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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
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Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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 Posted: Wed Feb 19, 2025 10:19 am Post subject: |
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I may have started this thread, but I don’t own it. I think we’d all benefit from you posting your version of the stats from XW:A here. If someone points out something you missed, you can always go back and edit it.
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The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index
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fogger1138
Lieutenant Commander
Joined: 25 Feb 2021
Posts: 108
Location: Maine
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| Posted: Wed Feb 19, 2025 10:26 am Post subject: |
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| FVBonura wrote: | | I don't know if starting a second X-wing Alliance thread is necessary. My post above outlines the systemic problem. WEG never corrected any of their stats, they copy/pasted them again and again, errors and all. I plan to adopt option 2 for my personal campaign but I would still like to hear what others think because I miss things. You spotted that I mistyped the maneuverability on the TIE Interceptor and that was helpful. |
| CRMcNeill wrote: | | I may have started this thread, but I don’t own it. I think we’d all benefit from you posting your version of the stats from XW:A here. If someone points out something you missed, you can always go back and edit it. |
Seconding CRMcNeill here. I'd been considering updating the speed stats for those fighters based on that chart as well, and would love to see your versions of them, FVBonura. |
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Impaler
Ensign
Joined: 25 Jan 2025
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| Posted: Wed Feb 19, 2025 10:38 pm Post subject: |
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I have likewise long wrestled with the speed differences implied by the MGLT chart and the common speed values given to X and Y wings in games which are significantly lower then the TIE's.
I reconcile it by assuming that the 100 MGLT speed claimed for rebel fighters is only AFTER they have shifted maximum power to engines and thus sacrificed some of their shields and or firepower., thus they do not need to match the 'nominal' speeds which are given. Really every rebel fighter should have high, medium, low values for any stat which is subject to power shifting.
In a New Hope trench run the TIE's have a clear speed and agility advantage initially as they over take rebel fighters easily and out manuver them. But once Luke orders the shift to full engines the TIE's apear to los that advantage and we can reasonably conclude their speeds were equal and the TIE's other then Vaders could no longer over take them.
I thus put the 'balanced' (equal nominal power to all systems) speed of X and Y wings to be the 80 and 70 MGLT respectivly. Likewise the lower agility figures common for both are going to be when engines are at nominal performance and they can gain agility when they gain speed. The Rebel fighters likely had to give up half or more of their deflector strength or laser cannon firepower to achive this though (you would assume it should have been taken it from firepower as the laser cannons have nothing to shoot at when doing the trench run but maybe this would have taken power from the targeting systems which were vital)
Now one might ask why didn't the TIE fighters defending the Death Star just ALSO accelerate. Well this is where I disagree with most video games which depict Imperial fighters also having power shifting capability (all be it only between weapons and engines). Due to the fact the TIE's seem to have failed to counter Lukes tactics, and the singular dog-fighting focus of the TIE leads me to conclude they have fully seperate weapon and engine power systems which can not share power. So a TIE fighter is always flying 100 MGLT and always pew-pewing at full strength, which is frankly a good match for what we see on screen and makes the craft simpler to build and to learn to fly. |
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FVBonura
Commander
Joined: 24 Nov 2005
Posts: 273
Location: Central PA
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| Posted: Fri Feb 21, 2025 4:21 pm Post subject: |
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| Impaler wrote: | | Due to the fact the TIE's seem to have failed to counter Lukes tactics, and the singular dog-fighting focus of the TIE leads me to conclude they have fully separate weapon and engine power systems which can not share power. So a TIE fighter is always flying 100 MGLT and always pew-pewing at full strength, which is frankly a good match for what we see on screen and makes the craft simpler to build and to learn to fly. |
| Star Wars Sourcebook, First Edition, page 23 wrote: | | TIE/In Now the standard fleet-based TIE fighter, this model carries a separate power generator for its laser cannons. |
Jumping to conclusions is not necessary if one consults and familiarizes oneself with the source material. You are quite correct in your conclusion Impaler. 
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FVBonura
Commander
Joined: 24 Nov 2005
Posts: 273
Location: Central PA
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| Posted: Fri Feb 21, 2025 4:26 pm Post subject: |
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Update:
I have decided in light of everything I have read on this thread to publish a research paper on my findings and post it on my website. I ask for patience because this will take some time to organize and process my notes in a form that is easily digested by the community. I am also running a live campaign, game day is tomorrow. Also I have to pause several of my other Star Wars projects to focus on the research paper. I will endeavor to make best to speed in its completion.
