Maneuvering and Maneuverability

The most important factor to maneuverability is vehicle size. Other things equal, as a ship's size increases, its maneuverability decreases, despite increased power available to apply thrust. Why? Well, as a ship's size increases, several problems occur, which prevent its maneuverability from keeping pace with its size growth:

The Inertia Problem

• The larger the ship, the more massive it is. The more massive it is, the more inertia is has. Inertia resists acceleration of any kind (translation and rotation).
  • One might argue: "doesn't a larger ship have larger thrusters, which cancel out the effect?". In short, no. For a whole host of scientific reasons, as a ship increases in size, assuming its thrusters increase by the same proportion, thrust does not increase as fast as inertia. (Geek version: inertia increases as the cube of boundary dimension, while thrust increases as the square, in most cases; also, the efficiency of any power and thrust system decreases at it scales up, while there is no such inefficiency in the translation of volume to mass or mass to inertia).
  • One might wonder, "what about inertial dampers?". This suggests that one is a cretin. Inertial dampers are physically impossible. In particular, they are far, far more physically impossible than hyperdrives, shields, tractor beams, artificial gravity, and other potentially impossible systems that starships commonly have. Many theoretical explanations have been given for these devices, ranging from fringe to plausible. To date, no scientific explanation for inertial damping that is even remotely plausible or well-informed has ever been offered. To wit, if inertial damping were possible, the technology to accomplish it would render every other facet of starships as we imagine them to be hopelessly obsolete, as it would imply effortless time travel, infinitely fast space travel, immunity to all physical effects, near infinite power over space and time, etc. So no, they don't exist.

