New X-Wing/Tie Fighter **RUMORS**

[VF5SS]

Proton Torpedoes are purple and Concussion Missiles are yellow. That's enough of a distinction for me :< Come to think of it, Star Wars does homing missiles in a weird way. Either you get the "follow you forever" thing from AOTC or the gimmicky droid missiles. Everything else sputters around like fireworks.

[Nephtys]

What's wrong with Wing Commander's weapon mix?

You had four basic targetting systems. Fire and Forget, Radar Lock-On, Thermal Lock-On and Semi-Active Homing. That alone would give enough missile variety (not including Dumbfire and Torpedo Guidance) before they added lots of more interesting Ordinance in WCP: Special Ops.

Even Freespace had missiles for multiple roles, such as the Harpoon/Interceptor for lock on dogfights, the Hornet for high damage close range stuff, and the Trebuchet/Phoenix for what passes for extremely long range bomber interception.

In XWA, all that mattered was how many of a missile you carried. There was no point using anything except the best dogfight missile (adv concussion missiles) or the best ship-attack weapon (space bombs). This doesn't give us much variety. At least they had two countermeasure types, with both chaff and countermissiles. Why would you ever bomb someone with Photorps or Heavy Rockets, when space bombs were just... better?

It's a more flexible arena for changing stuff up than altering the guns, that's for sure. All that we know of SW guns are Red/Green PEW PEW lasers, and Blue 'your ship now sucks' rays.

[Stark]

That's pretty standard; most space-sims have missiles that can MAYBE track effectively for a second or two, after which they'll essentially always miss.

Due to shit turn and low speed, mainly. But nobody wants a radar simulator, and missile use against fighters isn't very SW-y even if it's probably common if you're not poverty like the rebels.

[Stark]

Blue ions can fuck off. Fucking X-wing, fucking blue ions. Fuck.

[Vympel]

Did Vymp just say perks were retarded and then list some he wants? Does he know what is being discussed?

No, I asked what 'perks' weren't retarded, and then proceeded to list some. The moment I hear perks I think Fallout.

[Stark]

Oh I see! Well that's what I'm talking about; instead of burying it in fanfiction or stupid stats, just say it. It's an informative way of conveying complexity that the player doesn't need to see (even in Ace Combat, planes with 'high payload' don't all have the SAME payload).

[Vyraeth]

I really hope these games get released on STEAM, especially as a pack. I've tried to look for them occasionally, and besides the occasional TIE Fighter game download (which is illegal, as far as I know), and Ebay auctions, it's really hard to find them for purchase, especially at a reasonable price (Amazon wants $65 for a jewel for X-Wing Alliance). I also hope they put Dark Forces, Jedi Knight and other Star Wars titles up for sale.

[Alan Bolte]

One thing that might be interesting, and might also affect the speed issue, would be tractor beams and... what was that phrase from the novelization, "distortion generators"? If fighting near capital ships was like fighting in a horribly unpredictable gravity well, flying too quickly might fly you in a direction you didn't intend.

[Connor MacLeod]

Yes, there was some difference in stats, but not as much differentiation as you would hope for or expect. For example:

Power distrubiton systems were largely the same. All fighters had the same distribution rates ultimately. It would have been omre interesting is some had better distribution rates (IE better gun recharge. Or bigger fighters like the B-wing would have had larger power generators and greater recharge than an A-wing)

No real difference between weapons and defenses (exept maybe HP.) you'd expect X-wing lasers to be more destructive than an A-wings, and a B-wing to pack some REALLY heavy guns. But they mounted the same lasers, by and large. You might expect a B-wing to have better shield generators, too. (Big, slow, heavy, but tough and heavy on firepower.)

Weapons range and rates of fire per lasers might also have varied (weaker lasers but with higher ROF on an A-wing for example). If you needed to get complicated there, maybe you could figure ships have "overcharge" be a separate setting on lasers (more power draw but greater power) Special features couldn't have hurt (A-wings are supposed to be able to have their guns turn and fire off-axis for example.. that would have been a neat distinguishing trait.

The big beef I had with the power distribution system was the idea that energy just magically disappeared from your batteries.. Seriously, what sort of plausible engineering idea woudl that be? Are x-wings custom fitted with radiators to deliberately bleed off the energy in those things? Does the hull just heat up with all that energy being lost from the ship? Not only was it a frustrating thing to deal with while in a dogfight or if you needed to divert power to your engines, but it just totally broke Suspension of disbelief for me.

