1 hour ago, UnitOmega said:

IIRC, Pablo Hidalgo said on twitter TIEs have life support now, later supplemental works clarified that their systems are very basic, and since a TIE has no shields, pilots wear full suits as safety features. Battle damage or a micrometeorite strike will mean you start bleeding air into space.

Of course, the meta reason for flight suits is the same reason why all the Americans in Top Gun have their visors up and names on their helmets, and the communist bloc pilots all have super tinted visors on their "black w/ red star" set up.

That's pretty crappy if a space pebble can penetrate the hull that easily. Surely TIEs at least have enough particle shielding to deflect space debris. Running into an asteroid is another story

45 minutes ago, gabe69velasquez said:

LOL. End of discussion; the VT-49 is the Cop Car of the galaxy!

(And I want one. . .)

On 9/3/2017 at 0:06 PM, BadMotivator said:

Nah, Dewbacks are the Mopeds for the star waras Rentacops.

You mean Segways?

7 hours ago, Hannes Solo said:

That is a point, though a hyperdrive would be just a waste of recources when you plan to operate a fighter from a capital ship anyway.

As a siednote: It occurs to me that the Star Destroyer is basically a jack of all trades. Its a mix of a combat ship, a carrier as well as a base for ground invasion which carrys and supports a small army of ground troops.
It makes sense in an enviroment where where nobody else is able to field something in that size category and your primary interest is to keep down insurgency . If there where other powers who could build ships of similar size one would probably which for more specialized warships.

Something like a Tector-class ISD? No hanger and no reactor bulb and heavier bottom armor? Was prob a stop-gap "we need a more battle ship as opposed to battle/carrier/troop/ground assault combo ship to combat the Mon Cal ships that the rebels were staring to field.

On 9/3/2017 at 1:31 PM, UnitOmega said:

So, the technical definition of "Air Superiority" (which can be extended to Space Superiority) can be roughly summarized as "the condition where you're free to run your air, land and sea operations without prohibitive interference by the opposing air force". A fighter with a "superiority role" is designed to achieve this state, or the one beyond it "Air Supremacy" (where you have such control of the airspace that the opposing force can basically do nothing).

To this end, the humble TIE/LN is a Superiority frame - they're cheap and simple enough you can make enough of them they can act as high volumes of escorts for other ships, they are maneuverable and quick enough to run interception or otherwise engage enemy fighters and in a pinch, they can strafe the ground if somebody is impeding your combat operations there. They aren't necessarily flexible or multi-role, they're just simple enough the Empire can execute on their typical tactic of bringing enough gun.

As for stuff like Rebels using TIEs on Gozantis for everything well, some of that is practical. Computers aren't magic, every new ship model for the show is a new animation model which needs to be rigged, textured, etc. It can be a time consuming and expensive process, and likely they only have so much budget for new models (characters/ships/environments) per season. While we knew that the Empire made use of Clone Wars surplus for a while, the fact that Gozanti and Arquitens with slightly different colorations and designs are so prominent in Rebels is almost assuredly because they already had those models for TCW and could slightly adjust them. A gunboat would be an entirely new model creation, with different geometry, coloration, etc.

That and I think somebody on the Rebels writing staff was molested by ordinance as a child or something, considering how rarely they remember that torpedoes and missiles are supposed to be really good and actually use them in the show.

there isnt a single ordinance used in the original trilogy against other fighters. its based on ww2 combat where machine guns and flack were the only anti-air weapons. torpedos, missiles, and bombs are used to fire on capital ships or fortified ground positions, blasters are for air to air. Rebels is Star Wars, so ordinance isnt much of a thing

the rest you said is on point though

23 minutes ago, Vontoothskie said:

there isnt a single ordinance used in the original trilogy against other fighters. its based on ww2 combat where machine guns and flack were the only anti-air weapons. torpedos, missiles, and bombs are used to fire on capital ships or fortified ground positions, blasters are for air to air. Rebels is Star Wars, so ordinance isnt much of a thing

the rest you said is on point though

Yeah, if only torpedoes and missiles had a use to bust up small capital ships such as might be in a blockade - but no we need a cool laser on the B-Wing (even though they say it HAS proton torpedoes). The Geonosis episode shows it only takes a couple shots to crack an Arquitens.

Torpedoes start to kick in a bit more in Season 3. We see Y-wings use them against warships.

