[CountBuggula]

Even with an ISD, you don't go in blind; you can achieve more by a well-timed and well-positioned entry. That means some kind of scouting, and TIEs can't do it.

AG's would also be great as an advanced scout... send them into a potentially hostile area ahead of its parent ISD, do recon, precision strikes, w/e. To me, AG's would be the perfect craft to perform such a role.

Except you guys are forgetting the Empire already has probe droids to do this.  Thousands or probably millions of them - and that's just what we saw in the movies.  Going by EU, they also have an extensive net of sensor satellites.  They really don't need starfighters to run recon for them.

We should really quit trying to come up with excuses to make the assault gunboat something it's not, and just let it be exactly what its name says: an Assault Gunboat.

[NGTM-1R]

Except you guys are forgetting the Empire already has probe droids to do this.  Thousands or probably millions of them - and that's just what we saw in the movies.  Going by EU, they also have an extensive net of sensor satellites.  They really don't need starfighters to run recon for them.

Probe droids are expendables, and as such are unlikely to be as reliable or as full-featured as a manned craft. The EU also includes instances of shuttles being used by Imperial forces for the exact purposes I describe.

[Flaser]

Beyond "assault" I also see the AG as a "hound" of the Imperial fleet. A common rebel doctrine is to disperse in all directions and later meet up at a pre-arranged destination. This forces the pursuing forces to split, increasing the chance that some of your forces will survive.

This is probably also a standard tactic used by smugglers and anyone with a bunch of hyper capable ships.

There's not much literature available on how well ships can be tracked through hyperspace, but it seems plausible that if you've seen a ship enter hyperspace - and you've trackced their vector while they've done so - then you at least have a corridor to search. (IIRC the X-Wing books had something about this).

...hence why you'd do multiple jumps after bugging out, to throw off pursuit. In a situation like this, the Empire would need hyper capable ships to track the fleeing crafts - and preferably disable them, so the crew can be interrogated to find out the rally point and strike there.

It also seems reasonable that bigger ships would have a harder time to make several jumps in quick succession (...and even the Empire would have a hard time footing the bill for a Star Destroyer doing that, those things just chug fuel). So the AG would be the ship to do such pursuit. Your cruisers can't be in several places at once, so you deploy a handful of gunboats. They'll jump after the fleeing ships and keep pursuing them, disabling those they can.

IMHO the ship shouldn't even have a good dogfighting capability - it's like interceptor craft on Earth: all big engines to pursue and intercept stuff and heavy weaponry to blow it up, not act as a fighter screen for your capital ships.

...as to the whole one seater vs. two seater argument. IMHO it should be a two seater: a pilot and a navigator who also doubles as flight mechanic. It's the navigator's job to handle the sensors, the nav-comp and setup hyper jumps. The pilot's the one who handles weaponry and flying.

[brandx0]

One problem with counting the gunboat as a pursuit craft is its slow hyperdrive.  The wiki lists it as a class 12, the same speed as the very limited backup systems on some alliance starfighters.  Here is a quote for comparison:

During the Galactic Civil War, military capital ships and starfighters were generally equipped with Class 1 or Class 2, industrial freighters and haulers with Class 3 or Class 4, and civilian starships with Class 5 or above.

While the exact scale isn't always consistent, the various Star Wars RPGs have used the rule that the class acts as a multiplier for travel time, which would mean with a class 12, the gunboat would take 12 times as long to reach its destination as an X-wing or an ISD, 24 times longer than the Falcon.

I've checked up on other sites, some list the gunboat's hyperdrive as a class 2, half the speed of an ISD, and some have it listed as a class 1, though only on fan-made RPG sites.

Anyways, the Class 12 stats make sense if the gunboat was intended only for short ranged, offensive operations (hence the assault designation) but even with its low sublight speed it still doesn't seem like it'd be effective in chasing, well, anything.  Also backing this up is the statement that the gunboat's navicomputer can only make 4 jumps before needing to be reprogrammed and serviced.

