[LordMelvin]

As far as player-controlled craft go, I agree completely that Ions are fun, effective, and an all-around good fighter-tool for disabling craft.

However, all of your canonical arguments could just as easily cover tractor-beams as well - in terms of film canon (cannons!) we see a tractor beam used to capture a ship once - and that's the Falcon (admittedly, by the DSI, with it's planet-sized reactor core & such, but still...), and an ion cannon used to disable - but _not_ capture a ship once, at Hoth - and that one's planetside too, possibly using the same huge generator that powered the Hoth energy shield.

This would seem to suggest to me that both techniques are inefficient at best in terms of energy expended per vessel disabled, and that at best, several hits on an opponent of similar size (fighter to fighter, capship to unshielded capship, death star to death star... (Okay, side note, someone needs to do an accurate Death Star I model so I can set up a DS vs DS battle...))

Assuming such inefficiency is the case, as I'm going to do here for the heck of it, we could be seeing the reason that the ISD was pursuing the Corvette with limited turbolaser fire rather than ion cannons.
Or maybe they just didn't want to scramble the data before they captured the ship so they'd know they had the right data files...

[Akalabeth Angel]

As far as player-controlled craft go, I agree completely that Ions are fun, effective, and an all-around good fighter-tool for disabling craft.

However, all of your canonical arguments could just as easily cover tractor-beams as well - in terms of film canon (cannons!) we see a tractor beam used to capture a ship once - and that's the Falcon (admittedly, by the DSI, with it's planet-sized reactor core & such, but still...), and an ion cannon used to disable - but _not_ capture a ship once, at Hoth - and that one's planetside too, possibly using the same huge generator that powered the Hoth energy shield.

      That's not accurate.
      During Lando and Leia's escape from Cloud City the SSD also is readying its tractor beam to capture the Falcon as well.

      It should be noted, that most of the time, the primary pursuers of the Falcon are ISDs. In EpIV, two ISDs are on intercept against the Falcon over Tatooine. In Empire, at least 3 ISDs (And a handful of TIEs) pursue the Falcon (remember two of them collide with one splitting hte other two while the Falcon dives "downward"). Later of course, the entire fleet pursues the falcon into the Asteroid field.

      Granted, these are all versus the Falcon rather than X-Wings and the like. But in the Battle of Hoth Endor, the Falcon was moving fast enough to chase down Interceptors and the like. So it's not improbable that if the Empire wants a ship captured, they're simply use an ISD to tow it in. Rather than using a craft to first disable it.

       That's the Rebel's schtik.

[palpator]

In support of the idea of using ion cannons to disable enemy ships, the Star Wars Technical Journal has the following to say about the Y-wing:

Until the recent advent of the B-wing fighter, the Y-wing was the only attack craft available to the Rebel Forces that carried an ion cannon system. Unlike conventional laser or blaster weapons, which damage or destroy the target upon which they are fired, ion weapons merely interfere with the conductive ability of electrical systems, thus paralyzing enemy vessels by robbing them of their operating power. This advantage allowed early, needful Rebel strike groups to disable Imperial cargo freighters without damaging either their drive systems or their contents. Many Imperial hand-weapons fell to the Rebel forces in this manner, as did such essentials as shielding systems, droids, guidance systems, repulsor crafts, and communications equipment.

Not exactly film canon, but it was printed in a "non-fiction" book that had the blessing of Lucasfilm, albeit before the prequels arrived. Regarding tractor beams, the impression I have received is that only the largest vessels have them, and that, while they may be used to capture enemy ships, that is not their only use—perhaps not even their primary use. They are normally located near docking bays, and are used to guide spacecraft into the bay. That may be a useful function, even when the spacecraft are friendly.

[Rolf]

In support of the idea of using ion cannons to disable enemy ships, the Star Wars Technical Journal has the following to say about the Y-wing:

Until the recent advent of the B-wing fighter, the Y-wing was the only attack craft available to the Rebel Forces that carried an ion cannon system. Unlike conventional laser or blaster weapons, which damage or destroy the target upon which they are fired, ion weapons merely interfere with the conductive ability of electrical systems, thus paralyzing enemy vessels by robbing them of their operating power. This advantage allowed early, needful Rebel strike groups to disable Imperial cargo freighters without damaging either their drive systems or their contents. Many Imperial hand-weapons fell to the Rebel forces in this manner, as did such essentials as shielding systems, droids, guidance systems, repulsor crafts, and communications equipment.

Not exactly film canon, but it was printed in a "non-fiction" book that had the blessing of Lucasfilm, albeit before the prequels arrived. Regarding tractor beams, the impression I have received is that only the largest vessels have them, and that, while they may be used to capture enemy ships, that is not their only use—perhaps not even their primary use. They are normally located near docking bays, and are used to guide spacecraft into the bay. That may be a useful function, even when the spacecraft are friendly.