13 minutes ago, UnitOmega said:

Yeah, if only torpedoes and missiles had a use to bust up small capital ships such as might be in a blockade - but no we need a cool laser on the B-Wing (even though they say it HAS proton torpedoes). The Geonosis episode shows it only takes a couple shots to crack an Arquitens.

The giant B-wing lazer was dumb, and yes torpedos could have been used there instead. but seriously star wars is lazers and the force, not missiles and bombs

On 9/3/2017 at 0:31 PM, UnitOmega said:

So, the technical definition of "Air Superiority" (which can be extended to Space Superiority) can be roughly summarized as "the condition where you're free to run your air, land and sea operations without prohibitive interference by the opposing air force". A fighter with a "superiority role" is designed to achieve this state, or the one beyond it "Air Supremacy" (where you have such control of the airspace that the opposing force can basically do nothing).

To this end, the humble TIE/LN is a Superiority frame - they're cheap and simple enough you can make enough of them they can act as high volumes of escorts for other ships, they are maneuverable and quick enough to run interception or otherwise engage enemy fighters and in a pinch, they can strafe the ground if somebody is impeding your combat operations there. They aren't necessarily flexible or multi-role, they're just simple enough the Empire can execute on their typical tactic of bringing enough gun.

As for stuff like Rebels using TIEs on Gozantis for everything well, some of that is practical. Computers aren't magic, every new ship model for the show is a new animation model which needs to be rigged, textured, etc. It can be a time consuming and expensive process, and likely they only have so much budget for new models (characters/ships/environments) per season. While we knew that the Empire made use of Clone Wars surplus for a while, the fact that Gozanti and Arquitens with slightly different colorations and designs are so prominent in Rebels is almost assuredly because they already had those models for TCW and could slightly adjust them. A gunboat would be an entirely new model creation, with different geometry, coloration, etc.

That and I think somebody on the Rebels writing staff was molested by ordinance as a child or something, considering how rarely they remember that torpedoes and missiles are supposed to be really good and actually use them in the show.

They show it used against ground targets and capital ships enough but they do tend to forget air-to-air missiles are a thing.

But yeah the TIE design predates the existence of a large organized Rebellion so their design priorities were having the speed to catch any civilian or left over CW craft an enough firepower to threaten them. However the OP hit the nail on the head in that the most important thing for them was to be omipresent so that everyone who thought about going against Imperial law would feel that the Empire was always watching. Which is part of the reason we see so many Gozanti and TIE teams, very rarely do we see open warzones at this point, most of the Rebels action is on the fringes or relying on ambushing an under prepared garrison and for those areas that deployment makes total sense.

21 hours ago, Reiver said:

You're not far off, really!

It also makes sense with the Imperial star destroyer doctrine: You have a massive warship show up that, under 90% of circumstances, more or less automatically defeats almost anything an errant pirate or newly rebelling star system can oppose it in highhandedly. The problem is that even if your ship can win anything singlehandedly, there's only one of them.

But star systems are big, and pirates and rebels are a fickle lot, disinclined to stay in one place. In ground combat, the old adage is that you can't truly hold ground until the infantry show up; part of the logic is that you simply need the extra eyes and ears and every-nook-and-cranny capacity to have an area properly under your control. In the world of Magic Space Wizards, one imagines busy orbitals end up being similar in terms of being able to be thorough.

So: You have a vast quantity of small, well armed, very very fast craft who can act as pursuit, patrol, and sweeper teams as part of a suppression & search operations, in which the quality of the ship matters far less than that it is a) a ship that is b) dangerous.

Even the TIE Bombers make sense in this sense: Fly a dozen TIE fighters scattered to do the investigation of the busy parts of town, with the TIE Bombers sitting back as a kind of SWAT team who leap into action when you know where the enemy is, and want to blow something up. Too big for a couple missiles and/or torpedoes? It's probably a capital ship. You have a Star Destroyer for those... see also: Automatically wins.

This also then helps make sense in the development of the TIE Interceptor: "Hey, uh, guys? We're starting to run into firefights serious enough, often enough, that the losses are starting to take a toll. Could we maybe have something with more shooty so it's a fairer fight against those sodding rebels?"

9 hours ago, Reiver said:

The AK-47 of the spaceship world: Definitely a weapon of war, definitely dangerous... just light on extraneous features beyond 'it shoots at what you points it at and does it well enough to count'.

A small sidenote: The Empire probably doesn't mind the idea of the mass produced fighter craft lacking a hyperdrive, either. Harder to desert your post when you need a transport ship to carry you.

