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@Manchu: Yeah that would be a BA large ship for the Imps. Sweet!

@Anpu-Adom: Initially I hadn't thought of the J-type being included in "Queens Gambit" but rather as a separate large(2x2) ship for $30 and Gambit would be two N-1's for $30 as well. So when I read your post this morning it stirred up a brainstorm that went on all day. I decided that you could feasibly do a package the same size as the GR-75 will be that does have the two N-1's and the J-type. Then I wondered what the point of the J-type's role would be because I remembered, it's not armed. And then it came to me, it could be a 20pt range, 2x2 ship, that has fleet support abilities just like the GR-75 and Tantive IV. Which I thought was neat. But only doable at that point if you want to dive all the way in to the CW. (Though the ship supposedly does function into the New Jedi Order, news to me) And yes...those would be some shmexy shiny ships.

And as the lightning continued to strike my brain (yes, it hurt) and I weighed the concerns discussed about factions, and appropriate power levels, how do you work in the Vong if you do at all, and on, and on, I slowly came to conclusion that the best route could still logically be to go back to the Clone Wars. And I worked on this reasoning a lot as my job leaves a lot of mental energy available haha. Hear me out. First I had to reconcile the Vong. I really don't want a faction that just sits by itself and doesn't share its content, or only a limited portion of it, with the rest of the game. That seems counter in the extreme to the modular design of X-wing. Not impossible, people would buy it, but it's not as rewarding to consumers as the rest of the game already is. From what I can tell of FFG, this seemed like a big hurdle to it's designs allure. (Plus I heard a rumor that Disney is 'throwing out' all post Ep. 6 EU content and taking the story in a new direction. Can anyone confirm? It could mean the Vong are now alt universe according to 'canon')

Then I thought OK, we want four factions, can we do that with the Vong and saaay...Scum and Villainy? We could, but even excepting Han Solo since he did join the rebellion, so we have a legitimate excuse for him, we potentially already missed that opportunity with the Slave 1/Firespray expansion which has 3 bounty hunters marching under Imperial flags. Could we work around that? Sure, not insanely difficult either, even if it is a bit inelegant to patch around it. Okay so we have that, but what ships do we use? We already used two of the most iconic so we don't have any big draw gems to attract attention. And I'm no pro but I couldn't come up with too many that were (in)famous enough save for the YT-2400 I want anyway, which also works fine as a Rebel ship. There was the Wild Karde to use for their capital ship though! So while feasible to do functionally, a Vong/Scum build in, it really wasn't doing it for me.

Well what does the alternative offer? What if CW is the direction? Well, its official movie canon for one thing. The kids who watched Ep1-3 when they were young and the animated Clone Wars installments will love it, and they are now teens or close to, so there's a sizable target market, likely more so than the Vong. I get to keep the modular co-supporting game factor, that's a plus. I do get two factions, Republic and Separatists, that have interchangeable tech and everything else. The Sep's ships likely wont have a lot of multi-faction cards, but the Republic could have Pilot content available for the already existing two factions, that's a plus. Then the kicker is tech level. Well we have already established that the Empire kept a lot of Republic inventory so there's legitimate reason to have Rebels vs. Republic though I admit that's pushing it. At least we could make up for that with Empire Pilots for the Republic ships. Then there was at least one battle in SW: Battlefront 2(PS2) with the GCW Empire fighting a Droid Army that got reactivated. And I would have to believe we could come up with a reason for some break away clones, or escaped Jedi, or heck training exercises for the Empire vs. Republic. So the match ups don't work quite as well as Vong/Scum, but certainly manageable.

How about tech level? Well I have to imagine at some point you refit your military to keep up, many have pointed this out, and then there's always that transition period to account for. So we say the reason these ships stats aren't straight ones vs. straight fives due to time difference is that look, it's the late era upgraded ARC's and Droids, with their veteran pilots/advanced programming and well refined ship knowledge and tactics, against your still new TIE's and X-wings that are still a little glitchy, and manned with freshly trained pilots, none of which are battle tested in these newfangled craft. Some have mentioned their is a tech sophistication gap. But it's not nearly as big as you think. The example of a Mustang to an F-22 doesn't fly. (No pun intended, but lol just the same!) Your better off trying to compare the F-18 to the F-22. The arguments made are as if we went from Mustangs with NO targetting computers and primitive radios all the way to on board radar guided, beyond visual range targeting. It's the same old "I build this, they counter by building that". I wager all the ships still use similar hull plating materials. Similar thrusters. For gaks sake they all can use the same astromech droids! I mean really!? I can plug my walking Intellivision into your F-35 and use it to plot hyperspace jumps!? Oh, that works? Sweeeeet!

So stat the ARC's out to be somewhere between X-wings and B-wings. Make the Droid starfighter close to a TIE with an added on missile slot for 12 points minimum like the other two swarm ships. No more than 8 ships a side is the limit, never wanted more, and I don't want to make consumers feel required to fork over the dough with out sufficient reward. Balance the game with the assumption that you are on technologically equal levels with in reason. It might not fly, but their are at least EIGHT new ships for 1x1 and 2x2 designs total if you go with the CW. Then when the new Trilogy is finished you'll have all it's content to add. I'm just saying. I respect your desire to have Vong, and I hope they make them so we all have are own little awesome toys, but if I were at the meeting to discuss X-wings future, I stand with the clones. Then I read my essay post and facepalm. I did it again. I'm so sorry.

