Anybody around here play X-Wing?

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2003-11-12 06:00pm

Hi. Just wondering if anyone still plays X-Wing anymore. Or X-Wing: Alliance. Or even flight sims in general. If so, how far did you get/what was your score and rank at the end of the games?

El Moose Monstero · Post by **El Moose Monstero** » 2003-11-12 06:06pm

I played X-Wing Alliance and X-Wing vs Tie Fighter, I forget the score on the latter, but got to Commander on XWA, I think, it was a while ago and I've been having trouble persuading my joystick to work with XP and XWA. Mind you, that was on easy, when you could take down a star destroyer by whittling through all the fighters and then making a few passes over the bridge turbolasers and then sitting your ass above the 'shield gens' and blasting away.

That mission with the escaping shuttle, I cleared out all the fighters and took down the ISD with my a-wing. Was intending to up the difficulty when it stopped working... I forget exactly what the problem was. New computer and upgrades or something.

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2003-11-12 06:14pm

Well, my computer is nonfunctional at the moment (posting from a school computer lab), but I remember generalship. Are we thinking of the same escaping shuttle? I remember two escaping shuttles. (Actually it was the same shuttle escaping twice, but who's counting?) In one you were flying an X-wing and in the other you had an A-wing, but there was no Star Destroyer involved. *Shrugs.* Oh well. I'm rather partial to B-wings myself. I have two TIE Defender kills painted on the side of my B-wing.

Dumb enough to go head-to-head with an assault bomber. Amateurs.

El Moose Monstero · Post by **El Moose Monstero** » 2003-11-12 06:17pm

Rogue 9 wrote:Well, my computer is nonfunctional at the moment (posting from a school computer lab), but I remember generalship. Are we thinking of the same escaping shuttle? I remember two escaping shuttles. (Actually it was the same shuttle escaping twice, but who's counting?) In one you were flying an X-wing and in the other you had an A-wing, but there was no Star Destroyer involved. *Shrugs.* Oh well. I'm rather partial to B-wings myself. I have two TIE Defender kills painted on the side of my B-wing. Dumb enough to go head-to-head with an assault bomber. Amateurs.

The renegade shuttle you had to shoot down, the Star Destroyer shows up to try and take delivery, one down, twenty five thousand to go.

lukexcom · Post by **lukexcom** » 2003-11-12 06:21pm

Here's what I play/played
Space Sims:
X-Wing
Tie Fighter
X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter
X-Wing: Alliance
Starlancer
Freelancer
Independence War
Independence War 2
Wing Commander 3
Wing Commander 4 (DVD edition, movies were beautiful - lost it though)

Wing Commander 5: Prophecy
Wing Commander 5: Secret Ops
Descent Freespace
Descent Freespace 2
Microsoft Space Simulator
Orbiter Space Flight Simulator http://www.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/~martins/orbit/orbit.html , best and most complex space flight simulator EVER!!!

Combat Flight Sims:
1942 Pacific Air War (circa 1993)
Pacific Strike (circa 1992, IIRC)
Microprose F-15E Strike Eagle III (circa 1992, IIRC)
Crimson Skies (VERY arcade-like, can't really call it a sim)
Jane's F-15 Strike Eagle
Jane's F/A-18E Superhornet
Jane's USNF '97
Jane's USAF
Jane's ATF
Tornado ADF
A-10 Tank Killer
Falcon 3.0
Falcon 4.0 with patch 1.08 US, SuperPAK 3.0 patch, FreeFalcon mod, BMS mod
Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator
Combat Flight Simulator 2
Combat Flight Simulator 3
Ilushyn-2 Sturmovik
Ilushyn-2 Sturmovik: Forgotten Battles
Lock-On: Modern Air Combat (at least the demo, game went Gold on Monday, I think)

Civilian Flight Sims:
Microsoft Flight Simulator 5.0 (FS 5.0)
FS 95
FS 98
FS 2000
FS 2002
FS 2004 with many juicy add-ons
Flight Unlimited
Flight Unlimited 2
Flight Unlimited 3
Fly!
Fly! 2000 (i.e. like a "special edition" of Fly!)
Fly! II
X-Plane 5.x
X-Plane 6.x
X-Plane 7.x

Naval:
Harpoon 3.0
Jane's Fleet Command with the various add-ons
Silent Service II (circa 1991)
Aces of the Deep (circa 1994)
Silent Hunter

Essentially, I've "beaten" the ones that you can "beat". Some you can't do that, like the Microsoft Flight Simulator series. You just fly 'em (or use them as aupplemental training when you're in a flight school/aviation major like me) until a new version comes out.

