I am both delighed and a bit worried to hear that the TIE Defender will be making it into the game. My question to the Devs, however, is based on past experience.

Both X-Wing Alliance and (obviously) Galactic Battlegrounds made the mistake of making the TIE Defender far less powerful than it actually is. For those who know the technical details of the craft, the Defender is, without a doubt, the best starfighter in the galaxy. It is as fast as an A-Wing(and faster if it shunts its shield power to it), has better shields and armor than an X-Wing, has more firepower than a B-Wing, and is even more manueverable than the vaunted TIE Interceptor. Obviously, however, such sheer superiority of the craft came with the vehicle being extremely expensive.

Is FoC going to remain true to the power of the Defender, or are you going to "nerf" it? Obviously it would have to cost more, but for once I'd like to see the craft get the honor it is due: that of the best starfighter in the galaxy.

-edit- also, the defender had a tractor beam. Is that going to be incorporated in any way?

Based on the chat i would expect it to be the killer it was. its gonna be bought seperate like rebel fighters are.

That was just because it was Hyperspace Capable

I've played all the old TIE fighter games - I remember how much of a nasty ship the Defender was. While we have to keep RTS game balance in mind, I want to make sure that the Defender lives up to it's history :)

I've played all the old TIE fighter games - I remember how much of a nasty ship the Defender was. While we have to keep RTS game balance in mind, I want to make sure that the Defender lives up to it's history :)

*breathes a sigh of relief* So glad to hear that others feel likewise! I know it has to be balanced, but I'd so love to just -feel- the power of it. XWA it was powerful, but still a tad lighter than it should have been...yeah, I know, balance and all that, but at least you're looking to make sure it lives up to its history.

But dang is it expensive!

Personally I don't think tractor beam on a fighter is going to work well game-wise.

But yeah I would rather the Defender cost more, and please give me the firepower it should have.

I rather they cost a fortune and a small unit size than a bunch of nerfed "slightly better" ties.

According to Star Wars "history", didn't the Empire only have a few dozen Defenders scattered throughout the whole galaxy? If they mass-produced them, the Galactic Civil War could have turned out far differently... I'll be sure to keep that in mind when I'm playing the Empire in FoC. :)

According to Star Wars "history", didn't the Empire only have a few dozen Defenders scattered throughout the whole galaxy? If they mass-produced them, the Galactic Civil War could have turned out far differently... I'll be sure to keep that in mind when I'm playing the Empire in FoC. :)

Indeed, even before Endor the Empire still considered hyperspace starfighters to be a waste of money (hence why the Advanced never made production) and then the upheavel caused by the death of the emperor and the funds drained by people like Isaard and warlords like Zsinj left the Empire without the resources to mass produce the Defender. If the Empire had seen things differently, then the Rebellion would never have survived. Even the vaunted firepower of the B-Wing was no match for a Defender.

And yeah, I think the tractor beam would be hard to implement, but I remember several of the manuevering tricks you could pull off if you used it right.

the defendershould have ion guns and torps as special abilities

I doubt that they'll use the tractor beam as one of the Defencer's special abilities. All it would be able to do with it is capture other fighters, and it would have to remain stationary itself to do so. I think it's more likely that it'll have some other ability, like the Y-wings' ion cannon blast.

We'll do everything we can to make sure it is the killer ship it was designed to be.

Sounds excellent.

So, what about the new Rebel units? (Hint hint...)

Actually, the idea of it having more firepower then a B-Wing is relative. The Defender had less ion cannons (2) for two more lasers (4) making it a much deadlier anti-fighter craft. However, it did not have the same warhead carrying capabilities then a B-Wing, making it "weaker" at taking out capital ships.

Certainly, Tie Defenders were hell to fight against. I remember playing Tie Fighter during the last few missions and having to fight them with an Avenger. Even at the easy difficulty, it was a nightmare. There was no way to out-run them or out-maneuver them.

Come to think of it, the game should seriously consider including the Assault Gunboat and the Missile Boat. Just for fun's sake :) But that's just wishful thinking from my part.

