97 replies to this topic

[evilbobthebob]

Of course, with the way Phoenix Rising's tech tree is, you can choose if you want to develop older model fighters or ignore them in favour of new designs. No need to follow canon unless you really have to

As for that Clone Wars Z-95, it doesn't make much sense to me. It's probably best to see it as a Clone Wars militarized version of an otherwise mostly civilian/private defence-marketed craft. The "Behind the Scenes" part of the article about it says that the design changes were made to avoid resemblance to the X-Wing, which makes sense if they really want the Clone Wars to be separate from the GCW stylistically. The Z-95 is certainly a very GCW-style craft with its greyish white colouring and hard, square outlines.

[Madurai]

I placed too much emphasis on the age. What really strikes me as odd is that, by all appearances, the Z-95's successors are already there in the form of the zillion other fighters in the Clone Wars. Just using the Z-95 I'd have no problems with. But in this case it seems more like reinventing a new air-superiority variant of the F-15 to compete with the F-22.
And now that I think about it, like the X-Wing continuing on despite the E-Wing. So I guess just ignore me. I really need to stop posting just before and after sleep.

Would it be beating a dead horse to point out that there are new air-superiority variants of the F-15 that have appeared since the F-22?

[Kitkun]

Uhm... what variants? Only new variants I know of are for export or the Strike Eagle.
Anyways, I suppose I shouldn't complain about old ships being used, seeing as the ISD and Y-Wing are some of my favorite ships.
Anyways, kinda gotten off-topic.

Edited by Kitkun, 01 January 2012 - 05:35 AM.

[johnchm.10]

not so much for the whole 'off topic part'. we are using analogies. oh, and the F15 was originally an Air-superiority-only aircraft. the E-model Strike Eagle was mainly made because the bird was just so well designed, that the powers that be decided to throw on some new hardware and strap on some of the then-new precision munitions. and most of the upgrades being preformed are mainly avionics, software, or ordnance. she's still the same bird in terms of mechanics.
i like the Y-wing more than the B-wing. that turret in the S3 and later models is actually quite useful against some of the early model TIE's, and her proton rockets pack a bigger punch per missile, which, if youre facing a target with a decent anti-starfighter weapons, counts for more in my books. granted that turret is no substitute for a squad of escorts, but it beats not shooting back

[johnchm.10]

oh, i know it might be a little off this particular topic, but how bout adding mara jade for the NR? she was connected with talon karrde from ~8ABY+, and karrde was/.is an unofficial ally of the NR before luke married her, and there are 5 vessels that she's been known to command that are already in the mod, a modified Z-95 with an ion cannon replacing the missle system (i think AF2 or 3, i seem to recall triple blasters) in dark force rising, i, jedi, and i think it was dark apprentice (or whichever one it was that had kyp durron blowing up carida) , a Skipray (i think that one was stock from DFR and heir to the empire, Starry Ice, a modded CEC action 5, an x-wing (probably XJ), and an E-wing (i think series 3) durring at belorias in the enemy lines duology. granted those last 2 might not work due to the chronology involved, but the vessels are already in the mod, so there would be less work needed. her first yacht jades fire was of the same class as the lady luck, so if you ever do the lady luck for lando calrissean, then thats done too. and seeing as how they never give a definite class to her second ship, the jade sabre, you might be able to get away with an upgraded 'fire, with luke's XJ as escort. just a thought

[Ghostrider]

oh, i know it might be a little off this particular topic, but how bout adding mara jade for the NR?

The problem is that Jade is currently a standard buildable Imperial hero.

During the Thrawn Era, she appears on both sides as well as being neutral, and the initial contact is with Grand Admiral Thrawn and is a stalwart imperial hero throughout the Zahn books until she kills the Luuke clone and switches sides at the end of the crisis.

As in the intial contact she effectively "remembers" her old "Emperor's Hand" persona, we feel she is fully Imperial.

However, if we ever do a post Shadow Hand campaign, there is nothing is stopping us adding a new identity "Mara Skywalker" hero...

New campaigns are more likely to be in an earlier timeframe however.

Hope this clarifies the situation!

[Phoenix Rising]

lol. Surely, you can't be serious!
http://starwars.wiki...-95_starfighter

TCW: blurring the lines between canon and fanon...

oh, i know it might be a little off this particular topic, but how bout adding mara jade for the NR?

