02.28.99

This is my favorite X-wing game. I couldn't count the number of times I've strapped in and gone to blow something up.

Let's remember it today.

Fly the Andrasta.

Fly a generic 1300 and call it the Selu or Sabra.

And dear FFG, can we have the Otana please?

Or, for those of an Imperial persuasion...

FLY GUNBOATS.

This game and Jedi Knight are largely the reasons I became a Star Wars fanatic as a kid.

Sure, I loved the films and had all the toys but if it wasn't for those two games, I would probably have eventually grown out of Star Wars.

At the very least, I wouldn't have deep dived into the EU and learned half of Wookieepedia as I got older.

I would absolutely love an Otana model. Once I've learned how to paint a bit, I'm definitely going to pick one up from Shapeways. An official release would have me over the moon, though.

I also really want to come up with Sabra and Selu titles for the Scum Falcon too.

Oh, also worth pointing out that one other element of XWA made it into X-Wing TMG: the Bandit Squadron Z-95. It's the makeshift squadron you fly as for two missions when you're supposed to be incognito. I'm still a bit disappointed we don't have Ace as a Z-95 pilot.

Arguably we have X-wing the game because of the novel/comic series, and we have the novel/comic series because of the X-wing flight sim.

Here’s to the series!

38 minutes ago, GuacCousteau said:

Oh, also worth pointing out that one other element of XWA made it into X-Wing TMG: the Bandit Squadron Z-95.

I always considered the Ion Missiles to be from XWA.

20 years later, still remember flying the Otana, what a nice ship! what a great game!

Wich we could see a release of that ship for the rebel faction.

"The Otana is a beauty of a ship that I would love to fly!"

1 hour ago, JJ48 said:

I always considered the Ion Missiles to be from XWA.

Yeah, that's a fair shout. They were even called Ion Pulse Missiles in 1e, just as they were in XWA.

Kinda bummed they changed the name for 2e now...

13 hours ago, FTS Gecko said:

Or, for those of an Imperial persuasion...

FLY GUNBOATS.

Or Maarek Stele.

Or both.

Wow. Really twenty years? Bugger, I feel old.

But yes, I still have great memories of the whole series. And, for that matter, Wing Commander.

9 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Wo w. Really twenty years? Bugger, I feel old.

Me too.

On the bright side, the game is still great, and looks sweet with the XWA update.

14 minutes ago, FTS Gecko said:

Me too.

On the bright side, the game is still great, and looks sweet with the XWA update.

They do, though I have yet to be able to finish the Bacta Delivery mission with the upgrades to the Star Destroyer allowing it to annihilate ships directly as soon as it jumps in-system.

2 hours ago, JJ48 said:

They do, though I have yet to be able to finish the Bacta Delivery mission with the upgrades to the Star Destroyer allowing it to annihilate ships directly as soon as it jumps in-system.

Bacta Delivery is one of my favourite missions. The family jumping in with two ships and a transport, the suspicion from the Rebels, then the Imperial Deuce and Lancers jumping in and everything going to **** while the Rebels desperately try to evacuate.

That's the kind of video game storytelling that some modern games fail to match, let alone 20 year old games!

12 minutes ago, FTS Gecko said:

Bacta Delivery is one of my favourite missions. The family jumping in with two ships and a transport, the suspicion from the Rebels, then the Imperial Deuce and Lancers jumping in and everything going to **** while the Rebels desperately try to evacuate.

That's the kind of video game storytelling that some modern games fail to match, let alone 20 year old games!

Have you managed to beat it with the upgrade? I seem to recall that originally, the capital ships were far enough out that the main threats were the TIE Bombers. By the time the Star Destroyer got close enough to fire personally, most of the objective ships had already fled.

With the upgrade, the Star Destroyer has much longer-range lasers. This makes it more exciting when trying to take one down (the long-range lasers are rather inaccurate against snubfighters), but it means the SD tears up the evacuating craft long before they're scheduled to evacuate. I even tried turning on Invincibility, flying out to where the ships would jump in, and destroying every single TIE Bomber as it launched, and still ended up losing too many ships to complete the mission.

In the end, the only solution I found was to edit the mission out of the config file so I could skip it.

(Oddly enough, trying the above method, the Vasudra was one of the few ships to regularly survive, and the game got confused.)

13 hours ago, JJ48 said:

Have you managed to beat it with the upgrade? I seem to recall that originally, the capital ships were far enough out that the main threats were the TIE Bombers. By the time the Star Destroyer got close enough to fire personally, most of the objective ships had already fled.

With the upgrade, the Star Destroyer has much longer-range lasers.

