.

1 hour ago, Stoneface said:

Not identical. A better comparison, for me, would be the Zero and P40. They both could barrel roll. The Zero was faster in straight flight, could turn tighter and climb faster. The negatives, compared to the P40 were no armor plating and no self-sealing fuel tank. The advantage the P40 had excluding the Zero' s weaknesses was it could outdive the Zero. This comparison is pretty close to the original Tie and X-wing.

Health wise, the 3 to 5 looks ok. The shields of the X-wing equating to the P40' s armor. Speed wise,the Tie should be able to do a white 5 straight where the X-wing would be limited to a white 4 straight. The 1-3 straights should be green with a green 4 for the Tie.

Both ships should be able to pull off the 1-3 banks. Green for the Tie but only 1-2 green for the X-wing.

Turns are more difficult to compare. Where the Zero could out turn the P40 at all speeds, not giving the X-wing turns would be ridiculous for game balance. You could omit the 1 turn on the X-wing to show that the Tie is more maneuverable or give the 1 turn to the X-wing and make it red. Play testing to determine game balance.

To take the comparison a little further and perhaps give some logic to adding a defense die at range 3 for primary weapons, the wing mounted guns of WE II aircraft were regulated to converge at a certain distance. Much like focusing the sun with a magnifying glass. An easy buff to the Tie would be to disallow the extra green die when defending against the Tie. There are several other craft in the game that would benefit from hull mounted armament so it would have to be limited to "Tie Only".

The X-wing and the Tie were the frontline fighters of their time much like the Zero and the P40. They were intended to do the same job, air to air combat, but design philosophies were a little different. The Zero trading survivability for maneuverability. I see no problem giving these two ships the same or very similar dials and only differing in difficulty. Obviously this comparison doesn't work for all the ships in the game but the logic behind grouping similar ships makes sense. This way it's easier to avoid a bomber having a better dial than a fighter.

But the X-wing and the tie were not designed to do the same job... not even close.

The X-wing had a hyperdrive and could be used for long-distance operations whereas the tie did not and required dedicated carrier support. They should have a very different feel.

40 minutes ago, Icelom said:

But the X-wing and the tie were not designed to do the same job... not even close.

The X-wing had a hyperdrive and could be used for long-distance operations whereas the tie did not and required dedicated carrier support. They should have a very different feel.

Do you agree that the Tie was designed as an air superiority fighter? It serves the same purpose as the Zero did on the Kaga and Skagit.

Just because the X-wing had a hyperdrive doesn't invalidate the comparison. The Rebel Alliance wasn't exfactly overflowing with fighter carrying ships. Also, having a hyperdrive capable fighter was more inline with the hit and fade tactics by the Alliance. The Empire was more force projection and area control.

12 minutes ago, Stoneface said:

Do you agree that the Tie was designed as an air superiority fighter? It serves the same purpose as the Zero did on the Kaga and Skagit.

Just because the X-wing had a hyperdrive doesn't invalidate the comparison. The Rebel Alliance wasn't exfactly overflowing with fighter carrying ships. Also, having a hyperdrive capable fighter was more inline with the hit and fade tactics by the Alliance. The Empire was more force projection and area control.

So different rolls.....

The X Wing was designed and intended to dogfight. It should have loosely the same functionality as a TIE fighter with, broadly, the same dial options. Really, it's only the colours that should be different.

X-wings have huge powerful guns offset from the main fuselage, set on wings that may act as heat sinks for the oversized guns and engines. The X-wing also carries (proton) torpedoes, heavy yield projectile weapons that are affective when fired at close range of large immobile (or less mobile) targets. It also has a hyperdrive and an astromech Socket. All this suggests the T-65 was designed as a long range heavy fighter meant to engage larger ships and be fast enough and maneuverable enough to have a reasonable chance to evade escort fighters, and be repairable in the field during long duration operations. None of its obvious design features suggest a primary role of space superiority fighter, altho that may be a secondary role it can handle if pressed.

the TIE/ln has two small to mid sized cannons mounted towards the front center of the craft (these are shown to be rapid cycling/repeating cannons on some models) and small but powerful engines also mounted centrally. HUGE wings on thick support pylons dominate the Fighter, with suggestions that they function as energy collectors and/or heat sinks for the compact yet efficient engines and weapons, with a possible secondary function of armor/shielding for the ship itself or perhaps an escorted ship. These ‘wings’ must be very important to the overall design of the ship given their prominence.

