Xwing made the transition between ANH and Empire feel brutal for the rebels. Evacuations barely holding together, starvation, betrayal....

Xwing made the transition between ANH and Empire feel brutal for the rebels. Evacuations barely holding together, starvation, betrayal....

It certainly helped flesh out why the Rebellion was in such a desperate state during Empire Strikes Back, despite the Rebel's famous victory at Yavin. The entire Imperial fleet went on search and destroy mode.

The carrier for four concept is pretty stupid idea. What exactly are 4 tie fighters going to do? and by the time they've scrambled, the target's halfway to the next system. And that's before talking about re-embarkation.

Maybe it's more that Gozantis are more "armed transport" than warship - so - the TIEs are there so that when something threatening is approaching the convoy when it's in realspace, TIEs can scramble to protect it.

When you can't spare warships to protect every convoy - attach TIEs to the transport ships instead.

Logistically it's far better to send hyperspace capable ships on a rota. Embarkation of TIEs would take ages or be a one use weapon when you hyperspace out. Ignoring the obvious waste of resources (imperial doctrine calls for swarming so four ties wouldn't make much sense). No point having a one use weapon if you're going to get ambushed in the next system.

Or just reduce the number of planets you need to defend.

Or just reduce the number of planets you need to defend.

Sometimes, sure. Some systems had more protection than others But by reducing planets you are reducing inbound resources. the GDP of some planets must be massive!

Ever played Empire at War? Maybe Star Wars rebellion? The income from those star systems is REALLY nice to have, and most planets had at least cursory defenses.

Look at CIV5 - everyones played that. Ever gone into all out berzerker mode if you lose a city to a sudden attack or to espionage? In Beyond earth I've wiped out entire races for that, it's literally my genocide button.

Or just reduce the number of planets you need to defend.

Sometimes, sure. Some systems had more protection than others But by reducing planets you are reducing inbound resources. the GDP of some planets must be massive!

Ever played Empire at War? Maybe Star Wars rebellion? The income from those star systems is REALLY nice to have, and most planets had at least cursory defenses.

Look at CIV5 - everyones played that. Ever gone into all out berzerker mode if you lose a city to a sudden attack or to espionage? In Beyond earth I've wiped out entire races for that, it's literally my genocide button.

aw geez spot on with the empire at war GDP bit dude.

Much as I'd love to defend just a few planets, if y'aint got the holdings y'aint got the military!

The carrier for four concept is pretty stupid idea. What exactly are 4 tie fighters going to do? and by the time they've scrambled, the target's halfway to the next system. And that's before talking about re-embarkation.

Maybe it's more that Gozantis are more "armed transport" than warship - so - the TIEs are there so that when something threatening is approaching the convoy when it's in realspace, TIEs can scramble to protect it.

When you can't spare warships to protect every convoy - attach TIEs to the transport ships instead.

Logistically it's far better to send hyperspace capable ships on a rota. Embarkation of TIEs would take ages or be a one use weapon when you hyperspace out. Ignoring the obvious waste of resources (imperial doctrine calls for swarming so four ties wouldn't make much sense). No point having a one use weapon if you're going to get ambushed in the next system.

TIE fighters might not be the best but it's complement could be interceptors or bombers as well (presumably other variants as well). Strictly speaking gunboats would serve as better strike forces assuming the target is within their operating range. A Gozanti can move anywhere you need it to and perform a variety of actions gunboats simply can't. We are also assuming that they act solo when they'd more likely operate in pairs.

Isn't the operating range of fighters with hyperdrives the entire galaxy, with the right route programmed you can go end to end in six hours.

Isn't the operating range of fighters with hyperdrives the entire galaxy, with the right route programmed you can go end to end in six hours.

If that's true the entire imperial navy should just be gunboats.

Isn't the operating range of fighters with hyperdrives the entire galaxy, with the right route programmed you can go end to end in six hours.

Has hyperdrive range or time ever been established in Star Wars? Surely there must be some kind of fuel involved or travel time. If it's anything like games like Elite Dangerous, then traveling from one end of the galaxy to the other is a matter of days or weeks, not hours.

Isn't the operating range of fighters with hyperdrives the entire galaxy, with the right route programmed you can go end to end in six hours.

If that's true the entire imperial navy should just be gunboats.

Sure, except they don't transport stormtroopers and probably cost as much as a dozen tie fighters each to build. If you have to build ISD's anyway you may as well use cheap ties.

Isn't the operating range of fighters with hyperdrives the entire galaxy, with the right route programmed you can go end to end in six hours.

If that's true the entire imperial navy should just be gunboats.

Sure, except they don't transport stormtroopers and probably cost as much as a dozen tie fighters each to build. If you have to build ISD's anyway you may as well use cheap ties.

Just have the stormtroopers pilot the gunboats. Pretty sure everything could be solved by throwing a few hundred gunboats at it. They don't call it gunboat diplomacy for nothing.

