teukros

Might not be a bad idea at that, outside of the ISD's hangar at any rate. Damaged ships might be rotating, spinning and tumbling fairly wildly, and a zero-g walker could grab onto any random surface and then crawl to the point where they wanted to force access. Of course I suppose the ISD could just use its tractor beams to stabilise the enemy ship.

Sorry for rambling so much, but to expand on this at even greater length: (I've been thinking about this for a couple of days) In the aftermath of Yavin, it is impossible to conceive of any set of circumstances which would have made it possible for the Empire to continue to exist under Palpatine, and to eventually defeat the Rebellion. What could have led to this? Dispersed across a huge and hostile galaxy, even the Empire could never have enough forces to be everywhere all the time, and any determined and resourceful insurgency (aided and abetted by a vast network of sympathizers and informers) would have been able to concentrate its forces to hit the Empire wherever it was weakest. The Rebels used their excellent starfighters and their infamous Hit and Fade attacks to attack the forces of the Empire almost at will. A seemingly unassailable Imperial Star Destroyer (moving from a drydock to a staging area perhaps), if devoid of starfighter support, could easily be destroyed by two Y-Wing squadrons. Rebel propaganda, of course, capitalised on every Rebel victory, making it seem more significant than it actually was. At this time, the Empire had not just one, but three fatal flaws: 1. The Empire did not have nearly enough popular support; 2. The Empire had no long term strategy (especially after Yavin) and was reduced to reacting to crises as they occurred (e.g. the debacle of Grand Admiral Zaarin's betrayal); 3. Palpatine's rule was becoming increasingly erratic, despotic and arbitrary. The Empire's short-term military imperatives were also three: 1. Counterattack the Rebels wherever they could be found; 2. Develop advanced T.I.E. models with hyperdrives and shields; 3. Consolidate military assets into larger and more easily defensible formations and locations. We know that the Empire did, in fact, carry out the first two imperatives and it seems likely that they would carry out the third as well (in order to preserve their remaining assets). Of course the problem with consolidation is that it would have denuded larger and larger areas of the Galaxy of an Imperial presence, and wherever there was no Imperial presence, the flames of rebellion would rage unchecked. This would inevitably lead to a fourth imperative: 4. Terrorize the populations with brutal reprisals, making examples out of entire systems if necessary which was, of course, exactly what Grand Moff Tarkin had been doing. The destruction of Alderaan made the people of the Galaxy hate the Empire, and the destruction of the Death Star ended the myth of Imperial invincibility forever. After Yavin, the forces of the Empire were essentially under siege. Paradoxically the Empire had to lose both its Emperor and its Capitol for it to have any chance at all. By the time of the Thrawn Crisis, 1. The various populations under New Republic rule had had a chance to become acquainted with their new rulers and were becoming increasingly disillusioned with them, so they were willing to give Thrawn the chance they would never have given Palpatine or Vader; 2. Thrawn clearly had a long term strategy and was willing, able and enabled to implement it; 3. And if Thrawn was not exactly a strong supporter of Sentient Rights, he was at least rational. In addition he was strong, charismatic, and undeniably masterful. Of course Thrawn (and his Empire) failed because, an enigma to the end, the alien dictator placed too much trust in those upon whom he depended.

A walker? Those things could operate in zero-G? And be used for boarding actions?

I don't usually read the New York Post, but four days ago (Monday), this was a front pageheadline...

Well I guess that means that Dubya couldn't be a Rebel then.

Hopefully this poll question isn't beyond the pale...

I can just imagine the new Navy Publications: "The Tactical Application of the Superlaser" "The Superlaser and the Combat Environment" "Naval Operations and the Superlaser" "The Superlaser in the Theatre of Operations"

Anyone remember something from circa 1978 called the Star Wars Poster Magazine? I remember reading in it that Darth Vader had battled and killed Anakin Skywalker but had fallen into lava, which resulted in the injuries that made his suit necessary... Of course, that was before George Lucas decided that Anakin Skywalker was Darth Vader... but it's interesting that the whole lava bath thing was a part of the story (checks calendar) at least 27 years ago. (the "Poster Magazine" also had a very cool photo from the scene where Luke Skywalker was at Toshi Station (check the novel if you don't know what I'm talking about, and no he wasn't picking up power converters) which was not included in the awful modern re-edit)

Something to remember is that the range of guided weapons (heavy rockets, proton torpedoes etc) exceeds the range of defensive laser batteries. Therefore if your goal is to eliminate danger (as opposed to merely minimizing it), you've got to try a different strategy. The cheap yet deadly T.I.E. Fighter was perfectly suited to this purpose (i.e., quantity has a quality all its own).

