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Ok boys and girls who would win. A Tie Interceptor with an ace pilot (baron something if memory serves Wedges brother I think?) vs a Mk II. Viper flown by Starbuck (we are talking the newer series here) I personally think it would be to close to call. The Tie fighter has better weapons, but I believe the Viper as the edge in maneuverability as it can turn a 180 on a dime.

I think it is safe to say that we all lose there...

What is a colonial viper.

yellowfever wrote:
What is a colonial viper.

They're from Battlestar Galactica.

There's a fundamental problem with such a match up. SW uses 'aircraft in space' even though they're in a vacuum. A TIE that wanted to turn around will do a large turn, much as a real plane would. BSG however uses (slightly) better physics. A viper that wants to turn around will simply do so, spinning on the spot and maintain momentum, flying backwards. At least until it engages it's engines and changes direction. The two fly in fundamentally different ways which would massively advantage the viper.

Assuming the guns of each can damage the other, the viper should mop the floor with the TIE. It's much smaller, has a massively increased rate of fire and is vastly more agile. Only armour could save the TIE but as far as I know, they're not exactly renowned for their durability.

The TIE Interceptor all the way.

It's faster, better armed, and the pilots are among the best in sci-fi.

 Kojiro wrote:

yellowfever wrote:
What is a colonial viper.

They're from Battlestar Galactica.

There's a fundamental problem with such a match up. SW uses 'aircraft in space' even though they're in a vacuum. A TIE that wanted to turn around will do a large turn, much as a real plane would. BSG however uses (slightly) better physics. A viper that wants to turn around will simply do so, spinning on the spot and maintain momentum, flying backwards. At least until it engages it's engines and changes direction. The two fly in fundamentally different ways which would massively advantage the viper.

Assuming the guns of each can damage the other, the viper should mop the floor with the TIE. It's much smaller, has a massively increased rate of fire and is vastly more agile. Only armour could save the TIE but as far as I know, they're not exactly renowned for their durability.

Going by the once-canon Incredible Cross Sections numbers, that TIE puts out kilotons-per-shot damage, and presumably can survive anything not in the same order of magnitude. The same book tells us that the TIE can pull hundreds or thousands of gees of acceleration. These numbers are well supported by Imprecise FX work and the occasional gaffe.

On the other hand, the Colonial Vioer might be an angel.

true that

They would both be beaten by Spitfires IN SPAAACE!

Ahhh. I never watched that show.

 Kojiro wrote:

yellowfever wrote:
What is a colonial viper.

They're from Battlestar Galactica.

There's a fundamental problem with such a match up. SW uses 'aircraft in space' even though they're in a vacuum. A TIE that wanted to turn around will do a large turn, much as a real plane would. BSG however uses (slightly) better physics. A viper that wants to turn around will simply do so, spinning on the spot and maintain momentum, flying backwards. At least until it engages it's engines and changes direction. The two fly in fundamentally different ways which would massively advantage the viper.

Assuming the guns of each can damage the other, the viper should mop the floor with the TIE. It's much smaller, has a massively increased rate of fire and is vastly more agile. Only armour could save the TIE but as far as I know, they're not exactly renowned for their durability.

Viper is more maneuverable.
TIE fighter has shielding.

Who knows.

 Frazzled wrote:

 Kojiro wrote:

yellowfever wrote:
What is a colonial viper.

They're from Battlestar Galactica.

There's a fundamental problem with such a match up. SW uses 'aircraft in space' even though they're in a vacuum. A TIE that wanted to turn around will do a large turn, much as a real plane would. BSG however uses (slightly) better physics. A viper that wants to turn around will simply do so, spinning on the spot and maintain momentum, flying backwards. At least until it engages it's engines and changes direction. The two fly in fundamentally different ways which would massively advantage the viper.

Assuming the guns of each can damage the other, the viper should mop the floor with the TIE. It's much smaller, has a massively increased rate of fire and is vastly more agile. Only armour could save the TIE but as far as I know, they're not exactly renowned for their durability.

Viper is more maneuverable.
TIE fighter has shielding.

Who knows.

Do they? I thought that was one of the key differences between Ties and X Wings, being that the X Wings had shields where the Ties did not.

Thats true, I assumed they had shields as most other snub fighters had shields of some sort and if you can build a deathstar, you can build fighters with shields.

Correct, most TIEs are unshielded and the Interceptor is no exception. However, TIEs are armored to a degree and I would expect them to shrug off kinetic weapons with relative ease.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Frazzled wrote:
Thats true, I assumed they had shields as most other snub fighters had shields of some sort and if you can build a deathstar, you can build fighters with shields.

