Are TIE Fighters REALLY that bad? (Fleet Junkies welcomed)

Fuel and Relativity. Barring those two restrictions, TIEs could hit lightspeed. A thrown rock in space, assuming a position devoid of gravitational pulls, could theoretically approach lightspeed. Relativity requires a fancy sci-fi buzzword like Warp Drive or hyperdrive to break the Light Barrier, but one can theoretically get close.

Obviously, a short-range fighter like a TIE isn't gonna last long enough to cross the Galaxy, but I believe Zorrixor when he says velocity is practically unlimited without air resistance.

Umm...how long would it take to travel from Sol to Alpha Centauri even at the speed of light? Years. Sublight, probably a few years more. Evading Imperial Patrols, and thus not just gunning your sublight engines on a straight shot from Anoat to Bespin? I think we see where the issue comes from, and it's not a magical terminal velocity without air resistance....

 

The intention of the ship wasn't the Empire saying "oh, I think it's about time we upgraded our TIEs...we can afford it now".

It was a reflex to need, not philosophy...the original TIE was a ship based on a philosophy about combat. The Interceptor is not the continuation of the philosophical program...it's the beginning of the correction for it.

No doubt the Interceptor would likely overtake production of the original, and another craft overcome it...that is just the advancement of technology. But the Interceptor was not intended to replace the TIE because it was better...it was intended in response to a threat...something the original TIE and all ties up to that point had not been. The hardline TIE philosophy would probably advocate increasing squadron size or sacrifice tactics...the interceptor is the indication of "hey...we need to keep pilots alive for more then one dogfight." then come shields with later models, and so on.

The interceptor, in the pragmatic sense of fleet strategy, was not a inevitable result. It is the acceptance of battlefield data and a change of direction in fighter usage.

Or let's look at it this way:

Do you think they would replace original TIEs with interceptors ship for ship? Or could 2 squads of Interceptors do the same job as 4 original TIEs?

Better ship, fewer ships, fewer pilots, better pilot training, fewer loses...

 

EXACTLY...thank you.

 

Like CountSephula said, the reason for the hyperdrive isn't to do with speed, it's due to the laws of relativity. In pure theory there really is no reason for a TIE Fighter not to be able to reach lightspeed provided it had a very, very, very long stretch of empty space in which to do so. It would still take a while though.

To go faster than light though is a whole different monster because it's not actually as simple as just going at 3×10^8 m/s + 1. You go into a whole different dimension, that of hyperspace, so the rules become completely fictitious. There are also practical limitations on the assumption time space relativity still applies in Star Wars outside hyperspace, meaning if a TIE Fighter was literally travelling at 3×10^8 m/s the pilot would be having some serious relative passage of time problems. Star Wars only gets around that problem by saying once you enter hyperspace itself things go back to normal.

So, while the theory says you could potentially accelerate up to lightspeed, the practicality doesn't. Exactly where that cut off would be drawn is impossible to say without someone actually trying it but it's safe to say you'd be able to accelerate to some insanely fast speeds before it became a problem. We can infer that simply from how quickly ships have been said to travel within given star systems even when not utilising their hyperdrive (assuming, of course, they even have one!). Ergo, it's fast enough for a 10% difference in acceleration to make a big difference in how soon you reached that "comfort zone" before relativity began to mess with you.

The other practical limitation is that 100% empty space is probably rare. Once you start going fast enough even the odd piece of dust floating in space is going to start posing a fatal threat if it shoots through your window. That, again, is almost impossible to know exactly where the cut off is but, again, it's probably safe to say it's high enough to never cause any practical problems otherwise shieldless ships wouldn't be plausible at all.

TESB is actually one of the best examples of how fast ships can travel even without a hyperdrive. The EU has attempted to get around this problem by saying the Falcon used a slower backup hyperdrive to get to Bespin. If you ignore that completely though just look at how quickly it travels between Star Destroyers during the escape from Hoth or how fast it makes its way through the asteroid field. It covers some major distances very, very quickly.

We see similar rapid sublight speeds throughout the movies. The approach to the Death Star was insanely fast when you actually consider how quickly they got close to it. The trench run with the first Death Star, t

 

Couple of points:

1) Yes, all things being equal between piloting skill, a TIE/In is likely to kill an X-Wing one-on-one for many reasons, the least of which is maneuverability, defensive ability due to said maneuverability and size and the fact that the TIE is simply faster and an X-Wing pilot can't maintain pursuit on an TIE fighter.
2) However, in looking at the ships themselves, it's clear that an X-Wing affords the pilot a little more leeway as it is impossible for a TIE/In to destroy an X-Wing with one shot (only one) while it is, on average, likely that one shot from an X-Wing will destroy (or at least disable) a TIE/In.
3) This disparity is solely from 2002 onwards. In WEG-terms, an X-Wing would have eaten about 18 TIE/In fighters for breakfast and still had room for dessert.
4) I believe an A-Wing vs. a TIE/In one-on-one would destroy the TIE/In every day of the week and twice on Sunday. And then still have time left over to record a laugh for Jello.