[swashmebuckle]

Likewise, we know from the movies that the Empire has scout ships ("Our scout ships have reached Dantooine") which presumably are fast in hyperspace and have better sensors than anything you could cram into a starfighter, so I don't know if I could get behind the Empire using this type of small assault craft for that purpose.  If you want flexible, non-expendable scout/skirmishers, they shouldn't be slow as molasses and configured with all of the heavy armor and torpedo banks.  Or if you want a patrol craft to monitor hyperspace lanes, shouldn't it have greater endurance than a fighter-sized vessel?  I'm inclined to agree with Count Buggula that trying to come up with roles for the ship outside of specific assault scenarios where they could excel is what is turning the thing into a rebel ship.  The Empire can have a dedicated class for every possible application; they don't have to water things down by trying to make them all able to do everything.  These are the guys who built a second, bigger Death Star--it's not like they're worried about the cost

[brandx0]

And, as mentioned earlier in this thread, the Empire could indeed dedicate an ISD to every single rebel fighter and still have leftovers

[TomShak]

I think this discussion could go round and round in circles Star Wars is a story and an imaginary world, but everyone's version of Star Wars is a little different. Being fictional it has bits that are vague and unspecified - people fill those unspecified bits differently.

There were things I didn't like about the Totally Games games (*ahem* combat mechanics), but for me the thing I loved about them the most was the "lore". I loved being involved in the story and on the whole I really liked the way they fleshed out the Star Wars universe. I enjoyed living in the world they created and that's why they are some of my favourite games of all time, even with their flaws.  For me one of the things I liked was how they "fleshed out" the Imperial fleet a little. On the whole I liked the concepts of the Gunboat and the TIE Avenger (but don't talk to me about the TD or MB though ...).  And I felt totally comfortable with the idea that the Empire has a standard doctrine, but they also had a few of these other craft in small numbers to round out the fleet. I'm generally a believer that having flexibility in a military force is right, so that sits fine with me. I also think not all Imperial commanders would agree with the standard doctrine, and there would be pressure to appease those groups.

However for other people the story is different. For them the Empire is about the Star Destroyer and the TIE Fighters, and they feel that the AG (as presented by Totally Games) doesn't really fit in to that story. And that's okay everyone likes to fill out those gaps a little differently. Everyone has their own Star Wars story in their heads

[newman]

No! My version of a non existent fighter is the only correct one! The rest of you are wrong and must be corrected, for great justice!

[CountBuggula]

Well, that's all well and good, and would be fine if this were just a random discussion of it on the internet.  But this is about design for a game, which means we either need to come to some sort of consensus or at least some sort of decision from the project leads.

[newman]

"We" don't need to agree on anything. We're neither on the team nor are we building the thing... But I should probably point out my previous post was a joke at this point

[CountBuggula]

lol - no I got the joke - that was directed more towards Tom's comment.

[NGTM-1R]

Likewise, we know from the movies that the Empire has scout ships ("Our scout ships have reached Dantooine") which presumably are fast in hyperspace and have better sensors than anything you could cram into a starfighter, so I don't know if I could get behind the Empire using this type of small assault craft for that purpose.

We don't know that the scout ships aren't actually AGs.

But it doesn't have to be a designated role, simply a field-expedient one. The AG would seem to be a gap-filler, not a specific-purpose design. (Though if you want a specific purpose I suspect the AG is would be at its best fighting it out with ships like the Falcon, things too well-shielded and well-armed for a TIE to fight, but too quick to stand off at missile range and take potshots.) It can do many things, all of them useful, if nobody else happens to be handy to do them, and do them a little more survivably and cheaply than a Lambda.

[swashmebuckle]

Heh, fair enough--the root reason I'm arguing the side I am is because of wanting to preserve the character of the Imperial fleet in a way I didn't feel the TG games succeeded at, not because there couldn't "actually" be several conceivable good uses for such a ship.

