2 minutes ago, FTS Gecko said:

It's interesting to see so many people choose TIE Fighter as their favourite game. It's probably the boldest Star Wars story ever told; a tale told from the Empire's point of view. I'd love to see Disney take a cue from it for their next adult-orientated offering following the success of Rogue One - let's see a Star Wars film depicting a pilot's life in the Imperial Navy.

I'd like to see an elite pilot training academy, with an awesome 80s soundtrack.

We could call it... Top Gun(boat)

Whelp, we've made it to 255 pages! That's like 16 bits! FFG, where is our Gunboat?!

16 minutes ago, FTS Gecko said:

It's interesting to see so many people choose TIE Fighter as their favourite game. It's probably the boldest Star Wars story ever told; a tale told from the Empire's point of view. I'd love to see Disney take a cue from it for their next adult-orientated offering following the success of Rogue One - let's see a Star Wars film depicting a pilot's life in the Imperial Navy.

You do get this, a bit, in some recent Disney-sanctioned books, so there's hope. Lost Stars is a good book for "there are good people on both sides", and one thing that Rogue One did more than a lot of previous material is underline that the rebels aren't all nice people.

A lot of normal people may not like the empire, but on a lot of rim worlds where an opportunistic gang of Mandalorians or Pirates in the pay of any number of criminal factions could drop in at any time, a lot of people would be glad to see a star destroyer turn up. Palpatine may have been a sith, but the majority of the Imperial Navy officers genuinely wanted to be there (provided "there" was as far as possible from Vader). Hell, even Luke wanted to attend the academy*

By all means have the story/series start with idealistic new recruit, and do all sorts of "order and security" things, and steadily realise as he/she climbs the ranks that the system is rotten. Ultimately, feel free to have him/her defect - it fits what happens with a lot of major rebel characters.

Of course, if they really want to get ye fanboys wibbling, doing a 181st movie would be kind of epic.

* You have to wonder how that academy application would have gone.

"Commandant?"

"Yes, Lieutenant?"

"We've got an application from a boy named Skywalker from Tatooine. Does that ring a bell with you for some reason, too?"

"What?!?!? Err...just.....Leave that form there, please. I'll review it later. Myself. Did I mention please go now?"

[Speed Dials Coruscant]

You know what? Let's just have a film based around Crix Madine. That guy is awesome.

Perhaps the Skywalker family name is a common one, like Smith. In a galaxy with quadrillions of humans, it wouldn't be surprising to find a few billions of Skywalkers around. After all, Shmi Skywalker must have had a family tree.

About the games, my list would be:

1. TIE Fighter
2. X-Wing
3. Jedi Knight
4. Empire at War
5. Rebellion (Yes, I'm weird)
6. Galactic Battlegrounds (Yes, home of our dear TIE Punisher. I deserve to die...)
7. Episode I: Racer
8. X-Wing vs TIE Fighter: Balance of Power
9. X-Wing Alliance

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2017/7/10/x-wing-101-fly-what-you-love/

Fly what you love? I'd love to fly what I love.

What do you love?

I installed Tie fighter 1995 version on my computer over the weekend. Got it from GOG.

Sure was good to fly the gunboat again... was surprisingly tough but couldn't link the ion and laser cannons together. I think in XVT and alliance it could..

Just now, william1134 said:

Sure was good to fly the gunboat again... was surprisingly tough but couldn't link the ion and laser cannons together. I think in XVT and alliance it could..

First in X-Wing Alliance.
The "cheat" in X-Wing versus TIE Fighter was to hold the W key (switch weapons) down so that the weapons kept cycling. After releasing all your torpedoes, you had the poor man's version of linked fire.

OK nice, I will give that a go. Thanks!

Also when I said it was tough, I was referring to the toughness of the gunboat to pathetic rebel firepower.

I always found it interesting that the missile boat never picked up the same following.

1 minute ago, william1134 said:

OK nice, I will give that a go. Thanks!

Also when I said it was tough, I was referring to the toughness of the gunboat to pathetic rebel firepower.

In those games, the gunboat is a merge of

• The sturdiness and speed of a B-wing.
• The maneuverability and missiles of an A-wing.
• The firepower and precision (cannon placement) of a Y-wing.

So it is easy to aim at the rebels (maneuverability) and hit them with your well placed lasers (precision), while being able to shrug off quite a bit of incoming fire, making it a good jouster.
However its lack of firepower (since you cannot really link your cannons) makes it a better chaser, in the sense that it is good at keeping targets in arc of fire building up your target locks, and you are loaded with a good amount of missiles to make short work of them.

