Whatever happened to the B-wings?

[joesdomain]

You see them in Return of the Jedi at Battle of endor then you never see them again. Lucasarts never used them in Tie Fighter games or X-wing games. I checked force commander and it is not in there. They aren't in Rogue Squadron. I don't think they are in Rebellion or X-wing Alliance. All Lucasarts video games have X-wing, Y-wings, A-wings, V-wings, Airspeeder, Millenium Falcon, etc. but never a B-wing. It is strangest and coolest looking fighter of the rebel alliance. It is the most powerful of the Rebel fighters. I just wish there was a game devoted to it or you could choose it. It is in the scenario editor as a toy box unit but that stinks. You can't build them in single player mode or multiplayer. You can use them in campaigns but that is it. If an expansion pack does come out or a sequel I hope they don't leave it out again. What do you guys think? Yes I have talked about B-wings before and you may think I am repeating myself but I thought it was a good topic.

[Compa_Mighty]

They're in the Scenario Editor and in Rogue Leader

[joesdomain]

I know they are in the scenario editor and they are toy box units. That is the problem with toy box units! Units like B-wings should not be toy box units because they can be unique units in the rebels airbase in an expansion pack or sequel. Plus they were regular fighters and the most powerful fighters after empire strikes back. They never really made a game for B-wings. Rogue Leader is a Gamecube game I think. I only play PC games and there is no other game that devotes B-wings as it's aircraft for the game.

[jedi3112]

The B-Wing is in X-Wing alliance and it's flyable. Most of the fighters are flyable in skirmish and multiplayer anyway. Those that are not flyable can be changed to flyable using shiplist (change nonflyable to flyable). This way you can also take command of a SSD however it can only fire forward and turns very slow. In CC I also think they should make the gunship a unique republic unit

[Admiral Odin]

Originally posted by joesdomain

They aren't in Rogue Squadron. I don't think they are in Rebellion or X-wing Alliance. All Lucasarts video games have X-wing, Y-wings, A-wings, V-wings, Airspeeder, Millenium Falcon, etc. but never a B-wing.

 

Have you actually Played the X-wing series? The B-wing was in every installment, from the Orginal to XWA. XvT, lacked one but in a expansion LA fixed that mistake (they are all flyable I might add) Want to look at a good B-wing go here http://www.xwaupgrade.com . In Rebellion, you can build squadrons of B-wings, Rogue squad. you can fly one.

 

V-Wings, have only made an appearance in Rogue squadron. Air speeders in a couple of others. and the Millenium Falcon has only appeared in XWA and GB.

 

As you can see The B-wing has made an appearnce in many of Lucasarts games, and is well represanted. I do agree that LA made a mistake in not including the B-wing in GB but oh well.

[CorranSec]

Joe, you think that the B-Wing is absolutely jolly and the best... this is your assumption. It is good at certain things and bad at others. Other people may not share this opinion.

 

The B-Wing was designed as a kind of fighter/bomber (though i wouldn't call it either of those) that excels at destroying capital ships. It has firepower and can destroy fighters, sure, but practically anything (apart from the Y-Wing i think) can outfly it. Based on the pure facts, the B-Wing is not the best fighter.

 

It's basically an assault ship which is guarded by superiority fighters and attacks starships. This would be hard to represent in SW:GB, because its skills and failures are normally represented in flight games by having lots of warheads and lasers, nice hull and shields, good vs. cap ships, but useless manueverability and speed. In SW:GB it would (in the interests of proper representation) have to be slow, good vs. cap ships, but sucky against fighters. In my opinion this does not represent the true powers of a B-Wing and wouldn't work in the game.

 

Basically, to work in the game, it'd have to be a bomber which can attack cap ships. Seeing as the only cap ship in the game is an air cruiser, it's basically useless compared to a single fighter and a single bomber.

Thought it might be cool, i'd rather an accurate representation as a toybox unit rather than a heavily modified UU in the real game.

[lukeiamyourdad]

The B-Wing is, as said in X-Wing v.s. Tie fighter:

 

A Hvy assault fighter designed to replace the Y-Wing because of it's better combat ability.

