Warheads in XWA.. Too powerful?

[K_Kinnison]

Lets add some discussion here.

 

As i grew up playing SW RPG (pencil, paper, and dice kind) one thing that allways struck me about Torps and missiles were thier short trange compared to lasers. msot of the time lasers would have a range of 25, while Missiles would have a max range of 9

 

Then all of a sudden, when playing X-wing, my missilse had a range taht went BEYOND My lasers, and were more of a fire and forget type of weapon.

 

It also made the AI a LOT tougher.. it got so in missions you would ALLWAYs go after the ships with missiles just for Self-preservation.

 

Just want to hear what ppl think about them

[Admiral Odin]

I would say they are good. Think about it modern missiles can be fired and forgotten. I think in SW the same thing shoudl happen. I was surprised by the range you said. I always thought of it this way Lasers=guns, torpedoes=missiles.

 

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"Dulce bellum inexpertis."

(Sweet is war to those who have never experinced it.) Roman Proverb

[Guest Redwing]

We all know what RPGs like to do with "reality" and I don't think Star Wars technology would be less advanced than ours...btw however they ARE very effective short-range weapons, a good tactic in XWA is to chase an enemy till you're right on top of him and dumbfire your missiles straight at him (unfortunately if you're not fast you take shield damage )

 

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At last we will reveal ourselves to the Jedi.

At last we will have revenge.

[Keyan Farlander]

I think the missiles and torpedos are just right. I think the heavy rockets can be a bit too powerful if you are allowed to carry too many of them, though. I remember several times in XWA and also in TIE Fighter when I heavy rocketed a major capital ship out of existence and then had nothing to do for 10 minutes while the rest of my guys finished up their missions. Heavy bombs usually never caused a problem like that, because you couldn't carry too many of them.

 

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Keyan Farlander

 

"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers."

- Bill Gates

 

 

[K_Kinnison]

Let me add something here.. which is solely my opinion.

 

I know that we look at our Moderan Era weopons as an Example. What were are forgetting is why we have developed fire-and forget missiles in the first place.

 

It started with Planes that had a hard time going faster then 200 mph. With weopons that traveled over 700 mph.. that seemed the best method.

 

As planes became faster... guns or cannons became less effective. So the Missiels was invented for the sheer purpose of going faster then guns or cannons, thus having a longer range and a better K/D ratio. Missiles are now effective at about 10 miles or more. WIth guns having an effective range of around 500 meters.

 

Now.. we look at SW. We have the mainstay weapons of "lasers". that travel at a significant fraction of the speed of light. As far was we know, there is no ship in the Star Wars univesre that can out run a laser bolt. Well, at least in real-space.

 

The best evidance of the use of progectile weapons used in Space for SW is the Torpedoes fired at the thermal Exaust port in ANH. The Concusion missisel fired that the Reactor in RotJ. And Anakin firing the Torpedo to another reactor in TPM.

 

From these examples we can make an assumption of the Torps/missiles, have a relitivly short range. Very little self guidance (since they go straight) And are used very little.

 

Now the reason *i* think Lukes torps turned like that in ANH was that the Torps were pre-programed to follow a Set cousre.. they only needed to be launched at a certain Distance, and at the exact time needed to corectly go down the port. Too late, or Too soon, and you have a big explosion in the trench. Jsut right, and it goes down the chute. This might explain why Luke was able to do it without a targeting computer. he "sensed" when the right time could be. But everyone else had to rely on the computer to know when to fire the buttons. Due to the speeds, and distractions. The window of opportunity could ave been hundreths of a second. very hard for a human to correctly measure that .

 

Tho on the other side.. why couldn't they pre-program the lanchers, and targeting comp to work together. Oh.. yeah..Luke couldn't have saved the day them

 

I think the Torps and missiles should have a much shorter range. maybe .5km or so. But allow them an increased manuverbility., and higher speed.