The Rotation Problem

• A huge part of maneuverability is rotation. Ships accomplish rotation by applying tangential thrust at their extremities; for instance, a Star Destroyer would increase its pitch by thrusting down from its nose, and thrusting upward from its rearmost edge. The trouble with this is, even if the inertia issue were not an issue, and a larger ship could achieve equal rotational acceleration to a smaller ship, a larger ship must actually achieve greater acceleration than a smaller ship to achieve the same relative rotation (i.e. the same number of degrees per second).
  • Confused? Consider this: thrust creates linear acceleration; it is measured in meters per second, not degrees per second. Let's say an X-Wing, at maximum pitch thrust, will achieve a rotational acceleration of 90 degrees per second per second.
    • If an X-Wing is 12.5 meters long, then it subtends a distance of 9.8 meters when it rotates 90 degrees. Thus, the net linear acceleration is equivalent to 9.8 meters per second per second.
    • Say a Star Destroyer wishes to achieve the same relative rotation (90 deg/s/s). Need it only produce a net acceleration of 9.8 meters per second per second?
    • No, this is not sufficient. To achieve a rotation of 90 deg/s/s, the Star Destroyer, being 1600m in length, must achieve net linear acceleration of 1257 m/s/s. This is 128 times as much net thrust as the X-Wing.
    • Knowing that achieving any given acceleration is much harder for a heavy Star Destroyer than it is for a lightweight X-Wing, achieving even 9.8 m/s/s would be difficult, given the thrust scaling problems mentioned above, let alone achieving 1257 m/s/s.
    • Thus, other things equal, a ship hundreds of times longer than another ship will rotate hundreds of times slower, assuming if it can match the net acceleration; if it cannot, it will rotate even more slowly than that.
• Another problem with large ships is that the force of thrust does not evenly apply to the entire ship all at once. A thruster pushes against the part of the ship it is mounted to; the ship's structure must then carry that force to the rest of the ship.
  • Consider the case of swinging a sword. Your hand applies force to the hilt, moving it. As it moves, the rest of the sword moves with it; this is because the sword is made of fairly rigid metal. One could whip the sword quickly back and forth without snapping it.
  • Now consider, say, an uncooked spaghetti noodle that is 10 meters long. Let's ignore gravity and air resistance (since we're in space anyway). If you whip the noodle rapidly back and forth, what will happen? It will break, won't it? Why?
  • The structural integrity of the noodle is not the same as a metal shaft. When you rotate the sword back and forth, the atoms at the hilt pull very hard on the atoms further down the blade, will in turn pull on further atoms, etc. The bond between these atoms is quite strong. But what are they pulling against? Good ol' inertia.
  • When you move the hilt of a sword, you didn't personally move the rest of the sword. Inertia dictates that the rest of the sword would rather stay where it is. The internal structure of the sword transfers the force of your hand to the rest of the sword, forcing it to "catch up" to the hilt. In a noodle, the force required to do that is the same, but the strength of the bond between noodle molecules is not; the noodle will lose integrity and snap.
  • The same thing happens in a large ship. When an X-Wing uses its powerful thrusters to translate and rotate, its relatively small, rigid body can easily handle the forces needed to keep the ship from flying apart, assuming it, too, isn't made of noodle. But when an Star Destroyer maneuvers, the forces produced by the thrusters must propagate along thousands of meters of structure. Other things being equal, this means that the "noodle effect" is greater for a larger ship, even when we assume that the larger ship uses thicker, more rigid metal for its structure. Why is that?
    • First, consider the sword/noodle example again, but now imagine using a rope. Whipping a rope back and forth does not work the same way, because the rope isn't rigid. Instead, you would create a wave-like motion along the rope, and, when you stopped whipping it, the rest of the rope would continue past your hand. The rope's internal structure does not transmit the full force of your hand exactly; the rope is strong against pulling, and thus you won't pull it apart (like you did the noodle), but it isn't strong against stretching laterally, so it will freely bend, instead of remaining rigid.
    • In fact, no material is perfectly rigid. A sword will bend, too, albeit not as much as a rope. If it didn't, it would actually be more likely to break. By the same token, a ship doesn't remain perfectly rigid as it rotates--it bends. And the more it bends, the less likely it is to snap like a noodle...but it can't possibly be as bendy as a rope, because how would that work? The armor plates would start busting off, turrets would slam into each other, crewmen would be squished as corridors narrowed and skewed, power conduits would burst, spewing plasma everywhere...making ships just flexible enough to avoid brittleness, but not so flexible that they destroy themselves under their own maneuverability, is a potent engineering challenge.
    • While the examples thus far have focused on rotation, this also applies to translation. When a Star Destroyer fires its main sublight drives, they push the ship forward--but they don't, really. They push the rear of the ship forward, and the structure of the ship then pushes the rest of it forward. Imagine standing in a long line (or queue), densely packed. Somebody runs up to the end of the line and slams into the rearmost person. He, in turn, bumps against the next guy, and he into the next, and so on. Meanwhile, he continues to push, as hard as he can. The guy in front must keep pushing, too, to avoid being squished. Eventually, assuming nobody gets crushed, everyone will be pushing each other at the same rate, like a conga line. However, it's also possible the rearmost guy pushed too hard and too fast, and someone in the middle ends up getting hurt, causing a pileup behind him. Like any chain, it's only as strong as the weakest link; anyone who can't keep up with the force set by the rearmost guy will get squished.
    • In that example, a number of interesting things occur. For one, everybody gets mad, and maybe some people get hurt. The harder the push, the more likely damage can occur. Metal, like humans, is not invulnerable, and can only take so much before it cracks. The drives can only push so hard without destroying the structure. The "weakest link" effect described above applies here; the force of the thrusters will propagate through the structure, and if that force encounters any part of the structure which isn't strong enough to handle it, that part will surely be the first to collapse.
    • In a large, long ship such as a Star Destroyer, the usual tactic is to mount the rear thrusters on the strongest end of a solid shaft (or multiple shafts) that travel the entire length of the ship without interruption. Other, weaker parts of the structure are mounted to the same shaft. The further the force propagates, the less the inertia of the rest of the ship pushes against the structure, as there is less mess ahead of the propagation wave, so the shaft can narrow as it nears the nose. This design choice is evident in all Star Destroyers; the wedge shape is very resistant to crushing, and thus performs excellent at propagating the immense thrust of the sublight drive--this explains why the Star Destroyer, immense as it is, has such outstanding forward acceleration for a ship of its class. However, this leads to another problem, as deceleration cannot be accomplished simply by firing equal and opposite thrusters on the nose end--the structure's forward-motion bias would not permit that much force in the other direction. This necessitates a complete rotation to counter forward acceleration, leading to yet another maneuverability problem, outlined later.
    • So we know that a starship can't simply make itself more flexible to avoid the noodle effect, or least, not flexible enough to fully counter it. What can it do? There are a few tricks; instead of rotating only by pushing at the far ends, a ship might have many rockets firing along the ship's length, pushing the whole ship (more or less) at the same time, instead of relying on its internal structure to transmit the force. Of course, any thrust not applied at the furthest extent will not be as efficient, due to the laws governing lever action, so thrust efficiency is lost there. Thrust efficiency is also lost when the structure transmits force--part of the energy is wasted as heat (or worse, metal fatigue and deformation), due to the laws of thermodynamics.
    • The bottom line is this: the larger the ship, the more its own structure will resist rotation, further limiting maneuverability, perhaps even beyond the limits imposed by inertia, thrust inefficiency, and the rotation problem.