 

Technically, the b-wing does not need fighter escort since it can counter enemy fighters depending on the pilots skill. The best rebel fighter? No. The best multirole fighter?Yes.

The b-wing should not be a bomber because it isn't one. It's a hvy assault fighter. It means that a b-wing goes into combat and can decimate by himself a capital ship and his escorts without the need of escorts like x-wings or a-wing(the b-wing would not be alone of course).I flew a b-wing in the x-wing serie(which i am a big fan) and i can tell you that it isn't a bomber.

[Admiral Odin]

The B-wing is also highly manuverable. Mainly because of the design allowing the fighter's body to rotate around the ****pit. It also has the ablitiy to change it's weapon arrangement, adding more ion cannons, or lasers ect depending upon need. It can also be made into a bomber.

 

It is still meant to take on heavier ships.

[CorranSec]

Ok. Plainly, what you think the B-Wing is can't work because it's too good.

A B-Wing can be defeated in a dogfight by:

an X-Wing

an A-Wing

an Assault Gunboat

a TIE Interceptor

a TIE Advanced

maybe a TIE fighter (based on pilot skill)

a big cap ship (it's designed so that squadrons of them kill big cap ships)

and some others i've probably forgotten about.

If we play it off against ships from the GB civs, it should be able to be defeated by:

Advanced Fighter

A-Wing

Fast Fighter (maybe)

TIE Advanced X-1 (duh)

a couple of AA soldiers

AA mobile

Fixed defense structures (turrets etc.)

Airspeeder (maybe, just maybe, based on upgrades etc.)

And can defeat:

Air Cruiser

non-AA ground targets

For balance's sake, maybe it'll be good vs. turrets. Who knows.

 

What's your opinion on this B-Wing?

[lukeiamyourdad]

maybe a TIE fighter (based on pilot skill)

 

Actually the b-wing can easily kill a Tie fighter.

 

Your b-wing seems pretty lousy.

 

I was thinking about giving it some kind of proton torpedoe like the jedi starfighter but rather then that(the jedi starfighter's torpedoe) make him stronger vs turrets like corran said would give it a great use.

[CorranSec]

TIE Fighter- In many games (specifically XvT) I've killed both AI and player-controlled B-Wings while flying a TIE fighter.

My B-Wing is lousy? That's the whole point. Not only is it fact, showing that the B-Wing is lousy in dogfights, but it needs to be that way for game balance.

[lukeiamyourdad]

) I've killed both AI and player-controlled B-Wings while flying a TIE fighter.

I guess your're good but not as good as me:p

 

Iguess you're right also...but I think making a anti-turret unit could be fun.

[CorranSec]

not as good as me

Lol! And you're modest too. A great combination.

 

OK, everyone seems to like the anti-turret idea.

Wait a minute... it's only luke's dad and me. Oh well. *shrugs*

 

The thing is, if we made our B-Wing specifically good against air cruisers and fixed defensive structures, we'd have to make other things not as good against those things. Example, 5 bombers can make short work of a turret or two quite easily, and 5 fighters or an AA mobile can take down an air cruiser within 10 seconds.

My proposal-

 

Make rebel fighters not as good against Air Cruisers, and instead have the B-Wing as a kind of airborne AA mobile when fighting against an Air Cruiser (aka quite good).

Make rebel bombers not as good against fixed defensive structures (to elaborate: AA turrets, normal turrets, sentry posts, fortresses), and instead have the B-Wing do bomber damage against a turret, but far better because it's long-ranged.

A single B-Wing would be easily defeated by an AA Trooper (maybe), an AA mobile, or a fighter, and would get destroyed by a turret (but not without inflicting major pain on it), but would still be able to pick on undefended ground targets and bombers.

 

This may seem rather extreme, but it makes sense. In this way, a B-Wing is a fun unit, and covers up for Rebel deficiencies. (never mind that the inclusion of the B-Wing caused those deficiencies... )

[jedi3112]

Add cheap, fast-laserfiring, short-ranged, not really accurate, quite powerfull AA turrets. They can take out bombers and fighters really fast, this is when the B-Wing comes in give it a longer range than those of fighter, make it have high attack on structures and ACs. This 1 now can stay out of range from this turret while still inflicting major damage. Give it some ION cannons too, only to be used vs ground vehicles, makes them freeze, requires special energy to fire (like jedi to convert). Easy to take out with fighters.

