[aRaven]

according to ILM's speed/maneuverability chart, the y-wing is as fast as the xwing at 80MGLT.

I like the X-Wings speed at 100MGLT as it was in the games, lets say just put the ywing at 95 MGLT, 5MGLT faster than the gunboat!

[Vector Leader]

Personally, I think the majority of discrepancies between Star Wars fans regarding craft tech specs stem from the venerable X-wing and T.I.E. sims. While they were great in their own right (lord only knows how many days of my life I lost to them ), they were horribly inaccurate. The sheer popularity they had mainstreamed the belief that the specs in the games were accurate despite them actually contradicting what LFL had already published (which were obviously less well known). Because of their incredible popularity, much of the EU used it as a basis for their material when including such craft. What a shame. The kicker is they were billed as Star Wars simulators, which enhanced the credibility they had in the minds of players.

Non-atmospheric maximum speed for the BTL-A4 Y-wing starfighter: 80 MGLT (X-wing/T.I.E. series), 70 MGLT (LFL/movies). The T-65b/c X-wing starfighter: 100 MGLT (X-wing/T.I.E. series), 80 MGLT (LFL/movies). The funny thing is, all the craft are much faster and more maneuverable in the films than they're portrayed in any Star Wars game.

Of course, the Y-wing isn't the only starfighter that's had it's specs skewered in the good ol' X-wing & T.I.E. sims. It's just that the Y-wing is the most skewered in the least favorable way. lol Another example is the B-wing. Which was practically turned into a god.

[EtherShock]

according to ILM's speed/maneuverability chart, the y-wing is as fast as the xwing at 80MGLT.

I like the X-Wings speed at 100MGLT as it was in the games, lets say just put the ywing at 95 MGLT, 5MGLT faster than the gunboat!

100 is a nice round number. 80 sounds so slow to me, unless actual play shows it's not. I think that's what it's going to take to debunk this.

Did anyone ever think that maybe max atmospheric speed doesn't equal max MGLT? If an X-wing's max speed is 1,050 Km/h both in atmosphere and vacuum, that's not much faster than the speed of sound, and we have fighters in the real world that can do well over mach 1. It'd take the Rebels forever at their speed to reach the Death Star (even though it too was approaching) or fly to a planet in system. Doesn't make any sense to me. They have to be moving faster than their atmospheric speeds.

[Vector Leader]

according to ILM's speed/maneuverability chart, the y-wing is as fast as the xwing at 80MGLT.

I like the X-Wings speed at 100MGLT as it was in the games, lets say just put the ywing at 95 MGLT, 5MGLT faster than the gunboat!

100 is a nice round number. 80 sounds so slow to me, unless actual play shows it's not. I think that's what it's going to take to debunk this.

Did anyone ever think that maybe max atmospheric speed doesn't equal max MGLT? If an X-wing's max speed is 1,050 Km/h both in atmosphere and vacuum, that's not much faster than the speed of sound, and we have fighters in the real world that can do well over mach 1. It'd take the Rebels forever at their speed to reach the Death Star (even though it too was approaching) or fly to a planet in system. Doesn't make any sense to me. They have to be moving faster than their atmospheric speeds.

Yeah, I hear ya. lol 80 MGLT does sound rather slow, but only when when basing it on the games. In the films, 80 MGLT is much faster. Inaccurate representation of speed and maneuverability in Star Wars games has always been an issue. Granted, we don't know exactly how fast 80 MGLT technically is, but we get a pretty good idea from closely examining the films.

In actuality, atmospheric flight flight speed is separate from non-atmospheric. You have elements like wind resistance, gravity, etc. versus the engine thrust that play a role in a starfighter's atmospheric to non-atmospheric performance ratio. In the vast vacuum of space, they're not bound by the limitations of atmospheric flight.

There's been some speculation that enabling deflector shields while in atmospheric flight allows the craft to cut wind resistance. But that's never been stated or suggested by official LFL material, AFAIK.

[brandx0]

If the X-Wing goes 80 MGLT, then 1 MGLT is at least 3.65 m/s

We clocked it, frame by frame, the fastest an X-Wing is seen going on screen is 292 m/s

[Narvi]

Relative to what, exactly? *curious*

[brandx0]

To be honest I can't remember what we clocked the final speed off of, but it was either somewhere in the trench run scene or in the battle of endor when one skims overtop of a Star Destroyer's hull.  Might have been in the DS2 tunnel drive as well.  There was a lot of scenes I went through hehe

[chief1983]

I think it was the ISD hull skim, we knew it to have a length of 1.6km so traversing its length in about 5 and a half seconds gave us what we needed to know.

[TopAce]

If the X-Wing goes 80 MGLT, then 1 MGLT is at least 3.65 m/s

Amd how much will that be in FS units of measurement?

[chief1983]

FS units are m/s.

[CountBuggula]

Do we have any reliable information on the width of the Death Star trench?  That would give us a more reliable measure of the fighters going at top speed, since 292 m/s is only 653 MPH, or Mach .88.  I'm sure starfighters can travel faster than WWII fighters, even if Star Wars space combat was inspired by it.

