launching fighters

[Torpin]

does anyone have any information at all regarding how fast any ship can launch its fighters?

[LibraryOgre]

That likely depends on the system. I don't know of any in SWd6, though.

[Torpin]

I'm looking for any system or even lore, I got nothing, we are specifically using saga edition, and the PCs next week are ambushing a imperial escort ship.

[Telwar]

In Rogue One it takes significant time for the Scarif station garrison's fighters to launch (I'm not sure if the ISDs' ever launched), though that looks like they held everything back to launch in one wave, which suggests that they could have launched smaller groups faster.

OTOH, at Eadu, TIEs were up pretty quickly, though those might have been on CAP. And in TFA, we see the TIE/sf that Finn and Poe take was basically just sitting around ready to launch.

We see X-Wings being prepped for launch in ANH. OTOH, they have some endurance, as it doesn't look like Luke had to worry about refueling his X-Wing in ESB. Or that might have happened off-screen.

From poorly-remembered technothrillers, typically stations on a war footing keep a pair of fighters ready to launch with five minutes' warning, and more on a +10 or +15, because modern fighters can't really be held to launch indefinitely, and it takes time to get people ready and briefed and ready to roll.


So assume they can probably launch a pair of fighters, let's say d6 rounds into the fight, and the remainder 3d6 rounds out (as pilots run and go through their preflight checks and whatnot, or have the astromech doing preflight checks every few minutes). Sure, that's way faster than in real life, but fights in RPGs go a lot faster than in real life anyway, so no biggy.

[Beleriphon]

So assume they can probably launch a pair of fighters, let's say d6 rounds into the fight, and the remainder 3d6 rounds out (as pilots run and go through their preflight checks and whatnot, or have the astromech doing preflight checks every few minutes). Sure, that's way faster than in real life, but fights in RPGs go a lot faster than in real life anyway, so no biggy.

Depends. WWII fighters, which Star Wars heavily relies on for inspiration, can be launched on stupid short order. A piston driven aircraft need about as much prep time as a car does to launch. As long as its pointing the right way and has a pilot you start the engines and go. Now, that's assuming and short launch without knowing you're about to attack something.

From the OP I think what's being asked is the carrier drops out of hyperspace and surprises another ship. How long until our fighters are swarming over the other ship? I don't think Saga Edition actually has an answer, but I'd assume generally speaking the way the hangar bays are depicted, you could conceivably launch dozens of small ships from something like an ISD or Home One very quickly. I'd assume that all the players can be launched one the first round of combat just to make things simple from something that size. Smaller like Corellian Corvette I'd go with pairs, but quickly. So maybe four per combat round.

Its not like an ISD is launch fighters the way an aircraft carrier does. Star Wars fighter craft are VTOLs, so think about how many helicopter you could safely launch from an aircraft carrier at the same time. No matter the answer, I always look back at the movies and you just see TIEs piling out of ISDs, its like watching a swarm of giant laser bees come at you.

[ngilop]

Am I the only one who read the title and totally ignored the Tag and had a COMPLETELY different idea on what this was about?

[Beleriphon]

Am I the only one who read the title and totally ignored the Tag and had a COMPLETELY different idea on what this was about?

Nope, I was about ask about where the fighter was being launched and how the wizard was doing it, but then noticed Star Wars.

[Torpin]

Am I the only one who read the title and totally ignored the Tag and had a COMPLETELY different idea on what this was about?

this is easy, bigby's forceful hand, or any of the superior ones, fighting willingly loses strength check and you can easiliy launch him 4-8 squares

[Torpin]

From the OP I think what's being asked is the carrier drops out of hyperspace and surprises another ship. How long until our fighters are swarming over the other ship?

other way around, the pcs drop out of hyperspace attacking the carrier thats already in real space
i am assuming all the hyperdrive capable rebellion fighters are already launched because they can be.

what i was thinking for launch was fighter capacity/12 per round, so like home one or a isd can launch 6 per round and a venerator can launch i think 12 but something like a nebulon b frigate can only launch 2

[Knaight]

If you're good with just lore the Clone Wars cartoon has a lot of scenes of fighters being launched. Pop up an episode, note the time stamps, do some math and you're covered.

[Sparx MacGyver]

Not sure how fast they could do it in WWII, but Nimitz-class carriers can launch two aircraft and land one every 37 seconds in daylight, and one per minute at night. Taking that into consideration, since there is no day or night in space, perhaps something like 4 fighters every other round?

[Faily]

How fast?

At the speed of plot, like most things in Star Wars.

[Telwar]

Depends. WWII fighters, which Star Wars heavily relies on for inspiration, can be launched on stupid short order. A piston driven aircraft need about as much prep time as a car does to launch. As long as its pointing the right way and has a pilot you start the engines and go. Now, that's assuming and short launch without knowing you're about to attack something.