[CorranSec]

jedi, I have one question.

Why?

[Kryllith]

Well, with the possible exception that it would be really good vs. air crusiers, I'd probably use and air cruiser over the b-wing anyday, especially for getting rid of turrets since I could use them to take out ground forces at the same time. Of course, if you're making the fighter lousy against the air cruiser then you're looking for trouble anyway. The b-wing would get eaten up by fighter escorts so it would need it's own fighter escort, which basically means which means more cost for the rebellion. Course, if you're looking to require the rebels to use a wide variety of ships together then the premise might work. More than likely though, I'd just use Air Cruisers to cover the ground use A-wings as cover.

 

Kryllith

[CorranSec]

Kryllith- that's exactly what I'm trying to say. UU's are designed to make up for flaws in a civ or enhance that civ's strengths. A B-Wing (which actually acted like the b-wing in the movies) wouldn't be useful unless you made the changes I suggested. As you cunningly pointed out, those changes suck even worse than the B-Wing itself, so the end result is-

Let's not have a B-Wing!

[Kryllith]

As an additional unit in SWGB, I'd have to agree. The Rebel airforce is complex enough as is. Now if an SWGB 2 came out, and space became a major concern then I could see the B-Wing being a viable unit (anti-capital ship). Basically I'd see it functioning like a space version of the air speeder (I'd limit the speeder to land maps) hitting heavy ships.

 

Kryllith

[KoL ShadowJedi]

airspeeders can go through space still, I'm sure ive read it somewhere + i saw it on rogue squadron

[Kryllith]

I've always had the impression the speeder is a low (relatively speaking) altitude craft, which is what distinguishes between a "speeder" and a "ship." While it probably has enough lift to fly in the upper atmosphere (enough say to get from a capital ship to a planet and back) it's not designed for inter-planetary travel and wouldn't be good for outer-space combat. The Databank at starwars.com says that the snowspeeder has a maximum altitude ot 175 km (about 113 miles). Granted it's coming from the EU section of the databank...

 

Kryllith

[lukeiamyourdad]

The airspeeder cannot go through space because it's a speeder.

besides it would be weird to see an airspeeder attacking a star destroyer.

 

If they put the b-wing in space combat mode only it will be fine, I can live with it. The important thing in life is to be not too demanding, if you are you can never really be happy...

[CorranSec]

Kryllith- agreed on the ships thing. The Rebels already have the widest diversity of aircraft, even though they're not the strongest in it (), and the B-Wing would just be useless.

 

The airspeeder is designed for atmospheric flight and literally can't hold up in space. Though, for game purposes, they could have been "modified for out-of-atmosphere combat." It happens.

 

Luke's dad- what is this space only thing? Is this one of those things joesdomain proposed? I personally don't think there should be a space combat map or anything, it would be like turning the game into Imperium Galactica (I think that's what it's called) and nobody likes that. Diversity is the greatest part of a game, and space-only etc. just decreases that.

 

But, back to the topic of the B-Wing....

As Kryllith said, it's fair to assume that if there's an SW:GB 2, there will be a wider range of ships (including cap ships) to choose from. This might even lead to every civ having an "anti-cap-ship" fighter, and the B-Wing just being the Rebs' version. The point is that the only way the B-Wing would work is to put it in a cap-ship-filled SW:GB 2.

 

(tip: go to the SW:GB 2 thread. )

[lukeiamyourdad]

Luke's dad- what is this space only thing? Is this one of those things joesdomain proposed? I personally don't think there should be a space combat map or anything, it would be like turning the game into Imperium Galactica (I think that's what it's called) and nobody likes that. Diversity is the greatest part of a game, and space-only etc. just decreases that.

 

I meant something like Rebellion....just better.

[Dagobahn Eagle]

The rebellion's fighters are powerful enough already, which is why they didn't add them in the game as regular units.

[lukeiamyourdad]

Maybe we can give everyone some kind of B-Wing? We could give the Empire the Assault Gunboat. It doesn't have the same purpose but anyway...