Ship Appearances by Campaign Mission

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Ship Appearances by Campaign Mission

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Will T
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Post by Will T » Thu Jul 23, 2020 3:15 pm

Hey guys, I've put together this table

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

that tracks which mission each ship type in the base game appears in. There's a count for each ship row at the end.

Thought it might be useful for people to have this information all in one place.


Some notes:
  • Purple columns are Family missions, green are Rebel.
  • The ship list assumes the standard XWAU installation, so the TIE Advanced x1, Home One type and Reef Home type Calamari Cruisers are present, despite not being in the vanilla game.
  • I've only counted ships that were specifically included as FGs in a mission: obviously the escape pods and respective faction pilots can be randomly spawned in any mission. The list shows zero appearances for the pilots, for example but they can all appear in any list their assigned faction is present in. The escape pod does get two specific appearances where it's used for mission objectives.
  • I've only included the ships in Spacecraft0.lst. For the most part, that covers all the opts seen in game (plus a couple of others), but it leaves out all the Death Star II tunnel parts used in B7M4 (the reactor room, reactor core, E-WEB turret etc). I figured it's pretty self explanatory which mission those parts appear in anyway.
  • All possible appearances of a ship are given. There are some missions where you are really unlikely to see certain FG groups, as they only appear under certain triggers. Some of those triggers, eg. for the Interdictor in B1M7, don't even work (more on this later). But if they're included in the mission file, they're included in the list.

Some observations:
  • Perhaps unsurprisingly, the most commonly seen opt in the game is the trusty Hyperspace buoy. There are only four missions in which it does not appear: the attack on the Liberty in B2M5 and the three Endor missions after the first.
  • In terms of actual ships, again unsurprisingly, the most commonly seen is the Liberty. It is, after all, you home base for the vast majority of the game. Second place is, curiously, a tie (pun intended). Both the Corellian Corvette and the TIE Fighter appear in just one mission fewer than the Liberty. The humble TIE Fighter you probably would have expected, but I thought the Corvette's commonality was interesting. Given that you are barely ever required to interact with one in the missions, it's in there a lot. I guess the very first ship ever seen in Star Wars just makes for good set dressing.
  • Third place might also be suprising - the Rebel Medium Transport. That's right, the evacuation ship from ESB shows up in X-Wing Alliance more than the ship the game is named after.
  • Outside of the pilots/escape pods. there are 20 ships that never make an appearance in the campaign. I was actually surprised how large that number is. Many of them are probably better classed as objects rather than ships. Mines Type B and C, Nav Buoy 2, Probe, both Proximity Mines, Homing Mine B, R2-D2 etc. While some, like the other Mines and R2-D2 see use elsewhere (Skirmish and Salvage Yard respectively), there are quite a few that seem to have been added to the game for no real reason. More noticeable absences from the campaign include the Factory and Shipyard, used all over the place in TIE Fighter and XvT and presumably appearing in XWA more as legacy opts than anything else; also the Freighters Type H and K and the Pinook Fighter, which bizarrely was created for XWA. It's not a legacy opt like the Missile Boat, which also doesn't appear (though interestingly they created a whole new opt for it here). It seems really odd to me that they created this ship and then never did anything with it. No wonder it was the last starfighter in the game to get the XWAU treatment.
  • In general, ship count in missions tapers off after the prologue and first battle. It trends up a bit again for B6, but on the whole missions involve fewer types of ship. A lot of the clutter in the earlier missions is 'set dressing' - opts placed in the mission to give them a dynamic feel. You have things like shuttles flying around the fleet, escorting fighters or civilian traffic in combat zones. These elements get less common in the Liberty missions. I wonder if that's representative of the order the missions were created in, and whether the later half of the game was designed under tighter time pressure.
  • Some opts are clearly preferred over others of a similar type. For example, Space Colonies 1 and 3 only get a single mission each and both are early in the game. After that, every occurrence of a Space Colony is type 2. Pressure Tanks, the big type Js and Container Hangars are used almost twice as much as any one other container type. The Imperial Landing Craft is used only rarely, and loses out in usage quite considerably to the Assault Transport. The standard Bulk Freighter shows up far less often than you might have thought, with the Mod Action Transport, Medium Transport and the Mobquet Transport dominating the freighter appearances. Wherever civilian cargo ships are needed for background dressing, it's these three that are called upon.
Last edited by Will T on Thu Jul 23, 2020 5:35 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Forceflow
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Post by Forceflow » Thu Jul 23, 2020 4:32 pm

Great work! I wanted to do something like that myself but never had the time for it. That will certainly come in handy!
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capitanguinea
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Post by capitanguinea » Thu Jul 23, 2020 4:33 pm

Good job!