I'll dig through the whole of that big, thoughtful post over the course of this evening, but I just want to respond about the Fringer faction. Again, this is a game about the GCW. Fringers are involved in the game because they are sucked into the conflict on one side or the other just like in the movies -- with Jabba as a notable exception as far as the movies go. (But then again, this is also why RotJ feels like two mini-movies smushed together.) Even Prince Xizor, compared to whom Jabba is nobody, would make the most sense as an Imperial faction member in this game. That doesn't mean you couldn't fly his Chiss clawcraft against Vader's TIE/x1, of course.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

KnuckleWolf wrote:
The example of a Mustang to an F-22 doesn't fly. (No pun intended, but lol just the same!) Your better off trying to compare the F-18 to the F-22.

Agreed but (steps over the strawman corpse) ...

 Peregrine wrote:
Or, let's even assume that the fundamental technology didn't change at all, and it's just incremental improvements. A real-world F-22 uses the same technology as a Vietnam-era fighter: jet engines, guided missiles, etc. However, the F-22 will slaughter any number of Vietnam-era fighters, and the only limit on how many it can kill is the fact that it has limited ammunition before it has to disengage and rearm.

Vietnam was a technologically loooong time before said F-22. Not in years but in tech years. An F-4 Phantom, the first really good example of modern fighter, versus a F-22 yeah no contest. I'm thinking the jump between Clone Wars and Rebellion is more like Desert Storm to the modern Iraq War, where the A-10 Warthog and F-117 Nighthawk, and others are used in both conflicts. That's where your incremental improvements are most similar to Star Wars speed of improvement. We had only just figured out jet propulsion when the F-4 was made. It took a couple generations to master it to the point of producing supercruise and thrust vectoring. Which are features other modern craft enjoy

Deleted post (reposted for relevance), sanitized as per mods (not that there was anything to sanitize):

 Peregrine wrote:
*snip*

Do you know what the word 'explicit' means? Because you're arguing that its explicitly stated that ships are obsolete (my bad phone auto-corrected to 'absolute' in that one case), except its nowhere stated explicitly that any of them are obsolete, its only INFERRED by comments saying that its old, disadvantaged, etc. etc. etc. None of those things equate to obsolete, they just equate to being old, disadvantaged, etc. etc. etc. You ever hear of the MiG-21bis? It's old (entered service in 1959, was produced in limited numbers until 1985), disadvantaged, outdated, etc. etc. etc. Most, if not all of its contemporaries are considered obsolete, hell in some circles the MiG-21bis is considered obsolete, yet it continues to be used, and used well. In simulated dogfighting, upgraded MiG-21s can even defeat F-15s, F-16s, and F-18s (aircraft built some 20-30 years later) with somewhat surprising ease (even when said aircraft are allowed to use their RADAR, which is the common pundit defense for why they lose, except there are numerous instances of simulated ACM where the two face eachother without such restrictions).

Sigh. Dice can be averaged. This is why we say that the B-wing with one defense die and eight HP is more durable than the X-wing with two defense dice and five HP. Reducing a ship to one defense die doesn't make it more fragile if you simultaneously give it tons of HP.

Of course it doesn't make it fragile (its anything but fragile if you give it a bunch of HP, but thats irrelevant, because I wasn't trying to make it fragile to begin with), but you can't equate the two either. Your HP is your wounds characteristic, and your Agility is like your save, unless you want to argue with me that those two things are interchangeable in 40k as well...

The point is that it WAS a durable ship, by prequel-era standards. However, prequel-era standards are not the same as "modern" standards, and a ship that was durable relative to other ancient relics is not necessarily durable compared to modern ships. An 8 HP ARC-170 might make sense in a prequel-era variant game where "modern" ships aren't allowed, but in the actual game it's way too much.

And your basis for this is what exactly? Ships are still flying around sporting laser cannons, blaster cannons, turbolasers, ion cannons, concussion missiles, and proton torpedoes. I'm sure there may have been, at one point or another, some sort of improvements to any of these weapons (in fact, some improvements are mentioned in various books but they are always stated to come as a tradeoff, like rapid-fire turbolasers in the Yuzhan Vong series which fire faster but have weaker shots, and the long range turbolasers developed afterwards that fired farther, but also had weaker shots), but not enough to render whatever came before obsolete, and we know this because of people like those on stardestroyer.net, etc. who have degrees in physics, etc. and can calculate energy requirements based on things referenced in films and books and determine that the amount of energy used by weapons and shields in Star Wars is astronomically high to begin with, and for the improvement to have the effects that would be required to render something obsolete from prequel era to sequel era would require an increase by at least an order of magnitude (in some cases several orders of magnitude) which would become problematic to say the least.

To further illustrate, the quad lasers on the millenium falcon are identical to the quad lasers used by the lancer frigate. Let me re-iterate that: IDENTICAL . Same exact model number, good old Corellian Engineering Corporation AG-2G Quad Laser Cannons. Know when the lancer frigate entered service? At the end of the Clone Wars. Know how long they were used for? They were still kicking around during the whole Yuzhan Vong situation. Know what they were really effective against? X-wings, E-wings, and Y-wings when Grand Admiral Thrawn utilized them against the New Republic in 9ABY. So yeah, weaponry from the clone wars is totally obsolete and useless against anything during the GCW, right?

And how about the Dreadnought class cruisers? Built 80 years prior to the Clone Wars, still in use after the Yuzhan Vong situation, 3 to 5 (un-upgraded) of them are stated to be capable of outgunning an Imperial Star Destroyer, despite being 1/6th the size and possessing only a fraction of the star destroyers armament, so clearly technology at least some technology from 100 years prior to the Battle of Yavin is still good as of the battle of Yavin and as of 40+ years after the battle of Yavin.

