[StarSlayer]

It's the Empire, builder of 14km long warships, super laser toting battlestations and world eating factories.  They can certainly build a fighter better then the rebels, they just choose not to.  I think the balancing for the Avenger and Defender centers on the fact that they are extremely rare.  A rebel pilot's got about as much a chance at getting struck by lighting as finding himself in a dogfight with one of them.  Even the 181st, the Empire's elite fighter wing almost never deploys with them.  A simple solution would only have them appear once or twice in the campaign, and available in only a few multi missions and/or have a host option to exclude them.  Besides the Ewing needs something to play with.

[brandx0]

I think the big thing with the Defender is that the TIE Fighters are shown to pretty much only take one or two hits to kill regardless, while the rebel ships could take a variable number more (some went down in one hit, others in 5-6)

So in the games, they knew the rebels would be the protagonists, and roughly tripled that number to the number of laser blasts the fighter could absorb.

Then TIE Fighter came around, and they had two options: One, nerf the rebels, or superboost the Imps.  Everyone knew a TIE Fighter couldn't withstand a couple dozen laser blasts, so they invented newer and bigger fighters that could, and used some handwavium as to why they were built.  Hence why I hate the Defender and Assault Gunboat, they make no sense whatsoever in the Star Wars univers (The Avenger is at least based on Vader's tie.)

[Scourge of Ages]

It's the Empire, builder of 14km long warships, super laser toting battlestations and world eating factories.  They can certainly build a fighter better then the rebels, they just choose not to.  I think the balancing for the Avenger and Defender centers on the fact that they are extremely rare.  A rebel pilot's got about as much a chance at getting struck by lighting as finding himself in a dogfight with one of them.  Even the 181st, the Empire's elite fighter wing almost never deploys with them.  A simple solution would only have them appear once or twice in the campaign, and available in only a few multi missions and/or have a host option to exclude them.  Besides the Ewing needs something to play with.

I think you hit it dead on there. The Empire relied on crushing military superiority, but that wasn't enough; they needed psychological superiority too. 14km warships that you didn't have a prayer to sink, battlestations that could vaporize you as soon as scan you, factories that could suck up the ground you stood on and build a ship to shoot you with, hordes of fighters that would make you shake in your flight suit.
Why weren't TIEs frightening in the games? Because you only faced 2-20 at a time. If you came up against a full Star Destroyer's worth (72 fighters and bombers), you'd know fear, and probably get wiped out in the deal.
And that's why the Empire works that way, instead of producing and fielding a single squadron of TIE/Ds for the same price: Defenders would have the combat superiority, but not the psychological aspect. Gunships, Defenders, and Avengers were probably rare and only for the "special" missions that you couldn't send a Star Destroyer on, and that you didn't need to intimidate everyone.

Edit: It occurred to me that we've been saying this several times already in various places in this forum, but here it is again, hopefully a little more concise.

[aRaven]

Let's not forget the Rebel starfighters already took hits from strayfire from the turbolasers of the Death Star I, II and so on. That's why they went down so fast in 1 or 2 hits. Shields are able to withstand a lot of punishment i.e. Obi-Wan's starfighter in Episode II or the Millenium Falcon (TESB) or the N-1 Naboo Fighter and should be able to endure a lot more than 1 or 2 direct hits. I would say the X-Wing games give a good estimation of shield strength. Sady the FS2 engine cannot distinguish between straight and straight (shield) hits.

Since the rate of fire in SWC is higher or varies depending on laser/weapon/damage type it shouldn't be a issue of destroying a craft quickly. I wish only the AI on the harder difficulty settings wouldn't habe a godlike aim, so battles endure much longer (ie much more maneuvering) but still keep the fiery action of the harder difficulties.

As for the overpowered Imperial craft, I would just tweak their properties and give them a few weaknesses, ie for the Defender a weaker hull, greater weapon energy consumption and slower shield recharging rate, a higher rotdamp... but retain their characteristic abilities of high speed, maneuverability and high firepower.

[swashmebuckle]

Let's not forget the Rebel starfighters already took hits from strayfire from the turbolasers of the Death Star I, II and so on. That's why they went down so fast in 1 or 2 hits. Shields are able to withstand a lot of punishment i.e. Obi-Wan's starfighter in Episode II or the Millenium Falcon (TESB) or the N-1 Naboo Fighter and should be able to endure a lot more than 1 or 2 direct hits. I would say the X-Wing games give a good estimation of shield strength. Sady the FS2 engine cannot distinguish between straight and straight (shield) hits.

Well, the idea behind the Death Star attack was that their fighters evaded the turbolasers...I think if any of those double-barreled box-tower beasts landed a direct hit on a fighter, he'd be as dead as Porkins no matter how he had his shields configured.  As for the Falcon, it is many times more massive than the fighters being discussed, and the only direct hit we see on it from a cap ship obliterates the rear deflector, leaving it defenseless (according to C-3PO).  Even strafing runs from relatively weak TIEs caused power failures and for crap to explode inside it in ANH, so fighter shields can't possibly be as manly as the TG games give them credit for.  Also, in the X-wing games, you had to practically park your interceptor behind a Y-wing and launch a ridiculous number of shots into it before it went.  It's not that it wasn't fun, and it worked for the slow pacing, but it didn't exactly make for a movie-accurate representation of SW space combat.