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Ace Antilles
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Post by Ace Antilles » Thu Jul 23, 2020 7:46 pm

Had a quick look. Should be pretty useful I think when it comes to tweaking stuff up a little.
Thanks for the list :)
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Ace Antilles
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Post by Ace Antilles » Thu Jul 23, 2020 7:57 pm

More noticeable absences from the campaign include the Factory and Shipyard, used all over the place in TIE Fighter and XvT and presumably appearing in XWA more as legacy opts than anything else; also the Freighters Type H and K and the Pinook Fighter, which bizarrely was created for XWA
It would be cool to slip these into some missions. Even just as dressing. Shipyard especially. Not sure where though.
It is weird they made the Pinook Fighter but not used it except in Skirmish. Not my fave ship for sure but again would be interesting to see flying about.
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Drinkinmiester
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Post by Drinkinmiester » Fri Jul 24, 2020 3:56 am

Thanks, I find myself looking up this kind of info every now and then!

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Will T
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Post by Will T » Fri Jul 24, 2020 2:07 pm

Ace Antilles wrote:
Thu Jul 23, 2020 7:57 pm

It would be cool to slip these into some missions. Even just as dressing. Shipyard especially. Not sure where though.
It is weird they made the Pinook Fighter but not used it except in Skirmish. Not my fave ship for sure but again would be interesting to see flying about.
The Factory could probably replace the Cargo Facility 1 in B2M4. The base in question is described as the production facility for the experimental TIEs. It's kind of curious it isn't a Factory anyway, given that TG had to the model. Swapping it wouldn't affect balance, as the base is destroyed by a scripted event anyway. The only thing that would have to accounted for is the placement of everything around it as the Factory is a bigger opt. You'd also lose the effect of the two Xiytiar Transports appearing to be docked to the pylons on the 'arms' of the CF/1. It would also take the CF/1's own appearance count to just one, but I suppose one each is better than two for the CF/1 and none for the FAC.

Best place for the Shipyard I can think of would be B4M1. You meet up with some Twin Suns Transport ships at what is supposed to be the Bilbringi Shipyards. The station used currently in the mission is the Family Repair Yard - which makes sense as it's supposed to be a TST owned facility, and the idea of a shipping company operating a full shipyard is a bit weird. However, it's also a bit strange as the Family Repair Yard in B0M7 (and the intro cutscene) is kinda implied to be unique.

But even if you didn't replace the Repair Yard, you're at the Bilbringi Shipyards. They're supposed to be vast and would obviously include dozens if not hundreds of separate ship building facilities. An extra blue IFF Shipyard or two in the background of the region would be a pretty immersive, natural inclusion. You're also only in the region for about 30 seconds, so it would have no impact whatsoever on how the mission plays out. Throw in a hidden Must Not be Destroyed goal on them so people can't farm them for points and you'd be good.

Another possible location would be B0M8 and B0M9. Depends whether or not you think the Rebels had that level of ship building capability. The Reef Home type fits perfectly in the Shipyard bay and looks really cool. You could suggest one was going the conversion from passenger liner to warship. Would also justify the use of the Rebel Platform in those missions. Why do the Rebels have a space station there? Well, because they've got a small shipyard to refit Calamari Cruisers.

Only problem with that is that B0M8 already has the highest FG count in the game. I think there's still plenty of overhead for two more ships, but it's something to bear in mind.


Pinook's a little trickier as there are balance concerns, but you could probably get away with replacing one or two FGs of IRDFighter in B6M2 with it. Would give the Redhawk Mercenaries a bit more of a ragtag feel, and I don't think it would affect balance too much. Alternatively you could maybe replace the IRDs in B6M1 with them. The IRD and Pinook are relatively close in stats. The IRD is faster, the Pinook is a shade more maneuverable. They have the same armament, but the Pinook has weaker hull and shield.

If balance is too much of an issue, then you could drop a pair of them in escorting a civilian ship in B1M4 or something and have them take no part in the battle; maybe dropping out of hyperspace with one of the Passenger Liners. You could also put a couple of stationary Pinooks at odd orientations into B5M6, as it's supposed to be a junkyard and has some derelict ships floating about.
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