 4 and none were lost dogfighting with TIEs or shot down by surface guns.

Why call it Gold SQUADRON if there are only 4 ships?

Not necessarily, the lone surviving Y-Wing never made a trench run, and yet it wasn't destroyed beforehand, or at all.

So? It managed to survive the dogfighting, but the TIEs held it up so it never was able to make the trench run.

Once again Vader's kills don't mean jack shit because it wasn't a straight up fight. A Mig-21 could easily gun down an F-22 in similiar circumstances, but that doesn't make it a better fighter. The screen evidence shows a 2-1 X-Wing advantage, and ROTJ shows similiar numbers. Everything else is speculation, your hand waving does not change that fact. Come back when you have something better.

I wasn't using Vader's kills to suggest TIEs were better, I was using it to show that Vader DIDN'T destroy all 30 Rebel Fighters, only 7, so the other 23 were destroyed by other means, and since the Rebels were said to "be able to evade our turbolasers," it suggests that a small force of 10 TIEs (exculding Vader and his wingmen) was able to take out, at the most, 22 Rebel Fighters. Makes the TIEs look superior to me. . .

To suggest that you can take the kill breakdown seen onscreen as valid is utter foolishness. To think that the kills seen onscreen represent an accurate breakdown of the full battle is absurd. There was far more fighting going on than what was showed onscreen.

My speculation is more feasable that you disregarding anything that may have happened offscreen.