13 minutes ago, Harlaan said:

I hope FFG releases an I5 pilot called "Phantom"

I think that wish is just a faint Echo to big brother.

7 hours ago, DR4CO said:

I guess they couldn't just have him fly the Silencer again. Can't sell as many toys that way.

I mean, Kenner sold a different action figure for each costume change. Heck, I *wish* they still sold as many different Leia figures as they used to.

TIE Fighter - a tie that fights
TIE Advanced (Fighter) - a tie that fights advancedly
TIE Bomber - a tie that bombs
TIE Interceptor - a tie that intercepts
TIE Defender - a tie that defends
TIE Aggressor - a tie that aggresses
TIE Punisher - a tie that punishes
TIE FO Fighter - a tie that fights for the FO
TIE Silencer - a tie that silences

TIE Whisper - .... a tie that ... whisps

whoa... quad post?

whoa...quad post?

whoa, quad post?

The new designs are fine. The Dagger, the whisper (production model Silencer with the new cockpit, perhaps), the SF-ish that has the whisper cockpit form and loses the SF wing supports are all fine. In OT land we wouldn’t even see the Silencer again (TIE advanced whattt) and we would have one-ish new design each movie.

TLDR the designs seem fine and not forced/rushed. Solo and Rogue One were designed on seemingly similar timelines and the u wing, striker, reaper, new falcon, and TIE/rb are all great.

4 hours ago, DarkArk said:

Because Disney rushed the production of the ST. That means there's way less development time than they need to fill things out the way Star Wars movies normally are. George took 3 years between movies and it really shows. Also some bizarre design choices, which is a pity because there is some amazing concept art from TFA that will never see the light of day now.

Also yeah, FFG must be frustrated at what came of the ships in the ST. Myself I don't hate most of them except that all the new FO ones seem to be ignoring the black/white color scheme which actually looks decent and is a faction defining feature.

Yep. They didn't properly think the entire thing through and set the entire verse up and take care with all of the stuff. They just rushed a re-make of Star Wars into theaters with lots of "bait" dangling to see what sticks.

I wouldn't call the design choices "bizarre" myself. I'd call them "lazy." Or if you want to get really nasty, "Safe."

They went the safe route for TFA and then let Johnson and JJ have a pissing match in TLJ. And that crushed the box office for "Solo." Now they're scrambling hard and we're getting everything old as new again... again. JJ going back to the well for the safe choices. I mean that scene with the ships coming out of hyperspace, A-wings, X-wings, B-wings, Y-wings.

4 hours ago, DarkArk said:

Because Disney rushed the production of the ST. That means there's way less development time than they need to fill things out the way Star Wars movies normally are. George took 3 years between movies and it really shows. Also some bizarre design choices, which is a pity because there is some amazing concept art from TFA that will never see the light of day now.

Also yeah, FFG must be frustrated at what came of the ships in the ST. Myself I don't hate most of them except that all the new FO ones seem to be ignoring the black/white color scheme which actually looks decent and is a faction defining feature.

Lucas took three years between Star Wars movies because he was off making other movies in the interim. It's not like he devoted three whole years to nothing but Star Wars each time.

For that matter, when looking at the sequel trilogy, there's only been one less year between movies. TFA, TLJ and ROS are each two years apart. None of the writers or directors are common with the side story movies, and for that matter, the casts are almost entirely different (exceptions: Anthony Daniels' cameo in Rogue One, and Joonas Suotamo in Solo). The production of those movies were easily done in parallel, especially since there wouldn't have been much, if any, overlap in principal photography.

In terms of "amazing concept art that will never see the light of day" - that's true for any big special effects movie. There's always a ton of concept art that never gets used. That's why it's "concept art."

As to why the ships are so similar - I remember when people complained that the ships in the prequel trilogy didn't look enough "like Star Wars". So they went with designs that are unmistakably Star Wars, and now the problem is that they didn't do anything original. Proof that no matter what, someone will complain. And for the inevitable comments that they could have found some middle ground - no, they couldn't. There will _always_ be a group of people who complain, because it didn't turn out the way _they_ wanted it to. You can't please everyone.