On that topic of people's personal conceptions of what SW should be like, I think it's important to not discourage contributors when discussing FotG's take on the universe.  It's true that the game's "manual of style" (if you want to think of it that way) is heavily tilted in favor of material from the original trilogy films and certain EU sources, but that doesn't mean that things that come from outside that (like anything from the prequels) or from the hazy periphery (like the Assault Gunboat) will be outright rejected just because their sources aren't popular with the team. 

It is possible that the background, capabilities, and appearance of submitted material might have to be tweaked in order to fit with the aesthetic and gameplay balance that the team is trying to achieve.  Brand-X is content moderator, and Chief is project lead, and they are pretty demanding when it comes to maintaining those respective standards.

That said, it's important to remember that this is an effort with many contributors, and even the people running the show have to make compromises both with other people and with the limitations of the engine in order for the project to work.  TomShak has been great about letting us in on his creative process with the gunboat, and I don't want him to feel discouraged from working on it just because of the many conflicting opinions (my own included) that have been voiced regarding what the ship should or shouldn't be like.  The model is his work, the game is doing its thing, and if the two can be made to fit together, there will be much rejoicing

[TomShak]

Thanks swashmebuckle

CountBugula: Yes we do need to come to a consensus, since in the end we are designing the AG to fit into a particular vision of Star Wars. Whatever my own particular view of the AG, for me the most important thing is to fit into the FotG vision. So Chief, brandx0 ... do you have strong ideas on how the AG needs to be to fit in? Or is this down to the person designing the model (i.e. me)?

[CountBuggula]

I agree with swashmebuckle that just because a ship is designed with a specific purpose in mind, like I've been advocating, doesn't mean it can't be used to fill in a different kind of role in a pinch, and believe that there will and should be missions that do that.  But I still think the design should be focused on a primary role, instead of having those additional roles or missions dictate craft design - it seems like that's what happened with the Totally Games versions, and is something several of us want to avoid.

[WOLF_Angel]

The debate as to the role and use of the AG albeit amusing I think is really moot.  We are attempting to add logic in a universe with plot holes big enough to fit Mount Everest in with room to spare.

Correct me if I am wrong, but wasn't the AG developed in "TIE Fighter" as a counter part to the B-Wing.  Capitol Scale Assault craft with lasers, warheads and ion cannons?  Basically to give a counter balance for game mechanics to what was seen in "X-Wing"?

So if I am right, it was developed for player experience rather than a legitimate need for a craft based of Imperial Doctrine.

The point I am trying to make is simple.  If people want to fly it, put it in the game.  If you don't, don't FRED it into your missions.

[Thaeris]

The AG came about first in X-Wing, which was before TIE Fighter. Don't forget that as a Rebel pilot, you were making a part to NOT get in the line of any large Imperial operations for the most part. As such, those installations so often noted were nowhere to be found in-mission, because you were obviously out to, you know, NOT BE DETECTED. The only way the Empire can rapidly react to out-of-the-way guerrilla starfighter attacks is to have a starfighter which can jump in anywhere, any time. This is the gameplay-mechanic logic of the Assault Gunboat.

That said, the AG was never an opponent-balance element, as most of the TIEs presented enough of a challenge. The AG was there for issues when TIEs could not be. For this reason, it's still a valid, viable, and useful type.

[newman]

I still find it somewhat funny how people vehemently defend their views on a non existent craft that isn't even entirely canon to a non existent universe. Pages and pages of the stuff. These guys are doing professional level work for free simply because they love the Star Wars universe that much - probably know about it more than most of us. I'd trust them to get it right..

[WOLF_Angel]

Thank you newman!  That is pretty much my point:)

[MR_T3D]

I've always been a fan of the AG for some reason.
I don't see it as something even close to fleetwide, just in the outer rim, deployed from remote outposts for in-system patrols and interception duty where large feet ships and imperial infastructure isn't as prelevent, as a limited-deployment and more purpose-built successor to the Y-wing perhaps.