Unless you come at it from above, below or behind. Then it's screwed.
In all the games, if you came at an ISD from above, heading down towards its bridge flying at a 45 degree angle, it would never touch you. That's how you would get A-wing's taking out ISD's. Fly in that blind spot, pick off the shield generators, and slowly chip it to death. Master that downward 45 degree attack, and any ISD that ever showed up in a battle was just free bonus points for the mission.
You could also just take out the shield generators with a volley of concussion missiles and then park right on it's nose, where the angle is too extreme for any of it's forward facing guns to shoot you. I also seem to remember parking inside their docking bay as a very safe place to sit and kill them. Or right up behind the engines, although Alliance and I think TIE introduced engine wash (not sure if they ever had that in X-Wing) which kind of ruined that fun.
heh --- I also used to park in the docking bay and plink plink plick the ISDs to death.
In X-Wing Alliance, one mission has you running from a Star Destroyer that's capturing a Corellian Corvette. If you wait until the Star Destroyer tractors in the Corvette, you can blow the Corvette up while it's inside the hanger and do massive damage, if not outright destroy it.
PunkBoy on
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augustwhere you come from is goneRegistered Userregular
X-Wing was inferior to Tie Fighter on just about every level. The big stand outs for me are the story and the control. Tie Fighter added the match speed command, it was impossible for me to go back and play X-Wing after having the ability to match speeds on the fly.
Maybe it was implemented in the re-released version, but the DOS version of X-wing didn't. It had 1/3, 2/3 and full speed but didn't have the option to match the targets speed.
That's funny. I played XWA first, and could never get into TIE Fighter 'cause the controls weren't as good. I have it around here somewhere, so I should try it again now that I haven't actually played XWA for a good 8 years.
Cherrn on
All creature will die and all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai.
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augustwhere you come from is goneRegistered Userregular
Is this game playable with mouse and keyboard? I guess I'd better just borrow my buddy's joystick for Freespace 2 and TIE Fighter, both in my backlog.
The Win95 version requires a joystick.
Does not! I just beat it like a month ago with a mouse! Wore out my arm doing it too!
Fuck waggle, or marathon EBA/Trauma Center fatigue, nothing compares to the entire Tie Fighter Campaign for arm fatigue. I almost cried whenever I had to beat an A-Wing to proceed.
Didn't help that touching anything larger than your ship meant you instantly died.
Oh and fuck disabling Lambda-class shuttles. I trail them from behind but I'm going like +40 faster than they are, so I slow down, but once they're disabled I DRIFT RIGHT INTO THE BACK OF THEM.
At the Battle of Yavin
Rebel terrorists, aided by
spies and traitors within the
Empire, struck a cowardly
blow at the new symbol of
Imperial power... The Death Star!
Darth Vader brought swift justice
to the Rebels by destroying their
main base on Hoth. The pitiful
remnants of the Alliance have
now scattered to the Outer Rim.
In the days ahead, the Emperor
will call upon the Imperial Navy
to eradicate the last vestiges
of the rebellion and restore law
and order to the galaxy!
Man... I still remember reading that for the first time and becoming giddy at the prospect of destroying some rebel scum.
*edit* And after watching the whole intro I now have an overwhelming urge to find my Collectors Edition.
HappylilElf on
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augustwhere you come from is goneRegistered Userregular
Is this game playable with mouse and keyboard? I guess I'd better just borrow my buddy's joystick for Freespace 2 and TIE Fighter, both in my backlog.
The Win95 version requires a joystick.
Does not! I just beat it like a month ago with a mouse! Wore out my arm doing it too!
Fuck waggle, or marathon EBA/Trauma Center fatigue, nothing compares to the entire Tie Fighter Campaign for arm fatigue. I almost cried whenever I had to beat an A-Wing to proceed.
The Win95 version.
The Collector's Series version.
Will not let you boot the game without a joystick.
I have the TIE Fighter Collector's Edition CD-ROM. With the windows install screen, and you can pick how big your install is. Bought back when the movies were re-released to theatres, so early 1997 or so, came in a pack with both Rebel Assaults, XWing, and a demo of Dark Forces. I believe it was branded the Lucasarts Collection 2.
No silly copy protection, and a few built in saves with everything unlocked.
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augustwhere you come from is goneRegistered Userregular
edited February 2008
Which is a different version than the Collector's Series CD-ROM with the new engine and the cd audio and which won't let you boot without a joystick.