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Whill
Dark Lord of the Jedi (Owner/Admin)
Joined: 14 Apr 2008
Posts: 10491
Location: Columbus, Ohio, USA, Earth, The Solar System, The Milky Way Galaxy
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| Posted: Sun Feb 23, 2025 11:36 pm Post subject: |
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| FVBonura wrote: | The problem here is huge. I have been trying to translate X-wing Alliance stats to WEG D6 stats for quite some time using Linear Regression. There is only an agreement of about 32% (R squared about .3165) with the two systems.
I trust everyone here is familiar with the "Relative Speed / Maneuverability Chart" produced for the motion control cameras for "Return of the Jedi". X-wing Alliance is more conformal to the original camerawork specs of ROTJ than the SWRPG. As best as I can deduce, West End Games buffed the Rebel Fighters and nerfed the Imperial Fighters to improve player survivability. I suspect WEG's logic was respawning in a PC game takes seconds, respawning in an RPG can take longer by orders of magnitude so they made the RPG easier. The X-wing series of PC games from 1991-99 has seen thousands of times more playtesting than the SWRPG and the games have made subtle changes from game-to-game, to the ship stats, for game balance. The WEG stats have not changed from 1987 to 1998 save for adding metrics related to Second Edition. It is a terrible shame and it would have been a tall order if the various license holders of Star Wars could have compared notes and coordinated with vigor. Alas...
This leaves us three paths to a solution, each with compromises and tradeoffs.
1. Conform to West End Games and adjust X-wing Alliance metrics to match as best as possible. The tradeoff is ships with no hyperdrive or shields will perform worse than the heavier ships. Also ship performance will not conform to movie footage.
2. Conform to X-wing Alliance and adjust WEG metrics to accommodate to the PC game. This will emulate the effects of heavier ships carrying shield generators and hyperdrives. The tradeoff will be reduced new Rebel Player Character survival.
3. Develop a new system conformal to the "Relative Speed / Maneuverability Chart" trying to emphasize power-to-weight. The tradeoff here is much more work to form a balanced solution, and the issues that will occur with community consensus and adoption.
Once again I defer to the preferences of the community, request wider study, and additional discussion here and in every social community that uses these SWRPG rules. |
I don't have much experience with this particular game, but my general experience with Star Wars computer/video games is that they do not represent the reality of the films very well. This is not the say that the RPGs haven't ever missed the mark, but I still feel it is an important point since the idea here is that the game may be overall more 'accurate' than the RPG so the RPG should perhaps follow this game.
Also, the fact that the game may in some cases more accurately relate to the ROTJ motion control camera reference chart does not necessarily mean that the game is more accurate to the films for non-speed stats. This chart literally only addresses relative speed and maneuverability - nothing else.
Also, the units of measure in this chart ("megalights" or whatever is) was a meaningless term only chosen because it sounded sufficiently sci-fi-ish, thus making it akin to "space units", a game term that only demonstrates how ships are relative to each other in space combat/chases but doesn't reveal any real-world measures (which are unnecessary in the RPG). This is important to point out for two reasons. (1) We once had someone post a system with specific realworld-measurable speeds based on the chart, where the ships in the chart actually also had FTL capabilities in realspace (yet still ignoring relativity's time dilation), slower than the hyperspace travel seen in the films, some sort of warp drive. This chart is clearly in reference to non-relativistic speeds ("sublight") despite the silly, gobbledegook name for the unit of measure, so only the numbers really matter here. (2) We would need to choose a frame of reference for this chart, how those numbers relate the game system.
Also, basing anything on this chart includes a presumption that the chart was accurately referenced when filming the space battle scenes, and that it wasn't intentionally changed in production from the original intention of the chart. I am personally comfortable with those presumptions.
All that said, I would be ok with restatting the speed and maneuverability of these ships based on this reference chart. For starters, just looking at the increments of 25, we could choose 100 to be 4D (which incidentally puts X-wings as the basis of reference). 75% of that would be 3D. 125% of 4D would be 5D, and 150% of 4D would be 6D. Those closely correspond to the 1e speed codes of those ships. Putting that in terms of 2e's Space stat would look like this:
12 A-wing
10 TIE Interceptor
8 Standard TIE
8 X-wing
8 Y-wing
6 Falcon
6 B-wing
The TIEs and Falcon are slower than WEG Raw, Y-wings are faster, while A-wings and B-wings are the same. I'd also be comfortable with a little tweaking of these for nuance, to make a couple of them slightly closer to WEG but still within the general relationships from ILM, like so:
12 A-wing
10 TIE Interceptor
9 Standard TIE
8 X-wing
8 Y-wing
7 Falcon
6 B-wing
All I did above was make standard TIEs and the Falcon slightly faster than the ILM chart, putting them only 1 away from their WEG stat. I find I'm ok with leaving Y-wings equal to X-wings in speed.
