On 1/27/2017 at 3:06 PM, OneKelvin said:

So about Rebels stuff, I gotta say I am not looking forward to them introducing the X-Wing.

I'm just not. I feel like they're going to make it some end-all-be-all katanaeque fighting machine, which I think is lame. They already nerfed the A-Wing into a cheap knock-off TIE to do it; why does the X-Wing deserve to be upgraded so? Yeah, I get that it was the ship the heroes used but that's just because it was the main rebel starfighter, like an AK-47 you join the rebels you get one and what you do with it is up to you. "There are many like it, but this one is mine." y'know?

The Squints came out before it. The Defender is coming out before it. They're ramping up power from ship to ship and so it stands to reason that the X-Wing is going to be even more powerful than the Defender which is silly. There weren't a lot of Defenders and they were not cheap, but there were a metric ton of X-Wings in the films. Making it that powerful a ship that common; it just makes the heroes less cool.

"Wow, Biggs had an X-Wing and managed to get blown up by a regular TIE. What a doofus."

or

"Luke blew up the Death Star, so what? We all knew he would do it, I mean after all he was driving an X-Wing ."

Maybe it's just me? I've never been a fan of simply-superior weapons, cause I feel there has to be balance or else everything else should be phased out. But I dunno guys, what do you think? You think the X-Wing is the last fighter the Rebels will ever make?

Think of it this way. X-Wings ended up being ubiquitous enough to be used by Saw's Rebels. But I agree with you, honestly.

Well, what if there are only a few defenders that have entered production by the time we see them in rebels, most if not all of them under Thrawn's command, and even if they are exception fighters it does little if there are inexperienced pilots behind them and in few numbers that while powerful they could be overrun by the more numerous Rebels, perhaps the only time that kind of thing would happen. The Empire seeing the ship fail in this battle or the like would just make the point that swarms of the standard line fighter was more effective, not to mention cheaper.

Just going by X-Wing points a Defender is basically the cost of three ties, and while that might not seem too crazy, ramp that up into the thousands if not millions and that price becomes quite hefty. Heck even if the Defenders do well in the show it could still be a case of cost and that the standard fighters are effective enough, afterall look at how many A-wings get shot down. Why pay three times the cost when the standard one gets the job done just as well. I imagine that the defender will most likely end up still as a rare fighter, one given to aces or ace units. So there is the chance that the X-wing could get by without being made super powerful, but just instead making it into the more reliable craft that it was compared to the Tie fighter.

About A-Wings being crappy:

In old EU, they were originally horrible, cheap fighters which were then stripped down by Alliance techs and refitted into the lightning-fast interceptors we know and love. This happened sometime after Yavin in old EU terms.

The A-Wings Phoenix Squadron uses are quite likely those same craptereptors, and we're seeing WHY they got refitted.

Tie Defender could be the Empire's equivalent of the USS Zumwalt. A ship where all of the latest and newest technology is poured into a single design as costs skyrocket. The original fleet of Defenders just as with the Zumwalt may have began with a much larger quantity envisaged before the costs proved too prohibitive for more then a few.

Regular tie Fighters are not bad ships, at least not in the movies. Just like Stormtroopers they get an undeserved reputation as they perform excellently against characters without plot armor but go pop when fighting a protagonist who CAN'T DIE! If i'm playing a single player FPS with an invincibility mod aka "Plot Armor" of course anyone I run into is gonna seem inept.

We don't see Tie Defenders at the Death Star because the Empire didnt know or understand the perceived weakness in the station. They especially Tarkin, who had this point reinforced in his scenes in Rogue One, had no comprehension that a single puny fighter would ever be able to destroy something as awesome and jaw dropping as the Death Star. Therefore if you don't realize, you won't understand the need for a top of the line fighter when you have elite pilots of your standard fighter class you can deploy instead.

We don't see Tie Defenders at Endor simply because either they're there and we don't see them, which is probable as we don't see most of the battle, or they are not there to be seen.