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2003-11-12 06:27pm

Well, I've taken out Star Destroyers before. But from a single A-wing?

Right.

I've even put together a custom scenario with 8 squadrons of B-wings vs. a SSD. B-wings won after many losses and 35 minutes of assault. The SSD had no support craft. Give it it's fighter complement and you can't put enough ships to win on the opposing side. Not enough group slots. Unless you set the bombers to 19 waves per group, but that's just cheap.

Coaan · Post by **Coaan** » 2003-11-12 07:30pm

Rogue 9 wrote:Well, I've taken out Star Destroyers before. But from a single A-wing? Right.

I've even put together a custom scenario with 8 squadrons of B-wings vs. a SSD. B-wings won after many losses and 35 minutes of assault. The SSD had no support craft. Give it it's fighter complement and you can't put enough ships to win on the opposing side. Not enough group slots. Unless you set the bombers to 19 waves per group, but that's just cheap.

An experienced fighter/bomber pilot can manage to do it without needing any replacement wings...it just takes alot of jinking, firing...jinking, firing...lather rinse repeat..

lukexcom · Post by **lukexcom** » 2003-11-12 07:35pm

What they should do is make a Star Wars sim, where you take a _-Wing or a Tie-_____ , and when you're in that Y-Wing doing a frontal torpedo run on the bow of the huge Star Destroyer filling up your screen, you see it spitting tons of turbolaser fire, some normal, some in flak mode, and the cockpit is shaking all around you...kind of like torpedoing the Japanese fleet at Midway....hair-raising experience.

I've found that somehow the Star Wars space sims kinda fail to impress me on the size of their ships. Although a customizable field-of-view option would help alleviate that problem a bit.

Thing is, even the SSD was huge in X-Wing: Alliance, I didn't "feel" that it was really that big. That's probably because they used up most of the available polygons on the model to design that entire superstructure of the ship. Today, if they bump-mapped the hull of the ship itself with some quality, huge textures (2048x2048), it would REALLY help make that ship seem just mind-boggingly huge (which it is, compared to anything built today). You want to impress the gamer/simmer, after all. Have their jaw srop. Like the time when you saw the GTVA Collosus for the first time in Freespace 2.

StarshipTitanic · Post by **StarshipTitanic** » 2003-11-12 07:41pm

There's a website somewhere with a proper 17.5km SSD model. "XWA Upgrade" or something.

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2003-11-12 07:45pm

An experienced fighter/bomber pilot can manage to do it without needing any replacement wings...it just takes alot of jinking, firing...jinking, firing...lather rinse repeat..

I said that about an SSD with full starfighter complement. Getting swarmed by TIE Interceptors tends to ruin your entire day. (Adn I do mean swarmed. As in a squadron or more concentrating on you.) And I've taken out Star Destroyers without losing my fighter once as well. Just that I had the rest of my squadron and A-wings running cover. Also, you'll note that a capital ship's gunners in XWA tend to get a lot more accurate when the ship's hull integrity hits 5%.

On an SSD that translates into the counter dropping from 6% to 5% and the very instant that occurs a massive wave of green comes at you and your shields are just gone. Second later, so's your hull.

And you can't disable them. I don't know if its a glitch or if they meant to do it, but an SSD's systems will get down to 33% and then refuse to drop any more. No effect. *Shrugs.* Heavy assault's my specialty. I just find it more satisfying to make a few big explosions then to make dozens of little ones.

Exonerate · Post by **Exonerate** » 2003-11-12 07:50pm

I have the original X-Wing, and got X-Wing vs. Tie Fighters for $50 when it was brand new...

I liked the asteroid melees with Tie Intercepters the most

Vertigo1 · Post by **Vertigo1** » 2003-11-12 08:23pm

I've gotten back into X-Wing Alliance again. Mainly because I'm sick of playing Red Faction and Freespace2 over and over again.