8 hours ago, Hannes Solo said:

That is a point, though a hyperdrive would be just a waste of recources when you plan to operate a fighter from a capital ship anyway.

As a siednote: It occurs to me that the Star Destroyer is basically a jack of all trades. Its a mix of a combat ship, a carrier as well as a base for ground invasion which carrys and supports a small army of ground troops.
It makes sense in an enviroment where where nobody else is able to field something in that size category and your primary interest is to keep down insurgency . If there where other powers who could build ships of similar size one would probably which for more specialized warships.

This also touches on a huge point in TIE design, namely as an anti-bomber countermeasure for Star Destroyers. SDs were basically unmatched as starships for most of the Empire's rule so their only real threat came from craft too small for them to easily hit that were armed with heavy ordnance but TIEs could handle most of those easily due to their speed and numbers.

5 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Or life support.

But it goes beyond that - the noticeable one being the deliberate lack of shields to save cost and weight on the TIE/ln.

I'm not suggesting the navy deliberately seeks to loose TIE fighters, but the point is that the fleet has deliberately sought to buy as many fighters as it can for its money, accepting that the fighters are less capable than (say) purchasing more V-wings or later-generation 'Heavy-Z' Headhunters, and hence accepting that it will take casualties in a fight against a serious opponent.

Which is why the Empire actually tries to have a high/low mix of TIE fighters and TIE interceptors (so that the pilots who are actually 'any good' get a fighter they can exploit their skills in).

The big change with Tua/Thrawn's plan with The TIE Advanced Prototype/TIE Defender is that this was a seriously dangerous fighter (X-wing quality or better - wait for season 4 for any comparison) that Thrawn was arguing for going into mass production; i.e. becoming general issue for TIE squadrons - which would have been horrifically expensive, of course, but how many hundreds - heck, thousands - of squadrons of TIE defenders could you have built for the price of DS-1?

(Motti makes pretty much this point in the Vader comics, albeit talking about star destroyers, and one of Thrawn's key characteristics has always been less obsession with 'superweapons' than most imperial commanders)

Well part of this push to diversify was recognition that the Rebellion was much larger and better organized than they had thought and that it was increasingly relying on elite fighter-bomber squadrons with some specialists mixed in to counter the standing Imperial doctrine, Thrawn's recognition of this was his big motivation behind the Defender which was designed specifically to counter rebel hit squads. The Advanced and TAP came from a different place in that they were specialist craft designed for use for elite VIPs after someone realized they couldn't very well ask an Inquisitor or heaven forbid the Dark Lord of the Sith to fly into combat in something with a dimestore life support system that didn't even have shields. Not to mention the nature of their work making a hyperdrive almost required.

I think in the movies and other visual media, the TIE Fighter as a ship has always been considered a little jewel, despite most of them always ending up exploding on screen. I mean, Poe was talking of a SF, but I'm sure he would be excited to pilot a regular TIE too. And I don't watch Rebels, but I'm sure Sabine is happy to have her own TIE. I think the motorcycle comparison is apt. They're like fancy motorcycles used by the police, they're shiny and you would like very much to try one, but they're still fragile motorcycles, they get bumped off the road by a heavy truck, like the Falcon is. It's like one of those action scenes where the bad guys driving black, sleek bikes are chasing the good guys in some heavy yet fast enough vehicle, and the bikes swarm all around, and are cool to look at, but still easy to get rid of.

19 minutes ago, Vontoothskie said:

The giant B-wing lazer was dumb, and yes torpedos could have been used there instead. but seriously star wars is lazers and the force, not missiles and bombs

You say that but the single most important plot point from the very first movie revolved around a proton torpedo.

17 minutes ago, Princezilla said:

This also touches on a huge point in TIE design, namely as an anti-bomber countermeasure for Star Destroyers. SDs were basically unmatched as starships for most of the Empire's rule so their only real threat came from craft too small for them to easily hit that were armed with heavy ordnance but TIEs could handle most of those easily due to their speed and numbers.

Octuple Barbette Turbolasers are very intimidating against big, mostly immobile targets, not so good at picking off snub-fighters. Rebels shows this pretty clearly. Of course, I already learned this back in the day, reading the Han Solo Trilogy. Let the dirty scum ys with their bombs and torps get close enough and you can scratch some capital ships.

