Star Wars Mod - II (Sci-Fi Xover Mod)

[jimbob]

I don't want to be a bummer, but it is my thinking that the fighters, while nimble and quick in combat, are not so fast in intra-system movement. What about giving them less movement points, and more combat movement bonuses? Then the combat movement could be very high, allowing them to make initial contact during combat well in advance of any capital ships (which seems to be how they're used in both the movies and in the various games like X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter, etc)

[Erax]

While I do agree that fighters should not be allowed to travel up and down and across a system at will, I feel that this has more to do with range than speed. There is no reason to suppose that a TIE fighter travels any slower on a long-term basis than it does in the short term, but you can't sit inside one for one month straight (nor inside an X-wing, for that matter).

My suggestion, if we want to implement this, is to make fighter engines 'burn' more supplies per move (or - and I prefer this option - store less of them), so they can only move a few sectors (4-6 is my guess) before running out of supplies. This would allow you to transfer fighters between planets, but they would become a much less effective defensive force.

You could give the fighter life support component some supply storage, so that Rebel craft can have a little more range than TIEs (you could also design a TIE craft with a life support component to give it more range - give it some shields and you have Vader's fighter).

[jimbob]

I feel that this has more to do with range than speed.

Very good point. And I like your solution too.
I'm sold.

[Erax]

OK, here's some more stuff on fighters :

- Fighter ion engines currently hold 50 supply each. Reducing this value to, say, 16 will allow them to travel only 8 sectors (less if they fire their weapons). The life support component could hold an extra 20 supplies to give Rebel fighters added range.

- All of the fighters (Rebel and Imperial) can be recreated as they appear in the movies with the current hull sizes, except for the X-Wings. Cockpit + life support + 4 engines + 2 launchers (2 kt each) + 4 lasers + shields (5 kt) + R2 unit = 20 kt (current X-Wing fuselage size is 19 kt).

- Fighter hitpoints are a bit too high - since the best fighter laser cannon does 3 points of damage and since you should be able to take a TIE fighter out with one shot from twin LCs and an X-Wing (unshielded) with 2-3 shots, that's 5-6 structure for a TIE fighter and 12-18 for an X-Wing. My suggestion is to make the fighter ion engine 1 kt space and structure and the shield generator 5 kt space and 1 kt structure.

- Fighter launchers are definitely too powerful; one solution is to make torpedo launchers 4 kt in size and structure, another is to adjust their damage Ratings (material for my next post).

- Andres, do you have a tech list ready for the Rebels ? I could try to write one if it's OK with you.

[Fyron]

Don't worry too much about making sure that every little detail is portrayed exactly as it is in the movies. That doesn't really matter very much. What matters is that you get the Star Wars flavor.

[jimbob]

I agree with IF about the flavour vs. the exact replication of fighter schematics from the actual SW references.

That said:

All of the fighters (Rebel and Imperial) can be recreated as they appear in the movies with the current hull sizes, except for the X-Wings. Cockpit + life support + 4 engines + 2 launchers (2 kt each) + 4 lasers + shields (5 kt) + R2 unit = 20 kt (current X-Wing fuselage size is 19 kt)

Could you increase the Reb. fighter size to 20 kT without imbalancing things too much? Or perhaps the R2 size could come down a notch (I actually haven't looked up an R2 size, is it greater than 1 kT?)

Anyway, just some thoughts. Keep up the great work.

[Andrés]

R2s are 1kt and X-Wings can be made as they’re supposed to be, only primitive R1s are 2kt.

Changing structure resistance of fighters would make them very vulnerable against PDC fire. PDC also influences effectiveness of fighter missiles and must be considered when balancing their damage.

I’m rebalancing fighter movements, to increase contrast in speed between capital ships and fighters, I wanted to make 10 HTML = 1 combat mov, no a strategic one.
Most fighters can travel between planets in the same system, even if most times that involves a micro-jump. But having twice their combat movs would make faster ones have near 30 movements and I agree that is too much. I’m playing with values en an excel spreadsheet and going to a mixed system with different eng per mov + builtin combat movs in hulls.

I have made a tech list for the rebels, I’ll post it ASAP in the site.

I want to make Interdictors somekind of stellar manipulator ships, specially some kind of warp point manipulators, since those are important in SE4. Do you have any ideas of how to implement them?