In Empire at War tractor beams were used for pinning smaller ships in place while star destroyers could easily shoot at them. Though that game was a bit of a waste of potential, and the expansion was even worse, adding a completely none cannon faction and the SSD was pathetically easy to take down.

While tractor beams seem to be used in the films over Ion cannons I think Ion cannons will work for this game much better, it will give the player the feeling of a more important role in capture operations and stuff like that.

[Rolf]

When we restarted this project, it was agreed upon that we're not using any of the old stuff.

Guess that means we wont see:

this
this
this
this
this
this
this
this
this
or
this

If I am wrong, then horray, If I am right then I am sure Akalabeth Angel was right when he said people may make their own ships like with that Babylon mod, so someone else might make them.

[brandx0]

Most of those are Tempest's models, and we won't be using them due to problems with the models themselves.  Those are pretty much all post-restart, but they're for the most part unconvertable.

[Snail]

So all of Tempest's work was for nothing?

[brandx0]

Unfortunately it would seem so.  I haven't looked at it myself much, but from what I've been told it's pretty much completely unconvertable.

[Vasudan Admiral]

No it's all actually quite convertable - I examined a few of them for that a while back. They're just not terribly efficient and definitely not easy to UV map/texture. He used a CAD package, meaning the models are forced to be totally stable volume and geometry wise, but the unfortunate side effect of this is that extruded details that should just be resting on the surface are integrated into it - raising the polycount.

There's nothing unusable about them though.

[chief1983]

True VA.  I think the unusable part has come from the fact that not even he will UV them, and no one else seems to be able to get through any of them either.  So they can be converted, but no one has the patience to fight with them so far.  It seems it would be faster for someone to redo them in Max/Blender, and then UV them themselves.

[Rolf]

No it's all actually quite convertable - I examined a few of them for that a while back. They're just not terribly efficient and definitely not easy to UV map/texture. He used a CAD package, meaning the models are forced to be totally stable volume and geometry wise, but the unfortunate side effect of this is that extruded details that should just be resting on the surface are integrated into it - raising the polycount.

There's nothing unusable about them though.

I hope so, he was the one who made the Nebulon B, Lancer and the Dreadnaught, you guys have made it clear that you want those.

[brandx0]

Ah, well I stand corrected then.  Just some miscommunication. 

[chief1983]

Aside from that though, as good as some of them look, Brand and myself feel that many are lacking an attention to detail and seem rushed.  They'd be out of place next to some of the other stuff we'll have.  That doesn't apply to all of them, but it does cover the majority of the ones which were in the movies.

[brandx0]

The other category of models we see there is ones which appeared only in games.  What's the problem with this?  Well, unfortunately with their first appearances being high polygonal models, there's not a lot of room for detail in them without drastically changing them from their source.  If one attempts to model them and add some detail, the basic structure still looks out of place against those of the models used in the movies and other expanded universe works.  So with a universe as big as Star Wars, we can afford to look at some other sources for transports than those used solely in the games, ones with higher quality sources to base the model on.

[maje]

Well, I reckon there are a few game models that could probably work out decently since there were some high res images created.  The Stormtrooper Transport had a high res model for an X-wing vs. TIE Fighter: Balance of Power cutscene, and The Krytos Trap, written by Stackpole had an XQ-series platform space installation on its cover.  With that said, there are a few ships that never really felt appropriate in the Star Wars universe, at least to me, such as the R-41 Starchaser.

One can debate whether we really need the Stormtrooper Transport at the moment since there are essentially two movie craft that fulfill that role and they are the Sentinel-class Landing Craft and TIE Shuttle, and the Lambda-class, though that's more of a personnel transport, then boarding craft.

[Colonol Dekker]

Keep the Lambda. It's the sexiest shuttle in all known universes. It has the best engine flyby noise from both trilogies too.

[Akalabeth Angel]

Speaking of tractor beams . . . someone posted this in the scripting board under grapple guns:

Wow, its been a while sense I've posted...

Anyway, this was talked about before IIRC, you can use a beam weapon with a damage value of 0 and a negative mass, that creates a tractor beam, give it a positive mass and it repels objects.

Im going to read up on this... to see if what I wrote actually works.

      Dunno how accurate that is. Forgive me if that was mentioned above, I don't recall seeing.

[brandx0]

Yeah, it's basically similar to the morning star effect, but in reverse.  It's something I've considered, but the question is whether a tractor beam should be something that the AI uses on its own or a SEXP controlled action.

[TomShak]

I was certainly not a big fan of the starfighter mounted beam weapons in TF/XvT/XWA. Personally I always just directed the beam weapon full to engines and used the extra speed or recharge power, it was far more effective than actually beaming stuff

[Colonol Dekker]

Agreed