And then the Imperial I class Star Destroyers, entered service DURING the Clone Wars, still considered powerful warships up to and through the Yuzhan Vong war and in fact were still the mainstay warship of the Imperial remnant well afterwards despite the fact that they had access to newer designs such as the Turbulent-class.

Sigh. Yes, it does say that the Y-wing was obsolete, over and over again. The Y-wing is obsolete because of its poor performance compared to modern fighters and is only kept in service because the rebellion isn't able to replace them with more modern ships.

I haven't seen the word 'obsolete' used within the fiction in reference to anything, except maybe something that Luke might have said in A New Hope in reference to a droid, and perhaps in some Legacy era stuff (set 130 years after Yavin).

You're right, they didn't. That's the whole point: ships from the prequel era are second-tier at best. You could make them all Z-95 equivalents, but then you run straight into the design space issue of having a bunch of ships competing for too few design concepts.

Except they aren't at all in any way shape or form Z-95 equivalents. The Z-95 always was what it is now, it always was less powerful and less durable but faster and more maneuverable than an ARC-170, was always less powerful and less durable but faster and more maneuverable than a Y-wing, and was more durable but slower and less maneuverable than a droid tri-fighter (which is in turn basically a faster TIE fighter). From the game and the fluff we see that the Z-95 is statted appropriately relative to the Y-wing, and in turn is thus statted appropriately relative to everything else, not because it is 'old' or 'obsolete' but because thats simply the way it was designed. Given that the ARC-170 is known to be MORE powerful and MORE durable than a Z-95, and also known to be faster than a Y-wing, and also thus known to be more powerful and more durable than a TIE fighter (via the tri-fighter), how exactly are you statting it the same as a Z-95?

That's because you don't seem to understand that dice in X-Wing aren't linear like dice in 40k. They're opposed dice, so what matters is the difference in attack and defense dice. A 3-dice ship has way more than 50% more firepower than a 2-dice ship, and a 4-dice ship is even better. The HLC gives four dice at all ranges AND ignores the extra defense die you normally get at range 3. There's a very good reason why you're paying seven points for it, and you can't bring more than three of them in a 100-point list. Making a cheap HLC platform might not be completely game-breaking, but it's one of those things that has to be approached very carefully. And if you're going to do it then the assault gunboat should get that privilege, not an obsolete relic like the ARC-170.

Oh, no I understand that entirely, just that I've never seen an opponent actually able to derive any benefit from them worth 7 points, either through his own gakky rolling, or me being able to negate his roll via a variety of methods (for example: A-wing at range 3 throws four defense dice, A-wing at range 2 with an evade token throws 3 defense dice plus a guaranteed evade result if you burn the token). I'd say more than 80% of the time I've faced an HLC its done absolutely nothing to me, though there was one time I took 4 damage from it (despite rolling four defense dice and coming up with nothing).

As for this:

 Manchu wrote:
I'll dig through the whole of that big, thoughtful post over the course of this evening, but I just want to respond about the Fringer faction. Again, this is a game about the GCW. Fringers are involved in the game because they are sucked into the conflict on one side or the other just like in the movies -- with Jabba as a notable exception as far as the movies go. (But then again, this is also why RotJ feels like two mini-movies smushed together.) Even Prince Xizor, compared to whom Jabba is nobody, would make the most sense as an Imperial faction member in this game. That doesn't mean you couldn't fly his Chiss clawcraft against Vader's TIE/x1, of course.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

KnuckleWolf wrote:
The example of a Mustang to an F-22 doesn't fly. (No pun intended, but lol just the same!) Your better off trying to compare the F-18 to the F-22.

Agreed but (steps over the strawman corpse) ...

 Peregrine wrote:
Or, let's even assume that the fundamental technology didn't change at all, and it's just incremental improvements. A real-world F-22 uses the same technology as a Vietnam-era fighter: jet engines, guided missiles, etc. However, the F-22 will slaughter any number of Vietnam-era fighters, and the only limit on how many it can kill is the fact that it has limited ammunition before it has to disengage and rearm.

I direct you to this:

Things the F-22 has that vietnam era fighters don't:
Supercruise
AESA Radar
Thrust Vectoring
All-Aspect Stealth technology
AIM-120C/AIM-120D AMRAAM, JDAM, SDB, AIM-9X
EWAR
Datalink
Infra-red/Ultraviolet MAWS
Fly-by-wire
Glass Cockpit
etc.
etc.
etc.

Half of those things didn't exist or were only just being developed at the time of Vietnam.

Show me evidence of a technology featured on GCW era starfighters not found on one 4000 BBY and I'll concede the point to you.

chaos0xomega wrote:
I direct you to this:

Saw it. Didn't buy it when you posted it, don't buy it now that you've reposted it. SW is about fantasy action adventure, not tech manuals. Fortunately, the point stands regardless. The movies make it clear that times have changed by not showing any ARC-170s or the like at any major battle of the GCW. This could change with SW Rebels (and I would bet they'd show a new variant as per the Clone Z-95) and I'd be fine with FFG adding them at that point.

Don't buy what? The nonexistence of real world technologies in use with fighters today not being in use 40 years ago?? Its kinda sorta documented fact...