The G-Force Problem

• When you translate at 1 G of acceleration, everyone in the ship feels 1 G, regardless of size (once the propagation is complete, of course). That's fine; most humanoids are okay with that.
  • But when you rotate at 90 degrees per second per second, the g-force varies. When an X-Wing does so, it applies almost exactly 1 G at its extreme ends (a coincidence of it's length), as the linear acceleration at that end is 9.8 m/s/s (very close to 1 G = 9.80665 m/s/s).
  • When a Star Destroyer does so (assuming it could), it is accelerating at 1257 m/s/s on its most extreme ends, or 128 G's. This would not only flatten any biological creature known to exist, but greatly exceeds the strength of any conceivable internal structure.
  • Thus, even if all of the other problems could be solved, extreme rotation would rip a large ship apart with G-forces.

The Deceleration Dilemma

• There is another problem, not present in all large ships, as it is the consequence of a given design choice. The most common ship maneuver is simple: getting from point A to point B. As described, the quickest way to do this is to accelerate at maximum thrust until the halfway point, then decelerate at the same thrust for the remainder of the journey; it is a mathematical certainty that no other method will get you there quicker.
  • But what if your ship cannot decelerate as quickly as it can accelerate? This is actually not an uncommon problem in larger ships, due to the "noodle effect" mentioned above. Consider the Star Destroyer; its structure is very much optimized for forward acceleration, and it is quite good at that (for its size). However, its deceleration potential is terrible--even if it had thrusters on the nose as powerful as those on its rear (which it doesn't), its structure would not permit deceleration of the same magnitude; the ship would be crushed between its own thrust and its inertia.
  • The solution is simple, of course; to decelerate, the Star Destroyer must execute a 180-degree turn, then use its rear thrusters to counter its previous acceleration. And this solution works fine...for long-distance travel. For many reasons already mentioned, such a large ship can take a very long time to complete a 180-degree turn (in the case of a Star Destroyer, completing such a turn in less than a minute is quite a feat, and will subject crew and the structure to G-forces nearing the humanoid tolerance limit).
  • What about traveling a short distance, such as is done often in combat? It might take only 10 seconds at best thrust to close with an enemy ship, but if that 10 seconds must be punctuated by a 60 second rotation, it's not going to work...the ship will either get away while you're rotating, or you'll slam into it because you were going to get there in less than 10 seconds if deceleration did not occur. In the latter case, it becomes necessary to greatly reduce forward acceleration, wasting the ship's capability in that area, and possibly permitting the pursued ship to escape. In the former, escape is inevitable.
    • Further complicating this problem is the issue of facing. When assaulting or pursuing a Star Destroyer prefers to keep its nose pointed at its quarry. The unique wedge design means that almost all of its weapons can point at a target dead ahead, and its best defenses are primed for any counterattack. However, during rotation, this advantage will be wasted; indeed, by completing the rotation, the Star Destroyer presents its worst arc--the rear--directly to its enemy, a tactical worst-case scenario.
  • This problem creates a dilemma in ship design: should a ship be optimized for forward acceleration, or balanced forward/rear acceleration? In the latter case, balancing thrust and structural integrity allows for rapid changes in velocity in both directions, vital for combat positioning. However, there is a great loss in capability; the thrust in either direction is less than half what the fully-forward-optimized ship can do. Why?
    • Imagine a Star Destroyer opting for balanced thrust. To balance its existing forward thrust, it would need matching thrusters on its nose, and would need to match its existing forward-biased structural integrity in the other direction. The result would look like two Star Destroyers collided head-on and merged into one ship. But one cannot simply add 100% more mass and length to a ship to solve problems that only arose because of mass and size in the first place; a real solution requires adding no more mass and size.
    • Thus, any new thrusters on the nose would come at the expense of the rear thrusters, and any new structural strength on the front-end would come at the expense of the rear. In the latter case, the decreased forward thrust would permit a decrease in structural integrity anyway (leaving aside any such integrity needed for rotation), so at least that doesn't further compound the issue. However, the former case establishes the real problem: with half as much mass and size devoted to forward thrust, effective thrust has now decreased by half or more.
    • Why more than half? Well, its a complicated issue, but to simplify it, consider the design of the Star Destroyer: its power system is located in the rear of the vessel, centered on its bulkiest point, just adjacent to the rear thrusters. Powerful forward thrusters would therefore require a lengthy power transfer system to transmit power that far. This system would increase the mass and bulk of the ship, and some power would be lost in transition; thus the net power available to all thrusters would be less, and the greater inertia would decrease their effect even more. Placing the power core amidships would not counter this; any decrease to the power routing needs of the fore thrusters would be countered by a longer power route to the rear thrusters.