The TIE Fighter lacks a hyperdrive and is thus a short range fighter and has not been shown to operate separately from a base of operations but instead appears dependent on hangar facilities and carrier ships. This further strengths the idea that this Fighter is intended to have a primary function of E scort and I nterceptor to protect large, valuable assets and more vulnerable ships such as VIP shuttle craft. This function might be extended to T actical role of space superiority since achieving control of the local battlefield requires just that, Space Superiority. Simply, the TIE is meant to kill any ships that threaten its home base, and is effective in large numbers. Less of a shark and more of a piranha.

so, X-wings and TIE Fighters do carry out different roles but they can also intersect in the very same role of Space Superiority, or Dog Fighter, with the TIE appearing to be primarily suited for the role and the Rebel ship fulfilling that role as part of its multi role nature.

7 hours ago, Icelom said:

So different rolls.....

Not really. The X-wing is a multi-role craft, think F-15, whereas the Tie was essentially a fighter, think Zero.

If the Rebels had more carriers, I'd compare the X-wing to the F-14 Tomcat. Swing-Wing vs X-wing.

After thinking about it, the F-15 is a good comparison to the X-wing. The conformal fuel tanks on the F-15 roughly equating to the hyperdrive, a variety of underwing armament in place of the Proton Torpedoes, a multi-million dollar cockpit for the astromech and a gatling gun vs the four laser cannon.

Not sure how applicable real world aircraft is to fantastical spacecraft that operates in a weird fantasy-space with different physics. Or real world logistics to Star Wars logistics that have historicaly been on the whim of RPG books and never been a consideration in the movies.

TIEs are cheap throw-away craft that can be produced in numbers high enough to be deployed across a galaxy, X-Wings are build for combat first and without considerations for mass-production. They are not equals. Of course, that speaks for secondary media, in the movies TIEs seem a bit better, but eh, X-Wing was a great game.

The interesting thing in that picture is that the TIE, Y Wing and X Wing should all have the same speed and manoeuvrability. Basically, they should all have the same dial.

And the B Wing should never have had the knife-fighting dial it did. It should have had the old Y Wing dial.

3 hours ago, UnitOmega said:

I thought Y-Wings were down to 80 MGLT or so. Faster than a B-Wing, but nowhere near the same league as the TIE or X-Wing.

On 5/9/2018 at 3:02 PM, Marinealver said:

They still had different dials which made TAP fly differently than TIE Advanced. I'm just saying they should do their best to keep the maneuver profile for each ship unique.

Don't get me wrong, I am well aware that maneuver creep was the biggest problem the X-wing had (bigger than Biggs ability). Also that the TAP had a superior dial to the TIE Advanced. I am all for the T-rolls and S-loops on the ships from Wave 1-4. The A-wing absolutely needs them. I am just concerned about more blues and the wider range of stress maneuvers. PTL is a thing of the past but more red maneuvers are simply more reversal maneuvers (>90 degrees) and because of more of these reversal options I don't exactly see the need for more stress reducing maneuvers. The game needs to go back to the dials so if you guessed the wrong red maneuver, the next blue maneuver should be punishing in some degree or you cough it up on a white. If you give out too many maneuvering options the game will fall down to only dice and dials selection in planning will again be trivial.

Bringing the game back to the dials does not mean give every movement options available no mater what ship you fly. It means ensuring that dial selection matters. More Red difficulty reversal maneuvers does exactly that. More stress removing blue maneuvers removes the need for careful planning and positioning.

