Star Wars Squadrons trailer

[Mecha82]

And correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the Fantasy Flight X-Wing games officially classified as Legends?

That could be possible. I haven't been thinking it that way.

[I am Belch II]

Looks good but its a EA product.

[marauder648]

I've a nasty feeling its gonna be a team based shooter, an Overwatch in space. Something like TIE Fighter or its other contemporaries is probably too much to ask.

[Luciora]

A re-skin of Wing Commander Arena, just with pretty cutscene and a popular branding. 

I'm worried EA will muck with it in a bad way as well.

I've a nasty feeling its gonna be a team based shooter, an Overwatch in space. Something like TIE Fighter or its other contemporaries is probably too much to ask.

[Sartris]

I'm worried EA will muck with it in a bad way as well.

i mean *gestures broadly*

anyone else remember when EA was just another little game company that put out bangers like Chuck Yeager's Air Combat?

[Colt Ward]

i mean *gestures broadly*

anyone else remember when EA was just another little game company that put out bangers like Chuck Yeager's Air Combat?

*sigh* . . . especially when they ate up companies like Origins.  I think there is just too much effort to become the next pvp craze-  Call of Duty, Fortnight, etc- rather than putting out a solid game that is not a vehicle for PVP.  Its probably why I invested in Star Citizen b/c of the enjoyment I got with WC:Privateer, WC Prophecy, & Freespace.

I mean, I was such a Star Wars fan that if Lucas Arts put out a SW title, I bought it . . . as the quality to me steadily sunk.  Force Commander IIRC was sort of the last straw.  X-wing Gold and Rebellion where the high marks there to me . . . XvT was okay but it had a lot of the shift to PVP.

[CranstonSnord]

Hey, I really like Force Commander. The soundtrack, at least  ;D

[Colt Ward]

Sound tracks were always good . . . Force Commander was the 'lets imitate 15 year old Star Craft' right?

[DOC_Agren]

new canon has greatly downplayed the sexism of the Empire over what it was in legends.. though most of the officers that appear in the new expanded universe materials are still men. the Legends stuff was a relic of the age in which it was written, and frankly didn't make a lot of sense at the time, nor did it age well. (though to be frank, a lot of legends material aged badly)

new canon also has made the Empire's speciesism more nuanced.. while it is still very much a human centric entity and has a history of disenfranchising, exploiting, and even enslaving non-humans, it is no longer quite so openly human-supremacist.

So because I will be honest I have not read up the new stuff really, are there many non-human serving the Empire?
That was part of what made it easy to hate them...  How they treated the non-humans

[guardiandashi]

So because I will be honest I have not read up the new stuff really, are there many non-human serving the Empire?
That was part of what made it easy to hate them...  How they treated the non-humans

in the old EU it was HUMan ie there was a serious glass ceiling for females, and aliens were mostly slaves or darn near untouchables unless they really were Waay better than anyone else.
with the more human you looked the better off you were.  so thrawn with his blue skin but mostly human appearing other than that... well he was way better off than a wookie for instance.

in the New core Canon I believe a lot of it is essentially the same except not as extreme.
so in the EU a female naval officer had a really hard time getting beyond say commander, US navy equivalent good luck at ever getting command of anything bigger than a destroyer or frigate (assuming you even got promoted that high. )
in the new canon I would bump up the rank ceiling as say captain.  maybe command of a cruiser.

aliens 90-99% of the time are going to be a step or so down from a female, in general

of course thats in the actual imperial army, and navy the empire has no real issue with aliens as specialists in other duties, so hiring an alien bounty hunter or the like no issues at all.

