So a buddy of mine was dumping his old computer and I pounced on it because it was a 90's system, very cheap today. Anyway I put X-wing vs TIE Fighter on it and it worked. Awesome.

While flying an A-wing I had the passing thought that the reason its 2 lasers don't feel half bad is because the ship is so **** manuverable that I can stay behind ships and get the hits regardless. The 4 lasers of an X-wing are on a less manuverble platform but the greater weapons forgives that. The A-wing is the converse. Where as on a Y-wing those 2 lasers felt like a BB gun firing blanks. Couldn't hit anything because I had fewer options and a slower platform.

I had the passing thought that perhaps this is why people find the A-wing doesn't translate well into the miniature. It has the same attack rating of a Y-wing and the dice mechanic makes that all the more apparent. But the A-wing feels like a better fighter because it's harder to shake. This translates well into the maneuver dial but less so in the moment of actual combat.

Thoughts?

The other reason I say the A-Wing doesn't translate so well from the video game to this game is because it can carry a massive missile load in the video game. I seem to remember 12 missiles compared to 6/8 Torps for the X/Y-Wings. The A-Wing's weapon positioning and maneuverability also made landing hits easy but if you need to drop something FAST (like those incoming Bombers) you just switch on the missiles on put them in the tail pipes.

I didn't like the Y-Wing because it was slow and sluggish but at least all of its weapons were spot on. The X-Wing had such a wide dispersion that getting one "hit" wasn't so hard but landing that "one shot kill" was hard or even impossible if you weren't locked on a target. In many ways the ship I hated the worse was the B-Wing because it has that one cannon so far off your line of flight it is nearly impossible to line up without help. Oh, and all the other rebel ships except the A-Wing could fire-link more than two guns making it easier to cut down opponents quickly.

A-Wings and Interceptors have the same Movement options. The change is that 5 Straight is Green on the A-Wing.

I think the best use of A-Wings are "pretend they're backstabber" they are also the Rebel's "cheap" missile ships. the only other one that can equip is the YT-1300.

A-Wings and Interceptors have the same Movement options. The change is that 5 Straight is Green on the A-Wing.

I think the best use of A-Wings are "pretend they're backstabber" they are also the Rebel's "cheap" missile ships. the only other one that can equip is the YT-1300.

I'm not seeing the relevance to the topic.

A-Wings and Interceptors have the same Movement options. The change is that 5 Straight is Green on the A-Wing.

I think the best use of A-Wings are "pretend they're backstabber" they are also the Rebel's "cheap" missile ships. the only other one that can equip is the YT-1300.

I'm not seeing the relevance to the topic.

Maneuverability Vs Damage Effectiveness. Hit-And-Run with them. Green + Daredevil + 1 Turn = Barrel Rolling Koiogran.

Staying on Target and/or out of firing Arcs?

Translation of the A-Wing from the game to the Miniature. With how will the A-Wing sheds stress it reflects on how Maneuverable it is. Making "lining up a shot" or staying out of one much easier than on ships.

Combat Maneuverability and how well it performs sometimes requires thinking outside the box...

But you're probably right I broke off on a Tangent.

I gotta say it's hard going from the Rogue Squadron game mentality to this one, especially with how arcade-y the entire experience is. Honestly, A-Wings and Y-Wings are both very viable fighters against TIEs, the A just has the benefit of turning on a dime and being able to zip off elsewhere while the Y can just take hits like a champion. The X's extra lasers hardly account for too much more firepower in the game, although it's usually easier to hit things with, though you can feel it much more with the B's heavier laser cannons against harder targets. Honestly, A-Wings should probably have K-Turn 1 or 2 on their dials, to be honest, if we're going for a true video game to board game translation. o_o

Don't have time to measure it right now but if you take my "Barrel Rolling Koiogran" example and increase the Turn from 1Turn to 2 or 3Turn combined with the Daredevil Action it should place you in the 1 - 2 Koiogran spot with some lateral movement.

I spent who knows how many hours just playing a furball FFA interceptor match against the AI in this game. Fun times.

sadly I cannot find my copy of XvT... But i have Wing Commander kicking about think I'll log some simulator time later...

Chris "Maverick" Blair is Luke Skywalker anyway...

Ebay. Old enough to be cheap, classic enough to be awesome.

What I wouldn't give for an update of the old X-wing and Tie fighter games...

Anyway I loved the Y wing. Quad shot lasers and Ions and they open up Ties nicely, sometimes you kill em, sometimes you leave em frozen, then get back to them later.

I'm of half a mind about an update, it could be awesome but I'm wary that somebody will just screw it up.

sadly I cannot find my copy of XvT... But i have Wing Commander kicking about think I'll log some simulator time later...

Chris "Maverick" Blair is Luke Skywalker anyway...

Boy, do I miss both of those games. It does look like the next best thing could be this in about a year: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cig/star-citizen (developed by Roberts, who created Wing Commander), at least since there's no rumors of a remake of the Star Wars title anytime soon.

