Random Thoughts on Rebel Landing Bays

[Rhedd-5]

Yep, a lot of Rebel ships have landing bays.

 

Nope, Rebel ships don't have bays in the game.

 

Yep, almost all mods add landing bays to Rebel ships, first thing.

 

Nope, Petroglyph isn't even slightly wrong for not including them.

 

My thought on the matter is, just because you have landing bays doesn't mean you use them IN combat.

 

If you know anything about early, WWII aircraft carrier warfare, you know that catching a carrier with its planes on the deck made for a REALLY bad day for the carrier. Launching fighters is a process that leaves everyone vulnerable.

 

The Empire doesn't have a choice about this. Their TIEs don't have hyperdrives, so they have to launch them "in the field". Besides, if a few of them get nailed on the way out of the hangar, who cares?

 

Rebels, however, go out of their way to pick fighter craft that are versitile and safe for them, and they all have hyperdrives... so they use them.

 

Those X-Wings no doubt sit in a comfy Nebulon-B when not in combat, but the Rebels are smart enough to launch them, and THEN hyperspace into the combat zone.

 

Like I said; Just something I realized thinking about this.

[EAWFAN]

every thing is true but still the rebs should at least have a group of x wings ar A-wings or there frigates and mon cals would get wasted by imperial bombers.

[thedoctor44]

I agree - rebels shouldn't have hangar bays. To my memory, even in Episode VI, fighters launched from their mother ships BEFORE they jumped to hyperspace, so it fits in with Star Wars history.

[MistenTH]

Although gameplay wise, it makes for more epic battles since fighters are constantly present even if you screw up the opening move.

[Rhedd-5]

Oh, I wasn't really discussing whether they should or shouldn't have them, I was just sharing reasons why it was fine that they don't.

 

I personally love what the devs did by making TIEs free and unlimited, and forcing the Rebels to pay for ships. It means that as the Rebels, you care about casualties, but as the Empire, you just throw them in the line of fire without a thought. Just the way it should be. ^_^

 

Now, the one thing I will say is that my support for Rebels not having garrisoned fighers is based on a game where I've taken out all the not-seen-in-movies, dedicated anti-fighter crap. Yep, I said crap. ^_^

 

It's not very much like Star Wars to have a whole fleet of X-wings come out of hyperspace into a barrage of missiles and get instantly blown to smithereens.

 

True story: My entire main attack fleet, including Home One, accidentally ambushed a lone Broadside cruiser (before I removed them from my game). Knowing how nasty they are, I sensibly kept my fighters in the rear, and led with the capital ships (not very Star Wars-esque) The entire battle lasted literally four seconds before the Broadside was ionized.

 

My losses? Twenty-four X-wings and five Y-wings.

 

That was the day I modded them out for good. ^_^

 

The way to get cool fighter battles isn't to artificially introduce endless supplies of fighters, but to get rid of the unneeded ships that wipe them out in the first moments of battle.

[MistenTH]

I tried exactly that. Removed Tartans/Corellian Vettes and the Artillery ships...and the game totally changed.

 

Fighters can only be killed efficiently by other fighters, so they are buzzing around more often, pretty nice.

 

And considering that in all the movies / books fighters can pretty much go where they please and last a long time, this simple change really made a big difference into what we're familiar with.

 

If I have the time I might play with this, just gotta figure out what to do with the tartan and corellian corvette.

 

Update: Whee! 300+ individual starfighters and only 6-7 capital ships on each side. Even when the Space Station went boom lots of fighters were still dogfighting

[Rhedd-5]

^_^

 

Well, I can tell you what I did with the corvette, at least. I just had to keep that one. It's the very first ship you see in the movies, so it definitely deserves a place in the game.

 

I took away four of it's cannons that it shouldn't even have, leaving only the top and bottom turrets. I would've left it with only two guns, but it seems that each turret has two points it fires from (each barrel) so it looks better having four.

 

(If you want to know, the top and bottom turrets are hardpoints #1, 2, 4, and 5. Took me FOREVER to work that out.)

 

Then I drastically reduced it's accuracy against fighters. DRASTICALLY. I think I set it to 70 instead of the default 1. Now it actually misses sometimes, wow!

 

The really interesting change, though, was that I gave its guns a 360 degree fire arc. This made a huge difference to how the ship plays, and really added some tactics, in my opinion. Now you can use its speed to do flybys on slower ships, firing the whole time. It doesn't have to turn to face it's target.

 

How was it firing on the pursuing Star Destroyer in the first scene if it had to turn to face its target? We'll never know. ^_^

 

The Tartan I slowed drastically (it could outrun a torpedo!), reduced its weapon fire time by half, upped its inaccuracy, and made it non-buildable. It's still produced as a garrison unit by stations, as suits its "system patrol" status, but it can't be taken along on offensives. The Empire uses big Star Destroyers for that, not pitzy little ships!

 

The Marauder and Broadside I just removed completely. Missiles. Yuck. ^_^

 

Anyway, great thing about this game is that one man's solution doesn't have to work for everyone, but that worked for me.

[Heavyarms]

We actually have a thread going in the galactic discussion forum about rebel fighters in hangar bays. Saw your title and thought you should take a look at it.