El Moose Monstero · Post by **El Moose Monstero** » 2003-11-12 10:00pm

Rogue 9 wrote:Well, I've taken out Star Destroyers before. But from a single A-wing? Right.

I've even put together a custom scenario with 8 squadrons of B-wings vs. a SSD. B-wings won after many losses and 35 minutes of assault. The SSD had no support craft. Give it it's fighter complement and you can't put enough ships to win on the opposing side. Not enough group slots. Unless you set the bombers to 19 waves per group, but that's just cheap.

It wasnt particularly tricky, it was on easy, and the AI on easy is by no means challenging, all you had to do was retreat when it was necessary, they only launched Tie's in groups of 2 or 3, IIRC, so you were never really under fire that badly, and the A-wings speed meant you could always run for cover if necessary. After the Tie compliment was gone, it's easy, you just move in and out of their turbolaser range knocking out the dorsal turbolaser batteries until there's nothing left to shoot at you with, then as I said, simply park yourself in a convenient spot and play shoot the shield globe.

I did more or less the same thing with a Y-Wing at that one with the slave convoy, everyone else had pissed off, the star fighter compliment remaining was down to a handful of ties, star destroyer was easy pickings.

I remember taking down the ISD Rage in Balance of Power, third to last campaign mission and being so pissed off when it showed up in the final mission...

Grand Admiral Thrawn · Post by **Grand Admiral Thrawn** » 2003-11-12 10:19pm

Rebel Scum. All hail Tie Fighter!

Exonerate · Post by **Exonerate** » 2003-11-12 11:18pm

Heh, I remember my entire squadron getting wiped out, meaning I had like 9 A-wings on me... Then they all suddenly decide to fire concussion missiles.

I spent nearly 5 minutes flying around in circles trying to juke the missiles.

Coaan · Post by **Coaan** » 2003-11-12 11:24pm

Rogue 9 wrote:
An experienced fighter/bomber pilot can manage to do it without needing any replacement wings...it just takes alot of jinking, firing...jinking, firing...lather rinse repeat..
I said that about an SSD with full starfighter complement. Getting swarmed by TIE Interceptors tends to ruin your entire day. (Adn I do mean swarmed. As in a squadron or more concentrating on you.) And I've taken out Star Destroyers without losing my fighter once as well. Just that I had the rest of my squadron and A-wings running cover. Also, you'll note that a capital ship's gunners in XWA tend to get a lot more accurate when the ship's hull integrity hits 5%. On an SSD that translates into the counter dropping from 6% to 5% and the very instant that occurs a massive wave of green comes at you and your shields are just gone. Second later, so's your hull.

And you can't disable them. I don't know if its a glitch or if they meant to do it, but an SSD's systems will get down to 33% and then refuse to drop any more. No effect. *Shrugs.* Heavy assault's my specialty. I just find it more satisfying to make a few big explosions then to make dozens of little ones.

Ditto on the specialty.

Interceptors? Bah...eat blue bolts of electric system death...look at that...no more wings! Ion cannons have their use...and no..the fact you can't disable the ssd isn't a glitch...Look at the size of that thing!

You can't seriously expect that fighter based ion cannons would work on something that must have back up after back up and thousand of redundant systems to soak up such fire.. Hell..even the larger, ship grade ion batteries would have problems knocking out an ssd...damn near the only way to immobilize it would be either from the inside...cripple it's power or many many planet defenders

Especially in Xwa, B-wings have the fire control system which means their lasers can actually hit fighters as a pose to having to turn half away from your target in xvt just to get a glancing blow

Soontir C'boath · Post by **Soontir C'boath** » 2003-11-13 12:03am

Oh jeez this brings back memories. This game was the first true introduction into zone.com and it's endless amount of people. Met many and had interesting times.

Anyway, I usually just play the combat sim in the game. The missions were just meh and some were just plain annoying. Like evacuating the Rebel base but those damn Gunboats would be up your ass most of the time.

My preference is the TIE. I find it much easier with the canons mounted in the middle then having to firing centering like the X-Wing from the sides. Especially when my targetting computer doesn't have the enemy on my screen is when it's used to its full potential.

