The game series is over 20 years old now, so it is really starting to show it's age, but every true Star Wars fan should give them a go at least once.

And thanks to the good old boys at X-Wing Alliance update, the last game in the series at least gets some lovely modern textures and detailing...

20 years...<strokes beard>

Stick to the collectors ed CD versions, you can fly with a mouse.

Don't bother trying with an xbox gamepad, just.... don't.

Alliance is graphically the best, but In my opinion the weakest of the series (not just because of the mission glitches). Again, needs a joystick.

Other than that, what gecko said. In my opinion they are a required experience. A new player to the games might find them nintendo hard in places.

I never play games with a controller as I love the precision that comes with using a mouse.

From what I've read on them, they look technically complex. I am looking forward to a challenge.

20 years...<strokes beard>

Stick to the collectors ed CD versions, you can fly with a mouse.

Don't bother trying with an xbox gamepad, just.... don't.

Alliance is graphically the best, but In my opinion the weakest of the series (not just because of the mission glitches). Again, needs a joystick.

Other than that, what gecko said. In my opinion they are a required experience. A new player to the games might find them nintendo hard in places.

That mission where you have to scan containers surrounded by mines spewing missiles could reduce you to tears, thankfully you were in a gunboat a tie fighter would of been vaped in seconds.

I can tell you that I beat the original floppy and CD versions with a mouse.

Tips: jink

master ELS control (F9 adjusts laser recharge, F10 adjusts shields. In TIE F8 adjusts beam) (') on the keyboard shunts energy from laser to shield, this is a good thing to do. Keep laser banks "supercharged" (bright, not dull orange/green/blue) but shunt when you can to shield.

My common combat settings:

waiting: shields and lasers to max, beam too if avail

Engaging: lasers on increased, but not maxxed, shields nominal. Notably on the x-wing For the Y and A I prefer maxing lasers. B i skip between the two. Rule of thumb is if 4 lasers, increased, if 2 maxxed.

Interception - depends. lasers typically at 0 shields maybe anywhere from decreased to all to engines, when i get close i shunt to lasers.

Weapon ranges: Supercharged laser 1.5

Supercharged ion. I forget, less than the above.

Missiles/starfighter lock 2.5

Missiles/cap ship lock 6.

Turbolasers 4-6 if i recall - you only see this in alliance.

Notes: in X-wing you don't have to worry about capital ship missiles, you don't have a warning bar for when you are being targetted either, except for a flashing thing in the cockpit for missile locks.

in TIE If you target a capital ship it will fire from a max range of 6km with all it's warhead launchers. This only happens when you target. You can dumbfire these warhead launchers off a ship. This also applies in XvT/Xvt:BOP.

Advanced CMs HURT.

20 years...<strokes beard>

Stick to the collectors ed CD versions, you can fly with a mouse.

Don't bother trying with an xbox gamepad, just.... don't.

Alliance is graphically the best, but In my opinion the weakest of the series (not just because of the mission glitches). Again, needs a joystick.

Other than that, what gecko said. In my opinion they are a required experience. A new player to the games might find them nintendo hard in places.

That mission where you have to scan containers surrounded by mines spewing missiles could reduce you to tears, thankfully you were in a gunboat a tie fighter would of been vaped in seconds.

The one I hated was the one in the TIE Interceptor. No spoilers to those who haven't played the game yet.

To those who have. Y'all know what I am talking about.

I never play games with a controller as I love the precision that comes with using a mouse.

From what I've read on them, they look technically complex. I am looking forward to a challenge.

They use multiple controls. Joystick (flight stick) for flight, keyboard for a huge range of other functions - target mapping, wingman commands, energy distribution, auto-repair priorities, the works.. They're very much a "simulator" style of game.

Very old school by today's standards, but a hell of a lot of fun!

Shift I "ignore my target"

Shift c "cover me"

R target nearest

E target nearest enemy that is targetting you (IMPORTANT)

If you press R and your wingman is selected, and he doesn't obey commands don't worry about it. It's a minor mission glitch...

I never play games with a controller as I love the precision that comes with using a mouse.

From what I've read on them, they look technically complex. I am looking forward to a challenge.

I would hesitate to label any of the star wars flight sims "complex"

By today's standards, sure, they are relatively complicated for a video game, but at the time I played them (junior high) I was also playing (or trying to play) military aircraft sims like Jane's Advanced Tactical Fighters Gold and Longbow Gold. In comparison to more "realistic" flight sims like these, Star Wars sims are much more simplistic, as the basic operation of your craft is much less technical. I could never even figure out how to take off in a helicopter in Longbow Gold, despite reading the manual and playing the basic helicopter training missions. Still, I highly recommend playing the Star Wars sims, they are great games.

I tried to play X-Wing with a mouse 23 years ago; it was impossible. Once I got my CH-Pro I beat both X-Wing and later TIE Fighter like a boss. I recently purchased the series from Gog and I can still kill a Nebulon-B with an A-Wing. Although setting up my Saitek X-55 to the game was tricky.