This has no spoilers, but it is very funny.

You know, I might have been thinking of the "Alliance Victory" finale from Rebellion (and I think they were Y-Wings)... It's a long time since I've seen that depressing cutscene

Well... that'd be like alternate history... but as a point of interest, the excellent Carrack Light Cruiser was designed so that it could have turbolasers, and in addition either ion cannon OR short range laser cannon. So the thought definitely occured to them back then, it just wasn't a part of the Imperial Navy's military doctrine. (The thing that eventually doomed the Carrack to rear area operations? It wasn't designed to carry starfighters...)

That's some good information! Thanks! Do you have any pictures of T.I.E. /GTs, /RCs and Boarding Craft?

Yeah no doubt... a classic example of "too little, too late." The Empire had something good with the T.I.E. Advanced... they should have just produced that and not scattered their efforts. Heck, even replacing all T.I.E. Fighters with Interceptors would have been good. But around the time of ANH Palpatine's mind was going and the Empire was falling further and further behind the curve. My view is that when the T.I.E. Fighter (possibly a blending of Old Republican and Chiss technology) was introduced, it must have seemed revolutionary. It also must have surprised and shocked a lot of people in the Navy. I wrote last year: But of course it did prove to be, in the hands of a competent pilot, fast, maneuverable, and deadly. And it was cheap enough to produce in huge numbers. The T.I.E. Fighter made it possible to design ships like the Imperial Star Destroyer, which was top-heavy with offensive arms but which had no short range defensive armament whatsoever. When the first ISDs were built, defensive arms would have seemed unnecessary (starfighters like R-41s and even Z-95s would have had no chance of making it through the T.I.E. Fighter screen). The Rebels recognized this weakness and designed costly starfighters like the Y-Wing and the fast X-Wing to exploit it. Bust through the screen of T.I.E. Fighters and then fly straight to the target... remember that wretched scene from ROTJ of Rebel starfighters (Y-Wings weren't they?) flying unopposed down one of the longitudinal channels on the dorsal surface of the Executor? The T.I.E. Defender, OTOH, would have been designed in reaction to the proven success of starfighters like the A-Wing and B-Wing, and was therefore ipso facto too little, too late.

He was using flights instead of squadrons, which is where I got the idea from! Stellar_Magic, I guess the computer was just trying to give the Empire the shaft again (as it is wont to do). An ISD with an empty hangar is pretty much crying out "sink me, sink me please".

I like the Dutch (I think it's Dutch) description of Yoda: "Yoda, groene Jedi-kikker"

Lancers notwithstanding (and Lancers were not that good), Imperial ships depended upon their T.I.E. Fighters for anti-starfighter defense. The Empire's emphasis was on planetary bombardment (and assault), ship to ship combat, and looking as impressive as hell. The best thing about T.I.E.s was that they were cheap enough so that filling your ships with them could almost be an afterthought. In the movies and in the books, the spotlight WRT the Alliance was always on their starfighters. In that fiasco at Endor, the Rebel starfighters ruled. In the end (though it was softened up by fire from MC ships), the Executor was destroyed by a single A-Wing. I think that even at that late stage of the war, the effectiveness and deadliness of the Y-Wings, B-Wings etc. caught the Imperial officers flatfooted. It just wasn't the war that they had been trained to fight.

They held 72 T.I.E.s though it is not clear (to me) what the standard deployment ratio of Fighters to Bombers (and later, of Fighters to Bombers to Interceptors) was. They also held around 40 additional craft such as Tyderian Shuttles, ATRs, landing barges for the Army and Stormtrooper Regiments, etc. T.I.E. Boarding craft? Would those be the same things as ATRs?