[glitterboy2098]

the non-military side seems to be more open than the military. to both women and aliens. which makes sense given that it has only been two decades since republic.. most of the civil service would have been non-human, and while anti-alien sentiments seem to be widespread even during the republic period, the Empire couldn't really be too heavily handed. though it is likely that human appointments predominated in the empire, gradually reducing the number of aliens in the civil service. especially given that there likely was a lot of resignations over the first half decade as the republic reshaped itself.

and the military being more human centric and misogynist makes some sense as well.. the Imperial navy and army grew out of the old Grand Army of the Republic, staffed almost entirely by Jango-clones and only a small cadre of non-clone upper officers. while they quickly started recruiting and training non-clones in order to expand it (including making the old clone trooper units into the elite stormtrooper corps rather than the whole of the army) that history would mean that the internal culture of the military would be biased towards human males, because that was what the old guard all was, and non-humans and women were things that the clones had relatively little experience in interacting with outside a battlefield.

but there are non-humans in the military, as well as entities connected to it. one of the premier military academies for example was led by an aqualish. one that was so pro-imperial that she even fled the fall of the empire to help form the First Order! (which did eventually betray her but still)

[Empyrus]

So, after seeing some videos, i'm actually getting a pretty good feel about this.
It is smaller scale than i would prefer, having only 4 ships per faction playable (X-, A-, Y- and U-wings for the Rebels; TIE Fighter, Interceptor, Bomber and Reaper for the Empire, in balanced/interceptor/bomber/support role order), but it is first-person only, with quite a bit of customization and power management is a big deal apparently.
Feels like a proof of concept, in a way, perhaps it will get DLC or a sequel if it does well.

[glitterboy2098]

they've made a promise to not do microtransactions, but i think that if the game turns out good enough, the fanbase would go for rational DLC options. a DLC expansion that added a new campaign and a couple new fighters (plus new cosmetic options) i think would go over pretty well. they still have a number of fighter options they could stick in such DLC as playable craft.. TIE Defender, TIE Advanced V1's, B-wings, Z-95's, heck they could probably get away with some older stuff like V-wings, ARC-170's if they did the storylines right. (V-wings were early imperial craft and could easily be added in to represent such early fights, or to represent the imperials scrapping the bottom of the barrel after endor. and the ARC-170 got used by some Rebel Cells. and might still be around in a few new republic squadrons as a result)

i do hope they stay within the Galactic Civil War period though. the Sequel Trilogy has some pretty interesting fighter options, but matching them up against the GCW units would require nerfing the ST stuff more than the lore would support.

[Fat Guy]

There's an Imperial option even closer to the original trilogy: the TIE/rb heavy starfighter (aka TIE Brute) from SOLO.

[Empyrus]

i do hope they stay within the Galactic Civil War period though. the Sequel Trilogy has some pretty interesting fighter options, but matching them up against the GCW units would require nerfing the ST stuff more than the lore would support.

If the game's successful, a sequel with Resistance vs FO and perhaps even Republic vs Separatists battles in addition to GCW era could work. This would sidestep any tech disparities, as those factions are contemporaries.

Going for cross-era matches would be more difficult, though currently the game apparently has factions mirror each other rather closely, like X-wings and TIE Fighters sharing stats, shields and resulting power management changes being sole differences (and perhaps some customization options). In such situation, T-70 X-wings vs standard TIE Fighters would not be a problem since they would presumably share stats, even though canonically the T-70 is obviously better than the T-65 X-wing (let alone standard TIE/LN). I wouldn't mind this, because the feel of advanced ships would still exist, even if it is not strictly canon-appropriate.

Some kind of point system is an option, akin to how Ace Combat 7 did stuff. Like, you have 100 points. You can take a TIE Silencer (Kylo Ren's fighter) but it costs enough you can only pick your alternate weapons and that's it. Or you could take an old TIE Fighter and mod it a lot. This isn't a flawless concept, as finding the right balance between upgraded old ships and baseline-super newer ones is difficult, and it does suffer from being game-y solution.
Or perhaps lives. TIE Fighter gets 10 lives, TIE Silencer gets 1, good luck! Or maybe respawn time differences.

