Stats, research order etc.

[Tsunami]

While we are happily discussing what ships we could use, we should already get into their stats. Since we do not know the exact ships, let's just start with the one we will use for certain.

 

The first issue is general balance.

The fights in Rebellion were not exactly fast-paced, and that was fine with me. But on the other hand, the later capital ships had a ridiculous shield regeneration so that it was nearly impossible to breach their shields with a small group of starfighters. In books and other sources, three squads of fighters can be very dangerous to an ISD; in Rebellion it was hopeless.

So maybe lower shield regeneration, mayhaps even by half.

 

Next thing: Shield and hull strength.

A Lancer Frigate had exactly the same shields as an ISD. That's ridiculous. If anyone remembers the inofficial Special Edition of Rebellion (from a website, total conversion with cards and .dlls): The author had halved almost every shield value and reduced regeneration.

I liked the idea and worked up a system of different shield values for my customized Rebellion. An ISD had a shield strength of 360, the ISD II of 420. Mon Cal was at 300, Corvette at 110, Vic at 220, Dreadnaught at 150,

Carrack at 125, Assault Frigate at 180 etc. For the TC, we'd need different Values, but that's the spirit.

 

Fighter and troop capacities were fine. Maybe the carriers could use more fighters and less guns. Assault Frigate and Vic II need fixing, but these are small issues.

 

Guns:

The whole system is like paper/scissors/stone. A good thing. But ships like Corvettes can also prove a serious threat to other capital ships. so some of the old anti-starfighter ships should get some turbolasers (the Lancer and Gunship of course not). Every frigate should have both. Carrack should have all three types, as should the Immobilizer. Everything of Cruiser size and up only turbo an ion.

Then: Positioning. Every ship has more guns at the flanks. It's ridiculous to have the SSD have most of it's firepower in the front. So move that.

Another great way of tweaking strenghts could be the ranges. The big turbolasers of an ISD should be able to fire further than the ones of a corvette. Same goes for the frigates' lasers. They are only used for starfighter defense, in close quarters. Low range.

 

Hyper- and sublight drives:

Ships should be able to move faster through hyperspace. Most common value in Rebellion was 80, we could go down to 60. Ships like the SSD should of course go significantly higher to simulate the difficulties associated with maneuvering such a ship through hyperspace. This should allow the game to move faster.

Sublight speeds were fine, though some frigates could use a little beefing up. Maneuverablity was also fine.

I really liked the idea of the Golan III battlestation, but since there is no way to change sublight and hyperdrive to zero, the thing is pointless.

 

 

 

Research:

Each side needs some ships to start with. These are at least: One major and one minor warship, a light warship of frigate or destroyer size and a troop transport. Two different squads of starfighters.

This could be: ISD II, Vic II, Carrack, Lancer, Star Galleon, Interceptor and Bomber for the Imps and MC80a, Assault Frigate, Gunship, MC40, Bulk Transport, A-Wing and B-Wing for the Rebels.

(As for why exactly these, look up the discussion about which ships to use. Corellian Corvette and Nebulon B are upgraded to Modified ~, Dreadnaughts to Katana-Dreadnaughts and such things.)

 

All other ships/fighters are to be researched. I would welcome any comments regarding the order.

[ElvisMiggell]

Ooookay, nice long post for me to reply to. These are just my thoughts in reaction to yours, and are not neccesarily, by any means, correct.

 

 

Shields:- I see where you're coming from, but there are a few things to point out, i think. Higher ships should have much better recharge rates, they're designed with newer technology and bigger and better power sources. Yes strarfighters are a threat, but even Rogue Squadron can't take out an SSD. Remember, they were hard pressed taking out an ISD with a Modified Corvette for help, or was that the Wraiths? Either way, you see what i mean.

 

One thing i would point out is that Mon Cals are supposed to have brilliant shields, plus multiple redundancies.

 

I couldn't give you precise values, but what you suggest sounds reasonable, if the weapons stay the same as before, or near enough. But i do think the Mon Cals should have stronger shields. They were better at concentrating, so smaller ships effectively could manage the same number of weapons and shield strength as a much larger Imperial ship.

 

Carriers traditionally carry one wing - six squadrons, the same as an ISD.

 

Smaller ships should have plenty of laser cannons, and a couple of turbolasers, and MAYBE an ion cannon or two. Bigger ships still have the laser cannons, for close range point defence against fighters, not too many, and not too long range, they're more for defence than offense. Bigger ships should have plenty of turbolasers.

 

I more or less agree about the range, although Gunships and similar ships should have plenty of range on their lasers, as they are offensive anti-starfighter ships, their turbolasers should be short range, just enough to maybe help them if an ISD ends up on top of them.

