One of the main symbols of the Empire. Deadly, swarming like gnats. From the T.I.E. to the Predators. They are the symbol of imperial might.Watch for enemy fighters!
Thoughts? Opinions?
I think they are fine given the state of the empire at its highest but the lack of a hyperdrive would have drawbacks in the event you lost a fleet engagement and wished to withdrawl. Either you wait to recover them and risk losing your heavy ships in the process or you just write them all off.RK_Striker_JK_5 wrote:I was about to post the the TIEs would benefit more from having the hyperdrive than not, but the more I ponder, the more I realize that the Empire's not the Rebellion. [/obvious] Basically, they don't need it since lone fighters out in the void would be rare indeed. They'd more be nestled in the belly of a star destroyer or some other cruiser.
Also, TIE defenders kick ass. I have the lego version on my desk as I type. 8)
How, pray tell, does an energy bolt explode? I agree that it was a glancing hit, but that still means it hit something. Since it was a good metre from the fighter's structure, that means it hit the shields. Incidentally, we saw multiple similar flashes, both around the Tantive IV in the opening scene and around several X-wings in the Battle of Yavin. Since there's no dispute that they were shielded, the logical conclusion is that TIEs are also shieldedSuperSaiyaMan12 wrote:The first one-it was a glancing blow from the Falcon's Quad Laser Cannon. It exploded, because it was probably in range for that.
An "electrical discharge" eh? An "electrical discharge" that had exactly the same characteristics as the Tantive IVs shields when they were breached.In ESB, there were no shields either. The solar panels were hit, causing an electrical discharge that looked like a shield.
True, the real value you lose is your pilots so long as the fighters remain replaceable. Simply put if you look at studies of who got kills in dogfights like we see in Starwars (IE WWI, WWII and Korea) the vast majority of the kills go to a few experienced pilots. The majority of pilots are more or less just along for the ride.Tyyr wrote:So what if you lose your fighters? The entire flight wing of an ISD consisted of 84 men in maybe two or three Millenium Falcons worth of hardware, compared to the ISD with 37,000 crewmen worth tens of thousands of Millenium Flacons. Which one is more expendable?
You mean except for the time those Rebel/other fighters blew up two huge battle stations, flew through the bridge of a battleship and killed it, destroyed the reactor of the droid control ship and slashed their way through to the enemy flag ship to rescue the leader of the republic?Tyyr wrote:Umm, so what? What huge benefit did the TIE's bring to the battle that would make them too valuable to ditch? They were mostly there to act as a screen to keep Rebel fighters busy while the ISDs did the real killing. So what if one of your guys is really hot s**t at shooting down rebel X-Wings. It makes little or no difference to the ISD at all. The X-Wing wasn't much of a threat to begin with. Sure it's nice if your pilots are good at what they do but they are a relatively unimportant part of the Imperial military machine. In the grand scheme of things the money saved by not putting nav computers and hyperdrives on every TIE far outweighed the minuscule amount it cost you to abandon your fighters in the rare instances that you had to.
Or massed numbers. The Bacta War shows pretty conclusively that, however unlikely it may be, massed fighter salvos can overwhelm the surge capacity of a destroyer's shields. Of course, we've no data on the relative surge capacities of VicStar and ImpStar shields, or what sort of weapons Rogue Squadron was using (presumably some sort of dedicated high-yield anti-ship weapon), but the basic principle is established. Of course, in the middle of a fleet action, it's highly unlikely that the numbers of fighters required could be assembled to launch a coordinated strike.Sionnach Glic wrote:The incidents where fighters took down capships generally rely on extreme luck or utter flukes.
To nitpick, it's definitely a warship, but as you say it's designed for counterinsurgency, not fleet actions.That said, I don't actually consider it to be all that great a warship. Primarily because I doubt it's really a warship at all.
Not to mention the example from ESB of the Tyrant being disabled by a black market ion cannon.Various books depict ISDs being downed by various Rebel vessels ranging from true warships to converted passenger liners. This performance would be consistent with a vessel designed to tackle fleeing smugglers and the occasional heavily armed pirate vessel.