It's not like the TIE Interceptor was really that big of a difference from the base TIE Fighter back in 1983. All the justification for why it was "better" came after the fact. Of course, back then, most of us in the target audience were kids, and so didn't care about that, we just cared that it looked cool, and we put the TIE Interceptor on our wish lists, and hoped to get it for our birthdays or for one holiday or another (vehicles were too expensive for my allowance, so I had to hope to get them as gifts back then). It didn't matter that it was literally the same toy as the TIE Fighter, just with different wings plugged into the sockets of the ball cockpit. What mattered was that I could put a pilot inside, and I could simulate them getting blown up by pressing the buttons that activated the spring-loaded mechanism to send the wings flying off! (Oh, yeah, and back then, the pilots were always sold separately... none of the vehicles came with a figure. But that's a story for a different day).

Look, it's fine that you, and plenty of others, didn't like the movies. But don't try to attribute that to anything other than your personal taste being different than that of the people who made the movies. There are plenty of us who do like them. It's just a difference of opinion. There doesn't need to be some sort of deeper reasoning than that.

I’m picking up on a theme here.

Kylo Ren, walking through his personal hangar, showing off his ship collection to some visitors.

“This one is the TIE Silencer, and here is the TIE Whisper. Next to that is the TIE Quietude, and the TIE Stillness. Here’s the TIE Mute, and the TIE Hush-a-Bye, and lastly we have-“

”Why do all your ships have stupid names?”

”the TIE SHUT YOUR FACE!!!”

I find the criticisms of the 'new' TIE models curious. What are people wanting from Disney/Lucasfilm? They need to make the ships clearly 'bad guy' vessels, and there have been few designs as successful at that in cinema history as the TIE; the combination of the sound and shape have left an indelible mark on the cinema-going population. They associate those things with the Empire, as much as the sight of a Stormtrooper or Vader's heavy breathing.

So Disney/Lucasfilm play it safe. They give us the same basic silhouette (TIE/fo) and an interesting spin on the concept (TIE/sf). They then give a protagonist their own 'special' fighter (TIE/vn) which has echoes of Darth Vader's single-appearance fighter. For the final film, we are getting at least two new designs (TIE/wh? TIE/dg?), one of which could easily be an iterative improvement on those which went before (TIE/sf + TIE/vn = new mass production fighter TIE/wh) and the other being a wildcard (we simply do not know enough about the Dagger to say anything, apart from RAMPANT SPECULATION WHICH IS THE BEST THING TO DO).

If the First Order were rocking out with entirely different fighter designs people would complain about them not being Star Wars enough.

Better than the TIE Lukewasmeantome.

TIE Patricide

59 minutes ago, Herowannabe said:

I’m picking up on a theme here.

Kylo Ren, walking through his personal hangar, showing off his ship collection to some visitors.

“This one is the TIE Silencer, and here is the TIE Whisper. Next to that is the TIE Quietude, and the TIE Stillness. Here’s the TIE Mute, and the TIE Hush-a-Bye, and lastly we have-“

”Why do all your ships have stupid names?”

”the TIE SHUT YOUR FACE!!!”

I want the TIE Susurrous.

Ah, the warm summer breezes of Jakku. . .

1 hour ago, Freeptop said:

Lucas took three years between Star Wars movies because he was off making other movies in the interim. It's not like he devoted three whole years to nothing but Star Wars each time.

For that matter, when looking at the sequel trilogy, there's only been one less year between movies. TFA, TLJ and ROS are each two years apart. None of the writers or directors are common with the side story movies, and for that matter, the casts are almost entirely different (exceptions: Anthony Daniels' cameo in Rogue One, and Joonas Suotamo in Solo). The production of those movies were easily done in parallel, especially since there wouldn't have been much, if any, overlap in principal photography.