Well that's about what you'd expectfrom 36 Y-Wings.

Okay the computer is trying to drive me insane. I started two games and fast-forwarded 300 turns and saved so I could use "Traitor". When controlling the Alliance, the computer was building nothing but Y-Wings. This by itself might not be so bad except that (despite my lowering the costs to 19 MAT and 21 MNT) it had only one carrier - the one it had started the game with. Then when I checked the other game, when controlling the Empire the poor stupid computer had something like 155 flights each of T.I.E. Fighters and T.I.E. Bombers. Again, that seems to be the only thing the computer was building (starship or starfighter wise). My conclusion: The starfighters are way too cheap! I'll try to double the costs and see what the computer does then - sorry Darth Griffin.

That's with a "squadron" going from a 12 starfighter squadron to a 4 starfighter flight. Apparently Rebellion puts no more than (e.g.) six "squadrons" in an ISD, regardless of how many "slots" the ISD has. Ah it's silly to fill an ISD's hangar up with 72 T.I.E. Fighters anyway. Here's a question: before the introduction of the T.I.E. Interceptor, how many T.I.E. Fighters and T.I.E. Bombers were deployed to an ISD? Wasn't it four squadrons and two squadrons, respectively? And what about Lambda-class shuttles and suchlike (and were the designations "assault shuttle" and "escort shuttle" used interchangeably)? Anyway, I'm hoping to have time for some Rebellion gaming this weekend.

An unfortunate side effect is that two thirds of the Imperial Navy Starfighter Corps has mysteriously vanished (an ISD starts with six flights of T.I.E.s etc). An easy remedy is to start Coruscant with an additional six or so squadrons of T.I.E. Fighters.

Wow weird! That's actually a good thing - gives the Imperial starfighters a little more time to deploy. Thanks!

Quite right, my error. EDIT: Fixed

What would be impressive would be if a TF of three such fleets arrived in a Rebel controlled sector. With nine VSDs, 27 Carracks and nine squadrons each of T.I.E. Fighters, T.I.E. Interceptors, and T.I.E. Bombers, local starfighter defenses would be brushed aside; the VSDs should provided sufficient bombardment to blow away any GenCores; after the defenders were eliminated, Stormtrooper Regiments could occupy just long enough to sell all infrastructure; and they could all be on their way again long before the Rebels were able to respond (the only thing the Rebels have that is fast enough to catch such a fleet is the Millenium Falcon ) EDIT: I just crunched some numbers, breaking one of those Strike Fleets down into three "Action Groups" and then (using my starfighter and Stormtrooper costs) comparing it to an ISD. The results were interesting... Cost comparisons of one Strike Fleet's "Action Group" vs a single ISD: 1 Victory Star Destroyer 68 MAT, 44 MNT 1 Imperial Star Destroyer 112 MAT, 71 MNT 3 Carrack Light Cruisers 78 MAT, 72 MNT 1 Army Regiment 6 MAT, 3 MNT 1 Fleet Regiment 7 MAT, 5 MNT 1 Fleet Regiment 7 MAT, 5 MNT 1 Stormtrooper Regiment 9 MAT, 12 MNT 1 Stormtrooper Regiment 9 MAT, 12 MNT 1 T.I.E. Fighter Squadron 6 MAT, 6 MNT 3 T.I.E. Fighter Squadrons 18 MAT, 18 MNT 1 T.I.E. Int. Squadron 9 MAT, 9 MNT 1 T.I.E. Int. Squadron 9 MAT, 9 MNT 1 T.I.E. Bomber Squadron 9 MAT, 12 MNT 2 T.I.E. Bomber Squadrons 18 MAT, 24 MNT 186 MAT,160 MNT 179 MAT,142 MNT The ISD hits harder, but the Action Group gets there first. The ISD carries more fighters, but the Carracks themselves have some anti-starfighter defenses. The ISD carries more troops, but the bombardment of the ISD and its T.I.E. Bomber squadrons is only two thirds the bombardment of the Action Group. EDIT: The ISD is a bit cheaper, maintenance wise (even with higher than default starfighter maintenance).