Will Riker & Tom Kazansky vs Wedge Antilles & Fox McCloud

[Khas]

Okay, on one side, we have Will Riker flying a Runabout (Riker was stated to be the best pilot in "Chain of Command"), and Tom Kazansky flying a Wraith (In StarCraft's Enslavers campaign, Mengsk said that Kazansky was the best Wraith pilot in the fleet). The Runabout has been modified to have Delta Flyer-like flight controls and has the tactical system at the pilot's seat.

On the other side we have Wedge Antilles (Needs no intro, really) flying an X-Wing, and Fox McCloud (Star Fox 64 version) flying an Arwing. (Hey, if they can discuss Star Fox on SDN without being flamed as a Furfag, I'm pretty sure that it's safe discussing it here.)

Mission 1: Team Dogfight. Each team must disble the other team's ships. Whichever team takes out both of the enemy ships first, wins.

Mission 2: STL race from Earth to Neptune. Which ever team has ONE of their ships return to Earth before the others wins.

Mission 3: Whoever can take out the most TIE Fighters in two minutes wins.


Okay, now who wins overall?

[Enterprise E]

I don't know the capabilities of a Wraith, so I'll refrain from comment on that, but for Mission 1, I think that Riker can likely take out Wedge without too much difficulty due to the tech disparity between the Rubabout and the X-Wing. It will at most take one or two hits to kill the X-Wing while it would take many hits from an X-Wing laser cannon to take out the Runabout. I don't know how useful a Proton Torpedo would be against the Runabout due to the speed and maneuverability of the Runabout, and the torpedo outside of the games. However, as for Fox McCloud and the Arwing, he might be able to cover Wedge due to the firepower of the Arwing. The charged homing laser of the Arwing would also be useful against the Runabout, however, I don't know if one hit would take out the Runabout. If it can, though, Fox might be able to cover Wedge. However, Fox also has other options, such as the homing Smart Bomb. One thing, though, is that the Barrel Roll shield of the Arwing won't likely be effective against the phasers due to the phasers being continuous beams. The Arwing is more likely to be able to survive more than one hit from the Runabout as well. However, we have Runabouts being able to take hits from capital ships weapons in the Star Trek verse, whose yields we can make an estimate on, so I think that the Runabout has more shielding than an Arwing. so assuming the Wraith is comparable to an X-Wing style starfighter, I see this battle being between Riker and Fox. Who the winner is, I don't know. The Runabout is bigger than the Arwing, and I think that the Arwing might have better maneuverability, in terms of turn radius at least, than a Runabout, but the Runabout's weapons can bypass the barrel roll shield of the Arwing, and are powerful in and of themselves, definitely more so than the standard lasers of the Arwing. Both pilots are too good for me to see the Smart Bombs and Photon Torpedoes coming into play here.

For Mission 2, I would give it to the Runabout. It has full impulse "speed", which is about one quarter the speed of light, so unless the Wraith has speed that is a lot faster than an X-Wing or an Arwing, I think that the Runabout takes it.

Mission 3 is where things get really interesting. The layout of the TIE Fighters is really interesting. If the TIEs are bunched together, then I see Fox and his Arwing taking this fight easily. The blast radius of the Smart Bombs would engulf entire Squadrons of TIE Fighters and more. Even the homing charged laser would take out three and four TIEs at a time since they often fly in close formation, especially when first entering battle. Fox would get a tremendous head start and the others, mainly Riker, would not be able to catch up, and Riker is the only one with half a chance given the targeting abilities and the beam, rather than pulse, style weapons of the Runabout.

[Khas]

I don't know the capabilities of a Wraith,

They can travel from planet-to-planet in a star system within a fairly short amount of time, are armed with pulse lasers and Gemini missiles, which let them take on capital ships, so at the very least they're fission weapons, and while they lack deflector shields, they have a cloaking device that lets them fire while cloaked.

[Khas]

Here we see a squadron of Wratihs taking out a communications satellite. That should give you some idea of their firepower.

[Enterprise E]

Okay, so chances are that Fox is in trouble since the X-Wing is by far the weakest link here. The Wraith, while unshielded, does have a cloaking device, and it can also fire while cloaked. Fox is a good enough pilot that in one on one, he should be able to score a victory against Tom, more often than not. The Arwing can take multiple hits from laser cannons, far more than an X-Wing, and the Smart Bomb could take out the Wraith, should he fire it in the right direction.