I know because a) wikipedia and b) I just installed it and tried to play it just now.
At the Battle of Yavin
Rebel terrorists, aided by
spies and traitors within the
Empire, struck a cowardly
blow at the new symbol of
Imperial power... The Death Star!
Darth Vader brought swift justice
to the Rebels by destroying their
main base on Hoth. The pitiful
remnants of the Alliance have
now scattered to the Outer Rim.
In the days ahead, the Emperor
will call upon the Imperial Navy
to eradicate the last vestiges
of the rebellion and restore law
and order to the galaxy!
Man... I still remember reading that for the first time and becoming giddy at the prospect of destroying some rebel scum.
*edit* And after watching the whole intro I now have an overwhelming urge to find my Collectors Edition.
I love the more sonorous music in TIE Fighter! These rebel insurgents have no chance of survival! Everything is presented with exclamation points! Propaganda machine a go-go!
Has anyone mentioned the intro yet? 'cause, you know, this.
Was MIDI music really that bad back in the day, or was it better with some nice soundcards?
I seem to remember it sounding better back on my Soundblaster Pro way back when, although that could just be nostalgia talking.
No, I seem to remember the average sound card back in the day doing much better things with MIDI than either Windows or DOSBox do by default. Then again, you actually had to pay money for sound cards back then, whereas now you have to search high and low to find a motherboard that doesn't have it thrown in like a Cracker Jack toy.
Damn you topic, I reinstalled TIE Fighter and started playing. I have the Win95 edition. Although it's without iMuse, it has CD audio (better than MIDI!) and Hardware 3D. It took me forever to find a joystick though. I eventually settled on using a PS2 controller using an adaptor. While the little nubs aren't great for steering, it has enough buttons to do what I want.
Has anyone mentioned the intro yet? 'cause, you know, this.
Was MIDI music really that bad back in the day, or was it better with some nice soundcards?
I seem to remember it sounding better back on my Soundblaster Pro way back when, although that could just be nostalgia talking.
No, I seem to remember the average sound card back in the day doing much better things with MIDI than either Windows or DOSBox do by default. Then again, you actually had to pay money for sound cards back then, whereas now you have to search high and low to find a motherboard that doesn't have it thrown in like a Cracker Jack toy.
Man, you guys are totally nuts. The average sound card was a Sound Blaster / SBPro / SB16, and these things were a total pile of suck for MIDI unless you got the Wave Blaster daughterboard. It sounded pretty much like that Youtube clip. The AWE cards might have been better, I don't know.
I was never able to jump for a Roland module or their Sound Canvas board, but I did get a Gravis Ultrasound eventually, and it was so much better than what Sound Blasters dribbled out. What Windows does with MIDI files nowadays is somewhat improved over what my SB or SB16 could do.
EDIT: However, Sound Blasters were putting out their bloops and beeps in stereo sound, while that Youtube clip is in mono, so there's that.
Unless you come at it from above, below or behind. Then it's screwed.
In all the games, if you came at an ISD from above, heading down towards its bridge flying at a 45 degree angle, it would never touch you. That's how you would get A-wing's taking out ISD's. Fly in that blind spot, pick off the shield generators, and slowly chip it to death. Master that downward 45 degree attack, and any ISD that ever showed up in a battle was just free bonus points for the mission.
You could also just take out the shield generators with a volley of concussion missiles and then park right on it's nose, where the angle is too extreme for any of it's forward facing guns to shoot you. I also seem to remember parking inside their docking bay as a very safe place to sit and kill them. Or right up behind the engines, although Alliance and I think TIE introduced engine wash (not sure if they ever had that in X-Wing) which kind of ruined that fun.
heh --- I also used to park in the docking bay and plink plink plick the ISDs to death.
There was another secret too, but I forget which game it was from. If you took out the missile launcher on the Star Destroyer's front tip, you could then fly inside the Destroyer and shoot it from within.
But yeah, back in the X-Wing days, as soon as any mission got done, any Imperial ships left in the mission got blown up for bonus points.
Sure they do. Someone posted a list of them earlier in this thread. They just don't make, you know... Star Wars themed ones. Not that this automatically makes them worthwhile, but goddamn, Lucasarts used to be one of my favorite developers.
Edit: Beaten so much it's not even funny.
Cherrn on
All creature will die and all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai.
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augustwhere you come from is goneRegistered Userregular
edited February 2008
I think "they" in this case could mean developers with a budget.