Some clarifying things:
- For comparison, Luke was approx. three times more skilled than your average Rebel or Imperial pilot at the Battle of Yavin who would be plugged into Ye Olde Generic X-Wing or TIE Fighter.
- Han, on the other hand, was pretty much four and a half times more skilled.
- The reason we see the heroes do so much better against fighters than we would expect them to is because THEY ARE HEROES.
- Part of the reason the Rebels were so successful even against normal 3:1 odds in starfighter engagements is that two X-Wings considerably up to odds for them. Even if a TIE establishes pursuit on an X-Wing, it is unlikely to, on average, do anything more than go through the X-Wing's shields on the first shot. Meanwhile, its speed and maneuverability have been reduced drastically by maintaining pursuit on the X-Wing allowing the wingman to establish pursuit on the TIE and destroy it in one shot. Less than a minute later, the X-Wing shields would be at full and the X-Wings could switch who gets pursued in the meantime even while this happens, so staying power in a long dogfight DOES make a huge difference.

 

Not true. WEG also asserts close parity between the Interceptor and the X-wing. Here's a passage I've been thinking about posting for a while, and now seems like the ideal time:

 

Yes, the idea that the Empire was in decline when the majority of TIE Advanced came into service is ridiculous. They were manufactured in the period after the ESB and they came into full service before the Battle of Endor. Then was Grand Admiral Zaarin's Rebellion in which he destroyed almost all of the TIE Defender and TIE Advanced plants.

It seems clear that the Empire was going for much more durable, armored, and armed craft because they chose to believe it worked BETTER for the war and service to the Empire than the ultra-cheap but disposable TIE fighter.

And by comparison to what the Empire COULD build, TIE fighters are ridiculously insufficient craft.

your later points essentially refute them even as I point out that I agree with most of the statement.

A TIE fighter isn't an inferior craft compared to the Z-95 Headhunter and other crafts but any confrontation with an X-wing will end almost certainly with the TIE fighters being destroyed because a glancing blow from a TIE fighter will not destroy an X-wing but one from an X-wing to a TIE will destroy it. X-wings are not only shielded but much more durable craft than TIEs as well.

I'm not suggesting the TIEs are crap, I am suggesting that they are inferior craft to X-wings and the Empire shaped up when they were willing to spend more money on their pilot's lives.

Seriously, the TIE Interceptor was made because the TIES COULDN'T COPE with the X-wing. Even Maarek Stele in TIE Fighter's own fiction, the most loyal Imperial you'll find, states that the TIE Fighter is inferior compared to most Rebel Ships. It's in the back of the manual where he wants to survive long enough to get into a decent ship.

 

Honestly the TIE fighter isn't really that bad of a fighter. It is lightly armed, but incredibly maneuverable by skilled pilot. It's only weakness is it's lack of forgiveness for errors due to light armor and relatively weak payload.

Who care about the one on one battle. It's going to be tough for anyone to survive a 3 on 1 attack. IIRC, Imperial fighter doctrine was not to engage unless having a 3 to 1 advantage. As it was said about the Russian army, quantity has a quality all of its own.

 

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiight, but I was going off the basic Tie/In not an Interceptor which are two different models, IIRC. If not, the error is solely mine.

My later points refute none of that. If the pilots are of equal skill and there is one single X-Wing and one single TIE fighter engaged in a fight, the TIE is more likely to win. The fact that it's never likely to hit that scenario is irrelevant.

 

You're thinking of the TIE/ln, with a lowercase "l". TIE/In with an uppercase "I" is the Interceptor.

But don't worry, you're not the first to make that mistake in this thread.

 

Let me now reiterate my desire to inflict bodily injury on the licensee that used an uppercase "I" for the Interceptor when past precedent had been set that TIE suffixes were lowercase . . . ESPECIALLY when the basic TIE Fighter was already designated the "TIE/ln."

And let me reiterate my hope that some author in the near future uses a lowercase "i," so we can call that first instance a typo (since it apparently appears only once in one source) and fix the universe.

 

Yes.