24 minutes ago, Vontoothskie said:

The giant B-wing lazer was dumb, and yes torpedos could have been used there instead. but seriously star wars is lazers and the force, not missiles and bombs

4 minutes ago, Princezilla said:

You say that but the single most important plot point from the very first movie revolved around a proton torpedo.

Also, I'm pretty sure I've read, and played, way more hours of Star Wars entertainment than just the films where munitions were pretty important.

2 hours ago, Princezilla said:

You say that but the single most important plot point from the very first movie revolved around a proton torpedo.

And CTE missiles in return of the Jedi.

Basically explosives are for death stars and asteroids.

Lasers for everything else.

2 hours ago, Sekac said:

And CTE missiles in return of the Jedi.

Basically explosives are for death stars and asteroids.

Lasers for everything else.

And for bridge deflector shields... And A-wings for bridges!

14 hours ago, BadMotivator said:

Umm, that scene is in the atmosphere.

Also it's from rebels so I can't respect it

On 4.9.2017 at 2:20 AM, GrimmyV said:

effecient laser cannons

Which is indeed true. TIEs have high end Laser Cannons compared to the ones used on X-Wings. Combined with superior ammo (more pure Tibanna Gas) the two cannons of a TIE/LN are almost as powerfull as the ones on X-Wings. Thats why we see X-Wings go down ofter a few hits so often.

For example the old D6 Pen and Paper RPG from WEG (which is the source of most technical data for the SW Universe) puts the damage output of a X-Wing at 6 D6 and the damage of a TIE/LN at 5 D6.

15 hours ago, UnitOmega said:

Octuple Barbette Turbolasers are very intimidating against big, mostly immobile targets, not so good at picking off snub-fighters. Rebels shows this pretty clearly. Of course, I already learned this back in the day, reading the Han Solo Trilogy. Let the dirty scum ys with their bombs and torps get close enough and you can scratch some capital ships.

Also, I'm pretty sure I've read, and played, way more hours of Star Wars entertainment than just the films where munitions were pretty important.

Episode VI shows us that Turbolasers somehow can create flak-bursts.

15 hours ago, UnitOmega said:

Octuple Barbette Turbolasers are very intimidating against big, mostly immobile targets, not so good at picking off snub-fighters. Rebels shows this pretty clearly.

In Season 3 of Rebels, we see the Barbettes fire for the first time in 3 seasons. They fire at fighters. And hit them. Later they're seen in use against ground targets - but, like in TCW, the theme does seem to be that the "main guns" are multipurpose- anti-fighter as well as anti-ship or anti-ground.

The 100/6 format doesn't do justice the Empire at all. Rebels would have 20 ships to every 300 TIE fighters in a normal fight.

10 hours ago, RogueLeader42 said:

Episode VI shows us that Turbolasers somehow can create flak-bursts.

Possibly a ranging thing. We know the plasma explodes at some point, so if you want to get real technically the plasma envelope probably pops at the end of effective range but that's giving star wars "Kanan can hear through space" too much analysis. This way lies space madness.

10 hours ago, Ironlord said:

In Season 3 of Rebels, we see the Barbettes fire for the first time in 3 seasons. They fire at fighters. And hit them. Later they're seen in use against ground targets - but, like in TCW, the theme does seem to be that the "main guns" are multipurpose- anti-fighter as well as anti-ship or anti-ground.

You must have been watching a different season 3 than me, because Dutch and Ezra were completely fine. Moreover, point-defense has been considered a logical weakness of Star Destroyers of writers looking at the information on them for years.

And more to the point, FFG considers it very hard. The difficulty for a SIL 8 ISD to fire on a SIL 3 X- or Y-Wing is pushed up to their highest difficulty bracket in the RPG system.

On ‎05‎/‎09‎/‎2017 at 7:58 AM, Hannes Solo said:

Also it's from rebels so I can't respect it

On ‎04‎/‎09‎/‎2017 at 7:23 PM, GrimmyV said:

IIRC, Pablo Hidalgo said on twitter TIEs have life support now, later supplemental works clarified that their systems are very basic, and since a TIE has no shields, pilots wear full suits as safety features. Battle damage or a micrometeorite strike will mean you start bleeding air into space.

To each their own. However, it's a fair point. I'm pretty sure the getaway from Tarkin's destroyer has the Specters not in void suits.