I think you're failing to factor in the Red actions. It's a cool idea, but without opening up the dials with at least a little more blue/green, it would be a dead feature i.e. Y-Wings without so much as a bank being blue would be pretty crap with the Red Reload and Barrel Roll. They still aren't great, but at least they have option over "Move forward" or "Move forward slightly more" to clear stress. It's also useful to combat offensive stress application should they choose to reintroduce that feature. Only having 3-4 options because Ezra shot you once is uni deal from a design perspective. They definitely seem to want to give themselves some breathing room, but making stress less of a "get wrecked" mechanic which also gives the design team more freedom and gives them more room for error and design space for later releases.

22 minutes ago, Alpha17 said:

I thought Y-Wings were down to 80 MGLT or so. Faster than a B-Wing, but nowhere near the same league as the TIE or X-Wing.

Later works played with this, but this is the original ILM notes from RotJ. Xs, Ys and LNs were all about the same max speed and capability, though obviously with slightly different weapon, shield, etc, configurations - TIEs not having a lot in this department means they're pretty cheap. Interceptors are "pretty fast" and the A-Wing is "REAL FAST". B-Wings are the slowest and least maneuverable, as bad as a much larger ship, but pack a lot of heat.

However, as we started to move into games, and we also had to unpack some lore and stuff, the original notes drifted. Ys got a little bit slower and less maneuverable because they were clearly older and heavier, the B got it's slightly weird agility even if it can't move fast, TIEs are lighter and Black Squadron is pretty good, so clearly the actual LN is more maneuverable than an X-Wing to make up for the fact that they die if you give them an angry look, etc. The intent was always they're roughly on par, though I think the delineation between red/white/blue (AMERICA **** YEAH) maneuvers helps keep their identity. FFG seems like they're aiming to pair off the x1 and T-65 though in this case.

On 5/10/2018 at 8:50 AM, gamblertuba said:

That sounds just about perfect. 2 Blue maneuvers is not nearly enough.

How many times will I need to type/say blue maneuver until it becomes normal?

Combined with the X-wing and TIE Advanced going from 4 to 6 manouvers respectively, it looks like we might expect a general baseline that 'most ships get +2 over the original'; presumably they felt that the limitations of having exactly one bank to de-stress was just too harsh for the ships in question to ever want to bother with their red manouvers - which, remember, now includes ship-wide action options. You didn't run PTL on a TIE Advanced, but maybe you'll consider performing its equivalent now and then with a couple extra banks on offer.

I presume that's the theory, anyway; of note is that the Protectorate Starfighter dial looked completely unchanged (much to my disappointment, if I'm honest!) so I guess it's not wholly universal, either.

Will be interesting to see what a turret ship's options look like.

20 hours ago, MasterShake2 said:

I think you're failing to factor in the Red actions. It's a cool idea, but without opening up the dials with at least a little more blue/green, it would be a dead feature i.e. Y-Wings without so much as a bank being blue would be pretty crap with the Red Reload and Barrel Roll. They still aren't great, but at least they have option over "Move forward" or "Move forward slightly more" to clear stress. It's also useful to combat offensive stress application should they choose to reintroduce that feature. Only having 3-4 options because Ezra shot you once is uni deal from a design perspective. They definitely seem to want to give themselves some breathing room, but making stress less of a "get wrecked" mechanic which also gives the design team more freedom and gives them more room for error and design space for later releases.

I did mention Red Actions, which is something that does increase the weight of Red maneuvers. As for Y-wings yes they needed more than just 2 blue maneuvers. But again the whole weight behind stress is it restricts your dial. I know a Soontir player who wouldn't PTL just to keep his dial open. Link actions are a great way to reel in PTL, but if not careful you will see certain linked actions being a requirement for competitive play if every dial is way too generous with the blue maneuvers.

Who does a scum player need to bribe to get some scum ship spoilers?

35 minutes ago, Wolfmanhays said:

Who does a scum player need to bribe to get some scum ship spoilers?

Gotta figure out who at FFG is head of Sabine Marketing, since I'm fairly certain he's the Scum sympathizer on the inside.