 

Umm, yes, yes there most definitely is. Relativity says a whole bunch more than that you can't go faster than the speed of light. It also means that as you approach the speed of light, your mass increases (it's a function of the correlation between mass-energy and space-time), so that to go the speed of light would require infinite thrust to move an infinite mass. Even to come to significant upper fractions of the speed of light (.9c, .95c, and so on) would require almost infinite amounts of fuel and energy. Even doing what the EU claims (and the movies possibly support) of ranges in the .3c range is incredible, considering the physics involved. Acceleration is great, but a constant acceleration requires a constant thrust, so the power sources we're dealing with are absolutely phenomenal (something that largely goes unappreciated by most fans). Sublight speeds are significant (to the point that space battles as we've seen them really ought to be quite impossible, but apparently they slow down to fight ), but not nearly so significant as you're saying.

- Keralys

 

Hence the in theory and why the rest of my post said in practice it wouldn't work for various reasons, not least where I said there would be a "comfort zone" when relativity really started to bite. Even so, 0.3c is still an incredibly big number. I generally find it easier to simply talk about "approaching lightspeed" though as it makes people appreciate the values we're dealing with. If you say 0.3c people usually go "is that all?" as if it's a small fraction, not grasping that any fraction of lightspeed which doesn't have a load of zeroes in before you get to the number is still "OMG?! THE HAT!!! FAST!!!".

Anyway, the point was that people are throwing around upper speed limits from the video games like gospel when in all reality they're meaningless, as displayed by virtually every other source. The sheer fact any ship in Star Wars can reach hyperspace shows the technology level has managed to develop power sources capable of generating the kind of thrust we're talking about.

The Death Star, the Sun Crusher and so on all show we're dealing with a universe where power supply really doesn't seem to be much of an issue. Don't most Star Destroyers have several years of consumables or something? That's an awful long life on a reactor that's forever pumping out these kind of insane numbers.

 

unless every official source happens to agree with the video game, right? I never once quoted a video game manual, referring only to official sources, namely, Starwars.com, and its affiliate sites, such as starwars.wikia.com. The official website for Star Wars should be a good official source. If data from Starwars.com isn't acceptable to you, nothing will be. Your problem is that you want to discount the speed limitations of the TIEs, but run into a problem because EVERY OFFICIAL SOURCE says there is a limit, and that the limit is virtually identical to that of an X-Wing. It can get to that top speed a little quicker, but, it has a hard speed limit, that the X-Wing can either match or come really close to. Again, haven't used anything from any video game, only official sources that are available online. However, if technical manuals, Starwars.com websites, and video games all agree on something, you can't discount them. Since there are numerous secondary sources that also claim the same speed limitations that TIE Fighter, XvT, and XWA etc do, it seems to me that they are accurate to a certain point.

Find one official source, licensed by Lucasfilm or Lucasarts, that backs up your claims, thats all I am asking. I have provided my proof in various posts, using information available to all, to show that the speed differences between X-Wings and TIEs were greatly exaggerated, that TIEs were overall inferior starfighters next to X-Wings, etc. I provided my sources, with direct links to the articles I got the info from. If you want to complain about it, provide your own sources that contradict them. You claim people are using info from video games as solid evidence, as gospel, all the while being meaningless, fine...provide your evidence that their evidence is wrong.

 

An official source? How about the movies? The cartoon series? The many events in the novels where ships are described travelling distances in far in excess of the speeds seen in the video games (which is where the MGLT numbers originated)? The NEGTVAV where they made a point to only list "acceleration" and never talk about "speed" or "velocity"?

No matter how much the MGLT system may be canon it is made a mockery of in practically every single source because we never see ships going at the sluggish speeds in the video games. It's also worth noting the RPG has its own system of "speeds" as well. I have never once seen people take "Ramming Speed" as anything more than a game mechanic.

At 100 MGLT, the apparent of an X-wing, it takes a good couple of minutes to travel ten clicks. That is at odds with the Death Star novel where TIEs are described travelling hundreds of clicks in a heartbeat and the films were we see them covering immense stretches of the Death Star surface in a heartbeat.

The MGLT system originated from and has been largely confined to the video games. It is a measure of the video games, that's essentially all it is. If you're going to accept that the relative speeds seen in the video games is wrong, you also have to accept the existence of upper limits seen in the video games is also wrong.

 

Nice discussion here, guys.
What I got from this:

X wings are cleary over-equipped for the average TIE job.

Empire and Alliance tactics are very different and thus need differentt ships.

Thus TIEs and X-Wings were designed for different purposes.
Which means that direct 1 on 1 comparsinons make only so much sense.



I did not get the Tie/In vs Tie/In thing, mostly because I don't know how to get a capital I without serifs typed.