[chief1983]

That may be true but I doubt we could have the game support it going any faster.  As it stands I plan to use speeds like that as the absolute cap with full power to engines.  Tiny snub fighters, only a fraction of the size of FS ships, are very difficult to hit at that speed for most players, but we're working on a solution for that as well.

[Narvi]

Wait, top speed? I misread that as acceleration earlier. 

I find it strange that you're trying to find a 'canon top speed' when Star Wars fighters are all equally fast. They're in space. Even a Star Destroyer can keep up with the Falcon, and the Falcon can keep up with most fighters. Maneuverability and acceleration are the names of the game for smaller ships in Star Wars, not speed.

[Herra Tohtori]

Do we have any reliable information on the width of the Death Star trench?  That would give us a more reliable measure of the fighters going at top speed, since 292 m/s is only 653 MPH, or Mach .88.  I'm sure starfighters can travel faster than WWII fighters, even if Star Wars space combat was inspired by it.

 


That IS faster than WW2 fighters. A whole lot faster. The fastest propeller driven fighters that saw combat action in WW2 were, I think, long-nosed Focke-Wulf 190 D models, which had top speed of 440 mph (or 710 km/h) at 37,000 ft (11 km). Dornier Do-335 was slightly faster, but it's combat record is afaik limited to one encounter with a Hawker Tempest flight (which were unable to catch it); it's specified top speed was 474 mph (765 km/h).

Messerschmitt Me-262 was obviously faster at 559 mph (900 km/h) but it was a jet. Heinkel He-162 Salamander aka Volksjäger was a tiny bit faster at 562 mph (wikipedia source) but that was a jet as well...

Mach 0.88 (at what altitude??) is something more like cruising speed of a modern jet airliner rather than level flight speed of any WW2 airplane. Obviously some airplanes of WW2 could withstand speeds like that in a dive, and there have been some stories about some planes breaching the sound barrier in a dive but that doesn't really count. And maneuverability at those speeds is really limited anyway.

Besides, typical combat turn speeds were something between 250-350 km/h in dogfights. Sustained maximum turn rates were also a lot less than you might think; high alpha maneuvering bleeds airspeed really fast. Of course, in space you dont' really need to worry about the kinetic/potential energy levels which actually makes it somewhat trickier for a game designer to balance the gameplay experience. And as much as TotallyGames deviated from the confirmed canon information, they did pretty good job on making the gameplay great fun (most of the time).

[Vector Leader]

If the X-Wing goes 80 MGLT, then 1 MGLT is at least 3.65 m/s

We clocked it, frame by frame, the fastest an X-Wing is seen going on screen is 292 m/s

Awesome! That's how I would've done it. lol

Keep in mind the context of the scene you're trying to acquire stats. For example, you wouldn't be able to clock an accurate standard top speed for the Y-wings at 70 MGLT in the trench because they had transferred all power to their deflector shield systems. Hence reducing their potential maximum speed considerably. Likewise, Luke transferred power to the engines during his final mad dash to the exhaust port.

@Herra Tohtori: Well put. You know your stuff.

[CountBuggula]

Obviously some airplanes of WW2 could withstand speeds like that in a dive

Yes, that's all I was referring to.

And maneuverability at those speeds is really limited anyway....<lots of technical details omitted for brevity>

Exactly!  This was my point - the speed we have for the X-Wing maneuvering through the Battle of Endor is likely to be FAR less than their actual top speed, which we could more accurately gauge from their "going in at full throttle" during the trench run.

By the way, I applaud your superb knowledge of WWII aviation.  I salute you.

[chief1983]

HT plays a lot of IL-2.  And I'm sure he was a WW2 buff before that as well.

Now, the Y-wings did adjust their shields, but I don't remember them saying anything about transferring engine power to shields as much as transferring shield power to the front deflectors.  Both the TG and FS games simulate this, in that you could still dump all your power to engines and still adjust the balance of your shield quadrants.

Also, Brand said that was at least 3.65 m/s.  The X-wing might not have been going full out, meaning that if the ship was going 292 m/s and it wasn't maxed, then 80MGLT could be even faster.  But again, we will have a hard time utilizing speeds even that fast, not just for playability but possibly also collision detection.  If we use additive weapon velocities, two closing craft at 300 m/s, firing weapons traveling another 1500 m/s, the closing velocity is now 2100 m/s.  I don't know what speed the engine might start having trouble, but I don't think any other mods have had speeds quite that high before.

[Herra Tohtori]

Well... bear in mind that there's two components to maneuverability: Attitude and vector. In space, the difference between the two is a lot bigger than in atmospheric ships (and FreeSpace, and "traditional" Star Wars game physics).

The attitude of an airplane largely defines it's vector as well. There's a little variation, but in most cases the airplane is going to the direction where it's nose is pointed at; if it doesn't, you're in big trouble since normal airplanes lose controllability when the AOA grows too high, and at too high speeds flying sideways tends to have adverse effects (which is what happened to Space Shuttle Columbia) to the airframe. So within the approved flight envelope, it's safe to say that airplanes go through the air into the direction they are pointed at (exceptions confirming the rule) because the airplane is designed to stabilize itself in relation to the airstream.