In terms of "amazing concept art that will never see the light of day" - that's true for any big special effects movie. There's always a ton of concept art that never gets used. That's why it's "concept art."

As to why the ships are so similar - I remember when people complained that the ships in the prequel trilogy didn't look enough "like Star Wars". So they went with designs that are unmistakably Star Wars, and now the problem is that they didn't do anything original. Proof that no matter what, someone will complain. And for the inevitable comments that they could have found some middle ground - no, they couldn't. There will _always_ be a group of people who complain, because it didn't turn out the way _they_ wanted it to. You can't please everyone.

It's not like the TIE Interceptor was really that big of a difference from the base TIE Fighter back in 1983. All the justification for why it was "better" came after the fact. Of course, back then, most of us in the target audience were kids, and so didn't care about that, we just cared that it looked cool, and we put the TIE Interceptor on our wish lists, and hoped to get it for our birthdays or for one holiday or another (vehicles were too expensive for my allowance, so I had to hope to get them as gifts back then). It didn't matter that it was literally the same toy as the TIE Fighter, just with different wings plugged into the sockets of the ball cockpit. What mattered was that I could put a pilot inside, and I could simulate them getting blown up by pressing the buttons that activated the spring-loaded mechanism to send the wings flying off! (Oh, yeah, and back then, the pilots were always sold separately... none of the vehicles came with a figure. But that's a story for a different day).

Look, it's fine that you, and plenty of others, didn't like the movies. But don't try to attribute that to anything other than your personal taste being different than that of the people who made the movies. There are plenty of us who do like them. It's just a difference of opinion. There doesn't need to be some sort of deeper reasoning than that.

1 hour ago, AceDogbert said:

I find the criticisms of the 'new' TIE models curious. What are people wanting from Disney/Lucasfilm? They need to make the ships clearly 'bad guy' vessels, and there have been few designs as successful at that in cinema history as the TIE; the combination of the sound and shape have left an indelible mark on the cinema-going population. They associate those things with the Empire, as much as the sight of a Stormtrooper or Vader's heavy breathing.

So Disney/Lucasfilm play it safe. They give us the same basic silhouette (TIE/fo) and an interesting spin on the concept (TIE/sf). They then give a protagonist their own 'special' fighter (TIE/vn) which has echoes of Darth Vader's single-appearance fighter. For the final film, we are getting at least two new designs (TIE/wh? TIE/dg?), one of which could easily be an iterative improvement on those which went before (TIE/sf + TIE/vn = new mass production fighter TIE/wh) and the other being a wildcard (we simply do not know enough about the Dagger to say anything, apart from RAMPANT SPECULATION WHICH IS THE BEST THING TO DO).

If the First Order were rocking out with entirely different fighter designs people would complain about them not being Star Wars enough.

FINALLY SOME SENSIBLE F***ING PEOPLE.

10 hours ago, kris40k said:

Yeah, its not like that required an errata to be issued.... oh wait...

Remember the whole T-65/T-70 at the end of first edition? That was neat.

1 hour ago, AceDogbert said:

I find the criticisms of the 'new' TIE models curious. What are people wanting from Disney/Lucasfilm? They need to make the ships clearly 'bad guy' vessels, and there have been few designs as successful at that in cinema history as the TIE; the combination of the sound and shape have left an indelible mark on the cinema-going population. They associate those things with the Empire, as much as the sight of a Stormtrooper or Vader's heavy breathing.

So Disney/Lucasfilm play it safe. They give us the same basic silhouette (TIE/fo) and an interesting spin on the concept (TIE/sf). They then give a protagonist their own 'special' fighter (TIE/vn) which has echoes of Darth Vader's single-appearance fighter. For the final film, we are getting at least two new designs (TIE/wh? TIE/dg?), one of which could easily be an iterative improvement on those which went before (TIE/sf + TIE/vn = new mass production fighter TIE/wh) and the other being a wildcard (we simply do not know enough about the Dagger to say anything, apart from RAMPANT SPECULATION WHICH IS THE BEST THING TO DO).