Getting into X-Wing did get me thinking about WC and XvT as well and sent me searching the internet for similar games. And, while they're not space combat (both set in WW2), Wings of Victory: Battle of Britain 2 (an older game as well) has rave reviews for the PC and dare I say Sid Meier's Ace Patrol (2nd version) is like X-Wing on a tablet. I'm loving Ace Patrol and debating picking up the former.

Updating that series is interesting but I'd be a little afraid of them pushing system specs so far it could be hard to run. I'd certainly like to see thing updated on it but I honestly do NOT want them to blow up the programs requirements with all of those "little things" which provide next to no game benefit but which SUCK down system resources. This is what has killed a number of games for me.

Updating that series is interesting but I'd be a little afraid of them pushing system specs so far it could be hard to run. I'd certainly like to see thing updated on it but I honestly do NOT want them to blow up the programs requirements with all of those "little things" which provide next to no game benefit but which SUCK down system resources. This is what has killed a number of games for me.

I'd be afraid of the exact opposite - catering to the low end so badly the game doesn't have a good shelf life. Give me something that can stress a 780 TI SLI setup now, so that way it still looks good in 3 years...

I'm afraid we could get into a massive debate about how a game looks. While I may want to see an X-Wing that can be blown into parts I really do NOT need to see an X-Wing that I could blow away inch by inch. The good old law of diminishing returns where the "returns" are how much detail you add sucking up a lot more resources to get it. I mean you could update the series with better graphics and such an have it run on almost anything and satisfy 95% of the people; to me the problem is that if you try to cater to that 5% who say "it wasn't good enough" you need to throw so much more into it that you really drive up the cost and add bloat to what almost everyone else would be happy with.

I'd say there are several game "series" where I've just stopped buying because while I appreciate gameplay improvements (as in actual game play, looking at strategy games here) more eye candy just sucks down resources I don't want to spend to continue to play.

There is definitely something to be said for GOG.com business model, codding fix graphics the same. It got me playing MOOII again, though MOO 1 is unplayably small, can't see enough to interact with it.

I think if they went for the benchmark of MMO level graphics most of the people would be quite happy. It's a retro game, it would almost spoil it if it looked too good.

Frankly, I wouldn't mind the exact same graphics. What I want is more dynamic play. I was always bugged by simple details that were lacking. The same 5 voices repeating the same 5 basic vocals. And that flight controller! "Mission critical craft reports it has been destroyed." First of all, did it? Second, some voice inflection would be nice. Background chatter too would be great. Vocals triggered or tied to live events would be neat. And then how every mission was 4 flight groups taking turns arriving. What about actual forces arriving all at once, fleet vs. fleet? Capital ships jumping in and pounding on one another. The scenarios were always kind of rigid and I feel like we have the tech today to make missions similar to what we read in the books.

For example, CFS2 is a WWII sim. You had to keep your wingmen safe. The longer they lived and the more missions they flew, the better they became. If you lost one, you got a recruit replacement who was less skilled. If you killed the enemy squad leader, their fighters went into disarray. If you cratered their runway, fewer ships could rise up to defend it on the follow up mission. Fail to destroy the convoy? More enemy troops means your forces fail to keep a disputed objective, derailing your campaign as you backtrack to support their retreat. Losing the base meant being on the backfoot in the next mission, etc. You couldn't just throw missions away. In XvT you just had to play until you won. Each mission was dependent on a specific outcome you played until you got. Some variety would create a better campaign and load each single mission with more atmosphere.

Just give me that in SW!

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For example, CFS2 is a WWII sim. You had to keep your wingmen safe. The longer they lived and the more missions they flew, the better they became. If you lost one, you got a recruit replacement who was less skilled. If you killed the enemy squad leader, their fighters went into disarray. If you cratered their runway, fewer ships could rise up to defend it on the follow up mission. Fail to destroy the convoy? More enemy troops means your forces fail to keep a disputed objective, derailing your campaign as you backtrack to support their retreat. Losing the base meant being on the backfoot in the next mission, etc. You couldn't just throw missions away. In XvT you just had to play until you won. Each mission was dependent on a specific outcome you played until you got. Some variety would create a better campaign and load each single mission with more atmosphere.

Just give me that in SW!

To me that is an example of improving gameplay which would not require massive increases in computing power. Instead of taking a game and just making it "prettier" it makes it a lot deeper and that in turn improves any replay value something has. The background becomes bigger and more meaningful but the stuff it takes to run the all important combat screen is taxed far less.

Exactly. For that matter, computers today can cope with 'random event' missions far better; since you don't need 'backdrops' (beyond an occasional planet or nebula) you can generate umpty-up scenarios on the fly, meaning you need literally never fly the same campaign twice...

If its going to be a computer game, though, I'd hate to see it made for the lowest common denominator. Instead of building for pathetic console GPU power, aim for something that can actually use the power of even a mid range GPU. Is it too much to ask that the developer actually tries to take advantage of something like a Radeon 290 or a GeForce 780? In 2-3 years the low end cards will have that kind of performance, and the high end will be well beyond it. It would be really, really nice to be able to upgrade from a 780 in 2 years to something like a 980 and actually be able to upgrade the graphics from Mid Range to High End, as opposed to saying... "well, I guess my fancy new video card doesn't do jack with this game".