First, as others have pointed out, Star Wars does not reflect RL space combat and physic. It doesn't even try. What it tries to do is convey the feeling of WW2 areal combat in a space opera. Thus the TIe fighter. It is cool, iconic and utterly spits in the eye of practical fighter design. Turning and peripheral vision are not concepts that were considered with the TIE.

Second, and again this has been said, it is not about what ships could barrel roll If you hated your troops you could barrel roll your CR90. What you couldn't do is barrel roll a CR90 effectively while in combat. If fact, if you add "effectively in combat" to the end of each maneuver, it makes them make more sense. otherwise flight would look closer to the Babylon 5 Starfuries.

When you spin a top, it's not gravity that keeps it spinning.

When you spin a top, it's not gravity that keeps it spinning.

That's called circum trivial force

Gravity is what stops it.

Did you mean centrifugal force sir? Or were you joking?

Centripetal.

Star fox lied to you. This is actually a barrel roll.

This, so much this. People calling Aileron rolls barrel rolls bugs me to no end.

A lot of people in this thread have described why, although all ships could theoretically barrel roll, some of them may not be able to do it in time to qualify as a standard action given their flight characteristics. I agree with this line of thinking.

A lot of people in this thread have also said that they like the idea of certain ships in the game having access to abilities that not all other ships have, so not all ships SHOULD have a barrel roll. I agree with this as well, and for a while this was the case. Back in wave 1, X's, Y's and Advanced could target lock giving them an offensive advantage, Tie's and interceptors could evade, barrel roll and boost, giving them positional and defensive advantage.

Then came Engine upgrade, Targeting computer and Fire Control System. Now any ship can get target lock or boost actions added stress free while barrel rol land evade are much harder to get onto most ships. It actually really surprises me that we haven't seen some 3 point mods for evade and barrel roll already. To keep them in line with the "physics" of the universe, they could just restrict the ships that can take them to small bases with 2 or more agility. That way we won't see Lambdas and Y's doing BR all over the mat. And could you imagine Farlander or Ibtisam with Lando, PTL and an evade action?

I feel that these mods are coming soon in an aces pack that makes X's and generic E's more playable thru titles and astromechs. Time will tell.

My house rule for x-wings has them all getting expert handling for free. So far it's playing out better than the "just add 1 hull" that I was doing.

It doesn't feel game-breaking, it makes the X-Wing feel really different from the Z-95 and B-Wing without feeling like a true arc dodger. It feels like a dogfighter now instead of a straight up jouster.

So for the X it is nice, I haven't seen the need to add it to either the Z (which is really efficient) or the Y which has several alternative builds (though it would be nicer if Dutch and Horton had EPT to add expert handling if I did want it). YMMV

So, I want to address this question, because I think the OP is right. Technically every ship should be able to execute a barrel roll. It's a simple maneuver, and thank you to treybert for posting a pic of the difference between a barrel roll and an aileron roll so that I don't have to. However, if we were going to introduce that kind of realism into the game, we would have to start changing dials, beginning with the B-Wing. In aerial combat, the primary use of the barrel roll is as a displacement roll. It moves you to the inside or outside of the turn circle, thus changing your aspect relative to your opponent. In order for this technique to make sense in X-Wing, the dials would have to correctly reflect turn circles, and they do not. To understand this, let's talk a little bit about turn circles.

A turn circle is the circle that an aircraft describes in the sky when it is making a turn. Pretty simple. The faster the airplane is going, all other things being equal, the wider the turn circle is going to be (the greater its diameter). The slower the aircraft is going, all other things being equal, the smaller the turn circle is going to be. However, turn circle is also dependent on the absolute turn rate of the aircraft, usually measured in degrees of turn per second. Your smallest turn circle is going to be at your maximum turn rate in degrees per second. However, most of the time, a max-G turn is not energy sustaining. You bleed off too much speed in the turn, and this slows you down and actually slows your turn rate down. So, oftentimes in a fight, it's advantageous not to max-G the airplane in the turn, and it's better to slack off a little, to turn at your best turn speed the whole time. The difference between these two methods of flying is the difference between fighting the rate fight and fighting the radius fight. Each is useful in different situations.