I've generally gone with a middle ground on that; a TIE fighter's cockpit is airtight (because when you're building spacecraft and aircraft you design any external hatch airtight because you just do for common sense and professionalism) but doesn't have life support. That is; get in a TIE, close the hatch, and launch, and you've got a volume of air in the cockpit. Fine to breath for a few minutes if you're running from point A to point B or have just jumped in the nearest fighter when an emergency occurs (like the Specters running from Mustaphar or Vult Skerris chasing them from Skystrike). Not fine for a 3-hour patrol - which is why if you actually go out in a TIE with time to prepare, you put on a suit whose helm includes breathing apparatus.

19 hours ago, Ironlord said:

In Season 3 of Rebels, we see the Barbettes fire for the first time in 3 seasons. They fire at fighters. And hit them. Later they're seen in use against ground targets - but, like in TCW, the theme does seem to be that the "main guns" are multipurpose- anti-fighter as well as anti-ship or anti-ground.

True, but there are a lot of shots. Age of rebellion has both concepts - the odds of hitting an evading, defelctors-double-front silhouette 3 fighter is refreshingly low.

But, the full broadside of a capital ship puts out a lot of fire. The game includes the 'blanket barrage' concept - firing defensive patterns so anyone trying to attack from that direction risks getting hit.

On ‎04‎/‎09‎/‎2017 at 9:09 PM, Princezilla said:

This also touches on a huge point in TIE design, namely as an anti-bomber countermeasure for Star Destroyers. SDs were basically unmatched as starships for most of the Empire's rule so their only real threat came from craft too small for them to easily hit that were armed with heavy ordnance but TIEs could handle most of those easily due to their speed and numbers.

Indeed. Star Destroyers did carry flak weapons (medium, quad, and light lasers) but pretty shoddy quantities compared to their size. It's much the same in Armada - the firepower of a star destroyer is impressive but it's anti-squadron firepower (especially a Victory-class destroyers') is laughably poor compared to its cost - which is why you tend to deploy them with a screen of TIE fighters whose job can be summed up as "take longer to die to enemy multirole fighters than their carrier takes to die to my big guns".

11 hours ago, UnitOmega said:

You must have been watching a different season 3 than me, because Dutch and Ezra were completely fine.

Fair enough - I thought at least one "no-name" Rebel pilot had been shot down either in Secret Cargo or Zero Hour - but I might be mistaken.

I know for sure at least one droid starfighter had been shot down by a Venator's main guns in TCW scenes of starfighters buzzing Venators.

And this brings up the question: are ISD's just expendable seige ships? Just watch Rebels. They make it seem so easy to take down THE MOST POWERFUL SHIPS IN THE IMPERIAL STARFLEET. Come on. That's ridiculous. Let them struggle with a Light Cruiser or something.

At least HTTE got it right. Look how difficult in was for Luke to even ESCAPE the Chimera. I'll give it to that Jedi scum, he made one **** of a shot.

28 minutes ago, Celestial Lizards said:

And this brings up the question: are ISD's just expendable seige ships? Just watch Rebels. They make it seem so easy to take down THE MOST POWERFUL SHIPS IN THE IMPERIAL STARFLEET. Come on. That's ridiculous. Let them struggle with a Light Cruiser or something.

Has rebels seen a Destroyer actually 'killed' in anything resembling a fair fight? Getting blown up because magic glowsticks sliced into the reactor doesn't really count (internal sabotage is fine - albeit that the EMP bombs in a TIE fighter seem a bit magic space maguffin). They've killed three Interdictors that I'm aware of, but one by sabotage, one by ramming with another capital ship, and one by....I guess sabotage? I don't remember exactly what the mandalorians do.

My personal bugbear in terms of how expendable Destroyers seem to be is how easily one is disabled by about half a dozen snubfighter-calibre torpedoes in Rogue One. I can get behind the ion cannon in Empire Strikes Back doing it - that thing is NOT ship-to-ship cailbre weaponry!

8 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

My personal bugbear in terms of how expendable Destroyers seem to be is how easily one is disabled by about half a dozen snubfighter-calibre torpedoes in Rogue One. I can get behind the ion cannon in Empire Strikes Back doing it - that thing is NOT ship-to-ship cailbre weaponry!

I think Admiral Raddus has a line to the effect of, 'See that opening?' I didn't quite understand what he was talking about, so I imagine there was a weakness in the Star Destroyer's shielding at some point brought about by the fire of Profundity's guns.

Side notes: Admiral Raddus's name sounds like 'radish.' We don't actually see the capital ships firing that much in that battle sequence, do we?