The suck ass shield regeneration was annoying too, but the loss of energy was really what sucked.

The way missiles and torpedos were used wsa just annoying as hell. I hated having to try to hold your crosshairs on the target waiting for a lock. That didn't happen that way in the movies unless you were going on a bombing run.

[Vympel]

Excellent point re: the guns. There was no differentiation there.

X-Wing Alliance improved on this slightly by giving the TIE Fighters superior rate of fire that was a lot like the films.

They could also make the TIE Fighters more competitive by giving them the off-axis fire capability we see in ANH.

[Stark]

That's exactly the kind of shit you'd use the AC/HAWX 'perks' thing to communicate. Light guns/rapid guns/heavy guns, gun vectoring, 'powergrid. etc. I believe the Naboo Starfighter game I mentioned earlier did this too; the big bomber-thingo had heavier guns than the N-1, which had TIE-style dakka-dakka guns, etc.

Interestingly, while it's pretty redundant (due to bad balancing), in Freespace the different ships had 'bays' with difference capacities for missiles and different power ratings and gun/afterburner capacities. It was really poorly communicated (ie, wasn't at all and you only found out when your guns ran out faster than usual etc) and didn't matter because of the laughably low power use of the main guns, but it was there. Hide it behind a simple breakdown of weapons/loadouts/etc and you'd get a lot more 'flexibility' out of each fighter without burying it in lameness.

Is there any scope in SW for different role fits for the same fighter? Did B-Wings ever trade their (UGGGGGGGGH) ions for a full blaster fit? Did Y-wings ever sacrifice payload for speed?

[Mr Bean]

To my knowledge Y-wing's have always been wallowing cows with large bay storage area. However there where mention of Laser Cannons, Pulse Lasers and Blaster Cannons in addition to Ion Cannons. Blaster Cannons being used by B-wings to carve into smaller ships as it's stated use is against light capital ships like Corvette's and Frigates.

I can how such a thing would work out, just break them down into trade-off's with some ships being unable to mount specific weapons either because of lack of hard-points or ship power size. So say your Y-wing has a choice of the standard twin laser cannons, twin Ion cannons and rear arc turret which could be locked forward to give four forward firing lasers. Or maybe you could swap out your Ion's to be able to mount a pair of Blaster Cannons or swap out your Torpedo loadout to fit in the capacitors to run them.

There's your base like a Mechwarrior game, each fighter has a certain amount of "Energy", there exists powerful mini-reactors per the EU but they are "worth more than an entire wing of A-Wings" IE one fighter with a super reactor costing most than 72 fighters. So use that as your base. Make things modular but simple.

You have a Tie Fighter or whatever, 100 Energy, Basic ship functions flying the ship/hyperdrive/smug dispenser-ect use up 60 Energy lets say. You have no shields so no shield drain. Your basic Laser cannons cost you 20 Energy to mount and use and they are designed to fire three shots every six seconds. But because you have extra energy sitting around because your TIE fighter has no shields to power it goes towards the weapons so you can fire three shots every two seconds and get that Daka-daka feel.

Now you add in your extras
Pulse lasers are lasers designed to fight shielded targets by throwing enough lasers as fast as possible in a quick ripple to bleed some damage through to the ship under it. They trade off is slow firing rate and more energy usage (Say they use 40 Energy. Useful for X-wing's fighting other shielded craft and useful for TIE-Fighter's attacking X-Wing's, however because the TIE only has two hard points for lasers you use your Daka in exchange for always getting some damage through.

Now you can add things like Ion cannons heavier weapons like blasters and I'm sure the game designers can think up another two or three cannon types or just ten different cannons of the existing types which are more or less powerful, or fire more quickly or more slowly. Very basic customsation like this goes a long way in giving the game the appearance of depth even if you coded it over the weekend. The key is to no go overboard and become an Anarchy Online situation(An mmo but the point stands) where there are 1,000 weapons! but 954 of them suck and are never used.

[Bounty]

I believe the Naboo Starfighter game I mentioned earlier did this too; the big bomber-thingo had heavier guns than the N-1, which had TIE-style dakka-dakka guns, etc.