7 minutes ago, iamfanboy said:

About A-Wings being crappy:

In old EU, they were originally horrible, cheap fighters which were then stripped down by Alliance techs and refitted into the lightning-fast interceptors we know and love. This happened sometime after Yavin in old EU terms.

Actually that's more a newcanon thing.

In the old EU, there was a cheap, not especially good design called the R-22 Spearhead - the Rebellion saw potential in it, so they took the design and used it as the base of a new design, the A-Wing.

8 minutes ago, iamfanboy said:

About A-Wings being crappy:

In old EU, they were originally horrible, cheap fighters which were then stripped down by Alliance techs and refitted into the lightning-fast interceptors we know and love. This happened sometime after Yavin in old EU terms.

The A-Wings Phoenix Squadron uses are quite likely those same craptereptors, and we're seeing WHY they got refitted.

So basically a horrible title that takes away one green die from the ship in this game.

2 minutes ago, Forresto said:

Tie Defender could be the Empire's equivalent of the USS Zumwalt. A ship where all of the latest and newest technology is poured into a single design as costs skyrocket. The original fleet of Defenders just as with the Zumwalt may have began with a much larger quantity envisaged before the costs proved too prohibitive for more then a few.

Regular tie Fighters are not bad ships, at least not in the movies. Just like Stormtroopers they get an undeserved reputation as they perform excellently against characters without plot armor but go pop when fighting a protagonist who CAN'T DIE! If i'm playing a single player FPS with an invincibility mod aka "Plot Armor" of course anyone I run into is gonna seem inept.

We don't see Tie Defenders at the Death Star because the Empire didnt know or understand the perceived weakness in the station. They especially Tarkin, who had this point reinforced in his scenes in Rogue One, had no comprehension that a single puny fighter would ever be able to destroy something as awesome and jaw dropping as the Death Star. Therefore if you don't realize, you won't understand the need for a top of the line fighter when you have elite pilots of your standard fighter class you can deploy instead.

We don't see Tie Defenders at Endor simply because either they're there and we don't see them, which is probable as we don't see most of the battle, or they are not there to be seen.

Yea, thats how I imagine it, I mean B-Wings are made to be amazing, but we only seem them during the Battle of Endor when the fleet jumps in and they break their attack off the death star II.

I heard apparently Rebels has really bad viewer ratings. I'm unsurprised and that's not a dig at the quality of the show which is still pretty darn good despite some of my own personal qualms.

The pacing is dreadful and its due to these long episode breaks. I don't know how a kid follows this show and is still interested. Thrawn so far is a great villain with his machinations building in the background which seem to be leading somewhere really epic, however the season is taking soooo long I can't entirely blame the people calling Thrawn lame, although that kind've hurts to read.

Disney XD also seems fairly exclusive when compared to the regular Disney Channel, although not watching either outside of Rebels I wouldn't know.

I have to admit, the many and long breaks are really annoying and it wouldn't even surprise me if it hurts the series in the long run.

Thrawn's long game works for a consistent weekly show.

Not for a "Let's take another break ok" method. Which is really starting to irk me. Still, the breaks aren't as bad as the ones Steven Universe constantly goes through.

I don't think any show has breaks THAT long.

2 minutes ago, Captain Lackwit said:

Thrawn's long game works for a consistent weekly show.

Not for a "Let's take another break ok" method. Which is really starting to irk me. Still, the breaks aren't as bad as the ones Steven Universe constantly goes through.

I don't think any show has breaks THAT long.

I can think of an anime or two...

7 minutes ago, Captain Lackwit said:

Thrawn's long game works for a consistent weekly show.

Not for a "Let's take another break ok" method. Which is really starting to irk me. Still, the breaks aren't as bad as the ones Steven Universe constantly goes through.

I don't think any show has breaks THAT long.

It doesn't help that Steven Universe ends up releasing all their episodes over the coarse of a week and then go on hiatus for what seems like six months. At least there will be episodes for that series come this February outside of this week's event.