Completed both X-Wing and TIE Fighter with mouse. It is 100% feasible, but I don't recommend it, specially in the later battles of TIE Fighter, when you TIE Defenders or Avengers versus TIE Defender or Avenger mirror matches (Battles 9 to 13). The mouse just cannot provide enough turn rate.

I don't think there is anything in X-Wing you couldn't play with just the mouse, though.

However, I do recommend to play with a gamepad with analog thumbstick. I don't know if the X-Box gamepad is good for this (I don't have one), but my old USB Logitech Rumblepad 2 has been better than any mouse or any joystick I have tried.

While I agree with everything else you said in that post, this does not match my personal experience.

I never liked the Gunboat and Missile Boat even at the time, so even though TIE Fighter is one of my favorite games ever, nostalgia for that game does not give me nostalgia for those ships.

Well, I've certainly got the nostalgia now. Might have to look up GOG later.

Alright, so moving away from the other thread, as this is the one true XG-1 thread.

Has anyone else pointed out that the XG-1 is a superior choice to the TIE series in atmosphere yet? Cause I feel that's a big one.

Not sure that would be the case following Force Awakens. And to be fair, the Rodge Squadron games both had plenty of atmospheric combat with TIEs.

Let's face it, physics arguments are fairly pointless when it comes to Star Wars!

I still remember picking up the demo floppy of tie fighter from electronics boutique!

I still remember picking up the demo floppy of tie fighter from electronics boutique!

Tell me about it! Look at the state of this:

Operating system (OS) 95

Processor (CPU) Pentium 90 Pentium 100

System memory (RAM) 16 MB

Hard disk drive (HDD) 3 MB (typical 79 MB) 170 MB

Video card (GPU) PCI Graphics card

DirectX 5.2 compatible

They literally don't make games like that any more...

That's not the specs. TRUST ME ON THIS!!!

That's the updated windows 95 version.

You could run Xwing and TIE on a 386. My first PC ran them perfectly, that was a 486sx25mhz with 4 MB of Ram.

The floppy demo of TIE was actually x-wing engine, damage not ramped up. Own cockpit. was a unique thing at the time, I have it myself.

The first TIE Fighter release had new sounds/damage/graphics for the lasers, cockpits etc and also Gauraud shading. It could be ran on 4mbs of Ram, but Memmaker needed to be broke out, as well as a decent amount of autoexec.bat and config.sys editing. Needed what, ~570k out of 640K conventional memory free? (X-wing only needed 550ish, Doom another game from that time used the EMS/XMS memory instead, so could be booted easier).

How can I remember all of this?

Unrelated, For a laugh get a copy of Heroes of Might & Magic 2, and install it on a modern PC. It'll install, and give you the very best error message ever. (It will work though)Paraphrased: "HOMM2 requires 4MB of Ram to run, you have <your memory> You might have difficulty running this game."

Alright, so moving away from the other thread, as this is the one true XG-1 thread.

Has anyone else pointed out that the XG-1 is a superior choice to the TIE series in atmosphere yet? Cause I feel that's a big one.

Ever since I saw GUNBOATS acting as air support in that X-wing cutscene I thought 'hey, they used the Lambda to land on Endor, and this thing is assisting a planetary invasion. If they had taken the time to adapt the Gunboats to the cold they could have used them on Hoth. And TIEs must be just space worthy, with ships like the Gunboat used planet side! WEG lied again!'

Then I remembered TIEs flying around cloud city and I was sad again.

aww man I remember when our 386 had a 20MB hard drive and we never thought we'd fill it, then came tie fighter 14MB of beast.

I did try to use the mouse it was awful so I got a saitek joystick and never looked back.

Well, cloud city Obsidians had some special adjustments, as far as I can remember

Although lucas physics makes everyone facepalm hard, there was some atmospheric combat flavour...

like NOT making stripdancer-like hard turns

Gouraud shading! Hell, I remember me and Ashley talking about that back in the early nineties, you know, in between hard drive defragmentation sessions.

Unrelated, For a laugh get a copy of Heroes of Might & Magic 2, and install it on a modern PC...

Don't even get me started on Might & Magic. Safe and secure!

I would hesitate to label any of the star wars flight sims "complex"

By today's standards, sure, they are relatively complicated for a video game, but at the time I played them (junior high) I was also playing (or trying to play) military aircraft sims like Jane's Advanced Tactical Fighters Gold and Longbow Gold. In comparison to more "realistic" flight sims like these, Star Wars sims are much more simplistic, as the basic operation of your craft is much less technical. I could never even figure out how to take off in a helicopter in Longbow Gold, despite reading the manual and playing the basic helicopter training missions. Still, I highly recommend playing the Star Wars sims, they are great games.

Ah, Longbow Gold... Great game. After mastering the controls you felt like you could fly a real helicopter... I still have the manual lying around somewhere.

Doubt if I'd have the patience for it nowadays.

Tie Fighter is still fun, though, I just finished playing the GoG version.

Has anyone else pointed out that the XG-1 is a superior choice to the TIE series in atmosphere yet? Cause I feel that's a big one.

Has anyone pointed out a large furnace that you are free to crawl into?

No, really look at the first cutscene in TOD1/Xwing. It almost feels like these were made for Planetary stationing, atmospheric work.