In space, there's no airstream so attitude vector and velocity vector are completely separate entities. The vector changes are what causes g-forces (though in Star Wars there's no need to worry about those), and attitude maneuverability isn't really limited by any relative speed, but vector maneuverability is limited by the acceleration of the ship and thus the turn radius is defined by the velocity in relation to some point of reference. I should probably elaborate that this is the case in real life physics, so it doesn't need to be that way in the game, but some nod to that direction would be great in my opinion.

In a nutshell - in FreeSpace2 and X-Wing series, when your nose points at some direction, you're flying into that direction immediately. In Real life, you need to change the vector as well as attitude. Beyond the Red Line (and, assumedly, Diaspora) and The Babylon Project are somewhere in the middle; neither railroad or newtonian flight dynamics. If railroad physics is zero and full newtonian is ten, I think BtRL is probably at five or six at normal mode and 8-9 at glide mode, TBP is perhaps 4-5 at normal flight, and I think a Star Wars sim would be well placed on, like, something between 2 and 4.

If it is possible, though, I would actually like two flight modes: One where attitude maneuverability is gradually reduced as reference velocity increases in order to keep the attitude and velocity vectors as similar as possible, and a more raw control flight mode where attitude maneuverability isn't limited, but correspondingly at high speeds the attitude and velocity vectors don't equalize as fast due to acceleration limits of the ships so controlled flight at high speeds would require more work. I don't know if I would want to see a full glide toggle on a star wars sim, though; I'll leave that question for the devs to answer.

 

Chief: Yes, I was always interested in aviation and WW2 era airplanes especially.

[Vector Leader]

@chief1983: Well, the exact words Dutch used were "Switch all power to front deflector screen. Switch all power to front deflector screen." So it's a good bet they did. lol

Personally, I believe that was the first of a few tactical mistakes they made on their approach to the exhaust port. Had they made it, they Y-wing's short & long range targeting computers wouldn't have had much trouble hitting the target, if any.

@Herra Tohtori: lol You are a force to be reckoned with. I've always been fascinated with WWI & WWII era aircraft, but my bread and butter was more toward the Korean & Vietnam conflict era aircraft.

[CountBuggula]

Well... bear in mind that there's two components to maneuverability: Attitude and vector. In space, the difference between the two is a lot bigger than in atmospheric ships (and FreeSpace, and "traditional" Star Wars game physics).

The attitude of an airplane largely defines it's vector as well. There's a little variation, but in most cases the airplane is going to the direction where it's nose is pointed at; if it doesn't, you're in big trouble since normal airplanes lose controllability when the AOA grows too high, and at too high speeds flying sideways tends to have adverse effects (which is what happened to Space Shuttle Columbia) to the airframe. So within the approved flight envelope, it's safe to say that airplanes go through the air into the direction they are pointed at (exceptions confirming the rule) because the airplane is designed to stabilize itself in relation to the airstream.

In space, there's no airstream so attitude vector and velocity vector are completely separate entities. The vector changes are what causes g-forces (though in Star Wars there's no need to worry about those), and attitude maneuverability isn't really limited by any relative speed, but vector maneuverability is limited by the acceleration of the ship and thus the turn radius is defined by the velocity in relation to some point of reference. I should probably elaborate that this is the case in real life physics, so it doesn't need to be that way in the game, but some nod to that direction would be great in my opinion.

In a nutshell - in FreeSpace2 and X-Wing series, when your nose points at some direction, you're flying into that direction immediately. In Real life, you need to change the vector as well as attitude. Beyond the Red Line (and, assumedly, Diaspora) and The Babylon Project are somewhere in the middle; neither railroad or newtonian flight dynamics. If railroad physics is zero and full newtonian is ten, I think BtRL is probably at five or six at normal mode and 8-9 at glide mode, TBP is perhaps 4-5 at normal flight, and I think a Star Wars sim would be well placed on, like, something between 2 and 4.

If it is possible, though, I would actually like two flight modes: One where attitude maneuverability is gradually reduced as reference velocity increases in order to keep the attitude and velocity vectors as similar as possible, and a more raw control flight mode where attitude maneuverability isn't limited, but correspondingly at high speeds the attitude and velocity vectors don't equalize as fast due to acceleration limits of the ships so controlled flight at high speeds would require more work. I don't know if I would want to see a full glide toggle on a star wars sim, though; I'll leave that question for the devs to answer.

 

I agree that I'd like to see the physics at least a little more towards the middle of that bar than the TG games, but I don't feel that true Newtonian physics have a place in a Star Wars sim/game, mostly because that's not how they're depicted in the movies.  If anything, we should be more closely modeling atmospheric flight than space flight, and I'd be plenty happy to see the physics of that implemented in the game (sans gravity, of course).

Chief: Yes, I was always interested in aviation and WW2 era airplanes especially.

Chuck Yeager's Air Combat was probably my first love that really got me into PC gaming (that and Commander Keen), and I've been a WWII aviation buff ever since.  Can't get enough of the stuff...it's like crack...for geeks.