Yeah, we'd have to do something like OSH Luke with her.

[johnchm.10]

good point. and i dont seem to remember him leaving byss while in the emperor's service, so then theres the issue of personal transport.
lol, next thing you know, TCW is going to have an ISD prototype, but with the ISD2 comm tower

[Zeta1127]

lol. Surely, you can't be serious!
http://starwars.wiki...-95_starfighter

TCW: blurring the lines between canon and fanon...

Indeed, the mayhem continues...

oh, i know it might be a little off this particular topic, but how bout adding mara jade for the NR?

Yeah, we'd have to do something like OSH Luke with her.

Indeed.

Edited by Zeta1127, 04 January 2012 - 06:51 AM.

[Madurai]

i like the Y-wing more than the B-wing. that turret in the S3 and later models is actually quite useful against some of the early model TIE's, and her proton rockets pack a bigger punch per missile, which, if youre facing a target with a decent anti-starfighter weapons, counts for more in my books. granted that turret is no substitute for a squad of escorts, but it beats not shooting back

The turret may be a bit too useful--the bomber is a better fighter than the fighter is. It's not just the Y-Wing that seems to demonstrate this--"defensive" turrets seem to be a good deal more lethal than fixed-forward weapons, even in the middle of a furball.

[evilbobthebob]

It's simply their better fire cone. They can always target, even when facing away from the enemy. The fact that they are ion cannons is even worse because they can disable ships, freezing them in mid air. I think in most cases fighters are better due to their missile payloads, which are always very effective.

[Ghostrider]

i like the Y-wing more than the B-wing. that turret in the S3 and later models is actually quite useful against some of the early model TIE's, and her proton rockets pack a bigger punch per missile, which, if youre facing a target with a decent anti-starfighter weapons, counts for more in my books. granted that turret is no substitute for a squad of escorts, but it beats not shooting back

The turret may be a bit too useful--the bomber is a better fighter than the fighter is. It's not just the Y-Wing that seems to demonstrate this--"defensive" turrets seem to be a good deal more lethal than fixed-forward weapons, even in the middle of a furball.

The B-wing has a different role to the Y-Wing as it has an energy rich weapon mix, and works very well paired with other high-energy designs, like the ATR-6, and sent to crack open shields on large targets. For pure "bombing" abiliy, the Y-Wing has the better payload.

[Kitkun]

The Y-Wing isn't quite a fighter by itself. Low mobility and only the two weak fixed lasers gives it a hard time killing stuff in a timely manner. It can take on some of the really cheap/fragile interceptors, but most of the heavy anti-fighter ships can wear it down too. It is a wonderful escort for large ships or support for fighters because of that ion cannon turret, though.

[skie9173]

Heavily Shielded/Armored Y-wings with ion turrets flying through incoming enemy fighters as an initial screen, with my superiority fighters or interceptors following is a favorite strategy of mine. Y-wings can take a good deal of punishment and their ions disabling fighters makes those enemies easy clean up.

It is safer than trying to micro your interceptors (like the fairly fragile A-wings) away from dangerous firefights.

[johnchm.10]

i was actually just running a multi-unit fighter attack on Mirsst, consisting of 3 squads each of the following fighters. XJ7's, series 10 e-wings, B-wing E/8's, R41 mk 10's, Mk. 9 RZ-1 A-wings, and S-15 K-wings. there were a number of Acclimator 2's, about 6 or 7 i think, at least 3 EF-76's, 3 or 4 MC-40's, at least 4 DP-10 gunships, a few units of lambda, at least 2 ATR-5 flights, i think a skipray flight, some freighters/transports, a starbase-1, sb-2, i think it was sb4, and space colony 4.
the B-wings were completely wiped out after i hit 2 of the bases and 2 acclimators, along with an ef, and a few squadrons of starfighters, a mix of eta's, lowest end TIEs, and mk.1 z-95's. my total losses were the 3 b-wing squads, and a squad each of A-wings and R41's. had i brought along the Y-wings in place of or in addition to my already deployed forces, i might have kept the downed fighters. i know that the A-wings were lost due to enemy missiles from the DP-10s and starbases. probably the same for the R41's. but the dogfights destroyed my B-wings. the K-wings, on the other hand. whoo baby, those turrets should be illegal. i could probably get 6 squads of the K-wings to achieve dominance against a substantial base that has capital ship support, a few wings of fighters and a golan 2. well worth the price.
oh, this idea isnt exactly a major one, but i was thinking that it might help to have another line of info for the info boxes when picking ships. their starfighter compliment, if applicable, like right underneath the armaments section. related to that would be for freighters and transports: how much income per turn they generate you