If the First Order were rocking out with entirely different fighter designs people would complain about them not being Star Wars enough.

It gets better, there is AT LEAST a third, updated SF perhaps. Has normal TIE wings, Whisper cockpit with an antenna and turret. The new promotional art that just came out shows it next to (presumably) the Whisper. It sits in front of classic SFs, you can tell by the noticeable wing supports on the old SFs with the new model lacking them.

I agree so hard with your post.

So, we need another pilot ability from that opening scene. After defending, spend a force to assign "Look how old you've become" to the attacker.

"Look how old you've become". Your pilot ability is ignored. At the start of the engagement phase, you may receive a disarm token to remove this card.

Completely irrelevant on Resistance Han, and I love it.

33 minutes ago, MasterShake2 said:

Remember the whole T-65/T-70 at the end of first edition? That was neat.

That was some "squares are rectangles, but rectangles aren't squares" BS with the T-70 and T-65 X-Wings that could have been handled more gracefully than have it was.

Me: So my TIE Advanced Prototype can use...

FFG: No, you see, its a "TIE Adv. Prototype", not a "TIE Advanced Prototype"

Me: ...this is some bull

On the question about why are the new ships awful, or rehashes... I’d like to point out some reality.

World War 2 saw the most rapid and drastic changes to air and ground vehicles of war, over the 6 years it went on (1939 to 1945). Tanks are the most apparent changes, but aircraft went through similar changes as well. Tank warfare in WW2 began with the design fundamentals from WW1 still fresh in everyone’s mind. Tanks were needed because they countered the long stalemates of trench warfare, and could sow immense amounts of chaos and confusion once they broke past the established front lines. But early WW2 tanks were either WW1 tanks still in use (French FT-17), or crazy designs with multiple turrets and guns that had gone through limited trials (T-28, T-35, M3 Lee/Grant, BT removable-tracks series, etc). The war quickly began to showcase which designs worked (Panzers, Panthers, M4, T-34, etc), and which eventually failed spectacularly for whatever reasons. But one consistent design emerged from WW2 that eventually became the standard over the decades since: An all-terrain tracked vehicle with heavy armor, and a high performance, large caliber cannon mounted in a 360-degree turret. Fixed mount “tank destroyers” died off slowly over the decades, and concepts like “medium tank” and “heavy tank” died off due to a variety of reasons (*cough* logistics), only to be replaced with modern-day “Main Battle Tank” (MBT). Aircraft carried through with specialized roles and designs, for the most part.

Ok, so what? Well since WW2, not a whole lot has changed with tank or aircraft’s appearance. They tended to go from a chunkier appearance, to sleeker designs. But the basics remained. In the case of tanks, they kept with the standard tracks, armor, turret, and big *** gun. Advancements in guns and armor meant that angled armor was no longer necessary or effective, and thick rolled steel was replaced with layers of composite materials for better protection. Advancements with computers, stabilizers, infared, loading mechanisms, and overall technology improved the vehicle’s performance over the years, but weren’t outwardly noticable. Indeed the M1 Abrams, a 3rd gen MBT, has gone through several major revisions, including the M1A1, M1A2, and M1A2C and M1A2D. Each upgrade adding substantial improvements, but you wouldn’t know the difference by glancing at them if you didn’t know what you were looking for. And that’s to say nothing of the Challenger 2, Leopard 2, and all other current MBTs.

So going back to Star Wars, the new trilogy actually makes a lot of historic sense. The Clone Wars could be looked at in a WW2 refinement sort of way, where they were mostly throwing designs at a wall and seeing what would stick (and what would fail spectacularly). Designs such as the Y-Wing, ARC-170, and Z-95 winning out. Which would then influence the later designs during the Rebellion era (OT), at least from those manufacturers. The Empire going a different route with Seinar, opted for the very Russian standard of “Quantity has a Quality of its own.” And as such, like the Russians, Seinar created a plethora of designs and continued to throw it all at the wall regardless of whether it would stick or not.

