Not too happy with this Starwing stuff.

By Kingsguard, in X-Wing

31 minutes ago, NakedDex said:

I don't even like SW. I'm the wrong person to ask unless you want a full explanation of part one.

Man, seeing comments like this (assuming you are here for just gameplay, if you don't like Star Wars) warms my heart.

Reminds me that not everyone on these forums hates the game.

I've been playing since wave 1 or 2. I have seen peaks and troughs in my desire to play, but it's still a game I enjoy, and an experience I enjoy sharing with friends. On the other hand, I'm not sure you could pay me enough to sit through Force Awakens or Rogue One again.

It has flaws, but the game is still one of the more enjoyable tabletop miniatures games out today, and I'll continue to play it as long as it's supported (regardless of how bad/broken some ships/upgrades are).

5 hours ago, Kingsguard said:

How can you stay behind it when it can 3 turn slam 3 turn and shoot you with cannon or missile?

That's still a huge turning circle. Since the star-wing is locked into its front arc, it would still be quite easy to keep out of its arc, especially if you call it and pull a 2 or 3-turn/T-roll of your own.

6 hours ago, demon3o5z said:

I'm kinda in the same boat (pun intended). I did play Tie Fighter, however, and still don't like the ship. It doesn't fit in Star Wars, or the Empire for me. More than anything it felt like the designers trying to fill a role in a video game. The missions that made you fly one always felt like filler while I was waiting to get back in a Tie. So I don't get the nostalgia.

I'll go one step farther and say that I'm kinda . . . upset is way too strong a word, I guess irked or mildly disappointed that a ship got into the game in the first place. It really feels like it's only here because of a real loud forum meme.

I won't be buying one, but I'll agree that I'm excited for peoples' repaints. If someone does something really cool, that might be enough to change my mind.

As foreign an explanation that is to me. I believe it is completely ok to have this view. Not everyone likes something you like - that's simply human nature.

Personally though, whenever I played TIE Fighter I couldn't wait for the missions that featured Gunboats. It's such an amazingly versatile ship that could act in various roles, be it spearheading an attack or hanging around as support.

You could always rely on the Gunboat getting into a serious furball yet scrape through and out the other side. Sure A-Wings were nasty, especially with their concussion missiles and speed but you could still mop the floor with them.

Can I also say, the only ship I ever felt comfortable in, in attempting to hyperspace while being pursued in is the Gunboat?

I also think that part of the appreciation for the Gunboat comes from the fact that in TIE Fighter, when you were outnumbered and outgunned you could hit Shift + S and Spacebar to call for reinforcements.

Can you guess which starfighter came to the rescue? :lol:

1 minute ago, Alpha Xg1 said:

Not everyone likes something you like - that's simply human nature.

Totally fair. And I forgot about calling in reinforcements.

As for the ship being so versatile, I think that's why I didn't like playing it. If I had wanted to play a well rounded sturdy ship, I would have played X-Wing, ya know.

But as you said, other views on it are fair. Different experiences.

6 minutes ago, Alpha Xg1 said:

As foreign an explanation that is to me. I believe it is completely ok to have this view. Not everyone likes something you like - that's simply human nature.

Personally though, whenever I played TIE Fighter I couldn't wait for the missions that featured Gunboats. It's such an amazingly versatile ship that could act in various roles, be it spearheading an attack or hanging around as support.

You could always rely on the Gunboat getting into a serious furball yet scrape through and out the other side. Sure A-Wings were nasty, especially with their concussion missiles and speed but you could still mop the floor with them.

Can I also say, the only ship I ever felt comfortable in, in attempting to hyperspace while being pursued in is the Gunboat?

I also think that part of the appreciation for the Gunboat comes from the fact that in TIE Fighter, when you were outnumbered and outgunned you could hit Shift + S and Spacebar to call for reinforcements.