Conclusion

So, with that out of the way, we can conclude that with great size, comes crappy maneuverability. We can then derive the following:

• Although space allows for dramatically high velocity with sustained acceleration, meaningful combat cannot occur when the relative velocity of two ships exceeds a certain threshold. Thus, a large ship cannot usually exploit a "head start" approach by building up speed in advance of a fight.
• Since smaller vessels tend to have greater maneuverability than larger ones, then any maneuver initiated by the larger vessel can be easily countered by the smaller, leaving room to spare.
• Regardless of all other variables, the vehicle with higher net acceleration can always outrun the vehicle with lower. This creates velocity supremacy, meaning the more maneuverable vehicle can decide what velocity it prefers to have, relative to the less maneuverable vehicle, within the limits allowed by its advantage.
• Velocity advantage yields positioning advantage; the vessel which decides relative velocity can decide position.

Thus, the final conclusion, and the definition of the Size Effect: The more maneuverable vessel, which is almost always the smaller vessel, determines relative positioning and relative velocity; the less-maneuverable vehicle cannot contest this.

Practically speaking, a fast ship can decide that it would prefer to engage at 10 kilometers. Any action the larger ship takes to increase or decrease that range is easily countered by the smaller ship. It can't just turn tail and run; the smaller ship can outrun it. Nor can it close; the smaller ship can beat its acceleration.

Many of the tactics that might occur to a less-maneuverable vehicle on the ground do not work in empty space, such as:

• Forcing the more maneuverable vessel into a corner, negating its ability to flee. There are no corners in empty space; there's always more space.
• Using concealment or cover to block line of sight. Perhaps a more maneuverable vessel would prefer to engage at long range, but if its long shot is blocked, it will be forced to close in order to bypass the obstacle. But this only works when there is an obstacle; terrain features are surprisingly absent in empty space.
• The use of external forces to augment acceleration. A slow, lumbering hovertank might not be able to outrun a swoop bike, but perhaps if it is atop a large hill, it can descend the hill, harnessing gravity to accelerate beyond its normal limitations. Or perhaps it can remain there, and if the bike wishes to close, it must accelerate against the pull of gravity, reducing its advantage. Gravity doesn't apply in empty space, so this is moot.

There remain a few practical maneuvers for ships on the wrong end of the Size Effect; these are discussed in a later section.

Forget everything you know about aerial combat--none of it applies in space. Some of the realities of modern fighter combat are relevant, but nothing from the WWII era or earlier...that era is marked by the total supremacy of Aerodynamics over Newtonian Physics, a trend that is completely and infinitely reversed in the vacuum of space.

So rather than describing how familiar maneuvers might work in space, just forget all of them. We'll start fresh.

Attack

Attacking an enemy is fairly simple, in principle: point a weapon at him and shoot it. In practice, there are other variables to consider: the weapon's range, the target's ability to evade, the strength of the target's defenses, etc.

Effective Range due to Attenuation

Weapon range is a complex issue in space; many weapon types can travel forever, never losing potency, as there is no air resistance or gravity to interfere with their trajectory. A kinetic projectile enjoys this advantage. Others can partially exploit Newtonian motion; a long-range torpedo could coast for days, weeks, or years, provided the total amount of actual, powered thrust it needed to do did not exceed its fuel supply. Others attenuate over sufficient distance, such as lasers. The most common weapon used by Star Wars starships, the plasma bolt, attenuates over very short distances, rarely more than a few kilometers.