I do think that to an extent that the breaks probably hurts the show a little bit, especially as Disney XD isn't on all of the cable plans, and isn't on Netflix, not sure if it is on Hulu, so I only know that it is on Amazon, the channel itself, and various third party websites. I have to wonder if the breaks are Disney's scheduling, the time it takes to animate the show, or some other reason?

7 minutes ago, Animewarsdude said:

[...] especially as Disney XD isn't on all of the cable plans, and isn't on Netflix, not sure if it is on Hulu, so I only know that it is on Amazon, the channel itself, and various third party websites. [...]

Can I see the past episodes on Amazon? Disney XD usually only has the current season and a few selected clips. At least Netflix has all seasons of The Clone Wars.

Just now, Ken at Sunrise said:

Can I see the past episodes on Amazon? Disney XD usually only has the current season and a few selected clips. At least Netflix has all seasons of The Clone Wars.

You can, but you have to buy them per episode or the entire season. I'm not sure if they let you watch it for 'free' if you have prime or not though.

Kids these days. You're pretty lucky sonny!

When I was a kid we had a glass tube TV with a VHS player that me, my mom, and brother would huddle around on Saturdays, and you were lucky if you managed to snag the tail end of a Star Trek episode every month or so. And you were happy to see that contextless tail-end too!

Now look what you done. You gone and made me late for canasta.

*grumbling and much waving of canes*

I'll have to check the Amazon thing. Accidentally bought a year subscription so, might as well.

3 hours ago, Forresto said:

Disney XD also seems fairly exclusive when compared to the regular Disney Channel, although not watching either outside of Rebels I wouldn't know.

Indeed. My cable provider has Disney Channel, but no XD.

As far as I know, it is impossible to stay up to date on Rebels in Germany, so I have to stream every Episode, which is not ideal and not my preference.

Rebels does not come with Amazon Prime; you can buy individual episodes or purchase a $40 season pass.

1 hour ago, DarthEnderX said:

Indeed. My cable provider has Disney Channel, but no XD.

Yea, the cable provider on my end only offers it as part of the top plan, which gives me a slew of channels I don't watch, and aside from Rebels, and maybe Gravity Falls reruns I don't really like anything on XD, so I end up streaming the show until it is released for purchase, I figure that way I can at least support the show a little by buying it.

1 hour ago, OneKelvin said:

Kids these days. You're pretty lucky sonny!

When I was a kid we had a glass tube TV with a VHS player

VHS, VHS!! When I were a lad we counted ourselves lucky to have a working TV, as dad put them together from bits he found on his works dump!

Hardly a week would go by without a valve blowing and dad sent out in the cold to his shed to find a replacement...so we could hopefully at least see the end of the program we'd been watching

...we didn't see VHS until my sister was earning enough to hire one when she started an Open University course where the programs were on in the middle of the night

11 minutes ago, ianmiddy said:

VHS, VHS!! When I were a lad we counted ourselves lucky to have a working TV, as dad put them together from bits he found on his works dump!

Hardly a week would go by without a valve blowing and dad sent out in the cold to his shed to find a replacement...so we could hopefully at least see the end of the program we'd been watching

...we didn't see VHS until my sister was earning enough to hire one when she started an Open University course where the programs were on in the middle of the night

You know a german saying would translate as "Walks. Runs, even." (as monotone as possible)
And I think it fits perfectly here

On 29/01/2017 at 0:52 PM, Forresto said:

Mind you it all comes down to the pilots. An A Wing in the hands of awful pilot will be chewed apart whereas one piloted by someone who actually knows how to fly one optimally will run rings around standard ties.

Regardless of model we know the mortality rate of X Wing pilots is very high. I find it strange people say A-Wings suck but just as many X-Wings were destroyed in the movies and no one says that about X Wings.

I always prefered the A-Wing over the X in the old sim games. Double the firepower means nothing when you are dead.

On 1/4/2017 at 11:27 AM, OneKelvin said:

More DarkTroopers! Not on guard duty anymore!