I'd have to put some more thought into the three maneuverability ratings, but I'd probably use a similar process to speed.
As far as the rest of the stats, I generally just go with Charles' stats (but not all of his house rules). Besides tweaking the speeds and possibly maneuverability stats of these ships and cascading any logical changes to other stats (like other TIE models, etc.), I'll probably just stick with Charles stats. But I'm still looking forward to seeing what you come up with, Frank.
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FVBonura
Commander
Joined: 24 Nov 2005
Posts: 273
Location: Central PA
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| Posted: Mon Mar 03, 2025 11:36 am Post subject: |
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As per my policy, I first layout all the relevant data necessary to accomplish the project. My goal is to present my findings in a format readily digestible to the RPG community.
This is Phase One, the published data we all have accessible to us. Please check my work and let me know if anything is unclear. I have included my corrections to the published stats from West End Games with references and justifications for each. I am now processing Phase Two, the translation in a similar format.
All of my work and progress can be found on my website at the below address:
X-Wing Alliance Translation
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FVBonura
Commander
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Posts: 273
Location: Central PA
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| Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2025 1:20 am Post subject: |
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I added and consolidated my notes on the Firespray-class. My notes almost got big enough for its own Slave I page. I would appreciate some peer review as I have outlined and referenced all the TYPOS and errata for all the RPG fighters that also appear in "X-wing alliance". Please find mistakes, I would appreciate it.
X-Wing Alliance Translation
I am in process of writing the translator (coming soon).
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FVBonura
Commander
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Location: Central PA
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| Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2025 4:09 pm Post subject: |
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| Ray wrote: | | I'd see them as a Starfighter Stopgap between the fall of The Empire and the rise of The First Order. Someone dusted off the old files, updated the droid brains a bit, maybe made a few squadrons that had human pilots for them, and so on. Even more expendable than TIE/LNs. |
In my research paper on the Hornet Iinterceptor I quote the original sources that mention that the engineers at Sienar Fleet Systems basically got the “operation paper clip” treatment by the Tenloss syndicate, post Empire. In my own campaign, these engineers would’ve had copies of the fabrication plans of these experimental fighters and may have even proposed some of them with and without droid pilots to the syndicate. Food for thought and one of the reasons why I took interest in this project because I may very well use these experimental fighters as interesting encounters in Tenloss controlled sectors.
Hornet Interceptor Study
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
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Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Fri Mar 14, 2025 10:27 pm Post subject: |
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If so, I’m surprised the Hornet didn’t end up looking more TIE-ish.
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index
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FVBonura
Commander
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| Posted: Sat Mar 15, 2025 1:20 am Post subject: |
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| CRMcNeill wrote: | | If so, I’m surprised the Hornet didn’t end up looking more TIE-ish. |
That my friend is a can of worms I will open in another thread in another time. 
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FVBonura
Commander
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| Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2025 10:24 pm Post subject: |
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I posted an update today there are charts for speed translated, maneuverability translated, and hull translated. I’m working on shields it’s another can of worms. The Toscan fighter is a mess.
X-Wing Alliance Translation
I’m also trying to get a hold of the original programmers to see how much coordination they attempted with WEST END GAMES. They did fix many of the broken fighters like the CloakShape and the Toscan.
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FVBonura
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| Posted: Fri Mar 21, 2025 3:54 pm Post subject: |
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Shield charts are published. I am still refining the research paper but if you see something wrong, let me know. I will also upload all the spreadsheet when we are complete so you can set the stats as you please if your preferences are different.
I am also trying to get a hold of the original programmers to see if I can get some behind the scenes insights. I wish they wrote a BTS book like they did for "Shadows of the Empire".
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FVBonura
Commander
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| Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2025 10:08 am Post subject: |
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So far I only found one mistake in the X-Wing Alliance CD files. Totally Games listed "N" for hyperdrive on the Toscan Fighter. The Tocsan/Toscan 8-Q/Q-8 (yes the name is that messed up, someone had dyslexia) is the most errata-ridden fighter in the RPG. I am interviewing Craig R. Carey right now to try and get some clarification.
Second place goes to the CloakShape Fighter, but WEG created stats for the specific fighter chasing the Falcon in "Dark Empire". A more balanced/typical variant would have been nice in "Pirates & Privateers". XWA's stats/metrics are a more balanced configuration.
At this point I am just tweaking/polishing the spreadsheets and my notes. Feel free to comment on what is published.
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FVBonura
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