In any case, thats a compromise I'm willing to agree with, though I will also caution you that the movies aren't indicative of anything, given that the at least one current ship (HWK-290) and the entirety of the oncoming wave 4 aren't depicted in the films at all (and as of the last revision GL made to the films, N-1s were incorporated, even if for only a few seconds, into Return of the Jedi), and if you are going by Expanded Universe sources, there is a slowly but steadily increasing depiction of the CW era designs being utilized in the GCW era).

chaos0xomega wrote:
Don't buy what? The nonexistence of real world technologies

No, I don't buy the existence of fictional world technologies.

chaos0xomega wrote:
though I will also caution you that the movies aren't indicative of anything

It's not that the movies don't count. They count more than anything. They are what inspired all the EU sources FFG is using after all. I obviously understand that FFG is not only using the OT content. But even the EU content cannot prove the point that the prequel ships stand a chance on the GCW-era battle-er, starfield. Again, if SW Rebs shows it as a non-mothballed Imp fighter then I'd be right there with you saying yeah put it in the game. I really like the design of the ship, although I don't think it really goes with the GCW-era design. You can tell it's supposed to be a visual bridge between the rounder, nouveau looks of the Republic and the boxy industrialism of the Empire.

Just noticed the GR-75 has a logo in the name area on its pilot card. Ominous portent of a 'Era' icon. CR-90 has one too.

However I have a new guess as to what the Imperial huge ship could be! Victory-2 Class Star Destroyer. They were the frigates for the Empire in Battlefront 2(PS2). Just a guess.

KnuckleWolf wrote:
Just noticed the GR-75 has a logo in the name area on its pilot card. Ominous portent of a 'Era' icon. CR-90 has one too.

Nope. It's the icon for the "epic" variant game where big ships are allowed, the transport isn't legal in "standard" games.

However I have a new guess as to what the Imperial huge ship could be! Victory-2 Class Star Destroyer. They were the frigates for the Empire in Battlefront 2(PS2). Just a guess.

They're way too big: 900m, compared to 150m for the corvette. Unless you completely abandon any pretense of having accurate scaling that's just way too big to be practical. You can't fit them on a reasonable table, and nobody is going to buy something that expensive.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Do you know what the word 'explicit' means? Because you're arguing that its explicitly stated that ships are obsolete (my bad phone auto-corrected to 'absolute' in that one case), except its nowhere stated explicitly that any of them are obsolete, its only INFERRED by comments saying that its old, disadvantaged, etc. etc. etc.

Sigh. Please don't resort to nitpicking like this, if a character says "wow, you guys must have robbed a museum to get those Z-95s" and the out-of-character descriptions explicitly state that they're inferior to newer fighters then it's pretty clear that the book is saying "this ship is obsolete".

Most, if not all of its contemporaries are considered obsolete, hell in some circles the MiG-21bis is considered obsolete, yet it continues to be used, and used well.

And I'm sure that somewhere there are some ARC-170s still in use, long after their original users have scrapped them, by random mercenaries/pirates/etc that can't get anything better. But that's just a sign of desperation, and that design space is already occupied by the Z-95. An ARC-170 that has poor stats and a cheap point cost would be an accurate representation of its state in the "modern" era, but the game doesn't need multiple ships with such a high overlap in role.

Of course it doesn't make it fragile (its anything but fragile if you give it a bunch of HP, but thats irrelevant, because I wasn't trying to make it fragile to begin with), but you can't equate the two either. Your HP is your wounds characteristic, and your Agility is like your save, unless you want to argue with me that those two things are interchangeable in 40k as well...

That's exactly what I'm going to tell you. In 40k wounds/toughness/save are irrelevant as individual attributes, what matters is how many shots it takes to kill a model. The AP system, which X-Wing has no direct equivalent for, makes things a bit more complicated, but if, say, you're shooting bolters at a unit whether it is composed of two-wound MEQs or one-wound TEQs is pretty much irrelevant and both units have the same total durability. So your proposal for an ARC-170 that has lots of raw HP but low agility isn't an accurate representation of the ship in the "modern" era because it's just as durable as "modern" fighters.

And your basis for this is what exactly?

Explicit canon statements saying "these ships are obsolete because they are old". Seriously, you can keep repeating all your arguments about how it "shouldn't" work like that, but the people who are in charge of deciding what happens in the Star Wars setting disagree with you and their decisions are final.

Ships are still flying around sporting laser cannons, blaster cannons, turbolasers, ion cannons, concussion missiles, and proton torpedoes.

And real-world fighter jets are still flying around sporting cannons, jet engines, and guided missiles. And yet all of these things that share the same general name have been improved so much between "generations" of fighters that the best fighters of the previous era are little more than target practice for modern fighters.

So yeah, weaponry from the clone wars is totally obsolete and useless against anything during the GCW, right?

First of all, that's a blatant strawman. I didn't say that prequel-era ships are completely useless, I said they're obsolete. An obsolete ship can still be relevant, but the design space of "low-tier but cheap" fighter is already taken up by the Z-95 and academy pilot. An ARC-170 with accurate stats for the "modern" era wouldn't be some 1/0/1/0 joke ship that has to re-roll all hits when attacking, it would be in the same general range of the Z-95's 2/2/2/2 stat line. IOW, capable of fighting in the "modern" era with meaningful results, but only with superior numbers to compensate for poor individual performance. The problem is that this design space is subject to severe diminishing returns on adding more ships to it, and much of it has already been used up. It would be difficult to add even 1-2 ships from the prequel era while still making them interesting, and impossible to appropriately represent all of them.

I haven't seen the word 'obsolete' used within the fiction in reference to anything, except maybe something that Luke might have said in A New Hope in reference to a droid, and perhaps in some Legacy era stuff (set 130 years after Yavin).