Sure they do. Someone posted a list of them earlier in this thread. They just don't make, you know... Star Wars themed ones. Not that this automatically makes them worthwhile, but goddamn, Lucasarts used to be one of my favorite developers.
Edit: Beaten so much it's not even funny.
I think of it as after all this time we're essentially having to start the space-combat genre from scratch.
The way I see it, the capital of Space-combatopia was brutally pillaged by rampaging hordes from the steppes many years ago now, and whilst nothing may be the same ever again, we CAN re-build.
The current crop of space combat games may not be as brilliant as those gone past, but the important thing is that
On the subject of remapping PC controls to gamepads- easily done with dual-joystick, dual-trigger pads.
Left stick- pitch/yaw
Right Stick- shield allocation
Right stick+R2- energy allocation (tilt stick left for more energy to shields, right for more to weapons, up for more to engines, down for whatever else? )
Right stick click- equalize shields
Right stick click+R2 - equalize energy
D-pad up/down- throttle
D-pad left/right- previous/next target
D-pad+R2- squad commands
face button 2- secondary fire (this actually simulates multi-button joysticks that have an index finger trigger and a thumb trigger on top)
face button 3- cycle primary fire modes
face button 3+R2- cycle secondary fire modes
R2- primary fire
L2- secondary fire
L1/R1- roll
you get the idea- we've still got left stick click, a face button, and L2 (and the R2+all those buttons variations) leftover to assign to stuff or to reorganize the controls on. By taking one button out of play to make it a "shift" or "mode" key you effectively double your number of inputs.
And reading this thread is really making me want to play TIE Fighter and XWA again...except my discs are over 400 miles away, back at home. At least I have Freespace 2 to hold me over 'til I visit and nab them.
On the subject of remapping PC controls to gamepads- easily done with dual-joystick, dual-trigger pads.
<snip>
I agree that you can do a lot with a modern console controller is you employ one or two of the buttons as a mode button. I don't really agree that it's a great solution though. My personal belief is that once you get into the range of nearly every button on the controller having multiple uses it's probably time to either simplify or find another type of input.
You're absolutely right in that it could be made to work but I don't see a game that has 20-30 individual commands crammed into a controller being a whole lot of fun. You also used R2 as your mode/shift button and primary fire but I'm guessing that wasn't intentional.
TIE Fighter (and Freespace) wouldn't need a lot of the command and targeting keys so much if your teammates were scripted to go after targets in a reasonable manner. As it is, they basically can't do anything right without you holding their hands.
Yeah...except I use a good number of targeting commands in FS2, let alone other commands:
Target nearest hostile
Target hostile attacking self
Target escort list
Target nearest bomber/bomb
Target object in reticle
Target subsystem/turret in reticle
Target turret attacking self
Target next/previous subsystem/turret
Target attacker of target
And I seriously use all of these when I play. And then there's hotkeys you can map to target various friendly and enemy wings, ships, etc. When you get down to it, how many different combinations of buttons do you really want to be pressing? :P
Yeah, I know you do use all those keys, I'm just saying, you wouldn't necessarily have to if all the ships on your side were scripted in a manner such that it looked like they had their act together. When the enemy starts lobbing torpedos at your carrier and you're the only one shooting them down... there's a whole bunch of target friendly -> target nearest threat to targeted vessel -> attack my target sort of decision making that could be streamlined into a single "Get off your asses and do your job" command.
Orogogus on
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TTODewbackPuts the drawl in ya'llI think I'm in HellRegistered Userregular
edited February 2008
Tie Fighter: Collector's Edition was the prize of my Game Library until the disc became too worn out/scratched to run.
Yeah, I know you do use all those keys, I'm just saying, you wouldn't necessarily have to if all the ships on your side were scripted in a manner such that it looked like they had their act together. When the enemy starts lobbing torpedos at your carrier and you're the only one shooting them down... there's a whole bunch of target friendly -> target nearest threat to targeted vessel -> attack my target sort of decision making that could be streamlined into a single "Get off your asses and do your job" command.
Yeah, I know. I'm pretty sure the game could be streamlined down to be played with a gamepad. And the AI can be decent (although by no means stellar) if you command them, i.e. to defend a cap ship, but it would be simpler if they did that kind of thing on their own (which, admittedly, they do in some cases). It's just that stuff like the combination of the escort list and target the target's attacker or the target bomb functions are really useful when you need to supplement the wingmen.
