Idea for TIE Fighter 2

[Darksider]

I like Stofsk's idea, but it needs a rebel campaign in it. I never understood why people preferred to fly for the empire.

Doesn't anyone like the Rebellion? You know, the good guys?

[Stofsk]

I like Stofsk's idea, but it needs a rebel campaign in it. I never understood why people preferred to fly for the empire.

Doesn't anyone like the Rebellion? You know, the good guys?

Sure, I like the Rebellion. TIE Fighter simply had greater depth than X-wing, XvT, and XWA. But you can model the game after the Rebellion's progress from Endor to the peace ceasefire Pellaeon agreed to.

Vympel actually made a good point. TIE's appeal draws on the fact that you're on the winning side, up until the final mission "We await news of our Emperor's victory at Endor..." or something. The campaign structure I and Chris O'Farrel came up with is demoralising. You can't deny it.

What this means is TIE Fighter had something no other SW Flightsim had. Soul, perhaps? Nothing irritating? (Em-kay for example needs to be acquainted with a blaster carbine) Cool NEW music? How you would pull it off for the Rebels is another matter, and subject for a post at a later date. Right now, I should be working...

[Darksider]

Tie fighter was one of the greats.

i wish i'd finished the game.

My comp won't run any of the old SW flightsims. It's too new...

[Spanky The Dolphin]

You'd have to make a Rebel/New Republic campaign a seperate game, really. It'd be simply too large to include.

[Stark]

Personally, I never liked the 'good guy' games because it's too fucking easy. Me in my 400hp Xwing against 5 poorly piloted 2 hp TIEs? Oh yay, the fear, the passion, the excitement. Will I survive?

In TIE, I used TIEs and Interceptors for most of the game (until the ridiculous 'kill everyone yourself' missions). It was HARD, and it was FUN. None of this 'run away for a bit, shunt laser power, I'm at full strength... JUST LIKE IN THE MOVIES' rubbish.

The story was better, the graphics were better: but until post-Endor the poor rebels didn't have much scope for missions, outside the retarded 'attack disabled ISD' or 'steal boxes' missions. At least the Empire had mobility, many enemies, and an actual story happening.

Oh, and TIEs make that cool whirring noise.

[RedImperator]

I like Stofsk's idea, but it needs a rebel campaign in it. I never understood why people preferred to fly for the empire.

Doesn't anyone like the Rebellion? You know, the good guys?

You could take the same engine and build a rebel/NR game with it. For those of us who like being the bad guys, yet another Goddamn Rebel campaign will just be an annoyance. Hell, I didn't even like the missions in the original TIE fighter when I was fighting rogue Imperials.

Plus, for some of us, part of the fun in TIE Fighter was knowing that you were basically fucked if you took one or two hits. That's why I liked the early missions better, in regular TIEs and TIE interceptors, instead of the wankalot fighters you got later in the game.

[Vympel]

But there IS a TIE Fighter remade by Totally Games; with texture-mapped graphics and native Win9x support. In fact, I bought one at SimLim. Unfortunately it's distributed in jewel case only. IIRC there's also X-Wing remade, but I'm not interested in flying such sluggish Rebel craft.

The minus side is: the orchestral theme during the whole menu (the concourse, etc) is gone in the new version. Instead, now it has various ambient noises and such. Also, the cut-scenes are still in 320x200 VGA.

I know, I have the remake. I want another one, along the lines I described- all they did in the remake was up the resolution, change the concourse, and add textures to the polygons. I want better. Much better. 2005 graphics, please.

[Stofsk]

Plus, for some of us, part of the fun in TIE Fighter was knowing that you were basically fucked if you took one or two hits. That's why I liked the early missions better, in regular TIEs and TIE interceptors, instead of the wankalot fighters you got later in the game.

God I fucking hated the Defender. There is something goddamn wrong when you're in a fighter and you think nothing about attacking a Corvette.

I disagree about the Rogue Imperial missions though. What I liked about TIE Fighter was the depth of the missions, one campaign you were fighting rebels, another campaign you're garrisoning a space lab, another campaign you're fighting pirates, another you're putting a stop to a civil war... etc. You're not the first one to complain about "I signed up to fight Rebels!" but really, TIE Fighter showed us there was more to the Empire than the Rebellion.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

Yeah, getting involved in the height of the Imperial Civil War would be cool, with the whole Galaxy in chaos and all.