The barrel roll, or displacement roll, comes into play when you have a speed advantage over the opponent, but your absolute turn rate is lower than his. Think F-4 Phantom versus MiG-19. The lag roll allows you to fly outside the enemy's turn circle, thus enabling you to get a shot. If you imagine two aircraft on rails, both chasing each other's tail around the same circle, the one who flies around the circle fastest will win. But if you allow one of the aircraft, the slower-turning one, to shift to the outside of the turn, it can then pull its nose inside and get a good shot at the other plane, even though it never actually turns faster around the circle. That's what Phantom pilots did in Vietnam to get good low-aspect missile and gun shots, and that's the beauty of the barrel roll as an offensive repositioning technique. Barrel rolls are also useful in defensive situations, when an enemy is coming in too aggressive, if you barrel roll into him, you can force him to overshoot, and come out directly in front of you. It's probably my most favorite defensive technique in the world, though if your opponent is ready for it, it often leads to a rolling scissors, which is pretty much a barrel roll battle, to see who can execute the maneuver more tightly.

So, if we're going to give every ship the barrel roll ability, we have to put it within the context of realistic maneuvering. That would mean that the relative turn rates and turn circles of all the ships would have to make sense given their mass and their maneuverability. In other words, a B-Wing wouldn't be able to make any turn tighter than a 3 hard without incurring stress, and probably ditto for the Y-wing. The X-wing could make 2-hards without stress, but to make a 1-hard, if it could even do it, would stress the ship out. The TIE fighter and TIE interceptor would both probably retain the 1-hard without stress, as they're lighter and more agile ships. Something like the Millennium Falcon is a huge bus, and probably shouldn't be able to turn tighter than a 3-hard, period, stress or not. Same goes for the Lambda shuttle and the Firespray, and the Aggressor. Something like a Decimator shouldn't be able to turn much tighter than a 4, which we would have to create for that ship.

With these realistic turn circles in place, we now have a reason to give every ship the barrel roll ability. It allows the slower-turning ships to reposition themselves for a shot, even though they'll never be able to yank and bank hard enough to get on the six of the enemy ships. Actually, this is the way I think X-Wing should have been designed, and it seemed to have been designed this way, up until the B-Wing. The B-Wing really broke everything when it was given 1 hard turns, which it absolutely shouldn't have. It should be barely able to squeak out a 2-hard with stress, and should mostly be turning a big circle with 3-hards. This break in the maneuverability meta has a lot to do with the X-Wing getting less table time.

Anyway, I don't think X-Wing is ever going to go for realism, but I wish it would. Air combat tactics would work much better on the tabletop with the system I've described, and it's basically the same system used by Wings of War/Wings of Glory, though for them each individual aircraft has its own unique set of maneuvers, which adds to the realism factor.

Brilliant essay NS.

Thank you for putting into words everything I could not. I too, wish that the game worked like this.

When you spin a top, it's not gravity that keeps it spinning.

When you spin a top, it's not gravity that keeps it spinning.

That's called circum trivial force

Gravity is what stops it.

Did you mean centrifugal force sir? Or were you joking?

Oops....yeah that's embarrassing

Cellphone auto correct won that round :-P

Brilliant essay NS.

Thank you for putting into words everything I could not. I too, wish that the game worked like this.

Then you are essentially wishing for a different game. Nothing wrong with that, but how this game works is clearly good for many, many people. Overcomplicating it would likely vastly reduce the playerbase.