Those are not Dark Troopers, thankfully so, they are Security Droids, the mk Variant was in Star Wars: Uprising, its face was kinda different, but they could be armed with laser beam weapons, blaster flame projectors, tazers, energy barriers, have bombs in them, on top of them running fast, was annoying, toxic materiel protectors.

Any Dark Trooper Mk1-3, Mk 2-3 with our without the engineered bioroid cyborg darkside using trooper in the suits, Droid variants, Inquisitor variants, the Elite and Commander variants, along with other versions, would really easily kill the whole cast of Rebels realistically, and they better not even think about putting these things in a Rebels show unless it is to kill off the main characters and end the series.

All it took was 8 Mk 2 Dark Troopers without the engineered bioroid cyborg darkside using trooper created for the suit (basically a Spartan from HALO or a Grey Knight from 40k), to wipe out a rebel based in a couple seconds, they had the ability to pass through planetary shields, they caused an huge explosion that could be seen from space.

Thats not there best feat without the person in the suit designed for the suit. The best feat is in a comic that takes place during the opening scenes with the Dark Troopers, a single one breaks off, it boards a Moncal ship and kills everyone aboard it. It had to do this fast because the ship was fleeing the planet because of the attack. We did the calculations, because we can see the armor thickness of Mon Cal ships in Complete Vehicles, the Dark trooper was able to easily in very short amount of time blast through 20 feet of plate hull armor on a mon cal ship, and was around 7-10 hole in diameter. The calculation is 10k psi of plasma force from the Gun a Dark Trooper uses.

We also see it one shot oblitrate the deck floaring of the Mon cal ship and travel through it using the holes it makes. The thickness is at least 7 feet.

Mon cal have requarl and light cruisers at that point in time. If it killed the whole crew of a regular cruiser its kda is 5,500-0, if it was a light cruiser it was 3,300 - 0.

Rebels, the show, has shown multiple time they can not respect the SW lore, nor any faction that is in the show. Dark Trooper deserve not to be put in the show, otherwise its a joke.

On 1/4/2017 at 11:53 AM, eMeM said:

Can someone explain to me the point of introducing TIE Inteceptor to the show and picturing it as this top notch unbeatable superfighter just to add TIE Defenders to Empire's arsenal a few episodes later?

And the X-wing is totally a counter to the Defender. Fix when?

Captain Fel, aka Baron Fel, had been test flying many TIEs, including the Interceptor, Defender, and Phantom well before ANH. So its no change to canon that its seen here. Both the Interceptor and Defender are part of the X advanced series of TIEs. They both haven't different purposes, as-well as probably being designs competing in the TIE Advanced X program. In the lore the TIE Interceptor is the Empires best dogfighter, and it was considered one of the best Dogfighter overall out of all ship in the civil war. The Defender is something else, its pretty much better at everything else than any other fighter in SW.

BTW nothing conflicts with Grand Admiral Zaarin still being the one to conceptualize and design the Defender, the only-thing we see is Thrawn is having them built.

The Avenger is in between a rock and a hard place. The Defender is nearly fully loaded, while the Interceptor, excluding the guns, reactor, targeting computers and engines, is basically under-equipped. It has the same reactor, usually, that the Avenger had, the Avenger was the X2 while the Interceptor was the X3. The Interceptor was easily equip-able with multiple systems, shields, multipurpose launchers, tactical beam jammers, tractor beams, many other systems.

That is probably what the X3 teams selling point was in comparison to the X7, they made a base craft that already was advanced enough that it ended up being there best dog fighter, but if elite squadrons wanted to put extra stuff on it they easily could. The x7 already had everything put on the Defender it could carry just about.

On 1/4/2017 at 1:43 PM, xanderf said:

Remember that they were building their cities underwater, though - so that the 'skyscrapers' were going to be totally airtight, have internal power plants, and be structurally sound enough to withstand water pressure at depth...wasn't going to be unusual as a starting point.