[Flipside]

Also, the Empire had access to almost limitless resources and troops, thanks to cloning, the Emperor would certainly care more about achieving his objectives than keeping his pilots alive, if 20 bombers went in, launched all their missiles, and got destroyed, but took out their target, that was a victory from the point of view of the Empire.

Basically, as far as it's starfighter fleet was concerned, the Empire believed in quantity over quality.

[StarSlayer]

The idea that the Imperial forces were a bunch of clones is a bunch of prequel shenanigans and should be considered null and void

[Flipside]

LOL

Normally, I'd agree about many minor factors of the prequels, but since the Clone Wars were mentioned in Episode 4 by Leia in her transmission to Obi-Wan, and the fact that people were saying all the troopers were clones before the prequels came out, that one is, to my mind, at least partially true.

I'd suggest that your 'box standard' Stormtroopers were mostly clones, but even they lacked the innovation and inventiveness required, that's why the commanders and others were generally not clones. Possibly by that stage, the number of Clones was reducing, but I'd still suggest that a large bulk of Imperial forces were clones.

Either way, I still don't see the Emperor actually caring about his troops to any extent, in fact, as a Sith, I suspect he'd be rather pleased to see thousands of 'normal' people dying in his service.

[StarSlayer]

Oh there certainly was a Clone Wars I just tend to think it was drastically different (and better) then the pile of Bantha dung Lucas served us   Really if the Empire just had massive cloning vats spitting out Fett stormies and Baron Fel pilots they could have easily just curb stomped the Rebellion.  If the Empire's forces were clone based where would the Rebellion have gotten all its defectors from? What would be the point of having military academy planets like Carrida?  I really think having the Republic having the Clone forces in the prequels was extremely foolish since it basically screws up much of the universe.  Zhan's Dark Force trilogy set a much better precedent of having cloning be a major taboo after the clone wars.  It set the expectation to me at least that the Clone Wars was the Old Republic verse a bunch of clone masters with clone armies driven mad by the force.  That certainly would have been a proper galaxy devastating conflict that set the stage for the Empire's rise, and why the spaarti cylinders the Emperor squirreled away at Wayland would have been the type of technology that was such a boon to Thrawn.


(I'm not sure if i should feel proud we are derailing a previously derailed and spit topic)

[aRaven]

The cloning was just a method to recruit a great army in little time for starting a war in palpatines favor. After Episode 3 Palpi ceased to make clones and started to recruit ordinary people into the Imperial Navy (the Academy Luke wanted to go to).

By the time of the Old Republic Palpi couldn't secretly recruit for his war a la ("WE WANT YOU") and frankly didn't had the time for doing so. Cloning was the best choice but thus sacrifing individuality and creativity of his cloned troops.

We saw turbolasers or at least ordinary laser cannons from the Death Star's surface impacting the X-Wings shields (those little white flashes).
Of couse if a turbolaser hit a fighter directly, it would be gone. But that shouldn't be true for stray shots (the lasershot hitting the shields in an angle greater 0%). This can be compared with the Fresnel equation in technical optics.

And as I said before... semi-strong shields are easily overcome by rapid fire or greater power depending on laser type in SWC.

[MR_T3D]

um... i think battlefront 2 explains the un-universal cloning rather well: the kamino clone revolted, so the empire chose to diversify their forces, multiple types of clones, even volenteers.

[Titan]

The Zahn book 'Allegiance' provides a pretty good view of the imperial army, IMO.

[Flipside]

I seem to recall the problem with cloning mentioned in the Zahn books was regarding growing them at high speed, not simply the fact of growing them? The Force wouldn't allow it, that was why those anti-force creatures were used to nullify it around the cloning vats? Which was, iirc, how Zahn explained the lack of clones later in the Empire's life, because one batch was grown, but it would take years to grow more?

[brandx0]

Yeah it was something about how the force seemed to think that clones like that were the same being, and wouldn't allow the same being to exist twice or somesuch

[Titan]

at the least, far better than the prequels.

No, allegiance is set a couple months after ANH, and is about a group of stormtroopers that decide to go AWOL. Mara Jade is also in it, and Luke, Leia, Hand and the gang make up the 3rd storyline.

[StarSlayer]

Yeah it was something about how the force seemed to think that clones like that were the same being, and wouldn't allow the same being to exist twice or somesuch

Back in the days when the Force was the Force and not a symbiotic parasite is your blood stream.
I stopped reading EU after the Yushan Vong showed up but I'll give allegiance a shot.

[CaptJosh]

It wasn't that it wouldn't allow. It was that growing a copy without Ysalmiri around had to take time--minimum time was 5 years, more preferable--or the force resonance with the original would warp the mind of the clone, making it insane, as witnessed by Joruus C'boath, the clone of the original Jorus C'boath.

[Flipside]

Aha! I knew it was something to do with limiting time, it's been around a decade since I read those books

[MarkN]

Even without the ysalamiri, growing a clone safely wasn't the 5 or six years of the prequels, it was just 6 months. It is interesting that in Allegiance Zahn retcons to imply that both sides in the clone wars had clones, and the particular group of stormtroopers it concentrates on are some of the first non-clone stormtroopers. I get the idea that in the clone wars, just one planet (the Spaarti) managed to almost conquer the republic, by using clones. At least Zahn and Lucas agree over one thing, Palpatine was acquiring troops before the clone wars, just Zahn had him doing it on the fringes of known space (how he recruited Thrawn).

[StarSlayer]

Well maybe in the future at some point they will re imagine the prequels and let Zhan take the clone masters vs the Republic route