[Guest garyah99]

Yeah, there ar a couple of ways to look at it; K's right in the ANH scenario; if missiles and Torps could be programmed to track a target from a great distance, why did they have have to fire them point blank?...but then again, don't forget the turrets in the trench could have shot down torpedos fired from 2.5 kms away, plus the Tie's in the area. By the same token, however, I believe that Star Wars is intended to reflect the dogfighting styles of aerial combat around the second world war. Back then, they didn't have guided missiles, just dumb fire bombs. The P-51's, Avengers, and other WW2 aircraft relied on guns for aerial combat and CAS missions. If Lucasarts has decide to "cross the technology line" for the sake of the game play, then I can live with that. I think the missiles and Torpedos are powerful enough, but if they are intended as a "fire and forget" weapon like today's guided missiles, they should track for a much longer period of time. Missiles today are accurate (depending on the type of missile, heat seeking, radar aspect seeking, etc) to distances of up to 25 miles, or even further in some cases. That is why Ships carry gatling guns; to shoot down incoming missiles from aircraft at long distances. There was also a very good point made, in that lasers (or phasers, in the case of Star Trek), can travel at, or very close to the speed of light, so a hit on an enemy fighter or cap ship should be almost instantaneous. I can understand limited range with laser weapons because of focal point distance, after a certain distance a focused beam disapates, thereby rendering it useless. But a missile or torpedo woudl be effective from a much farther distance.

[Guest Redwing]

In ANH, the torpedoes had to be carefully conserved for as many shots as possible at the exhaust port. Plus proton torpedoes were in short supply for the Alliance at that time, due to their cost.

 

On the other hand SW lasers are not actually true lasers, in any case; they are bolts of coherent energy.

 

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At last we will reveal ourselves to the Jedi.

At last we will have revenge.

[Guest Fondas]

I'll underline Redwing's statement about "lasers". in that aspect, LA kept the energy bolts concept, which explains the need of deflection shots. Otherwise laser wold have reached instantaneously the target, at least in such close ranges.

 

As for Gary's comment, it's totaly true that George had WWII in his mind when creating the space dogfights. Maybe that's the reason behind early P&P RPG statistics.

 

Maybe Lucas was thinking of torpedos as unguided missiles , while TG prefered the AMRAAM versions

 

To think of it, in a society where space travel technology is common, it's rather curious NOT to have highly sophisticated missiles.

 

The problem with XWA is that it doesn't utilize proper anti-fighter tactics , thus making the destruction of ImpStars way to easy.

 

 

 

[Gold leader]

Originally posted by Fondas:

To think of it, in a society where space travel technology is common, it's rather curious NOT to have highly sophisticated missiles.

 

You can say that again. I mean, they can't even evade obstacles on their way to the target.

 

The problem with XWA is that it doesn't utilize proper anti-fighter tactics , thus making the destruction of ImpStars way too easy.

 

Don't forget that I cannot be too hard, because the ISD's are not anti-starfighter platforms like Corellian Gunships or Lancer Frigates.

 

 

[Primarch]

Originally posted by Gold leader:

Don't forget that I cannot be too hard, because the ISD's are not anti-starfighter platforms like Corellian Gunships or Lancer Frigates.

 

 

They made the ISD's weaker for gameplay only.

A single X-Wing theoretically could not even dent an ISD. The lasers would not be powerful enough to penetrate shields designed to withstand bombardments by TurboLasers (IIRC, in all the SW books I have read the only instances of fighters destroying ISD's were through the use of Torpedoes etc...or the occasional suicidal A-Wing pilot!)

For example a WWII fighter could not sink a WWII Battleship by just using its guns, it would run out of bullets long before it made any impact on the status of the ship, however, with missiles/bombs it would have a chance.

As for the ISD not being an anti-starfighter platform, if you discount the inability of the in-game AI to make a deflection shot, try flying at a distance of 1k from the broadside of an ISD and see if you make it!

 

If you want to make the game realistic, edit the ISD so it has ten times the hull and shield strength and play on Hard!! See if your puny X-Wing can survive that!!

 

 

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...A battered and bloody Chewie regained his footing, stood up high on a pile of rubble, and faced the descending moon with arms upraised and a defiant roar.

[Guest Hannibal]

On the topic of Capital ships...

 

I think a dedicated anti-capital ship weapon, mounted only on capital ships, should've been developed for X-Wing. It seems ludicrous to me to have enormous spaceships maneuver to a comparatively tiny range against each other and exchange what amounts to machine gun fire. This type of capital ship combat completely throws large ships and fighters out of proportion(in reference to naval combat in, say, WWII). Instead, turbolasers should be exclusively anti-fighter weapons and a much longer range projectile(though lasers are effectively projectile weapons) weapon which can dish out serious punishment but is not fast enough to engage fighters. Armed with such a weapon, capital ships could fight at longer ranges and be more clearly defined as mainly anti-capital ship or mainly anti-fighter. Thus, despite its monstrous proportions(remember that starfighters need no runway space), the Star Destroyer becomes a carrier because of the large amounts of fighters it can carry, as does the Calamari Cruiser. What do Corvettes and Frigates become? Arm them with the new anti-ship weapon and they become battleships, or leave them as they are and they become mere gunboats.