[Uraniun235]

That massively increases the space requirements on the CDs.

Feh. Join the 21st century and release it on DVD; there, now you've got over 4 gigs of space to play with.

[Chris OFarrell]

But there IS a TIE Fighter remade by Totally Games; with texture-mapped graphics and native Win9x support. In fact, I bought one at SimLim. Unfortunately it's distributed in jewel case only. IIRC there's also X-Wing remade, but I'm not interested in flying such sluggish Rebel craft.

The minus side is: the orchestral theme during the whole menu (the concourse, etc) is gone in the new version. Instead, now it has various ambient noises and such. Also, the cut-scenes are still in 320x200 VGA.

I know, I have the remake. I want another one, along the lines I described- all they did in the remake was up the resolution, change the concourse, and add textures to the polygons. I want better. Much better. 2005 graphics, please.

That remake sucked. I wanted essentialy TIE fighter with XVT graphics. I got XVT with what they claimed were Tie Fighter missinos. To HELL with that.

Though Tie Fighter 2 of course has to include Tie Fighter 1 in the new engine as an optional download

[weemadando]

The DEFENDER gave you balls to attack a CORVETTE?

BAH!

This problem is rampant in all games - hell "Alpha 1" is a running joke in our RPG group whenever we play WEG SW.

What you want to do is take down an ISD II using a TIE Fighter - it takes QUITE A FUCKING WHILE, but can be done. Thats what I call worrying.

[Vympel]

Ok, what a TIE Fighter remake needs:

1. The original soundtrack back (orhcestral, higher quality, whatever, but we need the original themes back) in place of the totally unimaginative just lifting music directly from the movies and playing it seemingly at random.

2. Modern graphics. Duh. All craft should have the pilots visible. X-Wing Alliance had the precursor to this (just the pilot on your craft visible, and really just his moving head like some sort of carnival clown but we need better.

3. Appropriate scale. Every game in the series has had underscaled capital ships compared to the fighters.

4. More ships- all the ones we've seen in previous games, and then some.

5. Improved explosions. X-Wing has been coasting along on its kind of explosions since the very first game, and has barely changed it. It's time for a change- add dynamic break points or something, but we need some real variety.

6. Canonical capital ship performance. A "real" ISD and SSD can chase the Falcon easily. Learn this. A real SW capital ship can fire its weapons at another capital ship at distances over 8km. Learn this.

7. Real ion cannon bolts are not blue. Real shields do not have "percentages".

8. Real (alliance) proton torpedoes are red/orange, not blue.

9. Real TIE Fighter cannons can fire off axis and track their targets. Learn this.

10. Real Alliance fighter cannons can fire from one cannon repeatedly rather than just left/right alternate. Watch a Y-Wing destroy a TIE in RotJ.

11. Fighters attacking shielded capital ships is more or less suicide.

[Rogue 9]

Bah, anything had the balls to attack a Corvette; they have that ridiculous blind spot behind the engine block.

[Slartibartfast]

I think that arcadey-like something Starfighter where you get to chose between 3 different people and their respective craft (one was an alien, a woman and the last was a naboo pilot) was better than TIE, at last the way it felt fighting in space. That zoom-in was neat and gave you the impression of greater range and speed in space.

Of course it was just some arcade game with no decent war campaign, but a couple of the missions of blowing up robot ships were cool.

[Rogue 9]

6. Canonical capital ship performance. A "real" ISD and SSD can chase the Falcon easily. Learn this.

I clocked the Devastator at 91 MGLT in the last mission before Endor in XWA. Scared the hell out of me the first time I did the mission; I'm cruising along in the Otana, recharging my shields, and (I thought) leaving that Star Destroyer in the dust. Then I see it's bow haul into view over my head. Scared the hell out of me; I rerouted power to the engines, hit the joystick, and went into a spinning dive away without thinking about it.

[Admiral Valdemar]

The DEFENDER gave you balls to attack a CORVETTE?

BAH!

This problem is rampant in all games - hell "Alpha 1" is a running joke in our RPG group whenever we play WEG SW.

What you want to do is take down an ISD II using a TIE Fighter - it takes QUITE A FUCKING WHILE, but can be done. Thats what I call worrying.

