I just can't imagine a starfighter needing a dedicated anti-personnel weapon that fires off of the tail. Maybe if it was primarily for point defense against missiles/torpedoes it might make sense, but the primary opponents of the X-wing don't make much use of those.

The Special Forces TIE uses missiles...

I just can't imagine a starfighter needing a dedicated anti-personnel weapon that fires off of the tail. Maybe if it was primarily for point defense against missiles/torpedoes it might make sense, but the primary opponents of the X-wing don't make much use of those.

The Special Forces TIE uses missiles...

In TFA (the film) or in X-wing (the game)?

Film

Yeah, despite the "everything from this point forward is canon" claim, I still take a lot of things with a grain of salt when it comes to things like video games and picture books.

Installing, or having the option to install, a repeating or auto-blaster on a starfighter can make a certain amount of sense if you're seeing a lot of close air support missions.

Mounting a rear facing cannon on a fighter because of the results of one very very specific battle with very very specific conditions is just... silly.

Technical this is not a very atypical condition, as the superstructures from imperial battleships offer plenty of options to get into similar situations. The main weakness of imperial capital ships against alliance fighters is called trench-disease for a reason. Besides, the 3 most important battles of the alliance were all against deathstars anyway ;-)

Here a discription which is uses legends sources:

http://misc.thefullwiki.org/Trench_Run_disease

edit: Oh, and btw, I don't think that the blaster cannon is a good idea in general, fixing the problem is easier with having wingman who can clear your six instead of relying on a single blaster cannon and your astromech to fire it, because you as pilot are clearly busy with your trench run.

Its all good. I just think ground buzzer fits what we see...

Its all good. I just think ground buzzer fits what we see...

The great thing about RPGs is that each table is different.

If I could describe the new T70's in a word, it'd probably be "sportier". They're smaller, lighter and (presumably) faster and zippier. If I had to stat one up on the fly, I'd probably use the stat block of an A-Wing, upgrade the armement to Quad Lasers, Autoblaster Turret and Protons, and replace the navicomp with an Astromech Socket.

Yes that would mean it's like an A-Wing only better, but that's fine for two reasons in my book; it's a much newer design, and it's an X-Wing, and X-Wings are awesome.

Aside: I think the Autoblaster turret is silly, weather it's best represented by a personal or planetary scale weapon, it would make better sense to use that space for stronger shields or more avionics systems, anything to give you a better chance of getting the enemy back in front of the four gigantic laser cannons you already have.

From what I've read about the T-70 the main areas of improvement where (what I think they add)

1. Better atmospheric and realspace maneuverability, due to the addition of calibrated retro thrusters with built-in electromagnetic gyros. (+1 to handling)

2. Sleeker frame due to advanced miniaturization, giving the craft an smaller profile. (could add -1 Silhouette, but may be out of the range for the game)

3. Smaller engines with the same thrust-to-weight ratio keep the speed of the T-65B without the bulk. (no change in speed)

4. Due to #'s 2+3 better visibility for the pilot. (?)

5. Four wing-mounted Taim & Bak KX12 laser cannons vs. the T-65B's Taim & Bak KX9 laser cannons. this seem to just increase range and accuracy. (add the Accuracy Quality)

6. Quick-change magazine launcher with 8 warhead payload instead of 6. also designed to carrier proton torpedoes, concussion missiles, or mag-pulse warheads. (first off change Limited 6 to 8, second has 3 or listings for the torpedo load with the pilot choosing one)

7. Incom Corporation included provisions for an aft-facing under-slung blaster cannon, which could offer greater rearward defense than a deflector shield generator alone. (adds new weapon)

8. Finally Sensor-scattering ferrosphere paint was also added to aided the ship in avoiding enemy detection. (adds x setback dice to detection attempts)

well that the best I have based on the info giving.
From what I can see the upgrades don't seem to break the game to much, and sill leave the A-wing the king of speed, the B-wing the best bomber, etc.

So SEApocalypse hit it mostly on the head from what I can make out.
there are some parts I think are a bit much and some missing items

a. Handling to me should be +2 not +3
b. Not sure on the Strain boost
c. Would have the option to replace Proton launcher with concussion missiles with lower Limited #
d. Either a # of setback die added to detection checks or a Silhouette reduction a ranges longer the close, due to the paint.

Was the sensor paint a standard feature, or was it refering to Poe's black X-wing?

Just saying that sounds an awful lot like Nightshadow coating to me...

