[Titan]

close to that threads most recent post, theres.. erm...... 

[spartan_0214]

You know, for a while (along with the Y) the Headhunter was the rebellion's primary small craft.... give it some respect. it got the job done.

Only for as long as Incom was part of the Empire (in 1 BBY). Afterwards, it was replaced by the advanced X-Wing.

[maje]

While it is certainly possible that the Z-95 remained in high use among rebel factions not affiliated with the Alliance to Restore the Republic, it was pretty much a general starfighter that enjoyed so much widespread use that it isn't really a signature Alliance ship whereas nearly all the pre-rebellion Y-wings wound up in Alliance hands.  I remember in the X-wing Strategy Guide from 1992, that it was mentioned before the X-wings were mass-produced, the Y-wing was the principal fighter used by the Rebel Alliance.  You might have to take this with a grain of salt though since the X-wing games often contradict other EU and even movie events.

[Titan]

remember mara jade in 5ABY? thrawn trilogy? even in the Kevin J Anderson books at the academy. she still had a headhunter, at like 10 ABY. that should be testament enough for how good the headhunter is, in underworld faction terms, atleast/

[Snaga]

Old as it may be, the headhunter is still a capable fighter, with shields, good maneuverability, lasers AND missiles, enough to give check to any other fighter. The thing is that in the XvT series it was badly assumed to be cannon fodder....  As time passed by, it was oviously surpassed by newer models, but the Y-wing was already old when the X-wing became the main alliance fighter and still they kept it in use. Anything that could fly would be usefull, and the Z-95 surely was more than that.

[jr2]

I imagine that the Z-95, like any military craft, can be upgraded, or unofficially modified...

[Herra Tohtori]

Yeah... I don't think Mara's Headhunter was a regular one either. And I have to agree that whatever stats the ships have in X-Wing series of games, I don't think they can be referred to as anything else than one set of (somewhat) balanced ships... and since the Star Wars Conversion team has (IIRC) said that they're not going to make a port of XvT for FS2_Open engine, they're likely going to be changing the ship balance a bit either, so we don't really know what to expect from the team... except that in the end result the Z-95 will likely be part of a balanced ship set. Might be different role from the XvT Z-95 with some different stats, or not.


My personal opinion about Z-95 is that it should be competent dogfighter with a bit better maneuverability than the X-Wing, have about the same maintenance energy level speed as X-Wing (BUT lower top speed with all energy allocated to engines) and it should have somewhat weaker shielding but only a little weaker hull plating than X-Wing (having same hull strength with a TIE/Interceptor was ridiculous, especially as the hull structure is about the same as X-Wing so there's no plausible explanation to that except for making the ship cannon fodder, of which there's no canon proof AFAIK).

I think Z-95 should be able to deal with a pair of TIE/ln's without dying on normal(or hard, depedngin how you want to balance the game) difficulty, but it should have problems while getting gangbanged by any more... this despite the fact that it's weapon placement and maneuverability are both worse than TIE/ln's, but higher hull and having shields should make it survive a 2-on-1 attack on regular basis with any skill in the cockpit. X-Wing, on the other hand, should be able to survive being jumped by a flight of four TIE/ln's with it's superior speed. I think I remember some claims that after it's introduction, the X-Wing became so feared amongst TIE pilots that it quickly became almost standard procedure not to engage X-Wings without at least 4-1 superiority in numbers, so that'd make sense to me as far as balance issues go.

[TopAce]

Where did you read that
a) The Z-95 is not as maneuverable as an X-wing? (Whoever wrote this has no clue about SW)
b) Imperial pilots were discouraged to engaged an X-wing unless the balance is 4-on-1 in their favor?

And, by the way. In FS, maneuverability is very important. More important than in XWA. So a Z-95 will be better in our mod than in the X-wing series.

[Titan]

remember the rogues at coruscant? the kicked butt against those ties. and i keep reading it has a pair of TRI LASERs 
read wedge's gambit, towards the end, it says quit clearly. but i get the impression that lasers on the z-95 aren't as strong as the laser CANNONS on the X...... *shrug*

[Herra Tohtori]

Where did you read that
a) The Z-95 is not as maneuverable as an X-wing? (Whoever wrote this has no clue about SW)

Was that to me? I never said nor thought so... I know very well that the Z-95 is and should be more manueverable than X-Wing.

b) Imperial pilots were discouraged to engaged an X-wing unless the balance is 4-on-1 in their favor?