That sounds an awful lot like what Rogue Squadron has been doing in 1998. Different weapons for different ships are a new idea somehow? The diversity in that game and the way it was presented was pretty clear. Need speed and off-axis tracking for dogfights? A-Wing. Need to blow shit up? Y-Wing. Deathwish? V-Wing. Sure the system's pretty limited with just half a dozen fighters but it was there. You even got briefings for each ship telling what set it apart and why you shouldn't hold down the Go Fast button.

[Stark]

That could be why I mentioned Rogue Squadron pages ago. It would be new to the X-TIE franchise, which has none of these distinctions.

[Drooling Iguana]

I just hope they make it so that I don't have to memorise the exact instant when each enemy wave appears since I have to already be halfway to them when they appear if I want to be able to stop them before they 'splode whatever it is I'm trying to defend.

Hell, fewer escort missions in general would be a plus. I want to shoot down fighters, not torpedoes.

[Vendetta]

Yeah that's that shit - a high-lethality model with actual damage areas that is TOTALLY INVISIBLE beyond 'R2 says 'holy shit'. Don't give the player numbers; just say 'heavily armoured' or 'fragile' and tell them when things break.

Of course, a high lethality model means that shields should, effectively, be weak enough that arc direction and energy charging and shit is irrelevant.

In that kind of model, your shield should be a one or two hit "get out of death free" card, which takes a hit for you and then has to recharge for a while, rather than something that needs regular nannying.

[andrewgpaul]

I just hope they make it so that I don't have to memorise the exact instant when each enemy wave appears since I have to already be halfway to them when they appear if I want to be able to stop them before they 'splode whatever it is I'm trying to defend.

Hell, fewer escort missions in general would be a plus. I want to shoot down fighters, not torpedoes.

I want the ships I'm escorting to not be suicidal fuckwits. That Stormtrooper transport is supposed to be ferrying scientists to the Star Destroyer 5 miles away, not dogfighting half of Red squadron on its own.

Someone mentioned the squadron commands. They weren't so bad, except Imperial Navy regs apparently said "obey orders from your wing leader, except if you can't be arsed". Strangely enough, they were more likely to obey you in early missions, when you were Gamma 7 and a useless n00b.

Oh, and there was a use for the "open S-foils" button - when your hyperjump was cancelled because there was an empty crate vaguely along the jump path, you needed to press it to open the wings, because the jump sequence automatically closes them.

As for the energy management, the brokenness of taking a beam weapon has already been mentioned. There was also the fact that no matter what you were in, each individual gun charged at the same rate. That gave a B-Wing 6 times the weapon recharge rate of a Missile Boat. I've spent about half an hour in missions, running like fuck in my MB because it takes so long to charge up, while a B-Wing, Assault Gunboat or TIE Defender is back to full in about 5 seconds (which reminds me - why did the Assault Boat never show up anywhere else in the EU - best-looking Imperial fighter design in the setting, IMO).

[Connor MacLeod]

Interestingly, while it's pretty redundant (due to bad balancing), in Freespace the different ships had 'bays' with difference capacities for missiles and different power ratings and gun/afterburner capacities. It was really poorly communicated (ie, wasn't at all and you only found out when your guns ran out faster than usual etc) and didn't matter because of the laughably low power use of the main guns, but it was there. Hide it behind a simple breakdown of weapons/loadouts/etc and you'd get a lot more 'flexibility' out of each fighter without burying it in lameness.

Wing commander (3 and onwards) had a bit of that too I remember (or maybe it was 4-5 onwards). Chris William's spinoff game Starlancer did I think (I'd have to dig out a buncha materials, but I really don't want to now lol). I think I liked Privateer 1 the best in that regard (can't remember too much though, honestly.) Oddly in terms of gameplay I was thinking of the game I-war myself too (Or maybe the second one since that had more flexibility than the first - you only got a few weapons upgrades in the first game.)

Is there any scope in SW for different role fits for the same fighter? Did B-Wings ever trade their (UGGGGGGGGH) ions for a full blaster fit? Did Y-wings ever sacrifice payload for speed?

B-wing bombers always could have different loadouts. This came about I think partly because of X-wing's screwed up loadout but I'm not sure. The "offiical" non X-wing loadout for the B-wing was 2 torpedo launchers, 3 large ion cannons, 1 heavy laser cannon, and up to 4 "auto-blasters" (mounted in the nose.) That loadout could be changed as needed, I believe. Later B-wings could even have external magazines with extra torpedoes added, although at the cost of increasing the mass of the ship substantially (and making it more sluggish.)