Again, please stop nitpicking like this. The exact word "obsolete" doesn't have to be used if the author just describes the concept of being obsolete in different words that make it perfectly clear what they're talking about.

Oh, no I understand that entirely, just that I've never seen an opponent actually able to derive any benefit from them worth 7 points, either through his own gakky rolling, or me being able to negate his roll via a variety of methods (for example: A-wing at range 3 throws four defense dice, A-wing at range 2 with an evade token throws 3 defense dice plus a guaranteed evade result if you burn the token). I'd say more than 80% of the time I've faced an HLC its done absolutely nothing to me, though there was one time I took 4 damage from it (despite rolling four defense dice and coming up with nothing).

No, you just don't understand how X-Wing's rules and math work. You only get the bonus range 3 defense die against primary weapons, and the HLC is not a primary weapon. So already you're talking about four attack dice vs. three defense dice from the HLC, compared to three attack dice vs. four defense dice for a primary weapon shot. Then you're also ignoring the fact that if you're defending so well against the HLC then ships with 2-3 dice primary weapons are even less likely to do anything. The HLC is indisputably a powerful weapon and worth its 7 points, and adding the ability to take four of them in a list is a very dangerous thing to do.

Show me evidence of a technology featured on GCW era starfighters not found on one 4000 BBY and I'll concede the point to you.

This isn't possible because you have a ridiculous double standard where a new and superior missile type for a real-world fighter is considered new technology instead of just "guided missiles", while anything that shoots glowy energy bolts is considered a "laser cannon" just like every other laser weapon even if the gap in performance between both pairs of weapons is proportionally the same.

Probably shouldn't have spent all that time reading the arguments but I couldn't stop for some reason!

Just going to try my hand at this...

During the 'modern' era (ie. Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back, and RotJ), if the average pilot was given a choice between piloting a X-Wing or a Z-95 Headhunter, which would they most likely pick?

Now, some pilots might pick the Z-95. But would they pick it because it is BETTER than the X-Wing or because they have some sort of emotional attachment with it or because they are more familiar with it?

Regarding the ARC-170, I was under the assumption that it was obsolete as well but looking at Wookieepedia... it doesn't really say that (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Aggressive_ReConnaissance-170_starfighter).
At one part it even says "During the Galactic Civil War, ARC-170s could be found in both Imperial and Rebel fleets, where they were considered elite craft". However looking at the reference, it refers to Star Wars Galaxies so I'm not sure how 'canon' that is then.
I always assumed that they would be worse than X-Wings mainly because they were featured in the prequels and not in the original trilogy but who knows? They may very well be on par but they couldn't field enough numbers of them? Lucas just didn't have enough time to digitally insert them into the original trilogy? Maybe they really are utter garbage and completely surpassed by X-Wings? I can't really find evidence supporting one over the other.

Oh Epic Play Icon, that would make sense!...I can has citation pls? Always like reading up on the new material! Oh and 'scuse me they aren't listed as 'Star Destroyers' but as Frigates on Wookipedia Victory-2 Frigate

Explicit canon statements saying "these ships are obsolete because they are old". Seriously, you can keep repeating all your arguments about how it "shouldn't" work like that, but the people who are in charge of deciding what happens in the Star Wars setting disagree with you and their decisions are final.

Really? Hey G-Man! Lucas! Yo George! You got anything to say about this? Oh right never mind, I forgot, the infamous 'Edits', right, I'm with it now! Go back to enjoying your billions! Hahaha! This guy man, whoooo, I'll tell ya. This guy...man, this guy...Any who, Disney owns Star Wars now so I'm not holding my breath about this 'finality' of yours y'know? As long as FFG is licensed to use the IP, it's possible they could create more, or yes modify exisitng, if it is with permission from Disney. That is kinda how ALL the EU stuff came to be after all.

I think its just a matter of what designs they had available in production. The ARC-1...., screw it let heresy bloom, the 'R-Wing' wasn't even conceived until someone walked down to the art department and said "HEY! Make us a Starfighter for Star Wars! NAOW!" during the prequel production.

Peregrine, we aren't likely to budge on this. Seriously, for the health of the internet, I think its time to agree to disagree.

KnuckleWolf wrote:
Oh Epic Play Icon, that would make sense!...I can has citation pls? Always like reading up on the new material! Oh and 'scuse me they aren't listed as 'Star Destroyers' but as Frigates on Wookipedia Victory-2 Frigate

Then whoever placed that in there doesn't understand ship classification very well in Star Wars, hehe. The Victory II should classify as a Heavy Cruiser or Star Destroyer but certainly not a Frigate. There are other cases of it being FUBAR like the 'Imperial Customs Frigate' being smaller and less capable than the 'Imperial Customs Corvette'. Even canon sources bone this up pretty bad sometimes. I remember when a Super-class Star Destroyer was a single class of vessel, now it is a sub-class of vessel with varied ships listed as examples. I also remember when the ISD's weapons were simply what was listed in books and not what you find in video games and random comic book illustrations. Blargh.

P.S - The ARC and Z-95 are old and obsolete. If not because of effectiveness but because they used older technology parts that were no longer produced and impossible/hard to acquire. There are lots of reasons for something to become obsolete or no longer produced, only one of which because it is no longer as good as newer models. Now I firmly believed that the newer models ARE simply better craft (like the X-wing), otherwise it would be cheaper to retool your machinery to make the old ARCs than start anew with X-wings for something like a fledgeling Rebellion.

Why can't they have two ships of different classes? The design of the two ships are distinct from one another. They have the Victory-2 SD listed separately. I see no problem.