[Talmane]

i like the Y-wing more than the B-wing. that turret in the S3 and later models is actually quite useful against some of the early model TIE's, and her proton rockets pack a bigger punch per missile, which, if youre facing a target with a decent anti-starfighter weapons, counts for more in my books. granted that turret is no substitute for a squad of escorts, but it beats not shooting back

The turret may be a bit too useful--the bomber is a better fighter than the fighter is. It's not just the Y-Wing that seems to demonstrate this--"defensive" turrets seem to be a good deal more lethal than fixed-forward weapons, even in the middle of a furball.

The B-wing has a different role to the Y-Wing as it has an energy rich weapon mix, and works very well paired with other high-energy designs, like the ATR-6, and sent to crack open shields on large targets. For pure "bombing" abiliy, the Y-Wing has the better payload.

I have to say this isn't really accurate. For that sort of thing, you'd be much better off using more ATR-6 transports instead of B-wings. I'd even say that YT-2000s would be more effective. The B-wing just doesn't have either the survivability or the firepower to compete. I actually haven't found a single thing the B-wing does that isn't done better by some other unit.

[johnchm.10]

to be fair, the B-wing was designed when the main bomber in the alliance arsenal was the A4/S3 Y-wing.
if you compare the stats of even the S3 model Y-wing compared to those of the first production model B-wing (upgraded from the prototype), the B-wing is a more powerful weapons platform.
sure an ATR or YT-2000 is more efficient than the bombers, but if you only have a level one station, then you've gotta use what you got. personally, i just wait until i get the K-wing. that bomber is border-line overpowered when you max it out.

[Talmane]

to be fair, the B-wing was designed when the main bomber in the alliance arsenal was the A4/S3 Y-wing.
if you compare the stats of even the S3 model Y-wing compared to those of the first production model B-wing (upgraded from the prototype), the B-wing is a more powerful weapons platform.
sure an ATR or YT-2000 is more efficient than the bombers, but if you only have a level one station, then you've gotta use what you got. personally, i just wait until i get the K-wing. that bomber is border-line overpowered when you max it out.

It's true, the production model B-wing has stronger weapons than the S3 Y-wing. Of course, that should be the case given their positions on the tech tree.

Now let's factor cost into the equation.

A squadron of B-wings has a price tag of 1440, versus 810 for the Y-wing if I recall correctly. In other words, the B-wing costs approximately 1.8 times as much as the Y-wing. Does that squadron of B-wings have more firepower than two squadrons of S3 Y-wings? But that might not be a fair comparison. Therefore, let's compare the S3 Y-wing to the E3 B-wing.

The E3 B-wing has an armament of one heavy laser, one light double blaster, three light ion cannons and two torpedo launchers with ten torpedoes each. According to the space weapons FAQ, one heavy laser has the same firepower as three light lasers, and the double blaster is worth one light laser. This means the B-wing has the equivalent of four light lasers and three light ion cannons for energy weapons.

The S3 Y-wing has two light lasers, a turreted light double ion cannon, and two torpedo launchers with four torpedoes each. Multiply that by two and you get four light lasers, four turreted ion cannons and four torpedo launchers with four torpedoes each.

They come out to be roughly equal, despite the fact that B-wings are two tech levels higher. In addition, Y-wings get much stronger with their upgrades while B-wings only get a slight boost. If you find yourself with only a level one station, you might as well just use Y-wings.

And yes, K-wings are pretty decent if you have the time to research them.

[johnchm.10]

its the turret that makes the difference for me. sure when the bombers are maxxed out the b-wing has more straight up firepower, but the fact that my y-wings have that turret to at least slow down pursuers or to pump more energy into a target after delivering its payload makes up for that advantage. and that extra maneuverability that the b-wing has isnt apparent, nor is its extra speed.
and i kinda like the looks of the y-wing better

[SpardaSon21]

The Y-Wing, with upgrades, becomes a pretty dedicated bomber with its turreted weapon and proton rockets. The B-Wing, on the other hand, is technically an assault starfighter if I recall correctly, so I would suggest using it against transports and corvettes.