Can you guess which starfighter came to the rescue? :lol:

I know when I first played TIE Fighter, the first time I moved to the Gunboat was horrible. It was a lot slower than the TIEs I'd been flying up to that point, and ion cannons just meant I had to be more careful not to blow stuff up (at that age, that was the main fun, of course). Then there were a couple missions where I found myself flying TIE Fighters or TIE Bombers again, and suddenly I began to appreciate the armor and shielding the Gunboat brought to the table!

Hehe...memories.

Yeah, moving from the TIE Interceptor to the Gunboat: What!? 90 mglt!? 110 - 90 was painful.

Then I rammed my first Rebel. Like!

Then I looked at my warhead payload. Like LIKE!

Then I realised I had expended all of my warheads. Bummer!

Then I realised if I held down the W key while pressing the trigger. LIKE!

:lol:

For FFG's Starwing to match exactly the X-wing games, the only thing you need to alter is that the SLAM action would come with the OS-1 title, and it could also equip a beam weapon, that you could also fire with weapons disabled tokens. The XG-1 title would only add 1 cannon slot and a beam weapon, but allow you to do koiograns or segnors.
To be honest, we have ships in this game that are much more different from their lore versions than that. Like the B-wing (should be much sturdier and able to carry more cannons, also no that clumsy), the TIE Defender (the initial release, at least, was nothing at all like the lore version), the Lambda shuttle (double firing arc and not that clumsy), the TIE Advanced (no missiles but much better maneuverability), the HWK (I don't know where to start), and so on and on.

Most of the problems you seem to get with this "cheating" of firing weapons while having weapons disabled tokens comes from the fact that FFG made SLAM being too punishing compared to how it was in the original games. SLAM depleted the laser cannons, but you could still use the warhead launchers and beam weapons. That was the entire point of the Missile Boat. That is why the titles let you fire ordnance or cheap cannons (mostly beams). It's not that they are cheating the original intention. They are more like correcting the SLAM and weapon disabled rules to be more like they should be.


Anyway, these differences can be explained with both the Gunboat and the Missile Boat being just recanonized with a slightly different background. As many things have after the canon rewrite.

In the new canon, the Millennium Falcon has an illegal military grade SLAM engine, and it seems to have had it for a long time. Probably it is one of the things that makes Han boast about it being the fastest ship (of its class, I guess) in the Galaxy. Since in the old canon it was the Missile Boat the first to introduce such technology, just before the Battle of Endor, it doesn't fit with the new canon. From where did the Falcon get its SLAM engine if it wasn't invented until much later? It's illegal, so I guess it still is of Imperial origin (the Empire is the law enforcers, right?).


That is why I think in this miniature game the Starwing got the SLAM tech. The new canon Starwing is not a widely deployed starfighter as the Gunboat used to be in the X-wing series, but, as the flavor text says, it's a ship given to specialists for particular operations and roles. So it can have a bit more advanced toys than the "widely available" Gunboat had in the games. So, they have SLAM as an advanced specialist technology. Then Han or a previous owner somehow got these engines removed from a Starwing and installed onto the Falcon. Or maybe some black market stuff.

Since in the new canon Thrawn has been reimagined as to develop the TIE Defender instead of the Missile Boat; it makes sense that instead of two totally different ships, the XG-1 and OS-1 titles represent different models. (Still, even the old games stated that the Missile Boat was directly based on the Assault Gunboat.)

It's not such an stretch that the new canon consider them the same ship with different specializations. The old Missile Boat was so broken overpowered because it had SLAM, plus was able to fire almost unlimited warheads, and beam weapons while SLAMming, and incredible maneuverability. Given that in the new canon it is not anymore such a secret weapon of Thrawn developed just before Endor, but more like a special fighter for special missions, it makes sense that both the Gunboat and Missile boat configurations have been rebalanced. The Gunboat pushed a notch up to the XG-1 configuration with SLAM, the Missile Boat pushed a notch down to OS-1 configuration without beam weapons.

I mean, they still feel like what they were. Sure, the XG-1 gunboat didn't have SLAM in the games, but they were usually coming from unexpected directions thanks to their hyperspace capabilities, that is something really hard to represent in the miniature game. And they were coming with missiles and/or ion cannons/beams to wreck havoc between pirates and rebel scum.