P.S.S. I think its less a technology thing and more a doctrine thing....Wait...didn't I already agree to disagree LOL

 Peregrine wrote:


Sigh. Please don't resort to nitpicking like this, if a character says "wow, you guys must have robbed a museum to get those Z-95s" and the out-of-character descriptions explicitly state that they're inferior to newer fighters then it's pretty clear that the book is saying "this ship is obsolete".

"Sigh." Know what else you would have to rob a museum to find? An SR-71. Know what isn't technologically obsolete? The SR-71.

An ARC-170 that has poor stats and a cheap point cost would be an accurate representation of its state in the "modern" era, but the game doesn't need multiple ships with such a high overlap in role.

Only according to you.

That's exactly what I'm going to tell you. In 40k wounds/toughness/save are irrelevant as individual attributes, what matters is how many shots it takes to kill a model. The AP system, which X-Wing has no direct equivalent for, makes things a bit more complicated, but if, say, you're shooting bolters at a unit whether it is composed of two-wound MEQs or one-wound TEQs is pretty much irrelevant and both units have the same total durability. So your proposal for an ARC-170 that has lots of raw HP but low agility isn't an accurate representation of the ship in the "modern" era because it's just as durable as "modern" fighters.

I disagree. A low agility rating (in this case 1) puts a hard cap as to the number of dice you can successfully defend against, meaning that while in general it WILL make the ship more survivable over time, you are unlikely to block critical hits which can have a huge impact.

Explicit canon statements saying "these ships are obsolete because they are old". Seriously, you can keep repeating all your arguments about how it "shouldn't" work like that, but the people who are in charge of deciding what happens in the Star Wars setting disagree with you and their decisions are final.

You keep using that word, 'explicit,' yet it isn't at all explicitly stated. I don't think that word means what you think it means. Also, cute that you're saying that they disagree with me and their decisions are final, yet the only thing they ever say is that the ships are old, not necessarily that they are technologically inferior. Besides that, there is the simple fact that technology has been shown over the past 20-30 years of expanded universe development to have not really changed at all. Ultimately, Star Wars is space opera, not science fiction, it doesn't need to 'progress' the way you think it should, because its not grounded in any real amount of science whatsoever. Besides that, the setting is supposed to be one of stagnation, both the Republic and the repressive Empire are illustrative of this, and as much as I hate the trope, they are actually not altogether unlike the Imperium in terms of technology. Remember cloning? You know, that technology that made the Clone Wars possible? Guess what was almost entirely forgotten by the time of the GCW, and only rediscovered via fortuitous deus ex machina? Yep, cloning.

And real-world fighter jets are still flying around sporting cannons, jet engines, and guided missiles. And yet all of these things that share the same general name have been improved so much between "generations" of fighters that the best fighters of the previous era are little more than target practice for modern fighters.

The cannons remain unchanged, and for the most part so do the jet engines (in fact some of the jet engines made 50 or so years ago are more powerful and more advanced than what is in standard use today. As a matter of fact, the turbofan engines in use today on most jet aircraft were first developed in the 40s, but then discarded in favor of turbojets (which were themselves first developed in the 20s/30s) for a variety of reasons, before being picked back up again about 30 years ago). You have me on the missiles, but then when you realize the whole host of technologies that were involved in making missile use possible in the first place, and the new technologies involved in making them superior today, and then you realize that there is no parallel set of developments within the Star Wars canon, the argument falls apart. Besides that, the major difference in real world fighters happens to be in the realm of aerodynamics (something that only applies to starfighters within atmosphere, I can tell you that most of the prequel era designs are better aerodynamically than the sequel era without actually having to do any amount of aerodynamic analysis on them), generally speaking the aerodynamics of modern aircraft is superior to those from before, though this isn't universally true, and in fact many of the common airfoils in use today were first developed 50-80 years ago.

An ARC-170 with accurate stats for the "modern" era wouldn't be some 1/0/1/0 joke ship that has to re-roll all hits when attacking, it would be in the same general range of the Z-95's 2/2/2/2 stat line

Again, no, no it wouldn't. For this to be true the Z-95 and the ARC-170 would have to have laser cannons of the same or similar strength, which would in turn have to be less than that of an X-wings. What we know for certain is that the ARC-170 had more powerful laser cannons than any of its contemporaries (and they were used in an anti-capital role, implying that they have serious energy outputs). On top of that we know that the Z-95 had 2 laser cannons (or in some cases triple blasters on each wing, I think its safe to say the variant represented in game has the laser cannons) of the same manufacture as those in use on Y-wings and Lambda-class shuttles. The X-wing utilized 4 laser cannons of similar manufacture (although ostensibly more modern design based on the model number), which are stated to be more powerful than the TIE fighter equivalent. The Z-95 and Y-wing, both sporting two such cannons, have attack 2. The X-wing sporting 4 of what is apparently a more powerful design has attack 3. The TIE fighter has 2 laser cannons giving 2 attack dice, the TIE interceptor sports 4 of a more advanced laser cannon design, also giving 3 dice. The TIE advanced had 2 of the same laser cannons used by the Interceptor, and only has attack 2. From this we see a sort of 'baseline' for relative power levels of weapon design. Given that the ARC-170 has unusually large and powerful laser cannons (stated to be 'medium laser cannons' which within the star wars canon indicates a more powerful weapon than a 'laser cannon') said to be used to good effect against larger vessels, I will argue that it should spit at least 3 attack dice, given the fact that it is a much more powerful weapon than any of the weapons used by the ships that spit only 2 attack dice (although, then again, the number of dice rolled may in fact be a function of the quantity of weapons rather than the power of weapons, as the only other ship that has more than 3 dice is the Tie Defender which was equipped with 4 of the Interceptors laser cannons plus 2 ion cannons (which were sometimes replaced with additional lasers)).