Effective Range due to Evasion

In any case, the weapon's attenuation is not the only factor. The longer it takes a weapon to reach its target, the longer the target has to evade. Given long enough, even the slowest vehicle can evade an attack. Thus, the best-case scenario is always a faster projectile (rarely something you can change in real-time, usually just a set muzzle velocity for a given weapon) fired from a shorter range. The latter is much more easily controlled by a pilot.

Of course, what's good for the gander is good for the goose; if the attacker is more potent for being closer, so is the defender. Thus, in cases where the attacker has some reason to fear the defender's own weapons (if any), the ideal range is the maximum range at which his own attacks are still reasonably difficult to evade. Hopefully, this range gives the attacker a decent chance to evade the defender's counter-fire.

Assault-focused ships, and the modules they prefer to equip, are typically designed to give a range advantage. The best way to do this is to increase projectile speed and ship maneuverability; other methods including using EWAR modules to confound the defender's sensors (which become vital at long range to achieve targeting) to reduce his counterattack range, or to use light-speed or near-light-speed weaponry that cannot be seen in time to effect evasion. Of course, this is paired with the "force-range" maneuver; assuming the attacker is the more maneuverable ship, he will set range to just inside his maximum, thus maximizing his own defense against counterattack while retaining the ability to hit the defender.

This tactic is best used against defenders who rely on evasion, but the defensive advantages to the attacker apply no matter what. Thus, it is commonly employed by smaller, more maneuverable craft intended for dogfighting, or for assault craft intended to attack larger craft from range. The latter type is often referred to as "artillery", as distinct from the perhaps more common approach of the close-in "dive bomber"; the former is more common with larger assault craft, such as an assault frigate, and the latter is more common when attacking in a swarm, to mitigate the effect of close-in weaponry.

Really, it's all about the scenario you're expecting.

Dogfighting

Consider a battle between an X-Wing and a TIE Fighter. One pictures a give-and-take between pilots battling the laws of physics, the limits of their own vessels, and their opponent's skill. When one pilot finally achieves an advantageous position, he exploits it, taking his shot, and scoring a kill.

But this isn't what it looks like. You're probably picturing a WWII-esque dogfight, with lots of high-G banking, streaming gun fire, and the whole nine. That's wrong for so many reasons; most importantly, the maneuverability of WWII fighters is highly variable. A fighter at cruising speed, flying level, under good conditions, has a lot of maneuverability, because he has a lot of options; a fighter just shy of a stall, flying through fog, with frost on his windshield from atmospheric water, has comparatively few options.

But in space, maneuverability is pretty much constant. Without air resistance and gravity, the options available to a pilot never really change; he can accelerate according to the limits of his craft, and to the G-Forces he can tolerate. That's about it. So when the X-Wing is banking hard to catch up with the TIE Fighter...the TIE Fighter wins, because it can bank harder. Forever.

Okay, that's not exactly true, but let's think about the scenario.

The engagement begins at a range outside either fighter's maximum as most combats do. The TIE pilot and the X-Wing pilot realize the same thing at the same time: the TIE has superior maneuverability, and the Size Effect is his. The TIE chooses his attack range (ideally, just under his own maximum, but anything outside the X-Wing's will do), and exploits his acceleration to maintain that range. The X-Wing struggles to catch up, but his efforts are in vain; the TIE has superior acceleration.

However, the TIE's designer has made a critical (and sadly common) error; any assault vessel that anticipates winning the Size Effect commonly should not forward-optimize the vessel. Why? See Overcoming the Size Effect (the Force-Facing maneuver) for more detail, but in short: if the X-Wing constantly accelerates toward the TIE, the TIE is forced to face away from the X-Wing to use its rear thruster...thus denying itself use of its forward-facing weapons, even as the X-Wing is pointing all of its weapon systems directly at the TIE. A much better design would mount the TIE's weapons on a turret that can face fore or rear, and allow the refocusing of defenses toward the rear. Even a permanently rear-mounted weapon would make more sense than a permanently fore-mounted one.

The TIE pilot has limited options. He can sacrifice his range lock, or he can make the most of it, and try to outfly the X-Wing pilot long enough to take a few shots of his own. The former strategy is the most intuitive, and is absolutely stupid. A head-on charge against a slower opponent almost always means a head-on charge against an opponent with superior offense and defense. In this particular case, that couldn't be more true; the TIE can be destroyed almost effortlessly by the X-Wing, but the X-Wing is unlikely to fall to even a sustained bombardment, given the limited time the TIE can fire before passing the X-Wing.

