(FWIW, the Decimator has the same problem, to me. So much on it that exists for no more obvious reason than 'because it looks cool that way'. It just doesn't make sense from a utility perspective.)

The empire doesn't seem to care for practical. Their fighters have the most limited LOS of anything ever. Literally every other fighter craft in the movies have way more practical canopies than the TIEs.

(though the raider itself is billed anti-squadron capital ship that was developed post-Endor,

Production started 6BBY though.

The thing that lends a sense of scale to models is the detail. The Corvette is brimming with bits of detail that allow us to form an idea of how big it is. Even the Star Destroyers, being frickin enormous, are covered with detail that lends them a sense of scale.

The Raider is a nice model and I like it, but when you compare it to the ships produced by ILM you can really see the difference between a model produced for a game, and a model produced by a highly skilled visual effects team for a movie.

There seems to be something ungainly about all the original trilogy ships. None of them seem practical or aerodynamic.

There seems to be something ungainly about all the original trilogy ships. None of them seem practical or aerodynamic.

Who needs aerodynamic when you have antigrav?

...

The empire doesn't seem to care for practical. Their fighters have the most limited LOS of anything ever. Literally every other fighter craft in the movies have way more practical canopies than the TIEs.

That would be because of their wings. From a visibility standpoint having all of the canopy in front of you makes about as much sense as having it over you. The TIE Fighters AoV up and down is not nearly as obstructed as the view down that an A-Wing would possess. I'll grant that a roll could allow a ship to remain 'above' a rebel fighter but if you've got ships high and low you can't track both.

Well of course it is not OT Starwars. Those sources of movies have been exhausted with the exception of the Nebulon-B frigate, Mon-Calamar Star Cruiser, Imperial Star Destroyer the Executor and the Death Star 1 & 2 for obvious reasons. You don't see any small Imperial Capital ships not ones that are on the same scale as an Imperial Raider. In a matter of fact they had to come up with one which is not unheard of. Empire at war had made lots of "new" ships in the Galactic Civil War era for both sides and even made a new faction.

The OT didn't have enough ship models to have balanced just enough to tell the story of a rag tag fleet getting whatever ship it could find to have a diverse selection against a well organised fleet full of their manistary star ship Imperial Class Star Destroyer. Although in Return of the Jedi the Imperial Capital Ships seemed a little weak. You see the imperial star fleet lose the Executor flag ship as well as 1 or 2 Imperial Class star destroyers while the Rebel fleet only lost 2 Mon-Calamari Star Cruisers to the Death Star and none to the Star Destroyers.

Losing peripheral vision in a TIE is almost as bad as not knowing where the bulk of your fighter is in something like, say, a B wing.

What would be optimal (and it seems TIEs are best suited for it) is to line the interior of the cockpit with screens that show images of what is happening around you .. in real time. Pilot sits on a seat with the flight yolk and controls and has 360 view of the battlefield. Wouldn't be hard to do either.

Empire always provides new ships because there is never anything left of them after Rebels destroy them.

Or, you know, technological advances coupled with overall strategy reorganization.

However you want to explain it to the media is fine with us. We know the truth

My thoughts are that I'm not particularly thrilled that FFG felt they had to make up their own ship.

I realize Star Destroyers are iconic for the Empire and they wanted the Empire to have their own Corvette-sized Star Destroyer, but there are thousands of ships in the EU. FFG shouldn't have to resort to making up their own.

not to sound overly against the OP, but

there is literally no such thing as "newquel"

we're out of OT material, everything's a "newquel" relative to that

(though the raider itself is billed anti-squadron capital ship that was developed post-Endor, when they finally realized "oh wait, FIGHTERS did that to us!?" even though they should've known from Yavin)

The Raider was in service for about 6 years before Yavin. The Lancer was developed in response to Yavin and the Tartan was developed well before Yavin as well.

The thing that lends a sense of scale to models is the detail. The Corvette is brimming with bits of detail that allow us to form an idea of how big it is. Even the Star Destroyers, being frickin enormous, are covered with detail that lends them a sense of scale.

The Raider is a nice model and I like it, but when you compare it to the ships produced by ILM you can really see the difference between a model produced for a game, and a model produced by a highly skilled visual effects team for a movie.

My thoughts exactly.

The corvette is interesting from any angle, and basically at any zoom level. You can focus on a small portion of the ship, and you can see lots of details, components and textures.

The raider looks quite bland in comparison. A wedge with the mandatory panel lines all over it and those TIE Interceptor panels to the sides and below. And that is about it. Compare it with the Rebel Transport from below for even more glaring contrast!

It is clear that the designers of the Raider didn't put as much effort on it as the designers of the OT ships. All capital ships in the OT are overflowing with details. A Star Destroyer isn't a smooth wedge, but a multilayered behemoth with a surface that resembles more a skyline than a flat, paneled hull.

Wish I could give you more than one like, Azrapse. You *totally* get it.

From an artistic perspective, the Raider is a bit of a miss.

From a Lore perspective...even moreso. I'm wracking my brain trying to figure out how the deck plan for it makes any sense, and it just doesn't. Honestly, they could have solved this just working on the proportions better. Or, heck, merely thinking out the deck plan while designing it.

not to sound overly against the OP, but

there is literally no such thing as "newquel"

we're out of OT material, everything's a "newquel" relative to that

(though the raider itself is billed anti-squadron capital ship that was developed post-Endor, when they finally realized "oh wait, FIGHTERS did that to us!?" even though they should've known from Yavin)

Yavin was just a lucky shot.

Yavin was a #InsideJob... Know the #truth ... #XWingsCantMeltSteelBeams

Losing peripheral vision in a TIE is almost as bad as not knowing where the bulk of your fighter is in something like, say, a B wing.