Well, strictly speaking, the Missile boat kinda came into play to take out the Defender, didn't it? :)
That is rogue TIE Defenders I mean, the ones Zarin acquired. ;)

Or I guess it primearly was intended to be used against rebel fighters, not it's own sides ships. :)
Haven't read up much about it other than what I know about it from TIE Fighter:
4 launchers (was it 10 or 20 missiles each?).
1 laser cannon.
Engine Booster that drained energy from the cannon to the engines to increase speed by alot. :p
Came out first time some time between Battle of Hoth and Battle of Endor.

Actually, 4 launchers could carry a maximum of 80 concussion missiles (20 each) if sent against fighters exclusively. However, the "normal" payload consists of 40 concussion missiles (the two top launchers could not carry anything else) and whatever else you wanted to have on the two bottom (generally proton torpedoes, but sometimes heavy rockets and bombs were used, well by me :p mag pulses were useless).

Generally, heavy rockets did much more damage but were easily intercepted so you had to get in pretty close before unloading everything. It was fun to stop the ship at 5 Km and just bombard the station/capital ship with your torpedoes. That was fun...ah Tie Fighter, how I love you :) !

Experimental Tie series...

Tie M1 Bizarre have a turble laser canon as weaponary... perfect if you want nothing but firepower.

Actually, the idea of it having more firepower then a B-Wing is relative. The Defender had less ion cannons (2) for two more lasers (4) making it a much deadlier anti-fighter craft. However, it did not have the same warhead carrying capabilities then a B-Wing, making it "weaker" at taking out capital ships.

not to start an argument, but I'm curious as to where you got the info that the defender doesn't have the warhead capacity of a B-Wing. Defenders have 2 missile launcher tubes that can be stacked with either concussion missiles or proton torpedoes, depending on the mission, with a max payload of 12 or more don't they? Do B-Wings carry more missiles? I really forgot how many missiles the B-Wing can carry although I know they do have 2 missile tubes as well.

From what I can remember from playing Tie Fighter :) The Tie Defender can carry some quantity of warheads but not as much as the B-Wing.

According to X-Wing Alliance, the B-Wing can carry up to 16 concussion missiles or 12 proton torpedoes. I think that's actually equal to what the Defender can carry.

According to X-Wing Alliance, the B-Wing can carry up to 16 concussion missiles or 12 proton torpedoes. I think that's actually equal to what the Defender can carry.

Based on the X-Wing series, which I always liked to a certain extent but always thought they made capital ships a bit too weak, a squadron of X-Wings alll launching torps could severely damage a capital ship, and X-wings could carry 12 torps. So that means that B-Wings and Defenders are on par in actual missile capacity, but the B-Wings extra ion cannons meant they do a bit more damage to a capital ship (just a bit) whereas a defender can outmaneuver any fightercraft and still damage capital ships...

they best make that thing bloody expensive! lol

Actually, according to wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tie_defender) (I realize that it's not a very reliable source, but it does fit with what my memory remembers :p ), the Tie Defender does carry less then a B-Wing.

From Tie Fighter, I'm pretty sure that it doesn't carry as much. I remember running out of warheads pretty quickly.

B-wings were bombers and TIE Defenders filled a space superiority role; it would make sense for the B-Wing to have a higher warhead complement. I thought that was what I remembered from XWA, but I haven't touched that in a while...and I'm a bit biased since I didn't fly TIE/D's that often 'cause I think they're ugly. TIE Phantoms look much cooler! ;)

B-wings were bombers and TIE Defenders filled a space superiority role; it would make sense for the B-Wing to have a higher warhead complement. I thought that was what I remembered from XWA, but I haven't touched that in a while...and I'm a bit biased since I didn't fly TIE/D's that often 'cause I think they're ugly. TIE Phantoms look much cooler! ;)

Now see, I have the opposite viewpoint ;) and yeah, the B-Wings do carry more warheads. I concede the point :)

about the cost of defenders and phantoms, I hope both of them are expensive, cause that was one of the reasons they never stoped makeing ties and interceptors both lacked of hyperdrive and life support and ofcourse had a lot less fire power, but they were able to overflow the space with those cheap fighters. Oh and i was forgeting about the shields hehehe.

About phantoms, I know its not going to happen, but it would be nearer to reality (in my opinion...and inside of what we can call reallity here hehehehe) if they were individual units, not squadrons like the rest of the starfighters, it's because they are radar blind (if u can see them in ur x-wing radar i guess the phantoms can't see each other in their radars), they only have visual, so if they were deployed on wings as the rest fo the fighters they could easily collide between themselves (with this I'm not saying that they won't collide if deployed individualy, but at least it will be harder).

well ill put that last point in my suggestion thread

and with radars im includeing the targeting sistem 2, I guess thats why they are phantoms, they completly vanish.