Similarly, we know that the ARC-170 was not as maneuverable as a Z-95, but we know for a fact (based on numbers stated within star wars tech manuals) that the ARC-170 had the same speed as an X-wing, and the acceleration greater than a B-wing and almost the same as a Y-wing. We also know that the ARC-170 had tremendously efficient shields (though we have no real metric to compare it to, other than knowing they were more powerful than a Z-95, and possibly similar to a Y-wing, also keep in mind that the X-wing and the Z-95 have the same shield stat, so a 3 for shields isn't out of the question)and that it was well armored, and on top of that was large...


The V-wing is about the size of a TIE fighter, unfortunately I couldn't find a comparison of the ARC-170 to anything relevant like a Z-95 or a Y-wing size wise, but I believe it would be perhaps a bit smaller than a y-wing and obviously larger than an x-wing (2.5m longer in fact).

IN addition to the obvious issues that all the in-universe canon (in this circumstance at least) presents for your argument that an ARC-170 should be a piece-o-gak (given that, once again, it and other similar starfighters operate in similar performance envelopes, and given that in this case the ARC-170 is known to be more effective vs. larger ships/a heavy hitter), there is also the issue of the impact of progression. For technological advancement to have the impact you seem to describe, an older vessel would have to be inferior to a GCW era one in just about every metric, and yet, actually comparing vessels and known performance measures tells us otherwise. An Aurek fighter (from KOTOR era) for example has a speed in vacuum of 160MGLT... an X-wing has one of 100MGLT... to illustrate, an A-wing, the current gold-standard for speed, has a top speed of 120MGLT, so clearly the Old Republic was capable of building engines that far outperform those used 4000 years later. That same fighter also sported a pair of heavy laser cannons and two proton torpedo launchers with 6 torps. Now, I suppose you could argue that the heavy laser cannons of 4000 BBY are the equivalent of a laser cannon as of 0 BBY, but that would be like arguing that a WW2 era .50 cal is only as powerful as a modern day .30 cal... now, I *might* be able to buy an argument like that, except that from things referenced in the books and films we have a rough understanding of the amount of energy these weapons can pack, and its so high that any actual difference would have no real impact on practical performance (otherwise we would run into serious issues of scale, where a GCW era fighter would, theoretically, be capable of single handedly vaporizing a KOTOR era cruiser. BTW, those Aurek class fighters were in service for over 3000 years, which implies, over that period of time at least, there were no real practical developments in technology. Is it possible that things suddenly started progressing again around 1000 BBY? I suppose so, but I wouldn't really count on it, given that the 3000 years or so that it was in service for the Republic found itself to be more or less perpetually at war, whereas the 1000 years or so afterwards were relatively peaceful, generally speaking you see more progress during wartime than peacetime (at least in the real world).

Again, please stop nitpicking like this. The exact word "obsolete" doesn't have to be used if the author just describes the concept of being obsolete in different words that make it perfectly clear what they're talking about.

Stop describing things as being explicitly stated then when they clearly aren't.

No, you just don't understand how X-Wing's rules and math work. You only get the bonus range 3 defense die against primary weapons, and the HLC is not a primary weapon. So already you're talking about four attack dice vs. three defense dice from the HLC, compared to three attack dice vs. four defense dice for a primary weapon shot. Then you're also ignoring the fact that if you're defending so well against the HLC then ships with 2-3 dice primary weapons are even less likely to do anything. The HLC is indisputably a powerful weapon and worth its 7 points, and adding the ability to take four of them in a list is a very dangerous thing to do.

Learned something new today, good to know for future use. Regardless of that, its been my experience that 2/3 dice is still frustratingly low for general gameplay. My opponents and I regularly run 150 point games that take up to 4 to 5 hours to complete despite going at a pretty decent pace. Most of our attempts to shoot one another turn up absolutely nothing in terms of actual results (we have a nasty habit of completely negating one anothers rolls).

This isn't possible because you have a ridiculous double standard where a new and superior missile type for a real-world fighter is considered new technology instead of just "guided missiles", while anything that shoots glowy energy bolts is considered a "laser cannon" just like every other laser weapon even if the gap in performance between both pairs of weapons is proportionally the same.

No, because I can point at all the things that make an AIM-9X superior to an AIM-9, for example like infrared focal plane arrays, joint helmet mounted cuing system compatability, 3D thrust vectoring control, and lock after use, all of which are technologies that came about well after the initial introduction of the AIM-9 sidewinder in the '50s. There is no double standard there, there is an actual understanding that there were a lot of technological developments involved in related fields that lead to the improved weaponry we have today. Those same sorts of improvements are not shown to have occurred in Star Wars, you can argue that its simply because the writers haven't depicted it, in which case I would have to argue that that is an invalid argument based on some of your other attempts to rationalize the canon from a seemingly literalist approach.

P.S - The ARC and Z-95 are old and obsolete. If not because of effectiveness but because they used older technology parts that were no longer produced and impossible/hard to acquire. There are lots of reasons for something to become obsolete or no longer produced, only one of which because it is no longer as good as newer models. Now I firmly believed that the newer models ARE simply better craft (like the X-wing), otherwise it would be cheaper to retool your machinery to make the old ARCs than start anew with X-wings for something like a fledgeling Rebellion.