I think what we got is a very good compromise.

Edited by Azrapse
3 hours ago, Azrapse said:

For FFG's Starwing to match exactly the X-wing games, the only thing you need to alter is that the SLAM action would come with the OS-1 title, and it could also equip a beam weapon, that you could also fire with weapons disabled tokens. The XG-1 title would only add 1 cannon slot and a beam weapon, but allow you to do koiograns or segnors.
To be honest, we have ships in this game that are much more different from their lore versions than that. Like the B-wing (should be much sturdier and able to carry more cannons, also no that clumsy), the TIE Defender (the initial release, at least, was nothing at all like the lore version), the Lambda shuttle (double firing arc and not that clumsy), the TIE Advanced (no missiles but much better maneuverability), the HWK (I don't know where to start), and so on and on.

Most of the problems you seem to get with this "cheating" of firing weapons while having weapons disabled tokens comes from the fact that FFG made SLAM being too punishing compared to how it was in the original games. SLAM depleted the laser cannons, but you could still use the warhead launchers and beam weapons. That was the entire point of the Missile Boat. That is why the titles let you fire ordnance or cheap cannons (mostly beams). It's not that they are cheating the original intention. They are more like correcting the SLAM and weapon disabled rules to be more like they should be.


Anyway, these differences can be explained with both the Gunboat and the Missile Boat being just recanonized with a slightly different background. As many things have after the canon rewrite.

In the new canon, the Millennium Falcon has an illegal military grade SLAM engine, and it seems to have had it for a long time. Probably it is one of the things that makes Han boast about it being the fastest ship (of its class, I guess) in the Galaxy. Since in the old canon it was the Missile Boat the first to introduce such technology, just before the Battle of Endor, it doesn't fit with the new canon. From where did the Falcon get its SLAM engine if it wasn't invented until much later? It's illegal, so I guess it still is of Imperial origin (the Empire is the law enforcers, right?).


That is why I think in this miniature game the Starwing got the SLAM tech. The new canon Starwing is not a widely deployed starfighter as the Gunboat used to be in the X-wing series, but, as the flavor text says, it's a ship given to specialists for particular operations and roles. So it can have a bit more advanced toys than the "widely available" Gunboat had in the games. So, they have SLAM as an advanced specialist technology. Then Han or a previous owner somehow got these engines removed from a Starwing and installed onto the Falcon. Or maybe some black market stuff.

Since in the new canon Thrawn has been reimagined as to develop the TIE Defender instead of the Missile Boat; it makes sense that instead of two totally different ships, the XG-1 and OS-1 titles represent different models. (Still, even the old games stated that the Missile Boat was directly based on the Assault Gunboat.)

It's not such an stretch that the new canon consider them the same ship with different specializations. The old Missile Boat was so broken overpowered because it had SLAM, plus was able to fire almost unlimited warheads, and beam weapons while SLAMming, and incredible maneuverability. Given that in the new canon it is not anymore such a secret weapon of Thrawn developed just before Endor, but more like a special fighter for special missions, it makes sense that both the Gunboat and Missile boat configurations have been rebalanced. The Gunboat pushed a notch up to the XG-1 configuration with SLAM, the Missile Boat pushed a notch down to OS-1 configuration without beam weapons.

I mean, they still feel like what they were. Sure, the XG-1 gunboat didn't have SLAM in the games, but they were usually coming from unexpected directions thanks to their hyperspace capabilities, that is something really hard to represent in the miniature game. And they were coming with missiles and/or ion cannons/beams to wreck havoc between pirates and rebel scum.

I think what we got is a very good compromise.

Hear, hear!

It's too much for me to wish the old sims' Missile Boat was conciliated with the one in the OS-1 title? I would love to see this selection in the X-Wing VR (and later TIE Fighter VR) options:

[ x ] Starwing Missile Boat (replaces the Missile Boat model with the Assault Gunboat model, gives it 2 laser cannons and durability, speed and agility of the Assault Gunboat). -> effectively making the Missile Boat a variant of the Starwing.