I never minded the ion cannons - the B-wing was created primarily as a commerce raider - designed to take out corvettes and escort-frigate sized vessels and capture freighters and transports as I remember. Its "anti capship" bomber role was originally IIRC only really used at Endor (under capitla ship asistance.) ITs got a lage powerplant and alot of firepower, but also its the slowest and least manuverable fighter (unlike the wanktastic Super-B wing of X-wing, which was the game's equivalent of the TIE Defender.) The B-wing had a targeting system that could use the laser to "paint" enemy warshisp for near perfect targeting data, whereupon it would salvo its ion cannons and torpedoes against the target for greater effect (Presumably the ion cannon shots, being faster, would either disable the ship or take down its defenses, and the torpedoes would destroy it. I doubt they used this mode on transports they wanted to capture.) so that might be a nice "special feature" of the B-wing.

A-wings to my knoweldge were never very modular, though I vaguely recall the concussion missiles were an add-on. They originalyl carried only blaster cannons. But, like I said, they could rotate them at least vertically (to fire above, below, behind) but probably could swivel them side to side some too. That would have been a neat ability to use IMHO. The real ability to the A-wing was supposed to be its jamming capability (too small to use on cap ships but could jam the fuck out of smaller vessels) to mess with their sensors. That could have been a beam weapon option (hell I think it was in TIE fighter onwards.) and the swing wing lasers could have been turret-like. A-wings were originally intended as a raiding-type vessel too, a fast-attack interceptor against targets to destroy them using their speed and jamming. They were originally intended for base or ship defense though, too.

Y-wings were never "sluggish" really that I remember. THey were more of a "multi-role, all purpose" attack craft - heavy fighter and light bomber. It was MUCH more agile than a B-wing I remember, but a bit less than an X-wing. They had some modularity at least (their torpedo bays at least.) and the ICS had indicated that the torpedo magazine could fire from either launcher (so if one was damaged you still had the other one.) and alot of Y-wings had been converted ot the "Longprobe" variant where they were used for recon purposes, so that too hints at modularity (and another option for using them). The real neat bit about the y-wing would have been the two-seater option. suppoedly the top mounted gun was actually a turret - that would have been a neat option to employ against enemies in combat (light ion cannons though, but I bet you could switch those out if you wanted.) I also remember in single-person mode the ion cannons were meant to be locked either full forward or full-rear.

X-wings were multi-purpose too, but had no real fixed role and so (I think) would need no real advantages. Limited "off-axis" firing like we know X-wings could do in the movies might be neat (but supposeldy that any fighter could have tha tto some degree.) No exceptional abilities there, except perhaps their long laser cannons, which were supposed to give them long range and great destructive power (although techs had needed to "boost" their power intput to dangerous levels to compete with Imperial weapons IIRC, so they were modified that way.) Giving an X-wing long range, powerful lasers, probably would have been its hallmark along with its "well-balanced" nature.

If you go by WEG Rebel fighters were meant to be more self-contained, indiviidually better, and more able to engage at long range against their Imperial adversaries and have more staying power, at least against a certain number of odds.) TIEs had shorter range sensors, but were faster/agile than most enemies, more numerous, and had heavier (if shorter ranged) guns. They relied on more "intergrated" tactics to work (specialized TIE fighter designs like the fire control or recon ship ot help relay data)

Among the TIE fighter stuff.. TIEs were generally known as we know for being cheap and eaisly mass porduced. They had relatively short ranged (I think) but rahter powerful guns IIRC (relative to the rebel stuff if I remember the ICSes correctly). Modularity was there - The TIE fighter (rpiro to the interceptor and bomber variants) had alot of hull variations - a bomber variant with an elongated hull and munitions capacity, a fire control variant (for assisitng cap ships), a recon variant, etc.) TIE bombers had modular bomb bays as well that I can remember.

So yeah. It might have made some sense to allow more variation and "tricks" between Rebel and Imperial craft in their own types, and between the two sides in general. You sorta had this in TIE Fighter with the "no shields but greater mobility" but you didnt have much advantage otherwise (TIE guns seem to have at least as much if not more firepower and similar rates of fire to an X-wing for example, which would be a huge advatnage in fighting iwth the off-axis firing capability)

A neat option maybe would have been the radiators - those were supposedly armored and tough as hell to help protect the pilot, so you could force a TIE pilot to use his mobility to "take hits" on the armor - the ball cockpit is a tiny target and should be hard to hit... oh well.