It doesn't.

I've been hanging around the XWAU boards for a long, long time.

The update does not change anything about the mechanics of the weapon. It updates the visual effects of the laser blasts, but range and fire rate is hardcoded into the game.

The Star Destroyer model is slightly bigger than the original, but it's not by enough to change the balance of the game. I've played that mission with the updated SD a lot of times over the last 15 years and never had a problem.

You might well have a bugged mission file that's changed the arrival trigger, or the flight path.

But my best guess is that you've installed the hook that increases the max number of lasers the game can handle.

The base game has a surprisingly low amount of laser blasts that can be rendered at any one time. It means that if you end up trying to do a custom scenario with lots of cap ships, many of them won't be able to fire.

There's a patch that I believe is an option in the DSUCP that ups this limit. But it has the unfortunate side effect of greatly increasing the amount of lasers cap ships shoot in a volley. SDs end up being able to shoot from all their hard points at once. It basically breaks the game. Any cap ship combat is over in seconds because the stats aren't balanced around taking that many hits that quickly.

8 hours ago, GuacCousteau said:

It doesn't.

I've been hanging around the XWAU boards for a long, long time.

The update does not change anything about the mechanics of the weapon. It updates the visual effects of the laser blasts, but range and fire rate is hardcoded into the game.

The Star Destroyer model is slightly bigger than the original, but it's not by enough to change the balance of the game. I've played that mission with the updated SD a lot of times over the last 15 years and never had a problem.

You might well have a bugged mission file that's changed the arrival trigger, or the flight path.

But my best guess is that you've installed the hook that increases the max number of lasers the game can handle.

The base game has a surprisingly low amount of laser blasts that can be rendered at any one time. It means that if you end up trying to do a custom scenario with lots of cap ships, many of them won't be able to fire.

There's a patch that I believe is an option in the DSUCP that ups this limit. But it has the unfortunate side effect of greatly increasing the amount of lasers cap ships shoot in a volley. SDs end up being able to shoot from all their hard points at once. It basically breaks the game. Any cap ship combat is over in seconds because the stats aren't balanced around taking that many hits that quickly.

Hm...they definitely attack from much longer range somehow. Would it allow them to fire more warheads at long range, maybe?

When 1.0 was in the gutter I went back and beat TIE Fighter + Expansions and XWA - with the upgrade/mod. Totally beatable, tons of fun!

On 2/28/2019 at 3:07 PM, Wrecker01 said:

20 years later, still remember flying the Otana, what a nice ship! what a great game!

Wich we could see a release of that ship for the rebel faction.

I just found out that the YT-1300 Corellian Freighter Owner's Workshop Manual , which is canon reference material, includes a section on the YT-2000 and other YT-series ships.

https://www.zinnfigur.com/en/Books-Media/Books/Secret-Weapons/Wyndham-Ryder-Reiff-Chris-Trevas-Chris-Corellian-Freighter-YT-1300-Including-Millenium-Falcon-all-variants-Owner-s-Workshop-Manual.html
(Table of Contents image, top left)

Does anyone have this book who could confirm what the new canon can offer us on this ship? The fact that it's canon now hopefully means that FFG will have more reason to consider it in the future! (Though admittedly, the game doesn't necessarily need more Large-base turret ships.)

3 minutes ago, JJ48 said:

I just found out that the YT-1300 Corellian Freighter Owner's Workshop Manual , which is canon reference material, includes a section on the YT-2000 and other YT-series ships.

https://www.zinnfigur.com/en/Books-Media/Books/Secret-Weapons/Wyndham-Ryder-Reiff-Chris-Trevas-Chris-Corellian-Freighter-YT-1300-Including-Millenium-Falcon-all-variants-Owner-s-Workshop-Manual.html
(Table of Contents image, top left)

Does anyone have this book who could confirm what the new canon can offer us on this ship? The fact that it's canon now hopefully means that FFG will have more reason to consider it in the future! (Though admittedly, the game doesn't necessarily need more Large-base turret ships.)

Sure, I'm a proud owner. I'll transcribe the canon information for you.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________
YT-2000 TRANSPORT
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________

SPECIFICATIONS YT-2000
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________

LENGTH : 29.4m
MAXIMUM SPEED (ATMOSPHERE): 800KPH (500mph)
HYPERDRIVE: Class 2
HYPERDRIVE BACKUP: Class 12
SHIELDING: Equipped
NAVIGATION SYSTEM : Navicomputer
ARMAMENT : 2 Double laser cannons
CREW: 4
PASSENGERS: 7
CARGO: 115 metric tons
CONSUMABLES: 3 months
COST: 150,000 (45,000 used)
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________

B orrowing successful design concepts from other YT Models, CEC conceived the YT-2000 as an overall improvement to the YT-1300. The YT-2000 has a fairly symmetrical layout, but can carry 15 metric tons more cargo than the standard YT-1300. CEC designed the YT-2000 for the civilian market during the period that the Rebel Alliance rose up against The Galactic Empire, and the transport boasted heavier standard shields and weapons than most civilian freighters.