Your first part I would agree with, i.e. - old/'obsolete' because of lack of production, etc. Much in the same way that you can consider an SR-71 to be obsolete owing to the fact that the production tools were destroyed to prevent future manufacture despite having more technologically advanced optic sensors, engines, and airframe than any other known aircraft out there. The second part I would debate, as the X-wing and the ARC-170 fulfilled different roles entirely, and the X-wing/Z-95, while fulfilling the same role, were designed with different opponents and considerations entirely. It's like arguing that an F-22 is a better aircraft than a B-2... I mean, you could make that argument if you were discussing it from the perspective of a fighter aircraft, but if you shift the prism of perspective to the bomber role, the F-22 doesn't hold a candle to a B-2.

As for re-tooling your machinery to make old ARCs in lieu of an X-wing, theres a simple argument not do so: money. It costs money to keep production lines going, and (at least in the real world) once demand for something ends, theres no reason to keep that production line open, thats why the F-22 production line has been shut down entirely (because the only customer isn't purchasing them any longer) despite it being a better air-superiority fighter than anything else on the market, and the likely reason we will never build another one of them, despite the fact that the F-15, F-16, and F-18 production lines are still open and producing new airframes, despite being largely inferior designs.

Beyond that, just look at automobiles. There is little difference between a 2001 Honda Civic and a 2010 Honda Civic (I'm sure there are better comparisons to be made, but thats what I got to work with) performance wise, most of the difference is in the exterior styling, and amenities (audio hookup vs. cassette player, etc.). If someone gave you the option to buy a 2001 at MSRP, you'd probably turn your nose up and say what an old piece of junk, etc. and instead opt to put the MSRP down on the new 2010 instead, despite the fact that your actual on-road performance, mileage, anti-lock brakes, etc. would largely be the same.

Basically, its entirely possible and within reason that the ARC went out of vogue after the Republic stopped buying them (instead focusing on lighter Clone Z-95s), prompting Incom to shut down the production line, and develop a new design that it could then sell for more money in the future.

Resize your photo.

errr... how? I just linked it from elsewhere.

chaos0xomega wrote:
errr... how? I just linked it from elsewhere.

Upload it into photoshop, imagshack, or here on Dakka.

Huh, I guess the forum auto-resized?

Also, just going to throw it out there: look at the Z-95 objectively, from a design standpoint, the four immediate things that should jump out and grab you:

The X-wing has bigger engines
The X-wing has twice as many guns
The X-wing has an astromech
The X-wing is larger (implying more room for advanced systems)

Well, huh, no wonder its a better fighter... But you know what? None of those features speak to superior technology, just a better design, especially considering that you can find ships with bigger engines,more guns, astromechs, larger size, etc. etc. etc. throughout the timeline, though admittedly none of them are necessarily the package deal that the x-wing is (which is why the design was so successful, because it was a perfect blend of various performance measures to give it longetivity against much more modern designs that emphasized differing performance characteristics).

@Chaos: That last post was the reasoning we should be looking at. I wanted to say it myself but as long as it's stated I don't care. Specifically when for all the supposed tech upgrades to the lasers and having two more besides, the X-wing and Z-95 are only different by ONE in the firepower stat. That's a lot of stuff to account for in a single die.

Well, the X-wing has better hull as well IIRC, but that is explainable by the slightly larger size and slightly thicker armor plating... imagine that!

Speed/maneuver wise, the X-wing is known to be faster and more agile, however the Z-95 is stated to be capable of tighter turns than the X-wing is.

All of which are also not surprising considering the changes between the two. This seals it. Can we go back to postulating what wave 5 will have for a 'Huge' ship?

Huge ship ala the blockade runner and transport? I don't think those will be in a wave, rather one of the intermediate releases (like the Imperial/Rebel Aces and the Transport/Blockade Runner), I think the waves will strictly stay fighter/small craft, though I could be wrong.

My money's on the Outrider, maybe the Virago, maybe a Skipray Blastboat.

I'd like to see the IG-2000.

I'd part with cash for a skipray...

 Eggs wrote:
I'd part with cash for a skipray...

Agreed.

 Manchu wrote:
My money's on the Outrider, maybe the Virago, maybe a Skipray Blastboat.

I'd like to see the IG-2000.

I'd like to see any of these ships, though I dont understand why everyone is clamoring for a Skipray Blastboat, I mean its armed to the teeth, but its not exactly... I dunno, visually appealing I guess would be the term? Like its ugly... and not in the sexy way like an A-10 warthog

Skipray looks fine to me. It's not the Suncrusher.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Like its ugly...

Agreed but no moreso than the fugly HWK-290, which showcases all of the foibles of 90s video cards.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Platuan4th wrote:
Skipray looks fine to me. It's not the Suncrusher.

Or the K-Wing, blarg.

I'd party with lots of moneys for Skiprays...yes...I'd certainly buy more than one.

@chaos - You are right as to the roles of the craft, so I agree that the X-wing might not be the perfect comparison. I also agree that the X-wing was obviously a better craft than the Clone Z-95 which is why it was probably not looked at.

As to the idea for production, I fully disagree. It would have been MUCH easier for Incom to have supplied the Rebels with established ARC machines and tooling than to have given them a brand new design and make it into production with material support. I do fleet logistics for a living, trust me when I say that with the Rebel's need for cost-effective and easy to access craft...if the ARC wasn't inferior in quality/ability in general...it would be there in lieu of at least one of the major craft used by the Rebellion(whichever one you want to assume the ARC could take on the role of).