[Pint0 Xtreme]

I'd have to agree with the sentiment that the whole "tank"-like gameplay with the starfighters did somewhat ruin the experience. And it's not only the player's starfighter but any starfighter with shields took an insane amount of firepower to kill compared to what we saw in the movies. I'd go even further and say that the shields' purpose in the game should have been much more limited. Perhaps they should have been used to give the starfighter protection against flak-like weapons in space or against close proximity explosions. In every Star Wars movie, starfighters pretty much blew up instantly when they took a direct hit from enemy starfighters. Of course it doesn't help when the only way to progress in the game is for the player to be the "Star Wars starfighter Rambo" in every mission.

[Alan Bolte]

Well, Obi-Wan's Delta-7 took about 25 seconds of continuous fire from the Slave I, so I figure shields shouldn't just protect you from one or two hits, unless those hits are fairly powerful. I suppose it's possible that only a few of Jango's shots were direct hits, it's hard to tell from the movie.

It's not even really an outlier because it's the only movie fighter duel I can remember. Everything else is a big battle where you don't know how much damage has already been deflected.

[Pint0 Xtreme]

Well, Obi-Wan's Delta-7 took about 25 seconds of continuous fire from the Slave I, so I figure shields shouldn't just protect you from one or two hits, unless those hits are fairly powerful. I suppose it's possible that only a few of Jango's shots were direct hits, it's hard to tell from the movie.

It's not even really an outlier because it's the only movie fighter duel I can remember. Everything else is a big battle where you don't know how much damage has already been deflected.

I had the impression that Jango's shots were near misses as opposed to direct hits with the exception to the last few ones. We saw the same thing in TESB when the Star Destroyers were chasing the Falcon. Most of those shots were near misses that exploded close to the ship and only a select few were direct hits. The laser cannons from the TIE Fighters we saw in ANH were pretty damn lethal. Luke and Wedge were the only lucky ones we saw on screen survive direct hits and even then Wedge's X-Wing was totally gimped. If perhaps only one or two rebel starfighters were destroyed instanteously from TIE Fighter fire, I may be more inclined to accept the possibility that those starfighters were already damaged in battle. But in the film, fighter after fighter after fighter didn't survive more than a whole second of direct, continuous fire from the TIE Fighters.

[JointStrikeFighter]

Not to mention the TIE fighters attacking the fleeing Falcon in ANH where clearly causing serious damage even on the first pass.

[CaptHawkeye]

And they weren't even trying to. In pretty much all cases the Falcon is being shot at, it's because the attackers want it intact.

[Thanas]

Well, at the Battle of Endor it took some hits which seemed to do serious damage.

[CaptHawkeye]

This actually brings up a pretty interesting discrepancy i've noticed between nerd beliefs on military tech and reality.

See, when a vehicle, let's say, an FW-190, is listed in a tech book as having characteristics of 'a tough airplane' or can 'take a lot punishment', nerds think that means the 190 has +5000 HP and a -10 damage modifier to allied AP rounds or something. That's not what it really means though. When the military describes an airplane or vehicle as "uniquely durable" is does *NOT* mean it can literally stand there and get shot over and over again.

It means that it's reasonably likely it will survive the first shot/burst that hits it.

After that, nothing is gauranteed. But they don't get it, they think "durability" means "invincible". Now don't get me wrong, I want my enemies to be challenging, but they shouldn't be challenging because they have some bullshit RPG mechanic saying I need to hit the target over and over again.

Actually has anyone ever noticed how nerds hate feeling like they have bad aim? Most video games make shooting as easy as possible, so everyone runs around with accuracy ratings averaging 25%-50%.

If real life militaries got 25%-50% accuracy out of their combat troops, nukes would be obsolete. Shep probably has numbers for this, but it's likely that 95% of any of the ammunition fired during a war will hit NOTHING. What i'm trying to say is, their are obvious ways to make the game challenging without relying on bullshit turn based RPG holdovers. But it'll probably be stopped in the end by gamers themselves, who are super sensitive to changes and hate learning new things.

So these two characteristcs, easy aim and health point spam enemies beget one another. And it probably won't change anytime soon.