However, with Riker and a Runabout backing up Tom, things don't look too good for Fox. It will quickly be a two on one battle, with Wedge being beaten fairly quickly. He may be a great pilot, but the X-Wing is the weak link here, and isn't suited to be able to go up against a cloaked starfighter that can fire while cloaked, and can't withstand weapons from a second ship that are effective against capital ships. After all, a Runabout's phasers did take out a Jem'Hadar Fighter, even though they struck at a weak point in the ship's shields.

Unless Wedge gets lucky, or the Tom's Wraith gets taken down before it cloaks, Fox will quickly be on his own against two great pilots. He might be able to take down the Wraith if he gets lucky with his shots or Smart Bombs, but if he isn't he's going to go down quickly. And for him to have a shot against Riker, he must take down Tom as quickly as possible, or hope that Wedge gets lucky and shoots down Tom first.

[Praeothmin]

The blast radius of the Smart Bombs would engulf entire Squadrons of TIE Fighters and more. Even the homing charged laser would take out three and four TIEs at a time since they often fly in close formation, especially when first entering battle.

So would a proximity blast from a Photon torpedo, and a runabout can carry many micro-torpedoes, or at least two full-size ones, so the Ties don't stand much of a chance here either... :)

[Khas]

The blast radius of the Smart Bombs would engulf entire Squadrons of TIE Fighters and more. Even the homing charged laser would take out three and four TIEs at a time since they often fly in close formation, especially when first entering battle.

So would a proximity blast from a Photon torpedo, and a runabout can carry many micro-torpedoes, or at least two full-size ones, so the Ties don't stand much of a chance here either... :)

Now, just imagine a collision between a photon torpedo and a smart bomb. BA-BOOOM!!!

And I'm pretty sure that Enterprise E wrote what you quoted, not me.

[Praeothmin]

And I'm pretty sure that Enterprise E wrote what you quoted, not me

Are you really sure?

;)

[Enterprise E]

I just thought of a slogan for what happens in Mission 3 based on the add slogan of the first Aliens vs. Predator movie:

Whoever wins, the TIEs lose.

[Mike DiCenso]

I thought that TIEs go to Defenders. ;-)
-Mike

[Khas]

I just thought of a slogan for what happens in Mission 3 based on the add slogan of the first Aliens vs. Predator movie:

Whoever wins, the TIEs lose.

Let's see, caught between a small ship that can take on capital ships, a cloaking starfighter that can fire while cloaked, and a starfighter with insanely powerful bombs that can take many more hits from them than an X-Wing, along with one of their mortal enemies....

Nope. Don't see how the TIEs can pull through.

[Khas]

So, which team is gonna be the TIE breaker? :P

[Sunburst]

1. Between the high rate of fire of the x-wing lasers and the proton torps, the runabout is going down, hard. The Arwing can sit and watch the fireworks as Fox sends nova bombs near any place Gemini missiles are appearing from.

Team Wars/Fox

2. Between warp and hyperdrive, I'll go with hyperdrive being faster. Although sublight speeds in trek are shown as faster than light and inconsistent...so the runabout is disqualified for being undefinable. Regardless, at sublight speeds I'll say that any starfighter will flat at beat a runabout for speed. Also, runabout speed never impressed me. And Wars/Fox tech > than Starcraft

Team Wars/Fox

3. The team with the x-wing wins as the x-wing is the predominate TIE killer

Team Wars/Fox


I just want to reiterate that the runabout is a terrible combat vessel. At no point would I ever choose to force Riker to pilot one into combat if there were any other options, sans a shuttlecraft.

[Enterprise E]

I don't think that an X-Wing will be able to do much to a Runabout before being destroyed. Laser cannons from Star Wars aren't exactly impressive in terms of firepower and X-Wings go down to a few laser bursts while Runabouts can take at least hits from capital ship weapons in Star Trek, which are often cited as being at least low megaton level. Not only that, but as stated before, a Runabout has weapons powerful enough to take out a Jem Hadar Fighter with its phasers, even though they struck a weak spot in its shields. That tells me that they are at least light capital ship grade weapons. Also, Runabouts are also equipped with photon torpedoes, both micro and even full sized torpedoes. Again, the big players in this fight from what I know are going to be the Arwing and the Runabout.