It's a matter of quantity over quality. It cheaper, faster, and easier to build fighters without shielding, life support, and hyperdrives.

AFAIK, Interceptors didn't mount shields or hyperdrives as standard, but had the capability (space, power generation, etc.) to mount them, likely for ace pilots or certain missions that may require some sort of independence from carriers.

They certainly weren't in the base Interceptors, though.

 AduroT wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 Kojiro wrote:

yellowfever wrote:
What is a colonial viper.

They're from Battlestar Galactica.

There's a fundamental problem with such a match up. SW uses 'aircraft in space' even though they're in a vacuum. A TIE that wanted to turn around will do a large turn, much as a real plane would. BSG however uses (slightly) better physics. A viper that wants to turn around will simply do so, spinning on the spot and maintain momentum, flying backwards. At least until it engages it's engines and changes direction. The two fly in fundamentally different ways which would massively advantage the viper.

Assuming the guns of each can damage the other, the viper should mop the floor with the TIE. It's much smaller, has a massively increased rate of fire and is vastly more agile. Only armour could save the TIE but as far as I know, they're not exactly renowned for their durability.

Viper is more maneuverable.
TIE fighter has shielding.

Who knows.

Do they? I thought that was one of the key differences between Ties and X Wings, being that the X Wings had shields where the Ties did not.

That disparity was made up in the licensed products, most likely a video game. We have just as much reason to believe TIEs are shielded as X-Wings are if we stick to watching the movies.

Indeed, movies are canon, nothing else matters.

 Frazzled wrote:
Indeed, movies are canon, nothing else matters.

Have you seen the websites where fans dissect the visual effects one pixel at a time and try to derive hard numbers from special effects that were most likely designed purely around aesthetic considerations? Their results might surprise you.


I tend to follow those analyses for a couple reasons: 1. I prefer the movies to be the only canon. 2. Early sources, like West End Games, made up a whole bunch of crap to fill in the blanks, without any regard to the artists' intentions or even the facts as they appear on screen.
It's pretty telling how long the fandom accepted a 5-mile-long Executor, despite the special effects guys themselves stating it was much longer.

I'd go with the viper.

From the movies. The tie appears under armoured and can't turn a damn. Whereas a viper can spin on the spot.

Tricky. The Viper has the maneuverability edge (especially if using BSG physics, as the TIE Interceptor would be virtually entirely unmaneuverable in a real world-esque physical environment), the TIE Interceptor though... well, weapons in Star Wars have an absurd power output which would vaporize the Viper and as a result would also require absurdly strong armor (remember the TIE doesn't have shields) in order to survive a hit from a similar spacecraft, meaning I doubt the Vipers ability to even damage the Interceptor.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Indeed, movies are canon, nothing else matters.

Have you seen the websites where fans dissect the visual effects one pixel at a time and try to derive hard numbers from special effects that were most likely designed purely around aesthetic considerations? Their results might surprise you.


I tend to follow those analyses for a couple reasons: 1. I prefer the movies to be the only canon. 2. Early sources, like West End Games, made up a whole bunch of crap to fill in the blanks, without any regard to the artists' intentions or even the facts as they appear on screen.
It's pretty telling how long the fandom accepted a 5-mile-long Executor, despite the special effects guys themselves stating it was much longer.

I haven't much. The level of brain sprain is his with that one.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/TIE/IN_interceptor

The TIE wins because it can load and fire missiles designed to destroy capital ships that lock onto enemy fighters from thousands of kilometers away. The Viper has no such benefit.

 AduroT wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 Kojiro wrote:

yellowfever wrote:
What is a colonial viper.

They're from Battlestar Galactica.

There's a fundamental problem with such a match up. SW uses 'aircraft in space' even though they're in a vacuum. A TIE that wanted to turn around will do a large turn, much as a real plane would. BSG however uses (slightly) better physics. A viper that wants to turn around will simply do so, spinning on the spot and maintain momentum, flying backwards. At least until it engages it's engines and changes direction. The two fly in fundamentally different ways which would massively advantage the viper.

Assuming the guns of each can damage the other, the viper should mop the floor with the TIE. It's much smaller, has a massively increased rate of fire and is vastly more agile. Only armour could save the TIE but as far as I know, they're not exactly renowned for their durability.

Viper is more maneuverable.
TIE fighter has shielding.

Who knows.

Do they? I thought that was one of the key differences between Ties and X Wings, being that the X Wings had shields where the Ties did not.