By and by, I'm not questioning the tactical capabilities of an armed Gozanti. Armed merchantmen are a very useful and value for money way to escort a convoy.

I am however seriously questioning the tactical capabilities of a less armed Gozanti with 4 TIEs.

Basically, the Gozanti is a plot device to get around the strange conception that the Imperials have no fighter power projection. Rather than equip or develop a fighter with hyperspace capability, they latch 4 useless TIEs onto a freighter and call it quits. But, just as every one manned ship MUST be a Sienar model, so too must every Imperial fighter be hyperspace incapable.

It's clumsy and lazy.

Isn't the operating range of fighters with hyperdrives the entire galaxy, with the right route programmed you can go end to end in six hours.

If that's true the entire imperial navy should just be gunboats.

Sure, except they don't transport stormtroopers and probably cost as much as a dozen tie fighters each to build. If you have to build ISD's anyway you may as well use cheap ties.

Just have the stormtroopers pilot the gunboats. Pretty sure everything could be solved by throwing a few hundred gunboats at it. They don't call it gunboat diplomacy for nothing.

Gunboat Diplomacy: that's a fine name for the Assault Gunboat FFG preview article.

They could call it Boats and Hos for all I care: so long as its released...

Isn't the operating range of fighters with hyperdrives the entire galaxy, with the right route programmed you can go end to end in six hours.

Has hyperdrive range or time ever been established in Star Wars? Surely there must be some kind of fuel involved or travel time. If it's anything like games like Elite Dangerous, then traveling from one end of the galaxy to the other is a matter of days or weeks, not hours.

See what defines speed is two things A) class of hyperdrive b) the available route.

If you go above the elliptical there's no systems to navigate around so you can just go straight, but if you break down you'll never get found which is why ships stick to shipping lanes.

So what slows a ship is not so much the class of hyperdrive but how many systems you have to detour around.

As for speed I'm sure it was in some legends book I read.

It was either in the XWA database or the now defunct ship encyclopedia that listed canon stays, one of them was atmospheric and space flight ratings and hyperdrive classes.

As a general rule of thumb small ships have smaller hyperdrives, and such spend longer in hyperspace than a similarly equipped capital ship. So a Stardestroyer could hyper somewhere and deploy it's TIE squadrons faster than gunboats can get their with hyperdrive. But Gunboats can hyper all around a small area far faster than a Stardestroyer can.

As for speed I'm sure it was in some legends book I read.

The early speeds given in The Thrawn Trilogy (127 light years per hour was "point five" - the top speed of a VicStar pushing its engines to the limit) ended up being retconned by the later maps - with planets being further apart than the novel timeframes and novel speeds would suggest.

These maps seem to have been carried over to the newcanon mostly unchanged.

And the PT seem to be going with "can get from Coruscant to Mustafar (40,000-odd light years going by maps) in minutes/a couple of hours or so" (Yoda begins his fight with Palpatine as Padme's ship is entering Mustafar's atmosphere and appearing on the screens Vader is watching, and Palpatine has reached Vader by the time their fight is over and Vader has been burning for a few minutes- the novelization went so far as to say Obi-Wan saw Palpatine's shuttle coming in.)

After playing through some original DOS X-wing again, I realized gunboats need a special rule.

"Upon destruction, if the attacker is within Range 1, roll an attack die. On hit or crit, the attacker is instantly destroyed."

**** reverse-direction-upon-death gunboats in classic X-wing!

After playing through some original DOS X-wing again, I realized gunboats need a special rule.

"Upon destruction, if the attacker is within Range 1, roll an attack die. On hit or crit, the attacker is instantly destroyed."

**** reverse-direction-upon-death gunboats in classic X-wing!

Now there is something I haven't thought about in over a decade, or even two at this point. I had the same problem in X-Wing, in TIE Fighter for me it was the B-Wing I had that problem with.

Yes, B-Wings, gunboats, shuttles and DX-9 transports were great at blowing up in your direction, and take you with them. All those hull parts and wings blowing in all directions behaved basically like a frag grenade.

It's time FFG. GenCon. Wave 10.

Give the people what they want!

Thankfully that "feature" was removed in the XvT engine games...

I need to get back on track for my current xwing campaign.

DX-9's and lambdas were particularly nasty in that if they so much as clipped you, you were more or less toast. Tight flying groups of these were the worst.

It's time FFG. GenCon. Wave 10.

Give the people what they want!

A TIE Striker? Or maybe a "Villains of the First Order" pack, with the much wanted 5th TIE Fighter palette swap? It could be the yellow TIE Pac-Man from Rebels this time. Or the TIE Grafitti from the same series.

Thankfully that "feature" was removed in the XvT engine games...

I need to get back on track for my current xwing campaign.

DX-9's and lambdas were particularly nasty in that if they so much as clipped you, you were more or less toast. Tight flying groups of these were the worst.

It was also quite mitigated in TIE Fighter. You could go to options and disable lethal collisions. That would make you get some damage from a collision, but make you spin without control for a moment, rather than kill you.