I was finally able to get a copy in my hand yesterday. The pieces are great, except the scale is off. FFG has said repeatedly how true to scale they were trying to be, yet the Tie is too big. From all the measurements we've seen over the last few months (and from what I've been able to find in my rather extensive library), a Tieln should be 6.3 meters long, and an X-Wing is 12.5 meters. In 1/270th scale, that comes to 2.3 cm for the Tie and 4.6 for the X-Wing. The X-Wing is almost spot on at 4.5, but the Tie is a full centimeter longer at 3.3cm.

My online order hasn't arrived yet, so i can't take a good look at the Y-Wing or Tie/Advanced yet.

I guess it's possible that they are to scale with the original production models used by LFL (and not the canon measurements), but I haven't been able to find a picture with the models side by side.

tiepilot1138 said:

I think that this statement is the key to the scale issue. In one of the articles posted by FFG, they talk about scale. They have a picture of the production models, but they aren't side by side - they are just in the same picture. I would take this to mean "Look! Everyone else has gotten the measurements of the TIE/In wrong! This is what they really should be."

A little hard to take since I've spent the last 35 years believing TIEs to be smaller, but I'm adaptable. After all, the size of the Millenium Falcon keeps changing…

Here's that behind-the-scenes model shot from their news post on scale:

…and a quote:

"During the production process, we were surprised to discover that the official dimensions for some of the ships did not match our pre-existing expectations of their relative sizes."

So I guess the entire world has been wrong, and LucasArts hasn't done anything about it? In this picture, the TIE definitely looks larger than I expected it, too, and the scale of the two in this game seems to match the picture and thus not my expectations.

haslo said:

Doh! I forgot about that picture. They do look close to that picture. Odd how everything in the Lucasverse is wrong though (I mean, they're all HIS sources!)

I think in the digital age we expect things to be a certain size. Back in the day, they were using motion capturing to do their space battles. It didn't matter to much how perfect the size was in relation to each other. Some models were most likely built for up close tight shots while others for scale - distant shots. Modeling making was an art form, with the digital age we are luck enough to create one detailed model and just plug it in any where.

The models do look good from what I see in the pictures. I also thought the Tie's were smaller, but it makes sense. The amount of solar activity they would need to power that ship would have to be huge.

This (learning that other non-movie sources were off) actually explains the thing that had always bothered me about TIE Fighters: to believe the dimensions given in technical readouts, RPG source material, and presented by video games, TIE Fighters basically would have the pilot riding the "powerful" Twin Ion Engines in a cockpit that was cramped on top of having no room for electronics and radiation shielding around it.

Now, the cockpit ball of the TIE Fighter looks like it could actually be a reasonable spaceship in comparison to the cockpit compartments of the X-Wing and Y-Wing shown with it.

The picture above stopped me from going all nitpicky on the scale. The model of the TIE compared to the rebel fighters does a pretty good job of showing just how off all the other info sources have been.

There's also the fact that TIEs have minimal lifesupport (notice TIE pilots always wear full spacesuits) and they have no Hyperdrive. As Obi Wan stated: "…those are short range fighters." They have to jam a lot of stuff into that ball and still be fast and able to do some damage.

When I think about it, back in the day, I used to have the old Kenner TIE and X-Wing and the scales were pretty darn close to the scale depicted in the picture above and in the game. So I guess we don't have much to complain about.

-DavicusPrime

The "established" canon of scale of the past three decades is well known to be incorrect in several places. The most popular example is the Super Star Destroyer's length. It has been misrepresented in many sources (starting with old WEG sourcebooks) for a very long time. No matter how often it gets corrected, the older, incorrect length often bubbles back up to the surface depending on what sources are being used.

So the idea of printed materials getting something wrong that gets perpetuated for 30+ years is not only entirely plausible, it's happened several times.

I've maintained for a very long time that there's really no such thing as "canon" for Star Wars. If you cite different sources you get different numbers, sometimes ranging wildly. For example, I've heard things about A-Wings having newer and more sophisticated shield generators, but at no point in the movies is that mentioned. Hell, I'm not even sure A-Wings are referred to by name.

I'm pretty sure the lack of canon is intentional in some regards. The trench run in New Hope isn't about ship specs or how many laser blasts it takes to drop the shields on a Y-Wing, it's about a hail Mary pass by the rebels that almost fails until the shady scoundrel grows a conscience and buys the protagonist the opportunity to use his magic and make an impossible shot. Continuity is great and all, but when you wind up getting multiple authors together who don't collaborate at all, like in the expanded universe, it really goes to pot. Besides, numbers just get in the way of storytelling, and I'll take a good tale over accurate technical specs any day of the week.