 

I think you're right about starting units.

[Tsunami]

On a second thought I completely agree with you on shields.

 

About regeneration: The concept is clear, but the Strike Cruiser with 600/30 was ridiculous. The ISD II with 800/20 was OK though. So maybe make an ISD II 400/20. The small ships (like Lancer, Gunboat etc) should have much weaker shields, but maybe a high regeneration rate. A single salvo of an ISD II could nearly breach a Gunboat's shields, but they would regenarate faster (also give it a high repair value) to make the ship less vulnerable agains starfighters.

 

Looked up the Quasar Fire Class Carrier. Up to 50 fighters. A card in the archive kinda confused me by telling something like 100+.

[Guest JediIgor]

Good ideas.. we should at least double the hyperspace traveling speeds. It should take a few days, not several weeks, to travel across your sector.

 

As for the shields, we could lower all the regeneration values, yes. The ISD Mk I shoud be especially lowered, since it is only equipped with one shield generator. As for the Range, someone could surely get it from XWA, could they not?

 

Heck, we could get a lot of things from XWA...

 

As for the Lancer having the same shield strength as an ISD.. that is indeed ridiculous, as a Lancer is that much smaller than an ISD. It could, however, have the same regenerative speed as an ISD, since an ISD is a relatively old model whereas a Lancer is a relatively new model.

 

Research: I think every ship that was researched by the Thrawn era should be researched, whereas every ship that was researched during or after the Thrawn era should be left for the players research. A logical conclusion, is it not?

[ElvisMiggell]

Only problem is we don't know, when was the Eclipse actually DESIGNED, or are we going to do it by when they appeared.

[Guest JediIgor]

When it appeared is simpler

[Tsunami]

Igor has a serious point on the topic of research. But there is a but. If we make all these ships available from the start there won't be much to research. We could slow down research by removing the design ability partially or in whole. This would slow things down so that you cannot build the Sovereign Class after 300 days.

 

About XWA: Yep, I looked up all the stats etc. and am working on a shiplist with fitting stats for Rebellion.

Especially the fighters need tweaking. Sublight speed plus acceleration value gives us the speed for Rebellion (i.e. A-Wing: 120 mglt, 21 mglt/s => 14). Maneuverability should be acceleration and turn rate or what it is called (i.e. X-Wing: 18 mglt/s, 75 dpf => 9).

As for firepower: Every laser cannon should have a strength of 3, except for the E-Wing (its lasers are supposed to be high-powered).

All this should make the fighters stronger and harder to kill.

[ElvisMiggell]

If we do that shouldn't we make the fighters more expensive too? Or else there'll just be a temptation to flood the game with fighters and we'll take away from the fun of the big fleet battles?

[Tsunami]

I guess you're right. Why build a Star Destroyer when a cheap carrier and some bombers can also get the job done.

 

All in all, I believe most costs should be increased. So a warship is really valuable again. Really bugged me that i could build an ISD II in eight days.

[ElvisMiggell]

Maybe we should look at the cost of shipyards as well?

[Tsunami]

OK, fighter stats. All stats from XWA

Speed: Took the MGLT speed and added acceleration.

Maneuverability: Turn rate + acceleration.

Warhead load: still trying to find some kinda balance it. Just taking the warhead numbers from XWA would be pointless since these numbers do not reflect the kind of warhead used. A-Wing lists 12, but these are concussion missiles. If it carries proton torpedos, it's less. 8 or 6 or something.

Shield: No shields => no shields. If there are shields, then take shield rate (sbd) and hull rate together.

Cannons: Most fitting seems a strength of 3 for each cannon except on the E-Wing (its cannons are supposed to be high powered.

That would be (spd/man/la/io/shld)

E-Wing: 16/11/12/0/8

A-Wing: 14/12/6/0/6

X-wing: 12/9/12/0/7

B-Wing: 11/8/9/9/17

Y-Wing: 9/7/6/6/12

K-Wing: 12/8/?/?/13 (not known to me, I believe 4 lasers and two ions.)

Interceptor 13/12/12/0/0

Bomber: 9/10/6/0/0

Defender: 16/13/12/6/11

Scimitar: Shields would be 8, other stats not known to me.

 

(Oh well, the K-Wing does not fare as bad as I thought. But maintainance would have to be REALLY high, since the thing has more defects than a Gamorrean Morrts.)

[ElvisMiggell]

I've never heard about this whole defects thing? Where does it occur? I don't remember it in the black fleet crisis.

[Tsunami]

In some technical resource I read that, due to its modular design, the K-Wing was very vulnerable to all kinds of defects. The hull was pretty weak for such a big fighter. All this sent the need for maintainance through the roof.