[Guest garyah99]

I completely agree, but I think TG accomplished this with Heavy Rockets and Space Bombs. Fighters can only cary a couple of these (like todays fighters), but Cap ships would be able to carry many more. They would be hihgly effective against other Cap ships, but are too slow to bother a fighter. What I would like to see is something that parallels a Cruise missile. It could be fired from a great distance, have great homing capability, carry a maximal yield, but could be shot down by effective fighters, or AAA.

[Gold leader]

Originally posted by Primarch:

As for the ISD not being an anti-starfighter platform, if you discount the inability of the in-game AI to make a deflection shot, try flying at a distance of 1k from the broadside of an ISD and see if you make it!

 

If you want to make the game realistic, edit the ISD so it has ten times the hull and shield strength and play on Hard!! See if your puny X-Wing can survive that!!

 

Three words: The Force Run

 

http://www.xwingalliance.com/forums/Forum4/HTML/000960.html

 

 

[Primarch]

Originally posted by Gold leader:

Three words: The Force Run

 

And allow me to re-quote what I said...

Originally posted by Primarch:

...if you discount the inability of the in-game AI to make a deflection shot

 

If the AI could make a deflection shot then the Force Run would not work on an ISD. The only reason the Force Run works is because the AI is dumb!

 

 

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...A battered and bloody Chewie regained his footing, stood up high on a pile of rubble, and faced the descending moon with arms upraised and a defiant roar.

[Guest Ajim]

If anti-starfighter You Want

PLAY FREESPACE2 and See if U can Survive Those Dreaded Flak Canons and Beam Canons

 

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!!!I just Won The Game!!!

[Guest garyah99]

Freespace 2 is on my list of favourite all time games. I'm HIGHLYdisappointed that there will not be a Freespace 3.

[Guest Cloud]

Personally I think proton torpedos should be more powerful with the exception that it would keep on traveling straight and it can't turn and track a target. I mean the A-Wings only used 8 concussion missles (appeared as 4, but they are linked) to take out a Super Star Destroyer shield generator. How many concussion missles do we need to use in XWA to take out a SSD's SG? I don't know never tried it, but I'm guessing 16 or something.

[Primarch]

Originally posted by Cloud:

...I mean the A-Wings only used 8 concussion missles (appeared as 4, but they are linked) to take out a Super Star Destroyer shield generator.

The problem with that example is we do not know exactly what kind of damage was already inflicted on the domes.

For instance we know that the SSD was already under consentrated fire from the Rebel Fleet at that time, so the domes may already have been on the verge of collapsing when the A-Wings managed to zip in a finish them off (hence only 8 CM's being needed).

How many concussion missles do we need to use in XWA to take out a SSD's SG?

Not gotta clue, never wasted them on the domes before.

 

 

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...A battered and bloody Chewie regained his footing, stood up high on a pile of rubble, and faced the descending moon with arms upraised and a defiant roar.

[JR2000Z]

Well, the A-Wings attacked the domes just after the 'destroy the SSD' order from Ackbar. And I couldnt imagine the turo lazers from the Rebel capital ships to be accurate to hit it dead on.

[MadPilot]

I don't know why you all insist on comparing the games to the movies. One of the game developers obviously didn't agree with certain technical details and ignored them for the sake of gameplay, or maybe they didn't even notice that the dogfights in the movie only used missiles at short range.

[Guest garyah99]

Most denizens of this forum compare the games to the movies because we are die hard Star Wars fans, and insist on the games being as close to actual Star Wars canon as possible. Sure, game developers take some libertys for the sake of game play, but by and large, if the the game doesn't follow Star Wars rules, it isn't really a Star Wars game.

[Lt. Horn]

I think that Luke's torpedoes did that because the were following a set course too. Also the Death Star probably had some what of a gravitational pull so that could have helped it.

[K_Kinnison]

If the DS was 120km of 50% solid Steel, it would have less gravitaional effect then our moon. and certainly would have not been able to significantly effect a Torpedoe going 400+ km/h

[Lt. Horn]

O ok. Just a tought.