That's a problem with many games. Where there was a load of realism was in the I-War series where in a fighter, attacking anything of capital class was instant suicide (unless you turned thrusters off, flew at the thing at around at least 5 km/s and turned to aim for a strafing shoot along the length). In TIE, I was quite able to take on ISDs because they have that laughable blindspot behind the engines (which was somewhat rectified in the later X-Wing games with engine wash).

And I would kill to have the TIE Fighter score made orchestrated. The newer sims use iMusic to play the film tracks at relevant times, but I have the movie tracks. And they don't reflect the Imperials much.

[Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman]

And I would kill to have the TIE Fighter score made orchestrated.

My favorite is TIE Fighter's version of Imperial March during the opening part (before the intro, when the narration text is crawling).

And Thrawn's theme is cool too.

[Vympel]

I love the battle music most- specifically, during the intro when that X-Wing and A-Wing are running away and the TIE Interceptors chase them down, and you see the classic "TIE pilot shooting cam".

[Admiral Valdemar]

Hell, the menu music and briefing theme were good enough. During battle, the iMusic engine worked better than in XW: A.

[Stofsk]

6. Canonical capital ship performance. A "real" ISD and SSD can chase the Falcon easily. Learn this. A real SW capital ship can fire its weapons at another capital ship at distances over 8km. Learn this.

Good idea, actually I've noticed it in XWA (I did get the fan mod 'upgrade') which had an ISD pelt a space station with it's ion cannons from several klicks away. Around 8 KM IIRC.

7. Real ion cannon bolts are not blue. Real shields do not have "percentages".

The Ion cannon bolts are changed in the XWA Upgrade. You're not the only person to have noticed this.

8. Real (alliance) proton torpedoes are red/orange, not blue.

That's stupid. We know Naboo fighters had proton torpedos that were blue. Rebel Alliance torps are red/orange? WTF? Do they produce their own? Or do they buy their supplies wherever they can get it? The films show that there are at least two kinds of torpedos, blue and red/orange. It's a question of ordinance acquisition, not 'Rebel Trademark'.

9. Real TIE Fighter cannons can fire off axis and track their targets. Learn this.

Something like this is in XWA.

10. Real Alliance fighter cannons can fire from one cannon repeatedly rather than just left/right alternate. Watch a Y-Wing destroy a TIE in RotJ.

Sounds like a gimmick. I don't see the point. Frankly I link my cannons anyway.

11. Fighters attacking shielded capital ships is more or less suicide.

Yes.

I'm gonna add one on ion cannons: Ion cannons don't just disable a craft, they also do damage. It used to be in X-wing that you could blow up TIEs just by hitting them with your ion cannons. They shouldn't do as much damage as a blaster cannon, but it should be enough to let them still damage the ship.

[The Yosemite Bear]

Oh and Spanky, why is it your avatar always appears to be a different Askua every time I look?

no sometimes he has a black and white photo of a woman that looks like it's a police profile, or has big bird or cammy....

[Spanky The Dolphin]

That woman for the record is singer Liz Phair.

[Chris OFarrell]

So its agreeed?

We blackmail John Williams to get the London Symphony Orchestra to professionaly perform the Tie Fighter music EXACTLY as in game, then plug THAT into the Imuse system.

I mean does anyone but me get the giggles when thinking about Williams on his podium, directing a half hundred people to the Opening Theme / Imperial March hybrid, with a massive screen in the background showing said credits rolling? I mean, him franticly waving and gesturing at the percussion as Executor slides past with the "Imperial Star Destroyers on approach to Courscant!" subtext?


Then of course we blackmail Lucasarts somehow to remaking TIE Fighter the orignal into a Special Edditon.

Perhaps we can have them make differing versions for differeing difficulty. Like 'Easy' is exactly the same as the original on 'normal'. In terms of ships having certian weapons, being able to target missiles with lasers e.t.c.

Then medium is the moderate realisim like we're talking about here.

Then hardcore is the insane Vader on Crack difficulty system. With an ISD II firing a broadside into a MOn Cal of hundreds of hundreds of shots, you yelping as you desperatly try to stay out of the crossfire, with the ships 80 klicks appart as the MonCal fires back...


And the sad thing is this remade TIE would probably sell an insane number of units if it was done as well as it could be done.

[Chris OFarrell]

I love the battle music most- specifically, during the intro when that X-Wing and A-Wing are running away and the TIE Interceptors chase them down, and you see the classic "TIE pilot shooting cam".

Oh God. The entire opening sequence of TIE just has such a place in my heart. Its just the shit.