Biggest plus of the old X-Wings was that the could run with very low service, the K-Wing was quite the opposite. And I haven't seen one of them in the NJO series. In fact, the only occasion I really remember them being used was during the Black Fleet Crisis, but there the problem was not so appearent due to few combat hour.

[Guest JediIgor]

I guess you're right. Why build a Star Destroyer when a cheap carrier and some bombers can also get the job done.

 

All in all, I believe most costs should be increased. So a warship is really valuable again. Really bugged me that i could build an ISD II in eight days.

 

and just what are you going to do if a planet has even one shield generator?

 

I could also swear I saw them in one NJO book (not the B-Wings though). Also you forgot the stats for the TIE Droid .

[Jahled]

One thing that's always bugged me about the whole Star Wars mythos is that in the original Star Wars book, the Imperial TIE-fighters were better than the 'antiques' attacking the Death Star. They had 'better lasers,' and 'better targetting-computers,' by definition of the Empire's new-order would have been more capable fighter craft than the has-beens of the rebels. Ok, shields and hyperdrives put aside, where did all the saved-expedidure go? 'Lets design and mass-produce a less-effective fighter to rule the galaxy?' Yeah right. The whole point of why the rebels took out the original Death Star was Imperial over-confidance, not inferiorty of fighter-class. The TIE fighter was, and should always have been in subsequent Star Wars comics/books the fearsom adversery George's first book originally made it out to be, not the clumsy piece of crap mass-culled without a casualty by rogue-squadron. The laser rating of 5 for the TIE is laughable in rebellion. Why would an Imperial commander describe the rebel fighters at Yavin as 'antiques,' when his own starfighters were a pale shadow in comparison?

 

Sorry, but subsequent Star Wars spin-offs such as the Rogue Squadron stories have had it all a bit to easy for the realism to handle. Despite the rebellion's relaince on 'old and out-dated fighters,' no refelction of this is demonstrated in the game, where the modern, no hyper-drive TIE-fighters

are completely out-gunned by the rebellion.

 

Historians reckon that one reason why the Japanese lost WW2 is because they failed to retire fighter-aces to training-schools, thereby giving their expertise to new recruits; unlike the Americans, who did. In contrast, you cannot conquer a galaxy by adopting the same attitude. The Empire wouldn't have squandered fighter hot-shots in crap-fighters. They would have had the confidance in them surviving in the most modern, combat-proof fighters the galaxy had to offer.... and realistically expect a high-percentage to survive to train the next generation of front-line pilots.

 

Had to get this off my cheast...

[ElvisMiggell]

Interesting. Yes, Lucas did make TIE's superior. But i'm not convinced about the training. The Empire had so many people that they thought they could just throw them against the enemy, drown them in TIE's.

 

Also, the Rebel fighters were described as antique, but the X-wing had only just been designed, the Imperials probably didn't even know that the Rebels had them.

 

And Superioroity works both ways, look at stories of the 181st.

[Guest JediIgor]

Although some very valid points were made, I keep asking myself.. what does this have to do with the topic?

[ElvisMiggell]

Technically, nothing, but i do think we might want to think about what Lucas may or may not have wanted from his own ideas, if we want it to retain that authentic Star Wars feel.

[Trejiuvanat]

Has anyone come up with a method to define the stats of the cap ships using XWA?

[Tsunami]

I did. I took the ISD I as standard reference. Defining all shield and hull strengths by this standard, every shield value in XWA is to be divided by 16, each hull value multiplied by 1,32. When I find aut how to post a word document here, I will make the sheet available to everyone.

[ElvisMiggell]

Cool, what stats did you end up with for the ISD I then?

[Tsunami]

I used the ISD as standard with 2750 hull/300 shields.

ISD II would then be 3000/360.

Assault frigate: 1300/140

Dreadnaught: 1400/120

 

etc. etc.

 

I worked up the stats for most of the ships we already agreed upon (well, some kind of), but some of them need tweaking for balance reasons. A Carrack Cruiser with 55 shields would simply not work.

[ElvisMiggell]

Well, i guess the numbers don't matter too much, as long as the ships are all balanced relative to each other.

[Tsunami]

I really like the idea of a Golan defense platform. But there are the problems with sublight- and hyperdrive.

 

It's definetely not possible to remove a capital ships hyperdrive with rebed. I thought maybe if you raise the hyperdrive rating high enough, the game interprets it as 'no hyperdrive', but no banana. Sublight ias always at least 1.

Since I don't know how to get into GData, I can't even tell if this is a rebed or game 'feature'.

 

Ideas, anyone?

[ElvisMiggell]

My suggestion would be leave it for Reb II and see what Greg can come up with, from the sound of things you can't do it in Reb, unless you replace a DS with a Golan....