Thread: Viper versus;
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Old October 17th, 2005, 03:54 PM   #5
Centurion Draco
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The Starfury and the TIE are only usable in space and don't have atmospheric capabilities. Whilst the others are usable in both situations, only the Thunderbolt seems to have effective control surfaces, so that would probobly prove desicive in atmosphere.
Since drag/resistance is negligable in space, and weight/size also really doesn't matter (apart from soaking up the destructive force of the weapons), the control surfaces on the Starfury would be useless, as would the X-wing's whole 'open wings' to attack, 'close wings' to go faster thing.
The Viper seems to be the fastest, managing light speed or near light speed with conventional thrust, but having engines that seem to make it more like a Jet Fighter with reverse.
The Raider is in the same league, but not as fast, and without the same level of reverse thrust that the Viper enjoys.
The X-Wing IMHO would be V slow comapered to the Viper/Raider, as it's only marginally faster than the TIE is, in SW, but with FTL star-drive (non combat), it also seems to only have forward thrust (perhaps reverse of some limited type like the Raider).
The TIE would be a slow boy with it's twin ION engines as we understand them providing the kind of constant gentle push that would be of more use to deep space probes than fighters, so even if you imagine them as prodiving the kind of thrust a modern military Jet has (which is a stretch) they are a candle against the blow-lamp of the Viper or Raider. It doesn't seem to have any thrust nozzels apart from the two little ones at the rear so even with vectored thrust, it's not got reverse.
The Starfury would be slow compared to the top two (possibly about the same as an X-Wing), but with so many thrust nozzles, it would be very nimble. As for the weapons, you can only assume that all would have weapons that would easily destroy a fighter, and even the light shields of the Viper, X-wing, or Advanced Raider, would only protect them from a glancing blow/single hit. All seem to have energy weapons except for perhaps the Starfury which seems to fire some kind of explosive projectile (correct me if I'm wrong) So with that in mind, the Starfury might find that the fastest ships were simply too fast to hit, and were to fast to chase.
The TIE looks great but I think is not really practicle when you start to break it down. I think it would be left for dead by the BSG fighters, and would be outmanouvered by the Starfury.

SO! My Death by degrees list is:
In Space.
Viper (way ahead)
Raider
(big gap)
X-Wing/Starfury/Thunderbolt
TIE

In Atmosphere.
Thunderbolt
Viper/Raider (Raider gets some points for having more drag)
X-wing


In space, it would be like the minefield in the Nova-matagon (journey to Carrillon). The Vipers would be coming soooooo fast that the others would appear to be almost stationary, and they'd simply blow them to Frack with Laser Torpedos.
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