[glitterboy2098]

Going for cross-era matches would be more difficult, though currently the game apparently has factions mirror each other rather closely, like X-wings and TIE Fighters sharing stats, shields and resulting power management changes being sole differences (and perhaps some customization options).

actually not according to the developers and the playtesters. the fighters are not copies of each other, the way they are in Battlefront II, instead being lore friendly (TIES lacking shields for example)
this guy has a pretty good video on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19XwrPTQwNY

also, articles: https://www.usgamer.net/articles/star-wars-squadrons-director-details-on-customization-canon-tie-fighters
https://www.polygon.com/interviews/2020/6/18/21295900/star-wars-squadrons-everything-you-need-to-know

[Empyrus]

actually not according to the developers and the playtesters. the fighters are not copies of each other, the way they are in Battlefront II, instead being lore friendly (TIES lacking shields for example)

At least one video (had gotten to play the game) i watched indicated that, ignoring the shield and resulting power management differences, the fighters are "identical". Admittedly the statement was vague, i interpreted it meaning corresponding ships would be identical (eg X-wing/TIE Fighter and Y-wing/TIE Bomber).

The interviews are older and pretty general so i'm taking stuff in them with grain of salt. Yes, TIEs lack shields and have stronger hull than it should have in canon for compensation, but that doesn't address maneuverability or other similar stats that aren't obvious. I suppose it is possible the game's well enough balanced the player hadn't noticed the ships differing more.

I'll check the vid you linked though.
EDIT Too much talk about Battlefront II, bleh. Anyway, this guy did seem to have noticed differences, especially noted TIE Interceptor and A-wing, so OK. But i suspect the differences aren't exactly canon, as games always take liberties with stuff for sake of necessity. Old X-wing Alliance comes to mind, where the TIE Defender wasn't as good as it was (old-)canonically for sake of better gameplay.


Oh, and this weirdly reminds me of the Rebel Y-wing being something of a joke ship in online communities (at least as far as i've observed) yet in Return of the Jedi we see one chasing down a TIE Interceptor and shooting it.
Can't wait to fly one in Star Wars Squadrons, my favorite good-guy ship.

EDIT Duh, i just realized the gameplay trailer actually shows bar graphs of baseline differences. The TIE/LN for example shows greater speed than the X-wing.
Hmph, must've watched a bad video, come to think of it the guy was rambling a bit...

[glitterboy2098]

there is a lot of chaff to sort out, yeah. and with so much of it being locked away under NDA's it is hard to get good non-speculation info.

i have no doubt that they've tried to make the two sides analogous. but they seem to be trying to do it in a more nuanced way, rather than using carbon copies with merely different visuals like the battlefront games (new and old)

that said, i suspect that the Standard TIE is not going to be as popular a choice on the imperial side as the X-wing will be on the rebel side. Imperial fans gravitate to the TIE interceptor, in my experience.

[Empyrus]

Me, i'll be a TIE Bomber and Y-wing pilot mostly. Based on customization options, i'm thinking of increasing maneuverability and speed so that they make passable dogfighters. Others are gonna be weirded out when a bomber is chasing them  >:D

But yeah, with TIE Interceptor in the game, the TIE Fighter is gonna be a bit dubious. Sure, the role focus does make it better at some things, but between the Interceptor's looks and its canon role as TIE Fighter replacement, it is gonna be more popular.

[NeonKnight]

Me, i'll be a TIE Bomber and Y-wing pilot mostly. Based on customization options, i'm thinking of increasing maneuverability and speed so that they make passable dogfighters. Others are gonna be weirded out when a bomber is chasing them  >:D

But yeah, with TIE Interceptor in the game, the TIE Fighter is gonna be a bit dubious. Sure, the role focus does make it better at some things, but between the Interceptor's looks and its canon role as TIE Fighter replacement, it is gonna be more popular.

Put me down as Tie Bomber/Y-Wing lover!

You can tell I love the Y-Wing cause I have one of these in my office:

https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/y-wing-starfighter-75181

[Empyrus]

Two disappointing things i've seen:

-Apparently having both blasters and ion cannons is not an option, with the Y-wing's ion-auto-turret being sole exception. But that doesn't add visual turret (unlike replacing main guns with ion cannons)! At least in this build. Someone tell me who i need to badger (and where) to get that sorted out.