2 minutes ago, Ghostofman said:

Was the sensor paint a standard feature, or was it refering to Poe's black X-wing?

Just saying that sounds an awful lot like Nightshadow coating to me...

yeah I think that is a mod on Poe's...

My only real contention is the additional weapon seems like a ground buzzer not an antiship gun. As we never see it used in an anti ship capacity and what it does to the stormies seems more antipersonnel than antiship. Otherwise I think what he did is awesome. I might add an additional shield as they have more shields in the x-wing game.

25 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

yeah I think that is a mod on Poe's...

My only real contention is the additional weapon seems like a ground buzzer not an antiship gun. As we never see it used in an anti ship capacity and what it does to the stormies seems more antipersonnel than antiship. Otherwise I think what he did is awesome. I might add an additional shield as they have more shields in the x-wing game.

Well the belly/tail gun may be something we haven't seen yet... so to speak

A good example is the composite beamers on the LAAT. It's not that great a weapon really, but it's more than adequate for anti-personnel work, and is just strong enough that a TIE fighter might not want to sit on it too long...

Might be something like that... again, assuming it's a standard feature, which I'm really really skeptical of. I suspect we're seeing a lot of Poe's personal mods being interpreted as standard because that's how a lot of these picture books seem to roll....

5 hours ago, Ghostofman said:

Well the belly/tail gun may be something we haven't seen yet... so to speak

Can somebody show me a picture of what this weapon is supposed to look like?

I’ve checked all the images I can find of the props that were used in the making of the film, and I’m just not seeing anything like this on any of them. Nor on any of the official cut-a-way images I can find.

46 minutes ago, bradknowles said:

Can somebody show me a picture of what this weapon is supposed to look like?

I’ve checked all the images I can find of the props that were used in the making of the film, and I’m just not seeing anything like this on any of them. Nor on any of the official cut-a-way images I can find.

it is 4 minutes 30 seconds into the movie...

6 hours ago, Ghostofman said:

Well the belly/tail gun may be something we haven't seen yet... so to speak

A good example is the composite beamers on the LAAT. It's not that great a weapon really, but it's more than adequate for anti-personnel work, and is just strong enough that a TIE fighter might not want to sit on it too long...

Might be something like that... again, assuming it's a standard feature, which I'm really really skeptical of. I suspect we're seeing a lot of Poe's personal mods being interpreted as standard because that's how a lot of these picture books seem to roll....

Well... the x-wing he uses on Jakku (and gets blown up) isn't Black One. It's something that has been bothering me since seeing the movie for the first time. If he has Black One, why did he take a generic Resistance X-wing on his mission to Jakku. He isn't undercover or seem to be attempting to travel incognito. He doesn't seem to think the First Order is tracking him, otherwise he would have kept the X-wing at low power for a quick takeoff.

7 hours ago, bradknowles said:

Can somebody show me a picture of what this weapon is supposed to look like?

I’ve checked all the images I can find of the props that were used in the making of the film, and I’m just not seeing anything like this on any of them. Nor on any of the official cut-a-way images I can find.

So now that I have a picture...Had to do a frame grab.
1. It is under the right wing.
2. Looks like a heavy repeating blaster at personal scale...

The lower pick is the falcons ground buzzer. which seems to behave like a light repeating blaster...

Sorry, there is a problem

Error code: 2S328/1

Looks like the forum is not back to normal yet. ^_^

it hits the storm troopers about the same as Chewie's bowcaster

19 hours ago, Ghostofman said:

Was the sensor paint a standard feature, or was it refering to Poe's black X-wing?

Just saying that sounds an awful lot like Nightshadow coating to me...

The paint is listed on the on the T-70 general write-up and not as a special case, so I would assume it is standard issue

14 hours ago, Oden Gebhac said:

Well... the x-wing he uses on Jakku (and gets blown up) isn't Black One. It's something that has been bothering me since seeing the movie for the first time. If he has Black One, why did he take a generic Resistance X-wing on his mission to Jakku. He isn't undercover or seem to be attempting to travel incognito. He doesn't seem to think the First Order is tracking him, otherwise he would have kept the X-wing at low power for a quick takeoff.

Probably because The black one draws a lot of attention. And while he may not have been undercover I don't think he was broadcasting where he was going either. They certainly did not want the first order following him.

10 hours ago, Daeglan said:

So now that I have a picture...Had to do a frame grab.
1. It is under the right wing.
2. Looks like a heavy repeating blaster at personal scale...

