[Vertigo 7]

The gunboat was designed to give imperials the ability to launch strike missions away from the capital ships. TIE Bombers are great and all but easily shot down and they rely on the ISD and fighter squads for cover. TIE's are only worth while in numbers... i mean if you really get right down to it, TIE's and X-Wings have about a 10:1 ratio. It only makes sense that the empire developed a craft that can sortie missions independent of its mother ship. Plus the ability to be configured for heavy assault or bomber roles makes it a fairly versatile craft. They make out standing escort craft as well.

It wasn't meant as a replacement, but as a more efficient means of fighting the rebellion. In truth, it would probably take an ISD's entire compliment of TIE fighters and bombers to take out say a space platform where as it could be done with 5-10 gunboats with out putting the ISD in harms way.

Not only that, from my understanding, Gunboat squads were typically assigned to the most elite of the imperial pilots anyway.

No, its not a TIE, but its a specialized imperial craft. So yes it will look different, if for no other reason than thats the way lucas made it

[Akalabeth Angel]

      Hmmn, I don't think the Gunboat is an elite-only craft. Veteran pilots maybe . . .  To me it's just a craft with a different role. The TIEs are all short ranged, the Gunboat is long-ranged, it's as simple as that. So the Gunboat does all the duties that its long-range enables, like scouting, patrolling, strike missions, etcetera. Its also the only non-elite fighter craft to mount Ion Cannons (the elite being the T/D), previously in the games the capture-duty was relegated to Stormtrooper Transports. The A/G gave them a fighter that can do it. You might also see them doing something as mundane as providing escort for transports while those transport perform customs inspections or what not. At the same time, you also see Gunboats in the Battle of Hoth cutscene, as they fly in support of the ground attack on the Rebel base. Maybe the TIE series, despite being able to enter an atmosphere, is actually of limited manoeuvrability therein. So the A/G provides a good atmospheric craft as well with all its control surfaces.

       That's my view anyway. It's not necessarily superior to the TIE series, it's simply a fighter with a different operational role. Yeah it's got shields, but it needs them with its low manoeuvrability. TIEs rely on their speed and agility for defense.

[Flipside]

It was basically a heavy bomber, kind of like the Zeus. Load the Zeus up with the right missiles and it's a threat to either fighter escorts or Capships, depending on what is loaded, however, like the Zeus, once the missiles run out, it's kind of vulnerable if relying purely on dogfighting abilities.

[MR_T3D]

I duno, I liked the gunboat BEST in XvT for imperial missions, as i could give it a beam weapon, but just dump beam power to engines/sheilds/guns, for a little edge.
Like the Y-wing, judicious throttle application makes it an alright dogfighter, just not much of a match for A-wings.

[chief1983]

It'll take skill or dumb luck to best an A-Wing 1on1 in a Gunboat, but any time you have a wingmate you'll stand a much better chance, as I'm guessing the Gunboat will probably be fairly well shielded.

[CountBuggula]

I duno, I liked the gunboat BEST in XvT for imperial missions, as i could give it a beam weapon, but just dump beam power to engines/sheilds/guns, for a little edge.
Like the Y-wing, judicious throttle application makes it an alright dogfighter, just not much of a match for A-wings.

Personally, that's one of the things I hated about the addition of beam weapons to the game.   For some reason all of a sudden all craft had access to them, but at no loss of performance under normal usage, which meant you could just pump all that energy into your engines for a free performance boost.  It made no sense from an immersion standpoint, and it's the kind of thing I hope this mod aims to avoid.

[Flipside]

I remember in X-Wing vs Tie, the AG was particularly deadly against X-Wings, since it had roughly equal manoeuvrability. and higher payload. Beam weapons not included (which I never really liked all that much either).

In truth, I always felt it was a little too manoeuvrable, whilst it makes sense from a purely military point of view, from a game-balance perspective, it might be worth potato-ing up the AG just a tiny bit? Having a ship that is Jack of too many trades can sometimes actually ruin it.

Basically, in my opinion, an Awing should be a cause of great concern to even 2-3 unescorted Gunboats unless they are carrying Concussion missiles, whereby an Awing is a light snack. I can imagine a Strike Wing consisting of 2 Torpedo/Bomb carrying AG's and one Concussion carrying one flying point. That also means that engaging a wing of AGs on attack would involve identifying and neutralising the anti-fighter ship as quickly as possible, or have things get very unpleasant very quickly.