TIE Interceptors do. http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/TIE_Interceptor

You are thinking of the basic TIE, which indeed made of tinfoil and has no shields. http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/TIE/LN_starfighter/Canon

Tie Interceptors do not as standard. They have the ability to mount them as upgrades, but are not manufactured with them.

The Tie Advanced/Avenger did have both shields and a hyperdrive as standard, however.

Ahh thats right, I mix those two up sometimes.

They must have some degree of particle shielding to prevent being wiped out by micrometeorites/baattle debris.
The ability to be used in combat at all would require kinetic shielding of some sort.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Have you seen the websites where fans dissect the visual effects one pixel at a time and try to derive hard numbers from special effects that were most likely designed purely around aesthetic considerations? Their results might surprise you.

I recognise you from SDnet

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I tend to follow those analyses for a couple reasons: 1. I prefer the movies to be the only canon. 2. Early sources, like West End Games, made up a whole bunch of crap to fill in the blanks, without any regard to the artists' intentions or even the facts as they appear on screen.

See I tend to dislike energy calculations in that area. I don't mind scaling so much because physical dimensions are fixed so the error rate is small. But with things like firepower you are forced to define cinematic flair as hard data, such as what happens to Greedo. On screen events are extrapolated out and suddenly the SW universe has blasters that can make a person explode due to the energy they put out. After all we saw it once so it must be so. Every other time someone gets shot the blasters must have been on low power. Why isn't Leia's arm blown off? Why aren't there bits of ewok splattered all over the forest? How come the Tantive 4's corridor isn't a white and red mess? How is the Hoth base entrance not dotted with red splashes? How come R2's head wasn't completely annihilated? Luke's lifelike cyber hand gets blasted and keeps functioning while Stormtrooper armour doesn't demonstrably deflect a single shot. There are explanations for these things but mostly they have to do with film making- in universe explanations are wrapped around those.

 Kojiro wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Have you seen the websites where fans dissect the visual effects one pixel at a time and try to derive hard numbers from special effects that were most likely designed purely around aesthetic considerations? Their results might surprise you.

I recognise you from SDnet

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I tend to follow those analyses for a couple reasons: 1. I prefer the movies to be the only canon. 2. Early sources, like West End Games, made up a whole bunch of crap to fill in the blanks, without any regard to the artists' intentions or even the facts as they appear on screen.

See I tend to dislike energy calculations in that area. I don't mind scaling so much because physical dimensions are fixed so the error rate is small. But with things like firepower you are forced to define cinematic flair as hard data, such as what happens to Greedo. On screen events are extrapolated out and suddenly the SW universe has blasters that can make a person explode due to the energy they put out. After all we saw it once so it must be so. Every other time someone gets shot the blasters must have been on low power. Why isn't Leia's arm blown off? Why aren't there bits of ewok splattered all over the forest? How come the Tantive 4's corridor isn't a white and red mess? How is the Hoth base entrance not dotted with red splashes? How come R2's head wasn't completely annihilated? Luke's lifelike cyber hand gets blasted and keeps functioning while Stormtrooper armour doesn't demonstrably deflect a single shot. There are explanations for these things but mostly they have to do with film making- in universe explanations are wrapped around those.

I hope I haven't offended you over there. I'm much ruder there.

You make some good points, but Saxton's interpretation got the seal of approval. Even if he hadn't, it's hard not to love the idea of these ubertech fighters slowing down to fight at WW2 dogfight speeds and distances.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

I hope I haven't offended you over there. I'm much ruder there.

Nah it's all good. I stick to what I know and don't make assertions or touch politics. That whole board is much ruder in general, though I do occasionally wish posters here were held the the same standards with their claims.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
You make some good points, but Saxton's interpretation got the seal of approval. Even if he hadn't, it's hard not to love the idea of these ubertech fighters slowing down to fight at WW2 dogfight speeds and distances.

Oh man of course. One of the great flaws of every space battle is speed and distance (and fighters at all if you buy that line of reasoning). What looks good (or creates any sense of the dramatic) just isn't remotely accurate.

Which doesn't mean a vipers 20mm cannons can hurt a TIE. I simply don't know that. I want to say that solar panels can only be so armoured but... meh. I also don't have any vested interest in which one wins.

Don't forget, vipers can also carry nuclear warheads.

 Alpharius wrote:
I think it is safe to say that we all lose there...

Agreed! Though i do want to remind folks that Starbuck flew that cylon ship back after twisting its guts around in order to fly it that should go a long ways