There is some merit to this maneuver, however; if done right, and if the pilot is lucky, the psychological effect of a head-on rush may cause the defender to compromise his counterattack to focus instead on avoiding the collision. If he does so, and if the attacker remains steel-willed, he might enjoy a brief window of uninterrupted attack. Of course, if the defender doesn't move, the attacker must in turn compromise his own attack to avoid a collision...or they can just hit each other and both die. This is known as Playing Chicken. It is not advised by Imperial Field Manuals.

A more practical approach is Jousting, a variant of the head-on rush, where instead of convincing the enemy you are crazy enough to ram him, you deliberately plot a course to miss your enemy. Firing on the enemy while approaching is optional; the key is to rotate after passing, keeping the enemy in your sights. If the enemy is unfamiliar with the tactic, you will gain advantageous positioning--your front to his rear--and can fire uninterrupted, even as your momentum carries you back to a safe range. Of course, if the enemy is familiar, he will counter-rotate, denying you an uninterrupted attack. And of course, this maneuver does not negate the danger you place yourself in by attacking head-on in the first place; in any head-on scenario, whether closing or opening, the vessel with superior offense and defense is likely to win. The Field Manual does not recommend this maneuver for TIE fighters attacking X-Wings.

Instead, by far the most sensible maneuver is the Orbit. Essentially, the TIE maintains its range lock not through linear acceleration, but by flying in a circle around the X-Wing. When the range falls, the TIE pulls away to compensate; when it rises, the TIE pulls in. If done correctly, not only does the TIE confound the X-Wing's attempts to close or open the field, but he also forces the X-Wing to match rotation, lest he present the wrong arc.

Establishing a circular motion in space requires constant acceleration toward the center. When orbiting a planet, the planet provides that acceleration with the pull of gravity. When orbiting an X-Wing, gravity is infinitely insufficient, so the main drive must be used. And here is where the maneuver truly shines.

When the maneuver is executed correctly, the TIE is moving in a perfect circle, centered on a stationary X-Wing (his own movements are irrelevant in a relative frame of reference, as long as the TIE counters them exactly). To maintain the circle, the TIE is thrusting toward the center--directly toward the X-Wing. Because it uses its main drive to do this, that means it is presenting its forward arc squarely to the X-Wing at all times, while maintaining optimum range (unlike the head-on scenario). Not only is the TIE's forward profile much harder to hit than its side, but the X-Wing's need to constantly rotate compromises his targeting ability, compared to a head-on scenario with minimal rotation.

Executing the maneuver is surprisingly simple; the hardest part is injection (though the TIE's targeting computer helps with that). The TIE's optimum range is a known, unchanging quantity, and therefore the incident velocity is also unchanging. A TIE going in for an attack run will target an entry point at the proper distance from the target, and achieve the desired velocity relative to the target. At the moment of injection, it must be facing the target exactly, and have a rotational momentum designed to exactly counter its revolution around the target. If this is all done properly, the only thing the TIE need do is vary the forward thrust; when range increases, he adds thrust, and when it decreases, he lets off. Rotation is automatic, if the momentum was set up right.

Of course, the target can attempt to spoil the maneuver by accelerating in a direction other than directly toward or away from the TIE. This is not an intuitive defense, but a tactic commonly known to students of dogfighting, and it is thus not unreasonable to assume the opponent knows the tactic. The skill of the TIE pilot is thus crucial, as it requires less skill to juke randomly around than it does to maintain a perfect orbit around a juking target. TIE pilots train for many hours in simulators to gain an intuitive feel for the control tweaks necessary to keep their target centered and their orbit stable. With enough practice, they even learn to confound the target's counteracts with juking motions of their own.

The greatest disadvantage of the maneuver is that it is relatively easy for the target to keep the TIE centered for a counterattack, should the defender have enough range to make such attacks (and larger ships usually do). A large orbit gives the TIE pilot ample time to evade such attacks, but doing so without spoiling orbit is a very challenging task, whereas simply firing on the TIE when it is centered in a reticule is quite an easy task for the defender. While an individual TIE pilot's best hope to avoid this is to increase his own piloting skill, the best tactic overall is simple: add more TIEs.

