A question about rebel frigates.

[maareek]

I was wondering if it is a bug that rebel frigates turn one of their sides to the

 

direction in which the enemy (they have been ordered to attck) lies. The

 

problem is that by acting that way the ships use only half of their lasers to

 

attack and that way the fire power is reduced by 50% (half the lasers do

 

nothing). That way its almost impossible to get 100% of the potential firepower

 

focused on the enemy space station or a single frigate and its simply very

 

annoying.

 

I would appreciate a response.

[maareek]

Anyone?

[stingerhs]

simple: it references a broadside attack like the old wooden ships of the line back before WWI.

 

and even if it isn't the reason, it still makes sense, at least for the Nebulons, since only two batteries can target a single ship due to its design.

 

and, this would be the wrong forum to post this in.

[conmanguyler]

yeh i get this, when ever i have an assault frigate and i order it 2 attack a VSD (as an example), it will turn sideways and then start shooting, it cant face forward! stupid game, to solve this i got all my frigates doing that attack move, telling them 2 go 2 some coordinates and attack everything on the way, the problem with that is that, they sometimes attack the fighters and waste their firepower

[wuyanxu]

it's not stupid game, it is because that makes it look more realistic. (well, assault frigates are a bit small, but Mon Cal. should do it when againest a ISD. or Home one should do the broadside againest an ISD)

im sure that you've seen at the start of Ep3, where the ships just line up next to each other and exchange lazers. that's what the game trying to do.

[conmanguyler]

yeh im sure that would work if you had a ship that was twice the size of the target, cause then it makes it look more powerful, taking on an SD using only half the firepower it posses,but an assault frigate shouldnt do that, it just gets owned

[arkodeon]

Can I remind that in Episode Three the Venators and the CIS ships were all adjacent to eachother? They all fired broadside against eachother.

 

Therefore, I only think it is correct that some Star Wars ships, like the Nebulon B design, must broadside, because it would be impossible for batteries on the sides of the Nebulon B to fire forward.

[MistenTH]

Except that the Nebulon-B can actually fire forward. And the 2 forward guns are turbolasers. The rear 2 are lightweight laser cannons. Which would you rather be focusing on an enemy capital ship?

[Heavyarms]

These guys sort of have a legitimate point, although they are missing it slightly. If they truly want to use broadside combat in EAW( which is perfectly fine to me), then make sure the ships have enough cannons strategically placed on their hulls in order to make it more realistic. The ship does point a weak and a strong cannon broadside, where you might get a more powerful arc forward. The problem with doing that is you are leading yourself to get beat from behind. The Neb-B has less hardpoints than the Acclamator and fewer weapons, but it is quicker and has that really nice shield power. Just got to know how to use it.

[wedge2211]

yeh im sure that would work if you had a ship that was twice the size of the target, cause then it makes it look more powerful, taking on an SD using only half the firepower it posses,but an assault frigate shouldnt do that, it just gets owned

It's not about showing off and using "half the firepower it posses [sic]," it's about using that firepower most effectively. As previously mentioned, broadside exchanges became standard in naval combat when ships of the line carried the vast majority of their cannons mounted sideways. The ships had to turn sideways to bring the maximum number of guns to bear on an enemy. Now, while these Star Wars spacecraft are certainly far more advanced, they are still limited by things like the shape of the ship's hull and the ability of the cannon turrets to swivel and track targets. It may be that on an Assault Frigate Mk. II, the forward turbolaser turrets don't actually swivel far enough forward to have overlapping fields of fire, thus making broadside attacks more effective than frontal attacks, not less.

 

The only ships in which a broadside volley would actually be less effective than a frontal attack are the Imperial cruisers--Acclamators and Star Destroyers--because the wedge shape of those vessels give all their side-mounted turrets forward firing arcs. However, those firing arcs leave the ship vulnerable from behind (I've played a couple interesting games of cat and mouse with Captain Piett, taking advantage of this blind spot). Although, these ships are designed for the Empire, so having all guns face forward and little protection in the rear doesn't surprise me.

[wuyanxu]

.....

The only ships in which a broadside volley would actually be less effective than a frontal attack are the Imperial cruisers--Acclamators and Star Destroyers--because the wedge shape of those vessels give all their side-mounted turrets forward firing arcs. However, those firing arcs leave the ship vulnerable from behind (I've played a couple interesting games of cat and mouse with Captain Piett, taking advantage of this blind spot). Although, these ships are designed for the Empire, so having all guns face forward and little protection in the rear doesn't surprise me.

i agree, these should be facing forward and attack.

 

the only ones that should face side ways is Home One, but it doesnt, which is ironic

[gswift]

The comparison to historical naval combat is a good one. With the proper manuvering, Rebel ships can use superior speed and turning radius to get behind SD's. Just like the ships of old, SD's are vulnerable at the stern. Anyone who leaves rebel frigates and cruisers standing in front of a SD better have vastly superior numbers. However, a single assault frigate can actually do quite well when attacking from the stern. A SD can't move backwards, so it's not like it's going to back up and squish you. lol

[Ali1392]

i think they do this because then if they get one side destroyed they turn and unlesh another volly its just to bad you cant see each hit like ep3 when the ven and prov are next to each other i know this would be hard but it would be cool

[conmanguyler]

yeh i get your point,but the nebulon-b frigate canfire forwards, as mentioned earlier, there is no point in it turning side on, and you cant relly do that broadside manouvre, cause all of the imperials face forwards and fire at you, they keep turning, whenever you try to go to the side. for example, i told an mon cal 2 do the attack move and get it 2 go right past the stupid ISD, but the ISD turned and the monn cal passed over the top and didnt shoot the bloody thing, it decided to attack the fighters

[wedge2211]

You can give an attack order and then a move order, instead of using attack-move. Right-click the Star Destroyer to designate it as a target and then right-click on the space behind it to order you ship to move while attacking.

 

It's also worth noting that you can spin ships in place by putting the cursor over them and holding the right mouse button down, moving the mouse a little away until the green directional arrow appears, turning the arrow until it faces the desired direction, and releasing the right mouse button. So if you really want that Nebulon-B to face forwards, you can keep spinning it to face forwards every time it tries to turn broadside.

[maareek]

Actually its possible for nebulon and mk2 firgates to focus all of their weapons

 

on 1 single hardpoint. The point is that it never does that when you order it to

 

attack that hardpoint( only when i let a singel frigate move torward the enemy

 

ship it uses its full firepower on a singel closest hardpoint). this means with

 

micro its actually possible to take out enemy ships two times faster but its way

 

to hard to do with large fleets.

[Det. Bart Lasiter]

I always though that the ISDs (or any of the other ships for that matter, though the ISDs in particular) turning to the side was kind of cool-looking. I reminded me of the scene in KotOR when

Taris was bombarded by the Sith fleet.

Though I suppose one could fix this if/when we can modify the Lua scripts that handle the AI.

[shadowsfm]

my victory sd dont turn on its side. maybe becouse of me using max fire power

[wedge2211]

VSDs have all their cannons mounted on the bow. They're designed to approach head-on and 'punch' enemy ships, not set up a broadside volley.

[Thrawn]

That's why the Empire introduced the modified neb-b frigate with the wings on the front. They saw the regular frigates needed an extra boost.

 

If you try attacking a regular frigate versus a modified one in any of the X-wing games, it's much harder to find a blind spot on the modified one to exploit.