AngryMojo said:

I could't agree more. Narratives don't need no stinking schematics.

tiepilot1138 said:

Anyone else wish they could get their hands on these models and have a go at playing X-wing at this scale? I DO!

AngryMojo said:

The truth is that Star Wars if FICTIONAL. There is a varying degree of effort to make Star Wars Consistent with itself. But the very fact that it just isn't real make the whole idea of cannon sort of silly when taken to exctreem.

My wife asked me last night, why Mace Windo couldn't just go beat up all the battle droids (we were watching Clone Wars, but she was used to the Clone Wars shorts).

Hrathen said:

erm… theres no point in talking about canon if you are referring to facts! doesnt mean something cant be internally cohesive…

R2D2 said:

That would be the greatest game ever made….

R2D2 said:

The movies are internally consistent, the problem comes the moment you add the expanded universe into the mix. Considering at no point in the movies did they cite specific measurements or specs for the ships, I'm willing to believe that the studio masters used in the films are accurate.

sigh. The point of scale is the humans next to the objects; those we have a pretty good handle on! And there were plenty of people next to the X-Wings at Yavin, allowing us to measure these 'fantasy' craft. (Anyone who starts shrilling, "It's a fantasy!" has essentially admitted that they have no argument, and really shouldn't even comment, since it's obvious that this discussion is about internal consistancy, and has no place for those not interested in that consistancy.)

Furthermore, the 'masters' in that photo are visual models made for the camera. THEY WERE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE IN SCALE TO EACH OTHER. In order to get enough detail to equal the more visually interesting Rebel fighters, the much darker (and therefore detail-hiding) TiE fighter had to be made larger, so that the detail could be exaggerated.

For actual sizes, I turn to the initial size-comparison sketches in the Star Wars Sketchbook. The X-wing is 22mm long; the TiE fighter is 9mm long. However, the TiE fighter has a front view as well, and it comes out to 12mm wide by 20mm tall, which is a much larger volume overall. So, yes, the TiE fighter would actually look quite large compared to an X-Wing or Y-Wing. If the models were made in scale, the TiE fighter would be lying on its back in the package in order to fit into a package the same size as those used for the X-and-Y-wings.

Which is EXACTLY how the tie expansion packs are packaged.

The Tie solar panel height is slightly shorter than the X-Wing measuring nose to stern. Looks like the movies.

Remember too, that distance is harder to visualize in space (and on a 2D TV screen for that matter). So you should only consider scenes where the tie fighter and xwing are clearly equidistant from the camera, of which there are only a few.

Warboss Krag said:

Which sketchbook would that be? Is it something contemporary that has been published, or concept art for the movie? Either way, hardly a credible source to be cited, the closest thing we have to official is what appeared in the movies. I can't think of anything more "official" to something in a movie than the movie itself. And as said before, that's right about the size of the figures anyway, with the vertical measurement of the TIE solar panels being slightly shorter than the overall length of the X-Wing.

Warboss Krag said:

Comparing the miniature shots during a game with the movie shots look "movie right" to me… I imagine any other dimensions for the TIE fighter would probably look weird…

Warboss Krag said:

And you know this… how ?

rhaak said:

Always those silly questions. He just knows. He even used caps lock to show you how much he knows it!

'Making of Star Wars' documentary. It was on TV (yes, TV, not cable) back in 1978. I don't know if you could find a video of it now. They talked a lot about their visuals (naturally, since those were the reason the movie made so much of an impact on movie-making).

Warboss Krag said:

You might have a point except for the fact that both TIE and X Wing FIlming Miniatures used the same Pilot figure, setting the scale of theses models at 1/24 scale. The Game Models scale to one another almost exactly the same as the filming models.

'Making of Star Wars' documentary. It was on TV (yes, TV, not cable) back in 1978. I don't know if you could find a video of it now. They talked a lot about their visuals (naturally, since those were the reason the movie made so much of an impact on movie-making).

This thread still has relevance to some more recent threads. And the TV documentary is now here =

Nice necro!

But LFL gave FFG the exact official dimensions with which to create their models, so each model we have is the true scale, and everything else out there is unofficial. Model making tech in the 70s clearly didn't consider scale and its future canonical impact. LFL has since set the record straight with a set of official ship dimensions.

It's okay to like other versions better, but only the scale FFG uses can be called the official and correct scale within the Star Wars universe.