Since Phantoms have cloaking devices (at least I assume they will in the game), will they be more expensive than Defenders? Or can you not say yet?

They'll either be more expensive or (I think) have significantly less firepower. The Phantom will probably be more of a reconnaissance unit than a front-line combat unit.

guess thats a posibility, even thought i would like to see them in the front-line. I don't think imps would use so much resources in just a scout tie project =P.
About the fire power of the phantoms its far less than that of the defender, the great improvement it had was the cloack (supposedly to be used with some capital ships till that moment, really expensive and really rare, eu mention something about this) and the life suport. Think they only have 1 more lasser than standard ties.

About phantoms, I know its not going to happen, but it would be nearer to reality (in my opinion...and inside of what we can call reallity here hehehehe) if they were individual units, not squadrons like the rest of the starfighters, it's because they are radar blind (if u can see them in ur x-wing radar i guess the phantoms can't see each other in their radars), they only have visual, so if they were deployed on wings as the rest fo the fighters they could easily collide between themselves (with this I'm not saying that they won't collide if deployed individualy, but at least it will be harder).



Then they'd have to be deployed totally alone, in case some Tie Fighter who missed it collided with the Phantom...
Also, it's bloody hard to keep track of one tiny fighter in a game like E@W. When the heat starts building in the middle of a battle, looking for your Tie Phantom won't be an easy task (unless hotkeyed, but since not everyone does that...) There's a reason why Vader and Luke are deployed as a squadron.

Then they'd have to be deployed totally alone, in case some Tie Fighter who missed it collided with the Phantom...
Also, it's bloody hard to keep track of one tiny fighter in a game like E@W. When the heat starts building in the middle of a battle, looking for your Tie Phantom won't be an easy task (unless hotkeyed, but since not everyone does that...) There's a reason why Vader and Luke are deployed as a squadron.

not impossible, but not necesary either, the phantoms sitll have radar and visual range of the rest of the ships, its just that they are invisible for everyone, so they can be just more carefull.

Hey u $"#% tie look where are u going...wait...u cant see me, crap know im going to have to avoid u colliding with me.

thats why I said phantoms can collide between themselves =)

and about keeping track...i dont keep track by looking at the fighter, but at the icon(and yes i use hotkeys but i still search the icons not the fighter), and if the phantoms are really phantoms at some point they will be cloaked and u wont be able to keep track on them i u look for the fighter and not the icon. At least this is the idea i got from ur post about tracking, maybe i misunderstood it.

dont want a big argument abotu this, its just an opinion

You're right about the icon, but I still think that a single fighter is too small. I mean, the icon is now ridiculously larger then the ship/squadron it's supposed to represent.

As for Phantoms not colliding with others, well, to have more chances of avoiding collisions, both need to be aware. If the Phantom spends as much time looking where his mates are and where they're going as it spends keeping track of its enemies, it's not going to be very effective.

But if you made the fighters bigger to match the icon, the starships would also have to be bigger, which would mean that in turn, the maps would also have to be (much) bigger as well. In the default version of EaW, the fighters are already too big anyway.

I like the size of the things as they are now, I just want a bigger Home One, like that of the trailer =)...o wait...bigger maps, we need bigger maps, not just 40%.
what happens if u have the executor and eclipse and DS II in the same map, even when u can fly over all those ships u will appear right over the enemy space station X_x
XD ok now im offtopic XD

I was curious about the price of the defender, acording to the rolplaying books the cost is around the 300,000 credits, and a standard tie is around 60,000(in EaW the cost is 300), so useind some maths the game cost of the defender should be around 1500, O_o still it seems a little bit expensive for the game cause a ISD is around the 5000 dont?, I expect the cost to be between the 500 and 900.

Of course, they might just raise the price of some units. I hope so, as the Death Star costing 20,000 seems a bit cheap to me.

u'r right, that maybe a good idea.

[QUOTE=Yadiel]I was curious about the price of the defender, acording to the rolplaying books the cost is around the 300,000 credits, /QUOTE]

Hey man ive read most of the RPG books, which one has that info in it? To be honest even 5 times the cost of a standard TIE is way too cheap for such a craft.