TIE pilots rarely fly alone, and are trained to focus fire in clusters of 5 or fewer fighters. Thus, a wing of 5 TIEs will all choose their wingleader's target, and will all enter orbit of the target. The wingleader gets preferential range; everyone will stagger inward by a certain margin, depending on rank within the wing. This ensures that each TIE has an uninterrupted "bubble" to work with for evasion and orbit stabilization. The target is then presented with 5 TIEs, each flying in a different direction. Focusing on any one TIE negates defense against all others. Even the coolest hands among rebel pilots often falls victim to the psychology of the multi-TIE orbit, foolishly dividing fire between multiple TIEs. Meanwhile, all 5 TIEs are attacking simultaneously, which prevents the target from focusing defenses forward, and of course means his defenses will fall at least 5 times faster.

The Imperial Field Manual mandates the Orbit as the primary maneuver for TIE pilots in a dogfight. It is statistically proven to be many times more likely to succeed than Jousting or similar maneuvers. There is some risk of friendly fire in a multi-TIE orbit, but the risk is deemed acceptable.

Overcoming the Size Effect

The previous section described what to do when you have the maneuverability advantage. What if you don't?

The Size Effect means that larger, less maneuverable vessels are typically at the mercy of smaller, more maneuverable vessels, in terms of velocity and positioning. But there are some practical maneuvers to counter this tendency. Some of the most common or applicable include:

• Power Boost: Using modules and/or engineering techniques to boost maneuverability temporarily. Usually, this can only overcome small differences in maneuverability, but sometimes that is enough.
• Hyperjumps: A fairly common adaptation is a hot-cycle hyperdrive; at the cost of more mass and size dedicated to the hyperdrive, as well as greater power consumption, and requiring an ace astrogation officer, a large vessel can employ rapid, short hyper-jumps on a tactical scale. Even the slowest of starships is hopelessly superior to the fastest of ships when the former is using a hyperdrive and the latter a sublight drive. Being able to jump nigh-instantly around the battlefield every few minutes can be a great asset to a vessel on the wrong end of the Size Effect.
• Grappling: the use of tow cables and tractor beams is fairly common among large vessels to negate the maneuverability of smaller ones. With enough power, and accurate targeting, the slower vehicle can mitigate or eliminate the faster ship's maneuverability advantage, or even nullify their maneuverability entirely, making them all but helpless from a maneuvering perspective.
• Support: A large vessel might partner with smaller vessels, perhaps even vessels that it launches from a carrier bay. A Star Destroyer might have one of the worst maneuverability ratings in space, but the TIE Fighters it carries have one of the absolute best.
• Range Superiority: A smaller vessel can choose its range, from a maneuvering standpoint, but the range of its weapons its another story: that has nothing to do with maneuverability. Other things equal, energy-intensive weapons achieve greater range with greater power, and larger ships typically have greater power available than smaller ships. The practical effect is this: a large ship can usually manage to have longer range for weapons and tractor beams than a smaller ship, so if that ship chooses to force combat to occur near the extent of its own range, it isn't exactly escaping danger--to do so would require forcing the range to a number beyond its own ability to actually attack. This doesn't counter the tactic of forcing engagement range to be closer to the slow ship; that's covered next.
• Close-in Weaponry: Larger ships typically have more power and hardpoints for weapons and defensive systems. Thus, many such ships outfit themselves with myriad close-in weapons systems, significantly smaller than the maximum-size weapons they could carry. These smaller weapons may have less range and power than full-size ones, but will have more agility, and they can afford to slot many more of them. For example, an Imperial Star Destroyer has 6 main turbolaser batteries for engaging large, slow targets, and 60 smaller turbolaser turrets for engaging smaller, more agile vehicles. Thus, if a fast vehicle uses its advantage to close with the Star Destroyer, it will get more than it bargained for, as it exposes itself to fire from an overwhelming array of weapons quite capable of hitting and destroying it.
• Force Facing: This maneuver is highly dependent on the thrust and arc configuration of the respective vehicles, and only really applies when the faster vehicle is forcing maximum range, instead of minimum. The best-case scenario is that the faster vehicle is heavily forward-optimized or rear-optimized, and the slower is optimized the same way, and the degree of advantage is not too great.
  • It is established that, in the force-range scenario, the faster vessel can counter any acceleration to close or open range, keeping the range exactly at the preferred number regardless of the slower vehicle's actions.
  • However, that doesn't happen by magic; the faster vehicle must accelerate to achieve this.
  • If both vehicles are forward-optimized, the slower vehicle can attempt to close with maximum acceleration, keeping its optimal arc facing the enemy.
    • In order to maintain its desired range, the enemy, if also forward-optimized, must spend at least some of its time rotated away, to use its rear thrusters to counter the slower vehicle's acceleration.
    • More time is lost in rotation. Below a certain maneuverability gap, the most reasonable tactic for the faster vessel is to present his rear arc constantly, to avoid time lost to rotation. Failing to apply this would compromise the range advantage.
    • However, by presenting his rear arc, he is losing some amount of offensive and/or defensive capability. Thus, he must choose between accepting this and sacrificing his range lock. He will choose depending on the relative delta of each, and on his competence.
    • Thus, the slower vessel can either force a compromise to the faster vessel's tactical strength, or to its range lock.
  • Conversely, the same is true with the (comparatively rare) case of both vehicles being rear-optimized for combat and fore-optimized for acceleration.
    • Specifically, the slower vehicle opens the field constantly, presenting its best arc (rear) at all times.
    • The faster vehicle must spend at least some time, if not all, presenting its forward arc (suboptimal for combat) to enjoy its fore-optimized thrust, in order to prevent range from increasing.
    • Even if the slower vessel is neither fore-optimized for acceleration nor rear-optimized for tactical strength, there is still merit to this strategy in some cases. Any vehicle whose mission is to ferry important cargo or passengers might optimize this way, anticipating pursuit by enemies; in the unfortunate event that the vehicle cannot outrun its pursuer, it can at least present an optimal arc to it. (The Rebel Blockade Runner is one such example)