[aRaven]

well the awing has weaker weaponary. its laser should have a harder time punching through the strong shields of an gunboat. the gunboat on the other hand should keep its agility...but the x-wing is supposed to be more agile than its implementation in xvstie and xwa.

it should be almost on par as the tie fighter in the SWC

http://www.theforce.net/SWTC/Pix/books/art/ilmmglt1.jpg

[chief1983]

Just because the fighter is weak doesn't mean its guns are, the Borstel RG-9 is still a laser cannon, and it was designed for the A-Wing.  Being later generation than other rebel weaponry it probably has a pretty good punch.

[StarSlayer]

I tend to think the AssBoat should have a decent dogfighting capability, not outstanding mind you but able to hold its own against most foes.  "Elites" aside, TIE fighters are combined arms fighters, they operate as a multi craft unit, Eyeballs, Squints and Dupes working in concert supported by their carrier.  The Starwing on the other hand is meant to operate unsupported deep in enemy territory.  They need to fight their way to their target, light it up, then fight their way out.  Even more so then rebel craft when you think about it.  All of the Rebellion's fighters are hyper capable, so craft who aren't the most nimble dogfighters like Wishbones and Bwings can be escorted by Awings and Xwings.  AssBoats don't have that option, they need to get it done by themselves.  And before you say they could be escorted by TIE Defenders or TIE Avengers those fighters should be as rare as womp rats beating krayt dragons in single combat.  Even the Empire's best outfits like the 181st hardly ever deploy with them.

Those would be my reasons for advocating Starwings being competent dogfighters.  Not able to clear the skies of enemies mind you but tough enough to stand a decent chance of punching out anything that gets between them and their objective.

[swashmebuckle]

The gunboat seems to have pretty comparable level of armament and general role to the Y-wing (though I guess that might not be so much the case with the detail this mod is working into the weaponry), so I think it would make sense for it to be maybe a little better in a knife fight than a bone (bigger hitbox but better turning or shields?) but not quite up to par with the X-wing.  You should need interceptors to soundly stomp on X-wings, and there's no way a gunboat should be in the same league as interceptors.

[Scourge of Ages]

So for balance purposes, I guess it would be a matter of very careful FREDing to ensure that the gunboat is challenged.
If you think about it, Imperial craft are named for what they do: TIE Fighter fights for space superiority, Interceptor is for picking off bombers and doing patrols and stuff, Bomber carries bombs, Assault Gunboat has lots of guns for the purpose of assaulting stuff, just like StarSlayers said.

[Flipside]

I think the fact that the X-Wing was slowed for the games explains a lot to be honest, the XWings always struck me as a fighter, whereas the Gunboat always makes me think more of anti-cap centred. I'd argue in retrospect though that, in the LucasArts games, the X-Wing probably carried too many Proton Torps.

[aRaven]

Just because the fighter is weak doesn't mean its guns are, the Borstel RG-9 is still a laser cannon, and it was designed for the A-Wing.  Being later generation than other rebel weaponry it probably has a pretty good punch.

Compare the sizes of the cannon on the xwing and awing...even the tie fighters laser cannons are physically roughly the same size as the ones on the xwings... in our universe the bigger the barrel the bigger the caliber and the stopping power it has... in for aerial comparison the A-10 30 avenger gatling gun is as big as 1/3 of the aircraft has greater punch than the 20mm vulcan cannons on the f-16.

i can imagine the awings cannons have a faster rate of fire, so that the weaker power is well compensated (but still isnt as destructive as the xwings cannons).

[chief1983]

I'm pretty sure a Desert Eagle has more stopping power than a Kentucky Long Rifle.  So actual barrel circumference is what matters really, but that's because of how ballistic ammo works, these are fictional laser weapons not bullets.  The A-Wings guns are in fact quite large compared to the rest of the ship still.  I'm not saying it's as destructive as the X-Wing's cannons really, I mean the X-Wing was primo stuff stolen right from Incom.  But the Y-Wing's?  Unless those were also designed to stop capital ships (which I'm pretty sure they weren't) I'm betting the A-Wing's are more powerful.  Also they're probably more powerful than the Z-95's.

[Narvi]

I'm pretty sure a Desert Eagle has more stopping power than a Kentucky Long Rifle.  So actual barrel circumference is what matters really, but that's because of how ballistic ammo works, these are fictional laser weapons not bullets.  The A-Wings guns are in fact quite large compared to the rest of the ship still.  I'm not saying it's as destructive as the X-Wing's cannons really, I mean the X-Wing was primo stuff stolen right from Incom.  But the Y-Wing's?  Unless those were also designed to stop capital ships (which I'm pretty sure they weren't) I'm betting the A-Wing's are more powerful.  Also they're probably more powerful than the Z-95's.