Oh, and those commands are for myself, not necessarily for my wingmen, since I find it useful to be able to target different things/parts of things at will. Granted, commands like that for wingmen could be eliminated or simplified. Though to be honest, I'd prefer to have the options available even with the availability of improved AI.
But it feels as though I'm moving too much into talking about FS2 and various aspects thereof...so back to TIE Fighter. Has it been mentioned yet that the game was - and is - awesome? I'd just like to lay that on the table. :P I actually can't say I remember all that much, since it's been quite some time since I played it...but gosh. A part of me always like the Empire, and what Star Wars-loving child wouldn't enjoy being a TIE pilot for the glory of the Emperor? Inner Circle ftw. :P
Bummer, I bought TIE Fighter on Half.com recently but it looks like I received the Collector's Series edition rather than the Collector's CD-ROM (kill the naming committee). I have texture mapped ships and the looped Redbook audio, it seems to require a joystick, and it runs great in XP by just setting compatability mode. It installs as TIE95. But it also says Collector's CD-ROM on the disc. Weird.
Posts
I was playing Alliance on my XP machine with DirectX9c a couple weeks ago. No worries.
Also, don't sign your posts.
In X-Wing Alliance, one mission has you running from a Star Destroyer that's capturing a Corellian Corvette. If you wait until the Star Destroyer tractors in the Corvette, you can blow the Corvette up while it's inside the hanger and do massive damage, if not outright destroy it.
The Win95 version requires a joystick.
It was pretty horrifying.
Does not! I just beat it like a month ago with a mouse! Wore out my arm doing it too!
Fuck waggle, or marathon EBA/Trauma Center fatigue, nothing compares to the entire Tie Fighter Campaign for arm fatigue. I almost cried whenever I had to beat an A-Wing to proceed.
Didn't help that touching anything larger than your ship meant you instantly died.
Oh and fuck disabling Lambda-class shuttles. I trail them from behind but I'm going like +40 faster than they are, so I slow down, but once they're disabled I DRIFT RIGHT INTO THE BACK OF THEM.
CON SONAR, CRAZY IVAN.
Let 'em eat fucking pineapples!
real men match that speed on the fly.
I seem to remember it sounding better back on my Soundblaster Pro way back when, although that could just be nostalgia talking.
Rebel terrorists, aided by
spies and traitors within the
Empire, struck a cowardly
blow at the new symbol of
Imperial power... The Death Star!
Darth Vader brought swift justice
to the Rebels by destroying their
main base on Hoth. The pitiful
remnants of the Alliance have
now scattered to the Outer Rim.
In the days ahead, the Emperor
will call upon the Imperial Navy
to eradicate the last vestiges
of the rebellion and restore law
and order to the galaxy!
Man... I still remember reading that for the first time and becoming giddy at the prospect of destroying some rebel scum.
*edit* And after watching the whole intro I now have an overwhelming urge to find my Collectors Edition.
The Win95 version.
The Collector's Series version.
Will not let you boot the game without a joystick.
No silly copy protection, and a few built in saves with everything unlocked.
I know because a) wikipedia and b) I just installed it and tried to play it just now.
I blame lucasarts.
I think I have that version as well, and to be honest, I prefer the more primitive version.
I love the more sonorous music in TIE Fighter! These rebel insurgents have no chance of survival! Everything is presented with exclamation points! Propaganda machine a go-go!
Let 'em eat fucking pineapples!
No, I seem to remember the average sound card back in the day doing much better things with MIDI than either Windows or DOSBox do by default. Then again, you actually had to pay money for sound cards back then, whereas now you have to search high and low to find a motherboard that doesn't have it thrown in like a Cracker Jack toy.
So I found my Collectors Edition of X-wing. I found X-Wing Alliance. I found X-Wing vs TIE Fighter.
Guess what I can't find.
Damn it
GT: Tanky the Tank
Black: 1377 6749 7425
Not true. From a few pages back, the following came out in 2007:
- Evochron Renegades
- Tarr Chronicles
- Romanians in Space
- Spaceforce: Rogue Universe
- Starshatter: The Gathering Storm
- Parkan 2
- Arvoch Conflict
- Whatever Derek Smart is doing
And X3 is getting a sequel or expansion or something.
Now, giant robot PC games... those are pretty damn dead.
Man, you guys are totally nuts. The average sound card was a Sound Blaster / SBPro / SB16, and these things were a total pile of suck for MIDI unless you got the Wave Blaster daughterboard. It sounded pretty much like that Youtube clip. The AWE cards might have been better, I don't know.