Cyaround,
Jason

Mad · Post by **Mad** » 2003-11-13 12:47am

Rogue 9 wrote:Well, I've taken out Star Destroyers before. But from a single A-wing? Right.

Taking out capships on missions they aren't supposed to die in is a fun pasttime in the X-Wing series of games. Just don't target them in anything except the original unless they've been disabled or the missile launcher has been destroyed.

I've destroyed the ISD Invincible quite a few times in the first X-Wing Tour of Duty. It's fun because I get more ISD kills on my pilot's log than different ISDs appear in the game.

Thunderfire · Post by **Thunderfire** » 2003-11-13 03:08am

Rogue 9 wrote:Well, I've taken out Star Destroyers before. But from a single A-wing? Right.

It is piss easy to kill capital ships in XWA/XVT. ISD are especially easy to kill
in XWA because they are unable to anything that flies faster than 90 in the game.
They are more dangerous in XvT because you can't kill the shield generators and
they don't use slow TL to get you. Anyone can kill a ISD with one T/F with a little
practice most of the time.

Coaan · Post by **Coaan** » 2003-11-13 03:36am

Thunderfire wrote:
Rogue 9 wrote:Well, I've taken out Star Destroyers before. But from a single A-wing? Right.
It is piss easy to kill capital ships in XWA/XVT. ISD are especially easy to kill
in XWA because they are unable to anything that flies faster than 90 in the game.
They are more dangerous in XvT because you can't kill the shield generators and
they don't use slow TL to get you. Anyone can kill a ISD with one T/F with a little
practice most of the time.

Nup, that's wrong...the 'shield generators' trick was voided out if you set it to anything other than easy...which...is lame really when compaired to heat of the moment flying that you got on hard mode...the difference is staggering..

Thunderfire · Post by **Thunderfire** » 2003-11-13 03:43am

Coaan wrote: Nup, that's wrong...the 'shield generators' trick was voided out if you set it to anything other than easy...which...is lame really when compaired to heat of the moment flying that you got on hard mode...the difference is staggering..

This happens only in XvT AFAIK. You can destroy them on all difficulties in XWA
- you'll have to because one mission requires you to kill them.

Ypoknons · Post by **Ypoknons** » 2003-11-13 03:55am

StarshipTitanic wrote:There's a website somewhere with a proper 17.5km SSD model. "XWA Upgrade" or something.

Nope not us. Matt, one of the XWAU members, has one, but it's the original XWA model resized. I think he will eventually have his much better version of the SSD - sometime between now and when we land on Mars.

Stofsk · Post by **Stofsk** » 2003-11-13 05:37am

I remember playing X-wing and absolutely slaughtering Ties in one shot, because I would always charge my guns up to full power, set it to fire all 4 cannons linked, and wait for them to come to me. It was fun.

I also enjoyed Tie Fighter, as not every campaign was centred around the fight with the Rebels, sometimes you had peacekeeping duties in an non-aligned system, sometimes you were hunting pirates etc.

I played XvsT briefly, but not long enough to really get into it. It still was fun.

I've never played XWA, but apparently its fun as well.

I've played Freelancer. Is anyone else here somewhat unimpressed by it? Yeah it has good graphics, but aside from that what is there to really endear this game to the heart?

Sarevok · Post by **Sarevok** » 2003-11-13 07:43am

I've played Freelancer. Is anyone else here somewhat unimpressed by it? Yeah it has good graphics, but aside from that what is there to really endear this game to the heart?

Freelancer sucks.

Dooey Jo · Post by **Dooey Jo** » 2003-11-13 08:16am

I'm not touching X-Wing EVER again. My eyesight got fucked up while playing I was playing it. I still remember the day: I had been playing it for a few hours and my mom comes and asks if I can take the dog out for a walk and I said I could. Then I think "Is it foggy in here or what?".

It wasn't no goddamned fog, it was my eyes, fucking up. They've gotten worse since (was around 7-6 years ago or something like that). The only treatment for it seemed to be playing Tie Fighter but that only worked for a while, not anymore (probably didn't work at all in the first place, just my imagination. Just like when I think that it's just temporary and I won't need my thick-as-hell glasses forever)...