Lit Fleet Junkie Flagship- The technical discussions of the GFFA (Capital Ships thread Mk. II)

sites down for updates, but all of the files can be found at http://warlords.swrebellion.com/warlords_files/

I'm trying to drag some hard stats out of the petro guys on the MC30 (armament, length etc)

 

AdmiralNick22 T-wings.

Always have, secretly. But now I proclaim that love unto the land! Let the stars sing! Let the planets shout! Let the T-wing begin!

--Adm. Nick

 

T wings. Why would the Alliance try to replace the prefectly good Awings?

I think the Awing also has a larger missile load, to boot.

 

What? Just because I like lumpy capital ships and quasi-BSG looking starfighters?

--Adm. Nick

 

Ugh. I wonder who wrote that crap. I bet you a hundred credits it was Voren.

 

Well, I was thinking Voren was her ghostwriter.

 

I like T-Wings: as pirate ships. Why should the rebels be the only ones with Alphabit wings?

 

Pirates have X-Wings and Y-Wings too.

MC-30 huh? I'm still of the belief now that that is simply a reactor designation, and that Mon Cal ships can be customized around the powerplant and frame. Hence the number of MC cruisers with the same designation and different appearances, and the idea that no two cruisers are exactly the same.

 

I'm not making it up; I'm certainly embellishing it a little, though
Battle 16, Mission 5: Capture the Mag Pulse Weapon

Officer Mission Briefing


What opposition will there be?

The [Rebels] are expected to mount a strong defense of their installation. Currently only a small number of Rebel starfighters are stationed there, but we anticipate reinforcements will be sent. There are also rumors that the Rebels have a new experimental starfighter, but information is extremely limited. Expect the unexpected.

I find it personally funny that the Empire's secret experimental fighters are the TIE Advanced (Avenger), the TIE Defender, and so on, versus the Rebel T-wing. Sigh.



Okay, as for the somewhat dismal origin of the T-wing, there was a thread on this board about Alphabetical Rebel Fighters and I put forward my take on the T-wing's background. I figured that there was a Rebel fighter designer who was trying to build a new fast interceptor, but one that was more cost-effective than the A-wing, and perhaps a more mechanically reliable fighter as well. Unfortunately for our poor nameless Rebel engineer, and common knowledge to anyone who played TIE Fighter, not only did the T-wing not look like a T at all but it was also a terrible fighter in every aspect except speed (and still only as fast as a TIE Interceptor to boot). So, when the Rebel engineer saw his "crowning achievement", his wondrous contribution to the Rebel cause being relegated to backwards sectors, being used as a training craft, or just being scrapped for spare parts, he promptly quit the Alliance and sold his design to Hoersch-Kessel Drives for a tidy sum (Explaining why in X-wing Alliance the T-wing is an H-K product), and HKD promply began mass producing the T-wing for more disreputable forces, ie pirates and the like.

That's my take, at least.

 

Given the Rebel Alliance never had actual companies to build their fighters at the start, barring Incom who partially defected, it's not a surprise major companies picked up production of some of the irregular fighters: Slayn and Korpyl with the B-Wing, Hoersh-Kessel and the T-Wing, Incom with the A-Wing.

 

Actually, it's Battle Seven, Mission Five, from Defender of the Empire, the Secure TIE Defender technology campaign.
The reason why I put Battle 16 was because I was looking at the TIE Fighter levels that were made for XWA, and the numbers are wrong (The TIE Fighter missions are after the regular XWA ones). It's the second last mission for that battle, where you fly in a TIE Defender and help seize a space platform where magpulse weapons are being made; the next mission has Zaarin attack the station, IIRC, with an Interdictor, a Strike Cruiser and a Nebulon B2 Frigate, and you have to protect Thrawn's Victory Star Destroyer Sceltor; this is the one and only mission where you get to use magpulse missiles.

Sorry about the confusion.

 

bah, yet another weirdness with EAW scaling

the pirate interceptor frigate is said in the strategy guide (and game?) to be based on an action VI transport, this means that it is 125m long. this is all fine and dandy up until the expansion where the main underworld character uses this a flagship... that can take out heavy cruisers...

the game makes the interceptor look decently large, but again that is its forced scaling (hence the reason why the databank entries for the lengths of the tartan and broadside are complete crap and the concept pictures in relation to ties are more accurate IMO) I'm perfectly happy with the interceptor class being a modified action VI, but again its game role is obnoxious for its size. (in universe though it works fine at 125 m as long as it has a character shield)

also the expansion has the arc hammer at about 900m, in direct contradiction to dark forces videos, however this may also be a scaling issue since one of the devs said it was scaled down for visibility on the maps (especially when the Ex is around)

 

No, actually, I remember that mission briefing too; it was in the TIE Fighter expansion if I remember correctly, and they do portray the T-wing as being some kind of newly developed fighter for the Alliance.

It always annoyed me actually that the T-wing turned out so lame after that. I kind of like the design..such wasted potential for coolness...

 

Dammit. Yeah, it is Battle 8.

 

official word on the arc hammer from a petroglyph employee

"One of the reasons for the apparent size disagreement is that Lucas has never given an official size for the thing. The sizes that are listed at Wookieepedia and other places are all fan approximations based on a few screen shots from Dark Forces, in which the perspective is suspect. Since there's no knowing where the camera originates in those shots, its very difficult to tell the elevation and angle of the ships shown, which means that the Arc Hammer could be very much smaller than the current estimates, or even bigger - this is the hazard of trying to find a size in 3D space from a 2D shot.

Bottom line is, since there is no official length, and the length as stated harmed gameplay in some spots, we chose to go smaller. Also, logic would dictate that a ship meant primarily as a factory and research facility wouldn't need to be super huge like an ISD or a SSD. So there you are If you really don't like the size, it is quite easy to scale in XML."


I'd beg to differ on the scaling thing unless it has enormous lateral acceleration during the movies, but w/e they aren't taking a stance on it other than to say it is a gameplay choice

 

Oh come on. I don't have DF with me to check, but I think the Arc Hammer definitely looked larger than an ISD. And yes, a top secret, mobile factory and research facility doesn't have to be super huge---the XWA Imperial Research Ship was less than 700 m long---but there's nothing wrong with making it that big. Frell, even FoC's rag-tag group of criminals has ships bigger than 0.9 km, IIRC. I mean, we can live with the newer, smaller AH, but I would have prefered to see a great big one.

Is this just an in-game scaling issue, or is there some information in FoC (or in spin-off material) that's going to say that the Arc Hammer is 900 m?

 

I think it all comes down to a game issue, they said it won't have any substantial weaponry or anything and that it would get in the way in maps (though I think it would be cool) nevertheless it will be easy to just change the scale multiplier to 6x or 7x to make it effectively larger

I imagine clutter is an issue

[image=http://www.gamed.nl/messages/32022.jpg]http://www.gamed.nl/messages/32022.jpg

 

Aye, scale is a big problem in the game. Hell, the freaking Tartan-class is all screwed up. Making it 500 meters was totally stupid. (Personally, I would of just used the Lancer frigate, but that it a whole other issue).

Heck, what bothers me the most is how a criminal element is supposedly able to raise a massive army and navy to challenge the Galactic Empire and Rebel Alliance. And this **** is going to be canon as well.

I would just as soon make it non-canon, but the powers at be have the say on that...

--Adm. Nick