Barrel roll and Evade should have been things limited to certain pilots/pilot skills, not defined by the ship. Too late now

My idea wouldn't overcomplicate the game, it would simplify it and make it more logical. Radzap, if you wanted to do a house rules variant that was more logical for air to air combat, I would recommend tweaking the dials. The wider the turn, the "greener" it would be, and the tighter the turn the "redder" it would be. So, for the X-Wing, I would tweak the dial to give it a green hard 3, a white hard 2, and a red hard 1. This shows that the X-Wing pilot is stressing himself and his airframe (and potentially greatly reducing his speed) by cranking into the 1 turn, whereas, turning at the 2 level is sort of the "best turn rate" for the X-Wing, where it is able to sustain its energy, and the 3 is an easy speed for the X-Wing to fly around the circle, not really putting it through its paces. Then, all you would have to do is apply that rubric with the X-Wing as your middle of the road ship, and everything else relative to it. I would leave the TIE fighter's dial untouched (except to make the 3 hard and 3 bank green). I would add a 1 bank and a green hard 3 and bank 3 to the TIE interceptor dial, and mirror that for the A-Wing. The Y-Wing would have a white 3 and a red 2, to show how bad it is at turning, ditto for the B-Wing. The TIE bomber, because it is lighter and more agile, would score a similar dial to the X-Wing. The large base ships would turn tightest at the 3 level most likely, but I would leave their lower-tier banks intact. Then, I'd give every ship barrel roll and boost as reposition actions, though to highlight their maneuverability, I'd probably give the A-Wing and the Interceptor the option to boost with a 1-hard, though I might make this cause them stress, not sure. I'd have to play test it. Nonetheless, it would be a more logical system than what currently exists for X-Wing and it would lead to battles in which ships actually behave the way they would in a "real" fight, more or less.

Personally if I were trying to make X Wing more like air combat I'd get rid of K turns as well. The maneuver is real, its an Immelmann turn, but in game terms it doesn't promote actual turn fighting. Either remove it or limit it to air craft that actually climb well to represent BnZ tactics.

Personally if I were trying to make X Wing more like air combat I'd get rid of K turns as well. The maneuver is real, its an Immelmann turn, but in game terms it doesn't promote actual turn fighting. Either remove it or limit it to air craft that actually climb well to represent BnZ tactics.

Yeah the K-turn really doesn't work because if you're pulling an Immelmann, all of the same turn circle restrictions still apply, they're just translated to the vertical. You literally can't turn in the vertical faster or tighter than you can in the horizontal (though you do get an additional G going over the top, giving your flight path an egg shape, but it doesn't appreciably cut the corner because it slows you down so badly). What Wings of Glory does is force you to make a full speed straight before and after the Immelmann in order to simulate the vertical component of the maneuver. In X-wing, that would get you killed, just like in real life if you try to go straight up with somebody on your six. Pilots call those "strafe rags."

All of you right now:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBlhgAkJBos

Perhaps all can but not all can with combat efficiency? Hence some have the barrel-roll skill and others do not.

My idea wouldn't overcomplicate the game, it would simplify it and make it more logical.

That's not making the game more logical, it's making it less logical.

X-wing is still a space combat game set in the star wars universe where nothing makes any real sense.

If you want to make the game more logical then you'd need to completely rebuild the movement system from turn circles to straight lines with turns in degrees (or just simplify it to a clock face) you would need to introduce thrust values, one for each side of the craft, their would be no speed limit just acceleration and deceleration

Next forward momentum would be completely independent from the facing of the craft, so yes you can fly in reverse and shoot at the ship on your 6

My idea wouldn't overcomplicate the game, it would simplify it and make it more logical.

That's not making the game more logical, it's making it less logical.

X-wing is still a space combat game set in the star wars universe where nothing makes any real sense.

If you want to make the game more logical then you'd need to completely rebuild the movement system from turn circles to straight lines with turns in degrees (or just simplify it to a clock face) you would need to introduce thrust values, one for each side of the craft, their would be no speed limit just acceleration and deceleration

Next forward momentum would be completely independent from the facing of the craft, so yes you can fly in reverse and shoot at the ship on your 6

But thats not what star wars space combat is, its WW2 in space, air craft handle like WW2 planes and engage at WW2 ranges, at least in the OT they did, the trunch run on the death star even has a set "down and up" like an atmospheric battle. Endor plays around with 3D a little more but the fighters still seem bound by atmosphere rules.