Honestly, it feels more logical (a one-time exodus of the entire fleet) than the idea of the Empire allowing them to go on building ships in orbit, then converting them to warships, without bothering to interfere. Any sort of 'ongoing support of the Rebellion' from a planet was never going to be plausible, which was always a weakness of the EU stories.

Theres nothing weak about the orign story for Mon Cal ships in legends, there is however in primary canon. There still Imperials on the planet, they can see what the Mon cal are doing, and its not like these are just buildings, they have to have the same grade materials used in warships there size to be effective. So then, that means they bought, requested, tons of materials that would be used to build things like Star Destroyers, and the Empire is depicted being ok with that.

It's much more believable that preexisting ships had had weapons and added and or beefed up on there ships to fight the empire, which BTW its not really said where these refits took place, could have been outside the galaxy for all we know. Or since your ok with ships being built underwater to hide the fact they are being built, have them refited underwater. Though I believe it was after parts of there space was liberated when they started turning all there ships into warships.

On 1/18/2017 at 8:12 PM, DarthEnderX said:

Technically, Lightsabers DON'T have batteries anymore, since Rogue One said the Kyber crystals are what power the lightsabers.

And of course since Kyber crystals are all forcey, they could have made it so the crystals only work for Jedi. But of course we know that's not the case since they're also used to power the Death Star.

No technically true. We see in all the blueprints and cutaways that both the Death Star and Lightsabers have powersources and or reactors, and they have nothing to do with Kyber crystals. BTW the reactor output for a DS1 is equal to three mainsequince stars, while the DS2 is equal to hundreds of blue giants.

What it really happening to justify there statement is, they are putting little amount of light energy into the crystals, because these crystals produce super well over 100% lasers or other radiants, the crystals are putting alot more energy on there own, and can be thought of as the powersource for those weapons.

On 1/18/2017 at 4:58 PM, jmswood said:

It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to make that restriction. If the Lightsaber required use of The Force to activate, then only Force Wielders should be allowed to use Lightsabers. Given Lighsabers have batteries and on/off switches; a creative limitation like "Jedi/Sith only" makes no sense.

They already built lightsabers with internal switchs so you do have to have the force to use them.

On 1/29/2017 at 7:08 AM, SEApocalypse said:

A-Wing is in interceptor/space superiority fighter, the Y-Wing is a bomber, the X-Wing is a multi-role fighter. It comes with its own bag of problems like lack of speed and agility, no rear firing guns, no gunner, and no bomb capabilities. The X-Wing is basically a super hornet, while the T-70 is an eurofighter, just to throw some more not really fitting aerospace analogies into the mix. And as I am getting started, let's call the A-Wing in RotJ a ME262 and the one from rebels … whatever agile, but not top of the line dogfighter comes to your mind. In Combat with the protectorate fighters we see that other space superior fighters outclass them, we really can't blame it all on phoenix squadron pilots.

They technically are all multi-roles, two versions of A exist, one is an Interceptor and one is a fighter. Many versions exist of the Y, they all range from fighters, interceptors, bombers and so on. Same for X-wings. Also the A-Wing Interceptor is full of speciallized tactical jammers and other special hardware the fighter doesn't have.

On 1/29/2017 at 2:25 AM, eMeM said:

That's only a concern in peace time, during a war "interception" means something different and fighters are designed for war.

F-22 is better at everything. It has better radar and stealth for BVR combat, and better acceleration (more powerfull engines) and agility (amongs others - crazy trust vectoring) for dogfights.

The only advantage of the 15 is that it can carry more missiles... and it is cheaper.

Maybe A-wings are just cheaper.

F-22 are not better at everything. They are only great at burning things out, they have the best top cruise speed, they are the best at making it difficult to maintain or repair, they are the best at losing to much energy via thrust vectoring, they are the best at being discontinued the fastest in production because it was a over-costly bad design, I believe it is still the best new gen craft to not have new hardware be integrated into it, like helmet mounted targeting systems.