So for the OT era, that could be thought of as Cold-War levels of starship design. Things were being solidified, and successful designs were cementing into place. Ships like the X-Wing and Tie Fighter were obviously huge successes for their intended purpose. While some designs... not so much. It is worth mentioning that the Y-Wing is an oddity, because it’s roughly equivalent to something like an Il-2 Sturmovik somehow making it through the decades with minimal changes, while STILL pulling it’s weight.

Which brings us to my long-winded point... The New Trilogy, like it or hate it, does the token starfighters well. We already know what was viewed as a success during the rebellion era, so now we have “reskinned TIEs and X-Wings.” Not at all unlike what modern day tanks and aircraft have gone through. The internals, weapons, armor, and technology have all drastically improved, but the basic design is still the same. There may be readily visible fancy new **** on the ships, like S-Foils that interlock... But all the big changes will mostly be internal. That’s not to say there won’t be new designs that are... questionable... (e.g. F-35 or Zumwalt destroyer)... But the backbone has been established, and the tried-and-true designs get updated instead of being completely replaced.

Again... Y-Wing is the oddity.

3 minutes ago, It’s One Of Ours said:

It is worth mentioning that the Y-Wing is an oddity, because it’s roughly equivalent to something like an Il-2 Sturmovik somehow making it through the decades with minimal changes, while STILL pulling it’s weight.

...

Again... Y-Wing is the oddity.

While not a perfect comparison, the B-52 could be considered a rough analog to the Y-Wing. It's a reliable platform that has been used for almost 70 years, with almost no changes to its outward appearance while it's internal guts have had major revisions over time.

😁

12 hours ago, player3010587 said:

Well dangit. The Silencer was the edgiest ship in the game, with each pilot getting better as well as edgier than the last.

Avenger, pretty edgy, but < Recoil < Blackout <<< Edgelord himself, Kylo Ren.

But now, the edgiest ship name has been out edged.

The Sharpest lives are how I disappear.

Really? Complaining about edgelord now, when the EU gave us the Vong overall, and YV-666 that even made it into this game??

@Harlaan said

Quote

I hope FFG releases an I5 pilot called "Phantom"

And I4 Horse

4 hours ago, Frimmel said:

Yep. They didn't properly think the entire thing through and set the entire verse up and take care with all of the stuff. They just rushed a re-make of Star Wars into theaters with lots of "bait" dangling to see what sticks.

I wouldn't call the design choices "bizarre" myself. I'd call them "lazy." Or if you want to get really nasty, "Safe."

They went the safe route for TFA and then let Johnson and JJ have a pissing match in TLJ. And that crushed the box office for "Solo." Now they're scrambling hard and we're getting everything old as new again... again. JJ going back to the well for the safe choices. I mean that scene with the ships coming out of hyperspace, A-wings, X-wings, B-wings, Y-wings.

The whole colour inversion thingie was incredibly lazy. White "solar panels", yeah right, makes totally sense...

And Poes Black One is the exact colour reversal of the line fighter as well.

4 hours ago, Freeptop said:

None of the writers or directors are common with the side story movies, and for that matter, the casts are almost entirely different (exceptions: Anthony Daniels' cameo in Rogue One, and Joonas Suotamo in Solo).

Warwick Davis was in RotJ, TPM, TFA, TLJ, R1 and Solo.

1 hour ago, xanderf said:

...when the EU gave us the Vong overall...

1 hour ago, It’s One Of Ours said:

Again... Y-Wing is the oddity.

Variants of the MIG-21 (which first flew in 1956!) are still in active use around the world. The 'new' versions look almost exactly the same externally, but are fitted with the modern avionics and weapon systems.

I consider the Y-Wing as having undergone a similar process. Sure, *some* of the Rebel Y-Wing fleet would have been Clone Wars-era ships with the plating ripped off, but others would have been 'new' fighters built in the period after the war for local governments and armed groups. The New Republic Ys will almost certainly be newly built ships conforming to the same rough shape and role because it works and we don't need to change it.