My idea wouldn't overcomplicate the game, it would simplify it and make it more logical.

That's not making the game more logical, it's making it less logical.

X-wing is still a space combat game set in the star wars universe where nothing makes any real sense.

If you want to make the game more logical then you'd need to completely rebuild the movement system from turn circles to straight lines with turns in degrees (or just simplify it to a clock face) you would need to introduce thrust values, one for each side of the craft, their would be no speed limit just acceleration and deceleration

Next forward momentum would be completely independent from the facing of the craft, so yes you can fly in reverse and shoot at the ship on your 6

Yeah, I don't disagree with a pure space combat sim, but Star Wars seems to have a luminiferous aether in my opinion, as the ships behave as though there is friction, we have sound in space, etc. That, or the ships are designed in such a way that they intentionally behave as though there is an atmosphere. Given that, I think the best replication of the experience, and the most logical one, would be one which treats them more or less like atmospheric fighters. If we were doing Battlestar Galactica, I'd totally go with something akin to your system. However, everything I've said about turn circles would still be accurate, as things like B-Wings are way more massive, and thus require either a huge amount more thrust to keep in the turn, or are going to turn wider.

First, as others have pointed out, Star Wars does not reflect RL space combat and physic. It doesn't even try. What it tries to do is convey the feeling of WW2 areal combat in a space opera. Thus the TIe fighter. It is cool, iconic and utterly spits in the eye of practical fighter design. Turning and peripheral vision are not concepts that were considered with the TIE.

Second, and again this has been said, it is not about what ships could barrel roll If you hated your troops you could barrel roll your CR90. What you couldn't do is barrel roll a CR90 effectively while in combat. If fact, if you add "effectively in combat" to the end of each maneuver, it makes them make more sense. otherwise flight would look closer to the Babylon 5 Starfuries.

As you said, Star Wars doesn't reflect anything close to real life.

- Sound in space, as seen in every movie.

- Explosions in space... just can't happen.

- You can't get out in space with just a breather mask, as seen in ep5

- There's no vectors or velocity shown in Star Wars. A ship in space doesn't turn or move anything like what's shown in the movies

- Distances are dangerously close for space. You wouldn't try to get an ennemy fighter "in your sights". That fighter would be hundreds of kilometers away from you and impossible to see with your eyes. You'd let your computers do everything and pilot skills would be pointless.

- Spaceship design makes no practical sense... however, the TIE's limited visibility is a non-issue, unlike what you stated. There's no point to visibility in a space battle as all you'd see is black around you wherever you looked anyway...

So why can't all ship barrel roll? The best answer i've seen in those 3 pages is the short answer: "because". There's really no other reason.

heck, the concept of doing barrel rolls in space is ridiculous in the first place...

But hey, i still like Star Wars for what it is. But please people, don't try to find anything that makes sense in Star Wars physics. It's pointless.

My idea wouldn't overcomplicate the game, it would simplify it and make it more logical.

That's not making the game more logical, it's making it less logical.

X-wing is still a space combat game set in the star wars universe where nothing makes any real sense.

If you want to make the game more logical then you'd need to completely rebuild the movement system from turn circles to straight lines with turns in degrees (or just simplify it to a clock face) you would need to introduce thrust values, one for each side of the craft, their would be no speed limit just acceleration and deceleration

Next forward momentum would be completely independent from the facing of the craft, so yes you can fly in reverse and shoot at the ship on your 6

But thats not what star wars space combat is, its WW2 in space, air craft handle like WW2 planes and engage at WW2 ranges, at least in the OT they did, the trunch run on the death star even has a set "down and up" like an atmospheric battle. Endor plays around with 3D a little more but the fighters still seem bound by atmosphere rules.

Yes that's mostly true they were fighting over the surface of the deathstar, that gives you a fairly were defined up and down and the mass of it would be enough to generate enough gravity to effect flight.

Point is this is star wars, it's a magical mix between air and space physics that will use what ever it wants when its convenient to do so.

Trying to make a pure aircombat game out of X-wing makes as much sense as making it into a pure space combat game.