And the pilots have to get from the ready room into their cockpits, etc. And not all the pilots are going to be ready to go as soon as initiative is rolled. Starbuck may be in the locker room, but Baron Fel might be on the john (to mix metaphors and franchises).

Now, if they're ready to launch an attack as soon as they drop out of hyper, they'll be in their cockpits preflighted and ready to punch everything out as fast as they can. However, in this example they're in realspace on a convoy getting jumped by the players.

So, they should have some level of guard up, there's likely a CSP out until they're ready to hyper, with some reinforcements ready to go, but you can't have your entire complement suited up and ready 24/7. The Imperials don't regard their fighter pilots very highly, but they can't do that...not for very long, anyway. :)

I don't think Saga Edition actually has an answer, but I'd assume generally speaking the way the hangar bays are depicted, you could conceivably launch dozens of small ships from something like an ISD or Home One very quickly. I'd assume that all the players can be launched one the first round of combat just to make things simple from something that size. Smaller like Corellian Corvette I'd go with pairs, but quickly. So maybe four per combat round.

The Venators could launch practically their entire complement at once (as illustrated in the Tartakovsky Clone Wars shorts), but the Warfare in the Star Wars universe book I have (which is now Legends material, but it's reasonably sound) mentions the Victories and Imperials launch significantly more slowly, as fighters were, ahem, not an Imperial fleet priority.

Its not like an ISD is launch fighters the way an aircraft carrier does. Star Wars fighter craft are VTOLs, so think about how many helicopter you could safely launch from an aircraft carrier at the same time. No matter the answer, I always look back at the movies and you just see TIEs piling out of ISDs, its like watching a swarm of giant laser bees come at you.

You still need room for them to maneuver and not run into each other. OTOH, we do see at Scarif the garrison station's fighters do do that. But on the third hand, fighters aren't really a priority for the Imperial navy, so flushing them all at once isn't really something they seem to do.

[Blackhawk748]

If yu still need an answer, from what I recall from the various EU books, an ISD could launch 2 Squadrons pretty quick (id say under 30 seconds) if they are prepped for launch. After that it takes a bit longer as they have to get the TIEs off the racks. SO Id say that the players probably would get 2 turns of Fighter free space before they are swarmed with 24 TIEs.

Seriously, there are a ton of TIE onboard those things.

[lightningcat]

The rule I used was it took 3 rounds to take off if the fighter was ready beforehand with a single Pilot check (dc 15 in combat) required. If you were launching from an external launch port, it only required one round and a dc10 Pilot check.
While it only came up once, it took 5 rounds to go from fully parked to ready to launch, with a single round to get into the fighter, and 1 to 3 rounds to load an astromech - depending on facilities and ship. So a total of 9 rounds from when you touch the ship to joining combat. Faster than real life, but slow at the table.
EDIT: Rule system was Star Wars Revised Edition.

[LibraryOgre]

While I know they're not terribly canon, these days, I always liked the B5-style Cobra Bays in TIE Fighter.

[D+1]

Depends. WWII fighters, which Star Wars heavily relies on for inspiration, can be launched on stupid short order. A piston driven aircraft need about as much prep time as a car does to launch. As long as its pointing the right way and has a pilot you start the engines and go.

Mostly this. Thinking of Battle of Britain as the first go-to example - if the fighters are already armed and fueled AND with pilots standing by in a ready room, you could launch a well-drilled squadron all at once in 2 minutes or even less. A WWII carrier strike could similarly be launched in just a few minutes - assuming launching a strike or having full defense cap was already on your agenda, so you'd have planes prepped and waiting on deck.

For Star Wars I think Speed of Plot is really the most meaningful answer. Had it been deemed more dramatically appropriate then the first Death Star attack the rebels would have been immediately met by opposition fighters, the rebels having been seen coming in from Yavin, so even surprised, lethargic imperial pilots could have got to their TIES in time; whereas what we actually see is that the rebels still only have time for one trench run and a couple minutes of pointless shooting at surface guns before facing at least an equal number of fighters for the remainder of the battle.

In RotJ the attack on the second Death Star is a giant furball from the word go because the attack was anticipated and well prepared for making time needed to scramble anyone a moot issue - but most importantly just because it made for better action for the rebels to fly right into a ready defense.

At any point the time to launch an attack can be delayed by simply saying, "These model fighters need time to warm up before flight," or, "It is well-enforced policy that a ship carrying fighters have at least a full squadron on standby alert round-the-clock regardless of circumstances," or whatever other justification in either direction the plot/adventure needs. Having TOO MUCH data for a Star Wars game makes it FAR too easy to run it like a hardcore flight sim rather than STAR WARS. The level of technology, what that technology CAN do - and what it actually IS used for - are dictated by plot, not hard data and logic. And that's as it should be.