They would have been much better off having the ASF-14 Tomcat, or classic F-14 Super Ds, or the F-23, it was way more advanced, like the ASF-14 would have been. The only reason they didn't go with ether was bad politics, though Trump is looking into bring F-14s back.

On 1/31/2017 at 9:55 AM, Forresto said:

Tie Defender could be the Empire's equivalent of the USS Zumwalt. A ship where all of the latest and newest technology is poured into a single design as costs skyrocket. The original fleet of Defenders just as with the Zumwalt may have began with a much larger quantity envisaged before the costs proved too prohibitive for more then a few.

Regular tie Fighters are not bad ships, at least not in the movies. Just like Stormtroopers they get an undeserved reputation as they perform excellently against characters without plot armor but go pop when fighting a protagonist who CAN'T DIE! If i'm playing a single player FPS with an invincibility mod aka "Plot Armor" of course anyone I run into is gonna seem inept.

We don't see Tie Defenders at the Death Star because the Empire didnt know or understand the perceived weakness in the station. They especially Tarkin, who had this point reinforced in his scenes in Rogue One, had no comprehension that a single puny fighter would ever be able to destroy something as awesome and jaw dropping as the Death Star. Therefore if you don't realize, you won't understand the need for a top of the line fighter when you have elite pilots of your standard fighter class you can deploy instead.

We don't see Tie Defenders at Endor simply because either they're there and we don't see them, which is probable as we don't see most of the battle, or they are not there to be seen.

We get plenty of stories talking about the War at Endor, the space battle itself could be its own 3 hour movie. The Empire did alot better than what we saw most the time. We saw what we saw because the director, story writer, and producers had a spesific vision for how events for the viewer should flow, they made it as best they could to make it the most action packed and immersive scene they could in SW. They did a 100% perfect job, because we feel the Rebels confusion during the war, then it changes to a false sense of accomplishment and then dread, because everything up to point they did was really already accounted for by the Empire, they had set them up to be obliterated with the Super laser or there fleet of ships preventing them from escaping.

7 minutes ago, Black Knight Leader said:

No technically true. We see in all the blueprints and cutaways that both the Death Star and Lightsabers have powersources and or reactors, and they have nothing to do with Kyber crystals

Fair enough. Though the Death Star example doesn't mean much. If a Kyber crystal DID power a lightsaber's blade, then the crystals in the Death Star would only be for powering the Super Laser. The reactors would be for all the OTHER systems on the Death Star. Engines, life support, secondary weapons, shielding, etc.

1 hour ago, DarthEnderX said:

Fair enough. Though the Death Star example doesn't mean much. If a Kyber crystal DID power a lightsaber's blade, then the crystals in the Death Star would only be for powering the Super Laser. The reactors would be for all the OTHER systems on the Death Star. Engines, life support, secondary weapons, shielding, etc.

Well, technical the crystals do "power" the superlaser / lightsaber. The crystals have the ability to amplify energy by at least a magnitude, making them potentially violating newton's laws of thermodynamics*, but at the same time providing 90% of the power of the weapon. But that means they still require a power source to amplify. Explains as well why the original subject of research that lead to the death star was energy production related. With a catalyst like this you could create a Perpetuum Mobile.

*the most likely explanation is that the crystal allows to use the living or cosmic force and only needs to get exited by energy to tap into the force and use it as power source. So the laws of thermodynamics are saved.

3 hours ago, SEApocalypse said:

Well, technical the crystals do "power" the superlaser / lightsaber. The crystals have the ability to amplify energy by at least a magnitude, making them potentially violating newton's laws of thermodynamics*, but at the same time providing 90% of the power of the weapon. But that means they still require a power source to amplify. Explains as well why the original subject of research that lead to the death star was energy production related. With a catalyst like this you could create a Perpetuum Mobile.

*the most likely explanation is that the crystal allows to use the living or cosmic force and only needs to get exited by energy to tap into the force and use it as power source. So the laws of thermodynamics are saved.