Yeah, A B-Wing would be pretty bad about that, but it's not very maneuverable, so It's probably not that bad, plus the pilot would gain a feel for where the body is with experience.

I would normally agree with you on the TIE part, but after playing Elite: Dangerous, vision outside a 90-110 degree arc (what I imagine it is) isn't terrible if it has a good HUD showing 3D mapping of your "radar range" coupled with friend or foe identification. However, I imagine formation flying is a nightmare lol

Losing peripheral vision in a TIE is almost as bad as not knowing where the bulk of your fighter is in something like, say, a B wing.

Yeah, A B-Wing would be pretty bad about that, but it's not very maneuverable, so It's probably not that bad, plus the pilot would gain a feel for where the body is with experience.

I would normally agree with you on the TIE part, but after playing Elite: Dangerous, vision outside a 90-110 degree arc (what I imagine it is) isn't terrible if it has a good HUD showing 3D mapping of your "radar range" coupled with friend or foe identification. However, I imagine formation flying is a nightmare lol

Does anyone recall the movie Last Star Fighter? Or even the HUD in helmets of our existing helicopter pilots? You don't need a window in space. Everything can be virtual in the HUD.

Wish I could give you more than one like, Azrapse. You *totally* get it.

From an artistic perspective, the Raider is a bit of a miss.

From a Lore perspective...even moreso. I'm wracking my brain trying to figure out how the deck plan for it makes any sense, and it just doesn't. Honestly, they could have solved this just working on the proportions better. Or, heck, merely thinking out the deck plan while designing it.

I don't agree on either point actually. The look of the thing, well we'll never agree on that I expect. .

But the deckplan shouldn't be too hard to figure out? Or at least, not after we know how many people are on board that thing.

I don't think there's a lot of them however, the CR-90 has between 30 and 160 crew on board so let's say 50 on average for the Raider.

You just need a deck or two above the engine and a few crawlspaces for maintenance.

This is more of a submarine rather than a multi-purpose craft. It swoops in, does the job, leaves. It's not a ship built with creature comfort in mind, nor is it a ship designed to attack and hold, like a Star Destroyer which needs to be able to project power for a longer time. This is a hit-and-fade ship and designed as such.

The bulk of the ship will have been taken up with the engine, a little storage space and remotely operated turrets.

Losing peripheral vision in a TIE is almost as bad as not knowing where the bulk of your fighter is in something like, say, a B wing.

Yeah, A B-Wing would be pretty bad about that, but it's not very maneuverable, so It's probably not that bad, plus the pilot would gain a feel for where the body is with experience.

I would normally agree with you on the TIE part, but after playing Elite: Dangerous, vision outside a 90-110 degree arc (what I imagine it is) isn't terrible if it has a good HUD showing 3D mapping of your "radar range" coupled with friend or foe identification. However, I imagine formation flying is a nightmare lol

Does anyone recall the movie Last Star Fighter? Or even the HUD in helmets of our existing helicopter pilots? You don't need a window in space. Everything can be virtual in the HUD.

Good point. I was focused on the dash displays being able to show your surroundings in 3D because that's usually what you see being used in a TIE, but in helmet is also an option. Probably way cheaper for the empire to implement as well

Wish I could give you more than one like, Azrapse. You *totally* get it.

From an artistic perspective, the Raider is a bit of a miss.

From a Lore perspective...even moreso. I'm wracking my brain trying to figure out how the deck plan for it makes any sense, and it just doesn't. Honestly, they could have solved this just working on the proportions better. Or, heck, merely thinking out the deck plan while designing it.

I don't agree on either point actually. The look of the thing, well we'll never agree on that I expect. .

But the deckplan shouldn't be too hard to figure out? Or at least, not after we know how many people are on board that thing.

I don't think there's a lot of them however, the CR-90 has between 30 and 160 crew on board so let's say 50 on average for the Raider.

You just need a deck or two above the engine and a few crawlspaces for maintenance.

This is more of a submarine rather than a multi-purpose craft. It swoops in, does the job, leaves. It's not a ship built with creature comfort in mind, nor is it a ship designed to attack and hold, like a Star Destroyer which needs to be able to project power for a longer time. This is a hit-and-fade ship and designed as such.

The bulk of the ship will have been taken up with the engine, a little storage space and remotely operated turrets.

Given how big a TIE is, the raider only has like 3 or 4 people sitting in chairs in the bridge, right?

Given how big a TIE is, the raider only has like 3 or 4 people sitting in chairs in the bridge, right?

A bridge crew of 5 people wouldn't be unreasonable. And compare those two?

But it's not as if the CR-90 deck plans really work, and let's not mention the Lambda Shuttle .

Remember it's scaled down much like the CR-90.

Remember it's scaled down much like the CR-90.

Zat waz ze joke

So many posts that I can't really quote you all, but check out all the various shots of the cockpits in the TIEs. There are no 3D simulations, nor layerd screens all around, nor anything other than a sh*tty little targeting computer. Hell, Vader even looks the wrong way when his wingman is shot while he is trying to see what is going on.

So many posts that I can't really quote you all, but check out all the various shots of the cockpits in the TIEs. There are no 3D simulations, nor layerd screens all around, nor anything other than a sh*tty little targeting computer. Hell, Vader even looks the wrong way when his wingman is shot while he is trying to see what is going on.

It's almost like space fantasy produced in the 70s requires a bit of fan imagination to keep up with developing technologies...

The important thing here is that we are never shown the internal view of any of these helmets. There is nothing directly contradicting the possibility of in-helmet HUDs.

If anything, there's evidence to support that the standard Imperial combat helmet needs virtual assistance to be useful ("I can't see a thing in this helmet!" Of course Luke wouldn't have access to any ID coded internal visualization system)