While the centrally positioned cockpit is evocative of the YT-1930, the YT-2000's cockpit juts out just beyond the mandibles for better unobstructed views. The cockpit also represented one of CEC's most dramatic design innovations for the YT series, as a standard option for the YT-2000 was a cockpit model that doubled as an emergency lifeboat, engineered to break away from the ship in an emergency. CEC knew this would appeal to safety-minded crews who otherwise would have had to leave the cockpit in order to evacuate the freighter by either an escape pod or ancillary vehicle.

Unfortunately, corporate spies leaked the YT-2000 design specifications to competing shipyards, and the leak prompted CEC to put the YT-2000 into production before they could thoroughly test the design and ship's systems. Not surprisingly, critics regarded the transport as 'somewhat toucher' than more reliable YT designs, but the YT-2000 proved popular with owners for its admirable qualities: extensive cargo capacity, strong defensive systems, amazing maneuverability for a ship its size, and many opportunities for modifications. Despite good sales, CEC discontinued the YT-2000 early, as soon as the unveiled the YT-2400.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________

There you go. That's literally all the canon information on the YT-2000 there is. It's not as pro-rebel as old lore, thankfully, and it's a victim of corporate subterfuge and other bullfellery. It truly is a remarkable design however, if I could scan this book and show you a picture I absolutely would. Somebody at the XWAUP team needs to see this to fix their dumb revised model and all its pointless flaws and misinterpretations.

Cool! I may just have to get a copy of this book!

Incidentally, I just found that the same publisher is printing a TIE Fighter manual later this year, which talks about "Imperial and First Order Models". I'm guessing that'll also cover variants and related craft, so it'll be interesting to see if any older TIEs get brought back into the canon that way! (Sadly, I'm not expecting to see the Experimental TIEs in there, but you never know.)

Just now, JJ48 said:

Cool! I may just have to get a copy of this book!

Incidentally, I just found that the same publisher is printing a TIE Fighter manual later this year, which talks about "Imperial and First Order Models". I'm guessing that'll also cover variants and related craft, so it'll be interesting to see if any older TIEs get brought back into the canon that way! (Sadly, I'm not expecting to see the Experimental TIEs in there, but you never know.)

I highly recommend it! It's a great read that I've yet to fully go through! Not because I have a poor attention span, but I write with most of my free time.

7 hours ago, Captain Lackwit said:

Unfortunately, corporate spies leaked the YT-2000 design specifications to competing shipyards, and the leak prompted CEC to put the YT-2000 into production before they could thoroughly test the design and ship's systems.

...

Despite good sales, CEC discontinued the YT-2000 early, as soon as the unveiled the YT-2400.

Interestingly, this is actually the backstory FFG came up with when they added the YT-2000 into their RPG system via the Fly Casual sourcebook. It always struck me as a good way to explain why the ship was an obvious improvement over the YT-1300, but very rarely seen even in Legends (I'm not actually sure if any story ever actually featured a ship of this model other than the Otana).

So while technically no longer canon, I wonder if, as the most recent set of RPG sourcebooks, canon publications might still be turning to the FFG books for reference. That would be really cool, and would stand us in really good stead for having a lot of Legends ships re-canonised. *cough* Yz-775 *cough*.

Though I suppose it's equally possible they just took this off the wookieepedia page...

16 hours ago, GuacCousteau said:

Interestingly, this is actually the backstory FFG came up with when they added the YT-2000 into their RPG system via the Fly Casual sourcebook. It always struck me as a good way to explain why the ship was an obvious improvement over the YT-1300, but very rarely seen even in Legends (I'm not actually sure if any story ever actually featured a ship of this model other than the Otana).

So while technically no longer canon, I wonder if, as the most recent set of RPG sourcebooks, canon publications might still be turning to the FFG books for reference. That would be really cool, and would stand us in really good stead for having a lot of Legends ships re-canonised. *cough* Yz-775 *cough*.

Though I suppose it's equally possible they just took this off the wookieepedia page...

I doubt they did, given FFG's close working with folks. Still though, very good explanation no matter which way you cut it.