I don't actually remember, and I couldn't find it through Google... and the ratio might've been 3:1, I'm not sure. I could be wrong though, it might be the general imperial doctrine to have at least 3:1 superiority on attacks (which, on the other hand, is pretty common military doctrine almost everywhere - it's preferable to have at least 3:1 superiority to the defender, especially agaisnt positions that have been fortified to any extent at all).

It might have been on either X-Wing or TIE Fighter's manuals where I read it, but I'm not sure and I don't have them readily at hand.

Also, it might've been some kind of a "Spitfire-complex" amongst the TIE pilots rather than official doctrine.

[spartan_0214]

Remember the rogues at coruscant? They kicked butt against those ties. and I keep reading it has a pair of TRI LASERs 
I read wedge's gambit, and towards the end, it says quit clearly. But I get the impression that lasers on the z-95 aren't as strong as the laser CANNONS on the X...... *shrug*

Yes and no. Most Z95s had either triple lasers to make up for their lack of four mounted lasers or dual KX5s. They are in fact more powerful than an X-wings single Tiam and Bak KX9s. However, due to the advanced targeting computer (not to mention the fact that there were four instead of two) the T65s had more firepower. And, according to Wookieepedia, the T65s have greater acceleration than the Z95s, but in atmosphere the Z95 is faster than the T65 by 100 km/h.

[Titan]

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHH..... ok

[Turambar]

they're triple blasters

an array of 3 blasters on each wingtip.

[spartan_0214]

they're triple blasters

an array of 3 blasters on each wingtip.

I hope you are not implying that there are three separate blasters under each wingtip...

[brandx0]

That's exactly what's being implied

Considered one of the most capable fighters of its day, it boasted a distinctive bubble canopy and a set of triple blasters mounted at the ends of each of its two variable geometry wings;

[Herra Tohtori]

Do they all fire at the same time or do they fire at cycles?

[brandx0]

I would assume that, like most other fighters in star wars, it's selectable

[spartan_0214]

I would assume that, like most other fighters in star wars, it's selectable

Except that something like that would be hard-wired into the blaster. I would assume that the blaster shoots through three of the focusing lenses at the same time and it would be extremely difficult to modify the blaster to shoot three individual cyclical blasts per shot...

[Herra Tohtori]

I actually meant to ask is all or just one of the three lasers were fired on one trigger press.

Having all of them firing at once doesn't really make sense to me, it would be easier for maintenance as well as probably more efficient in other regards to use one big laser instead of three smaller ones; thus I think there was a reason why they wanted to use three small versus one big per wingtip. Plausible reasons to me seem to be:

-higher rate of fire as opposed to single laser (involces cyclic fire)

-need to cool down the lasers (related to rate of fire) - each laser has 200% longer (or three times as long) cooldown period as opposed to one single cannon firing at same ROF, when one triggerpress fires one of the lasers, second fires another, and third fires the last one in the array. AFAIK this is also one of the reasons why the S-Foils in X-Wings move apart, to give the lasers more room to radiate heat into space or something (although they are known to use their lasers with S-Foils closed as well...)

I can't think of any reason why to use three small lasers firing simultaneously attached to one hardpoint; it doesn't affect the weapon pattern, requires more maintenance, is more complex and most likely also less effective than one single weapon per hardpoint.

Actually, I could kinda accept doing it if they simply wanted to increase firepower and simply didn't have any more powerful lasers available (kinda like the Hawker Hurricane with 12 .303 caliber machine guns - does a lot of holes but not much else, versus later .50 cal MG's and even heavier autocannons), but I have no idea if this was the case or not when Z-95's were fitted with these tri-lasers.

[maje]

Okay, Modeling Update Time.  I've got the Z-95 pretty much squared away barring the LODs and Damage Model.  One thing I might add, depending on how many polies the Rebel Pilot is, I may very well end up with a model slightly over 8000 tris (current count is featured on one of the jpegs below).