2 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

I always found it interesting that the missile boat never picked up the same following.

It was just too silly overpowered and too specific to its storyline to be believable.

36 minutes ago, Azrapse said:

It was just too silly overpowered and too specific to its storyline to be believable.

It was basically the zenith of rock paper scissors lizard spock... missile boat.

3 minutes ago, Jetfire said:

It was basically the zenith of rock paper scissors lizard spock... missile boat.

It was just plainly a tool to defeat TIE Defenders and middle sized capital ships en masse, for a particular reason at a particular time in the storyline.

Sort of a Secret Weapon of the Luftwaffe Empire kind of thing.

Of course, if its became commonly used, Star Wars space combat would cease to be the one we know and love, so it had to be conveniently deleted from existence at the end of its storyline. The developers of TIE Fighter didn't want to raise the power creep that much.

By the end of the game, both the TIE Avengers, TIE Defenders, and Missile Boats had basically eliminated each other, and the Missile Boat was the absolutely rarest of them all. So it's no surprise that it didn't get any more use, and so it didn't grow any big fan base over the years.

Hmmm.. I am pretty sure that in the later games you could link the laser and ion cannons together for the gunboat.

The Gunboat was in X-Wing, TIE Fighter, XvsT and Alliance. The Missile Boat really only played a role in TIE Fighter.

It was important to the story of course, being the pinnacle of the Imperial Arms Race and the weapon the loyalists used to defeat Zaarin, but in reality it was basically just a Mary Sue that was designed to let the player blow up as many things as possible (and out-OP TIE Defenders). Or, as as it was referred to in XvsT: "This is the King Hell God Emperor Starfighter of Death, and you can't fly it yet!"

The Gunboat on the other hand was more of a mainline ship. It wasn't OP, it had it's own niche in the Imperial Navy, a realistic role which worked in how the games were played, and it was fun to blow them out of the sky with concussion missiles or proton torpedoes. It fit in the game universe, and it fit well.

The missile boat also looked awful, I really didn't care for the design at all.

1 hour ago, william1134 said:

The missile boat also looked awful, I really didn't care for the design at all.

I really didn't care much for the missile boat design either, it didn't fit well in the Star Wars Universe. I thought it looked more like something from Wing Commander.

On 11.07.2017 at 11:29 AM, FTS Gecko said:

You know what? Let's just have a film based around Crix Madine. That guy is awesome.

I had this feeling that Crix is the real name of Kallus.

4 hours ago, Suriel said:

I had this feeling that Crix is the real name of Kallus.

There's only one way to deal with defectors...

On 7/11/2017 at 9:54 PM, Azrapse said:

First in X-Wing Alliance.
The "cheat" in X-Wing versus TIE Fighter was to hold the W key (switch weapons) down so that the weapons kept cycling. After releasing all your torpedoes, you had the poor man's version of linked fire.

"...poor Man's version of linked fire."

What?? ^

Hehe. Am I the only one that used to try and get rid of all their ordnance so that I could use the Shoot-W beams of death???

It was my favourite thing to do in a Gunboat~!

13 hours ago, FTS Gecko said:

There's only one way to deal with defectors...

Amen to that!

I cried a little bit inside, each time I shot down a rogue Gunboat.

Seeing that I haven't seen it being discussed in our beloved thread - I posted in another thread about a week or so ago.

Can't they introduce the Gunboat as a Special Forces type ship?

The Starwars Battlefront II game is an awesome opportunity for them to re-introduce our lordShip.

Gunboats - first in, last out! We always get the job done!

6 hours ago, Alpha Xg1 said:

Seeing that I haven't seen it being discussed in our beloved thread - I posted in another thread about a week or so ago.

Can't they introduce the Gunboat as a Special Forces type ship?

The Starwars Battlefront II game is an awesome opportunity for them to re-introduce our lordShip.

Gunboats - first in, last out! We always get the job done!

Maybe video games are too mainstream to add the Gunboat (EA&Dice lost that opportunity when they added the TIE Defender to Battlefront 1, instead of a more fitting Gunboat). But there is a book coming: Battlefront II - Inferno Squad that has plenty of room for the Gunboat. They just need one line with "Assault Gunboat" on it and *boom*, it's canon.

Star Wing, Star Wing, what a hell of a way to fly!
Star Wing, Star Wing, what a hell of a way to fly!
Star Wing, Star Wing, what a hell of a way to fly!
Star Wing, Star Wing, what a hell of a way to fly!
And the Reb's gonna fly no more.