I thought that Phantoms were a rumour and my first guess was people were told/thought the phantom was going to be in it and the defender would be a surprise. Looks like that is out of the bag now. As for representing cloaked fighters you could still use an icon which obviously only the Imperial player would see and while cloaked it would flash. Simple.

It should only get one special ability and that would be the ion cannons. Im sure it will launch torps but not as big a salvo as the B-Wing. The warhead loads in TIE fighter varied alot without any decrease in performance. remember the special 'double loads' you used to get issued. I always thought a Defender could carry 12 missiles or 8 torps as standard, whereas a B-Wing carried 12 torps.

Im going for 1000 for a squadron of those little beauties. Twice the price of an X-wing squadron but justifiably so.

I think 1000 is a good price, as long as they make the defenders as good as the defenders should be. It would be great to not have such a throw away squadren.

Hey man ive read most of the RPG books, which one has that info in it? To be honest even 5 times the cost of a standard TIE is way too cheap for such a craft.

It is a WOTC Web Enhancement PDF that can be found here (http://www.wizards.com/starwars/downloads/ships_enhancement.pdf). Free and available to all. Also, the cost is only 200,000 which if you follow the storyline in TIE Fighter covers the cost of developing the Advanced (Avenger), the TIE sized/modified Hyperdrive, as well as shield and miniaturized beam systems included.

Also, credits, speeds and firepowers switch from game to game, computer to paper etc. A lot of the credit system in Star Wars is based off a modified Dungeons and Dragons gold/silver system as well as monetary systems of the US dollar and British pound (talk about confusing, but having 100,000 credits is equivalent to being a millionare from my gaming expierence).

O_o ohhh that must be a new enhancement, the one i had said 300,000(burn on cd), hehehe guess that was to much even for the RPG.
And well we all know the defender is so far the best starfighter, or one of the best, but we must take on account that in the x-wing series the capital ships were a bit weaker than they should be, so for game terms I think that 1000 credits is to much for a squadron of fighters if u can still buy a ISD for 5000. And in my opinion, just in my opinion ok XD dont want a great fight over this, I would like to see the defender be great against fighters, but not to be a match for capital ships, what I mean is if u have 5000 credits to spend, it should be better to spend it on an ISD than in 5 defender squadrons, do u get my point, ofcourse they can make ISD more expensive, and defenders a bit cheaper.

Well there are some points in wich there will be conflicts between what everyone want, cause they have those experiences in other games, and what can be applied to this game. I trust the devs will come with a good solution between what we want and what is good for this game.

I always thought things in the SW universe and RPG were expensive, compared to what you earn, although I never found info on wages for different jobs...you only have to look at ANH when Luke freaks out about the price Han wants to charge for his services. If 10,000 is the cost of a 'pre-loved' starship then 10,000 must be a fair hunk of cash. And starships are not like cars...speeders are their equivalent which are undoubtedly cheaper. Anyway im getting OT

Back to the Defender, Yadiel you certainly have a point, but if they are going to be anything like what they should be they will have to be on the expensive side. Consider what the B-Wing is going to cost. Its certainly going to be more than A-wings and they are over 600. If B-wings go for 800 then Defenders will have to be somewhere in this ball park and considering their capabilities a tad more expensive, hence 1000. Thats my reasoning anyway.

Again your totally correct about what you can get for your cash, but 5 defender squadrons may not be as good as a single ISD. In some cases they would be better. It will take multiple squadrons to take out capital ships but this is of course expensive, and they will not be able to cover themselves while they do it. So you might need to buy something to help do this. I can see advantages and disadvantages of such a unit and to knock out a number of these squadrons cheaply has gotta hurt. If the empire player babies them then they are not getting the use from them and value for money.
I hope they are good but not so good they can take on fleets single-handed, know what I mean. And I would like them more resilient to corvettes than fighters currently are, as I expect the B-wing will be. Make these two craft vulnerable to fighters. Besides if Defenders do get the Ion ability then they can disable a corvette and have half a chance. As for you players who like to field a heap of corvettes; well, the defenders have no hope.

I have to correct my post, it should say
if u have 5000 credits to spend, it should be better to spend it on an ISD THAN in 5 defender squadrons

its THAN not AND XD