I was never able to jump for a Roland module or their Sound Canvas board, but I did get a Gravis Ultrasound eventually, and it was so much better than what Sound Blasters dribbled out. What Windows does with MIDI files nowadays is somewhat improved over what my SB or SB16 could do.
EDIT: However, Sound Blasters were putting out their bloops and beeps in stereo sound, while that Youtube clip is in mono, so there's that.
Sure they do. Someone posted a list of them earlier in this thread. They just don't make, you know... Star Wars themed ones. Not that this automatically makes them worthwhile, but goddamn, Lucasarts used to be one of my favorite developers.
Edit: Beaten so much it's not even funny.
I think of it as after all this time we're essentially having to start the space-combat genre from scratch.
The way I see it, the capital of Space-combatopia was brutally pillaged by rampaging hordes from the steppes many years ago now, and whilst nothing may be the same ever again, we CAN re-build.
The current crop of space combat games may not be as brilliant as those gone past, but the important thing is that
a) they hopefully continue to make them, and
b) they continue to get better with time.
I'm willing to wait.
???
How? Everything I found said that DirectX 6 was the last one that supported the game. Running DirectX 10 on Vista now, any idea why it wouldn't work?
Wedge is the original Sgt Johnson.
On the subject of remapping PC controls to gamepads- easily done with dual-joystick, dual-trigger pads.
Left stick- pitch/yaw
Right Stick- shield allocation
Right stick+R2- energy allocation (tilt stick left for more energy to shields, right for more to weapons, up for more to engines, down for whatever else? )
Right stick click- equalize shields
Right stick click+R2 - equalize energy
D-pad up/down- throttle
D-pad left/right- previous/next target
D-pad+R2- squad commands
face button 2- secondary fire (this actually simulates multi-button joysticks that have an index finger trigger and a thumb trigger on top)
face button 3- cycle primary fire modes
face button 3+R2- cycle secondary fire modes
R2- primary fire
L2- secondary fire
L1/R1- roll
you get the idea- we've still got left stick click, a face button, and L2 (and the R2+all those buttons variations) leftover to assign to stuff or to reorganize the controls on. By taking one button out of play to make it a "shift" or "mode" key you effectively double your number of inputs.
3DS: 0447-9966-6178
Except that
And reading this thread is really making me want to play TIE Fighter and XWA again...except my discs are over 400 miles away, back at home. At least I have Freespace 2 to hold me over 'til I visit and nab them.
I agree that you can do a lot with a modern console controller is you employ one or two of the buttons as a mode button. I don't really agree that it's a great solution though. My personal belief is that once you get into the range of nearly every button on the controller having multiple uses it's probably time to either simplify or find another type of input.
You're absolutely right in that it could be made to work but I don't see a game that has 20-30 individual commands crammed into a controller being a whole lot of fun. You also used R2 as your mode/shift button and primary fire but I'm guessing that wasn't intentional.
Target nearest hostile
Target hostile attacking self
Target escort list
Target nearest bomber/bomb
Target object in reticle
Target subsystem/turret in reticle
Target turret attacking self
Target next/previous subsystem/turret
Target attacker of target
And I seriously use all of these when I play. And then there's hotkeys you can map to target various friendly and enemy wings, ships, etc. When you get down to it, how many different combinations of buttons do you really want to be pressing? :P
Yeah, I know. I'm pretty sure the game could be streamlined down to be played with a gamepad. And the AI can be decent (although by no means stellar) if you command them, i.e. to defend a cap ship, but it would be simpler if they did that kind of thing on their own (which, admittedly, they do in some cases). It's just that stuff like the combination of the escort list and target the target's attacker or the target bomb functions are really useful when you need to supplement the wingmen.
Oh, and those commands are for myself, not necessarily for my wingmen, since I find it useful to be able to target different things/parts of things at will. Granted, commands like that for wingmen could be eliminated or simplified. Though to be honest, I'd prefer to have the options available even with the availability of improved AI.
But it feels as though I'm moving too much into talking about FS2 and various aspects thereof...so back to TIE Fighter. Has it been mentioned yet that the game was - and is - awesome? I'd just like to lay that on the table. :P I actually can't say I remember all that much, since it's been quite some time since I played it...but gosh. A part of me always like the Empire, and what Star Wars-loving child wouldn't enjoy being a TIE pilot for the glory of the Emperor? Inner Circle ftw. :P