-Can't find standard TIE Fighter gameplay. TIE Interceptor, sure, but TIE/LN? Argh. Glitterboy seems to be very right about it being unpopular.
EDIT Found some. Shrug. The TIE Fighter is the ultimate mook fighter definitively, doesn't seem terribly interesting to fly. I mean i like TIE/LNs, it just doesn't seem to be that special. The other options seem more attractive.

[glitterboy2098]

i wouldn't be surprised if in the campaign, the fighter options are limited by the mission, while in multiplayer there is some sort of limitation on when you can use certain fighters.
perhaps a cooldown timer when you respawn, so if you die too soon, you have to switch to a different fighter from your stable. the basic fighters like the TIE/LN and the X-wing could easily have shorter cooldowns, while others have longer cooldowns. as you play through a multiplayer session, you'd cycle through your fighters as they become available. if you die too quickly and don;t have an available, you'd have to wait till one of the timers runs out and one becomes available.
this would represent the time needed to prep a new fighter for launch.. and could add a balancing factor to the customized gear on fighters, with more potent gear causing fighters to take longer to become available.

this would encourage players to work on actually developing flight skills and proper plans rather than pulling suicidal kamikazi runs over and over and over.

[Colt Ward]

this would encourage players to work on actually developing flight skills and proper plans rather than pulling suicidal kamikazi runs over and over and over.

Which means it will be the last thing they would do . . .

Seriously, did we ever get anything like the Requiem scenario in later games?

[glitterboy2098]

video talking about support ships, a few offhand mentions about respawn and such too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LQBDUkSPgw

and a video about imperial ships which goes a bit more into the power shifting mechanic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btN4pdpm-FY

[garhkal]

I am surprised it doesn't include B-wings.

[glitterboy2098]

i suspect they'll show up as NPC craft.

but i can see them holding off on B-Wings. they'd be tricky to balance.. they fill the bomber/strike role like the Y-wing, but they have the agility and speed of a X-wing and firepower greater than other fighter. which could make it overshadow all the others. nor is there an obvious analog on the imperial side. the TIE Defender is often made out to be a similar ship but it really isn't, especially in the new canon where many of its legends features don't exist (no internal torpedo launcher, no ion cannons, etc.) and the TIE/rb from Solo, while more potent than a standard TIE, is more like a gun turret based predecessor to the TIE bomber.

but i can see them adding them via a DLC expansion later, once they've got the bugs worked out on the game balance for the rest.


also, because it is really cool and topic for this game, Otaking77077's TIE Fighter Anime Short Film

[Gigastrike]

I don't think they could just introduce B-wings or TIE Defenders as a regular fighter you could choose.  They'd probably introduce them as a "do everything" hero craft that players earn periodically, and can fly once.

[Mecha82]

Or they just make those really rare loot box drops. This is EA we are talking about after all. Yeah, I don't trust EA not to mess this up.

[garhkal]

i suspect they'll show up as NPC craft.

but i can see them holding off on B-Wings. they'd be tricky to balance.. they fill the bomber/strike role like the Y-wing, but they have the agility and speed of a X-wing and firepower greater than other fighter.

I've never seen a B-wing as being as agile or fast as an X-wing..

[NeonKnight]

i suspect they'll show up as NPC craft.

but i can see them holding off on B-Wings. they'd be tricky to balance.. they fill the bomber/strike role like the Y-wing, but they have the agility and speed of a X-wing and firepower greater than other fighter. which could make it overshadow all the others.

I've never seen a B-wing as being as agile or fast as an X-wing..

Yeah, in STAR WARS Armada the B-Wing is one of the slowest fighter squadrons (hardiest, but slowest)

And have never seen the B-Wing depicted as a 'Beast' beyond the Hard Hitting, punishment taking."