*runs and hides before the pros return*

 

I can't edit my post above anymore but another point I forgot to make was how while 100 MGLT compared to 110 MGLT in the video games was a trivial difference it was because of the overall dynamics of the engine (i.e. the fact everything was slow).

Even if we take this arbitrary "100 MGLT" as the presumed limit where relativity starts to bite and/or dust particles start being a fatal threat, the speeds we're talking about are vastly in excess of the speeds in the video games.

It's like the difference between 10 km/h and 11 km/h as opposed to 10,000,000 km/h and 11,000,000 km/h. Both may be a 10% difference but an advantage of 1,000,000 km/h obviously is a much more significant difference than 1 km/h.

We also know the TIE Fighter has a greater acceleration, which, again even if we stick to the MGLT ratings, is significant. The basic TIE/ln has an acceleration of 4100g, the X-wing is 3700g. So, not only would the TIE Fighter have a higher "speed" limit before relativity, dust particles or whatever else imposed that limit, it would reach said terminal velocity much faster than the X-wing.

10% "faster" and ~10% more acceleration together make for a significant advantage in terms of agility and manoeuvrability. Does this make the TIE Fighter "better"? I have no idea. I'm not arguing that. I'm solely discussing the flaws in any argument that looks at speed without factoring in acceleration. I don't particuarly care which ship is actually better only that acceleration is generally a much more important unit than speed.

It's not unlike buying a car. People don't ask "can this model do 60 mph?" they ask "how long does it take to get up to 60 mph?" Any car you buy you expect to be able to make it to the speed limit, what makes a car powerful is how quick it can do it, as nobody is actually going to be driving it at 200 mph, whether it can do it or not. The situation with starfighters it not that dissimilar due to the speeds we're talking about being so high. Even if a TIE or X-wing can make it to 0.3c it's unlikely they'll ever achieve that, just like a car isn't going to be driven at 200 mph, what matters is how quick it can get up to the kind of speeds it's likely to be operating at.

It confused the life out of me for years too.

The problem tends to come if you're using Arial rather than TNR as a font because capital I (i) is just a straight vertical line in Arial, which obviously looks the same as a lower case l (L). They couldn't be sensible and do "ln" and "in" or "Ln" and "In", they had to go and be confusing!

I've always assumed it was probably an error with the TIE Interceptor mistakenly being given the same TIE/ln identifier in a book somewhere which they chose to retcon into TIE/In, or vice versa.

 

If you want to explain it away as the films show the ships going so much faster, explain the space battles in ANH. They are doggedly slow. Then, compare to the beginning of ROTS, when the ships appear to go much faster. There isn't consistency between the films. I would also point out that just because something isn't referred to in one source, doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. Omissions are not proof of the opposite.

Watched ANH lately?

 

No, I'm saying that as the Empire shrank, it has a greater need for hyperdrive-capable, shielded starfighters that can go on long range missions whereas before they didn't. When the Rebel Alliance was puny, the Empire needed more fighters stationed at every possible point of their infrastructure to cover against any attacks. If the Imperials had invested into more expensive fighters, they would need to hyper to every single trouble spot the Rebels stirred up....and still arrive too late to prevent any damage. For offensive purposes, sending an ISD into the middle of an enemy spaceport does nicely enough anyway.

Once the Empire has less territory to defend, then more versatile models like the TIE Defender become more useful, as then they are able to hit the New Republic's supply lines and infrastructure.

 

No, I'm saying that as the Empire shrank, it has a greater need for hyperdrive-capable, shielded starfighters that can go on long range missions whereas before they didn't.

Except...

1. These were produced during the Expansionist period of the Empire

2. The Shrinking Empire never built them because their factories had all been destroyed.

 

Except that since the official site lists it as an official specification for the fighters, they gain legitimacy. It would be one thing if other sources completely ignored them, like the differences between level designs in games, things that movie characters have to do, etc. But, as soon as official sources back up what is stated, it gains legitimacy. A good example of this is Revan. Canonically, we had no idea whether Revan was male or female, until an official source outside of the video game told us. Video game characters gain canon status when they are mentioned elsewhere. Since other sources list TIE and X-Wing specifications that match the video games, then, canonically, don't they have to exist? Since there is nothing official on a higher canon level that contradicts that information, it stands, until its overruled by something else. I find it highly suspect that some people are challenging the use of stats found in video games, while at the same time, trumping up the abilities of craft such as TIE Defenders, starfighters invented in those same video games. Seems a bit like trying to have it both ways to me. Why can we accept the existence of TIE Defenders, which was invented for the TIE Fighter game, but, then reject the stats listed for each ship in the same game? Why is the overall storyline accepted as canon, the invented new starfighters accepted as canon, but the specifications for those starfighters not accepted?