The lower pick is the falcons ground buzzer. which seems to behave like a light repeating blaster...

OK, so there's some realllllllly good observations to be made here.

First off, it's similar to a ground buzzer in size, though it is a bit bulker. Stats-wise what that means is hard to say. Autoblaster aren't very big either and so on...

But there's another observation that kinda messes up the source saying it was a tail gun.....

With that nice overexposed image you can see something that isn't clear in the film's dark exposure... the exact placement and positioning of the weapon. I suspect that the source writer RE:tailgun made the same assumption that a lot of others made based on the action in the film: that its a rear facing weapon attached to bottom of the fuselage.... and as Daeglan points out, here we can plainly see that's not the case at all. It's mounted under the right wing and actually deploys facing forward.

Another point to mention is the gun appears to be controlled by Poe using the X-wing main control stick. An odd choice for a tail gun since you'd assume that a pilot would want to ... fly the X-wing or something using that stick?

This strongly suggests that the weapon is in fact intended for close air support, either firing forward to lend extra saturation to strafing runs, and/or the pilot is expected to pass off flying to the Astromech, who puts the fighter in an orbit around a ground target area, and the pilot controls the weapon shooting off the the side of the fighter and down into the target area (See AC-130).

Bottom line: Visual dictionary and cutaway books still derp up just as bad as they always did...

6 hours ago, Ghostofman said:

OK, so there's some realllllllly good observations to be made here.

First off, it's similar to a ground buzzer in size, though it is a bit bulker. Stats-wise what that means is hard to say. Autoblaster aren't very big either and so on...

But there's another observation that kinda messes up the source saying it was a tail gun.....

With that nice overexposed image you can see something that isn't clear in the film's dark exposure... the exact placement and positioning of the weapon. I suspect that the source writer RE:tailgun made the same assumption that a lot of others made based on the action in the film: that its a rear facing weapon attached to bottom of the fuselage.... and as Daeglan points out, here we can plainly see that's not the case at all. It's mounted under the right wing and actually deploys facing forward.

Another point to mention is the gun appears to be controlled by Poe using the X-wing main control stick. An odd choice for a tail gun since you'd assume that a pilot would want to ... fly the X-wing or something using that stick?

This strongly suggests that the weapon is in fact intended for close air support, either firing forward to lend extra saturation to strafing runs, and/or the pilot is expected to pass off flying to the Astromech, who puts the fighter in an orbit around a ground target area, and the pilot controls the weapon shooting off the the side of the fighter and down into the target area (See AC-130).

Bottom line: Visual dictionary and cutaway books still derp up just as bad as they always did...

Well to be fair they don't give the guys enough info to really do the cross section books right. Like they did not tell them about this gun or its location. And now that I know it is at the wing root I suspect there is a second one under the other wing.

One can assume.

If nothing else this is establishing some sick headcanon for me. I'm really starting to dig the idea that the T-70 isn't significantly different from the T-65, performance-wise, but it's got more hardpoints. So Resistance X-wings will tend to sport attachment kits to set up the fighter for more specific missions. The x-wing Poe starts in is a close support version with retractable blasters for hitting ground targets without the need for strafing runs. The later one is kitted out for deep strike and recon...

Probably not right according to some book or something, but its a nifty idea...

7 minutes ago, Ghostofman said:

One can assume.

If nothing else this is establishing some sick headcanon for me. I'm really starting to dig the idea that the T-70 isn't significantly different from the T-65, performance-wise, but it's got more hardpoints. So Resistance X-wings will tend to sport attachment kits to set up the fighter for more specific missions. The x-wing Poe starts in is a close support version with retractable blasters for hitting ground targets without the need for strafing runs. The later one is kitted out for deep strike and recon...

Probably not right according to some book or something, but its a nifty idea...

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1 hour ago, Ghostofman said:

One can assume.

If nothing else this is establishing some sick headcanon for me. I'm really starting to dig the idea that the T-70 isn't significantly different from the T-65, performance-wise, but it's got more hardpoints. So Resistance X-wings will tend to sport attachment kits to set up the fighter for more specific missions. The x-wing Poe starts in is a close support version with retractable blasters for hitting ground targets without the need for strafing runs. The later one is kitted out for deep strike and recon...

Probably not right according to some book or something, but its a nifty idea...

I agree. 1 more shield point to push around. a +1 handling. a couple system strain maybe a couple more hard points. Which allows you to install nightshadow or a turret mounted anti ground system.