Er, Y-Wings are bombers. It would make sense for them to have capship-specialized cannons.

[aRaven]

noone stole from Incom...they defected to the Rebellion...

yeah make the awing uberpowerful...screw the z95

[chief1983]

*sigh*  the X-Wing's developers defected to Incom, X-Wings aren't sentient.  The developers stole the X-Wings (the former property of Incom) when they defected.

I was under the impression that Y-Wings were originally designed as heavy fighters, and were later relegated to capital ship assault until the B-Wings were acquired, once X-Wings became the premiere fighter choice.  But it seems they were a fighter-bomber role after all.  Even then, the T&B IX4 and KX5 were likely a bit weaker than the R-9X heavy laser cannon.

[EtherShock]

Let her rust!  I think the Gunboat would make a great older ship, like say it was a mainstay in the Republic fleet that has been totally superseded by the TIE Bomber or its predecessors, but there are still a lot of them in use by smaller organizations, pirates etc.  You would have to strip down its capabilities from the TG games (like 8 torps, no ions, flies like a brick) to make it work in that role, but it seems to me that SW can always use more crappy older ships flying around, especially ones that do look somewhat recognizably SW.  That would give neutral forces a bomber (the only other option I can think of would be Y-wings, which, as the mainstay of the rich Alliance, are probably too pricey for pirates) and it's way better looking than any Prequel fighter IMO. 

Why defang it?  It seems like the majority of EU ships are all about one-upping their trilogy counterparts, but if you look at the Alliance at Yavin (described as "well equipped" by at least one high ranking Imperial), they had basically 30 fighters to send against the Death Star, and it's not like there was any reason to hold anything back.  So I say give us more of the rusty, outdated stuff to make the "low end" Y-wings and TIE fighters look like the elite fighting machines they are supposed to be.

As for the model, I think if you beef it up a bit and shorten the nose and wings it will look very nice!

The Blastboat just sucks, Zahn or no.

That sounds like something someone would've said if they didn't see the original trilogy first. I always liked the gunboat. It was different from the TIEs and that gave it character. I also liked the design. It very much so looks like the shuttle's cousin. It fits right in with everything else in the universe, as far as I'm concerned.

Pirates and the private sector have plenty of ships to use aside from the Y-wing. They've got Z-95s, IRDs, Preybirds, and Planetary Fighters just to name a few. The Y-wing also dates back to the Clone Wars, and I'm not referring to the new animation.

I think the fact that the X-Wing was slowed for the games explains a lot to be honest, the XWings always struck me as a fighter, whereas the Gunboat always makes me think more of anti-cap centred. I'd argue in retrospect though that, in the LucasArts games, the X-Wing probably carried too many Proton Torps.

Yes, I always thought of the gunboat as a special assault fighter. Hell, it's in the name: Assault Gunboat, even if that isn't the official name. It had two mission roles from my experience: bomber or fighter suppression. It was great as a bomber and pretty good at suppressing fighters because of its huge missile payload, but it makes sense that it wasn't used so much because it's obviously more expensive than a TIE Bomber. In X-wing on the harder missions, Gunboats were no joke. A group could waste your squad in no time, but wingmates were also quite stupid too, so that worked in their favor. In many ways it is very similar to the Y-wing, but with better overall performance I think. If the Rebels upgraded the Y-wing, it probably would've been on par or slightly better than the Gunboat.

The X-wing was a space superiority fighter, that's why it carried six torpedoes, so it could fill a variety of combat roles. It wasn't just a fighter like the A-wing.

[swashmebuckle]

That sounds like something someone would've said if they didn't see the original trilogy first.

Ultimate SW insult!  Hehe, well I actually do like the Gunboat design and think that it goes well with the Lambda, I just don't think it "feels" like something the Emperor would sign off on.  Maybe it would fit well in the fleet of an admiral like Thrawn, who would appreciate the greater tactical flexibility it affords, but using all potential resources in the most efficient manner while attacking your enemy where they're weak isn't really the Emperor's style--he's all about imposing his will in the least flexible, most dramatic way possible, with maximum overkill.  The way I see it, the only people who are more afraid of an imperial commander than his enemies are his men (it worked for Vader), and having powerful, independent fighter craft just sort of subverts that symbolic underpinning of the fleet and the Empire: awe-inspiring symbols of terror supported by swarms of expendables.  My suggested retcon was just thinking out loud in search of another home for the ship because I do like the design, and there aren't nearly as many likely bomber candidates in the EU for independent factions as there are fighters.  Anyway, it's a mute point as the idea wasn't well received to begin with, but it's still interesting from a game balance perspective, I think.