What about the X-Wing vs TIE example? Well, let's assume the TIE pilot is smart enough to use the Orbit maneuver. Further, let's assume the X-Wing pilot does not have a sufficient advantage of piloting skill to spoil the maneuver. So what can he do?

• A hyperjump is not feasible; while the X-Wing does enjoy the advantage of having a hyperdrive where the TIE does not, it is not configure for hot cycling, and the need for an exceptional astrogation unit has already been precluded.
• Grappling is unfeasible; even if equipped with a tractor beam, the X-Wing could not put out enough power to grapple a TIE fighter, being only slightly larger. Tow cables do not have sufficient range; they are usually meant to be used by the more maneuverable craft, or when the faster craft is using a close-in range lock.
• Range Superiority is an interesting possibility. The X-Wing's factory-default laser cannons do have slight superiority to the TIE's blasters; however, the difference is minimal, and is largely negated by the TIE's superior evasive abilities. However, the X-Wing can be loaded with concussion missiles or proton torpedoes. If these are available, they can easily cross any distance the TIE would care to put between the two fighters, and are (far) more than powerful enough to destroy the TIE. Even better, TIE fighters possess limited countermeasures, instead relying on numbers for defense against missiles. And that hits the matter on the head: missiles are an excellent way to rid oneself of troublesome TIEs, but they are a very costly way to do so, not only in terms of the resource price of the missiles themselves, but in that an X-Wing can only carry a few missiles, and may face more than a few TIEs (and may also have needed the missiles for some other purpose).
• Close-in weaponry is irrelevant to a far range-lock. Force-facing is assumed in this scenario, and Orbit was designed to foil it.

So what remains? If one cannot count on superior skill, or an exceptional astrogation droid, perhaps one can count on friends; the Orbit maneuver was designed to attack a single ship. If the X-Wing has a wingman, said wingman can pursue the TIE to his preference; the piloting demands of the Orbit maneuver are so intense that managing to evade a wingman while maintaining the orbit is inconceivable for a being of human intelligence.

Sadly, rebel pilots cannot count on numeric superiority--far from it, they are usually quite outnumbered themselves. Where they do enjoy a major advantage, however, is in their engineering corps, and in the design of their favored fighter. Not only is the X-Wing categorically superior to the TIE in every capability besides maneuverability, it is also far more extensible. After the Battle of Yavin and other early sorties, rebel pilots realized the need to adapt to the TIE's maneuverability, and asked their mechanics for help. The OP delivered. Later generations of X-Wing would be equipped with Power Relay Modules, allowing some of the ship's power to be selectively relayed to weapons, propulsion or shielding, or whatever combination of the three the pilot preferred at the time.

With these modules, it became possible to boost the X-Wing's thrust to match that of the TIE (albeit at the cost of all power to weapons). Thus, an X-Wing pilot caught in an orbit can use the following go-to maneuver to break free:

• Begin with weapons fully charged; they aren't going to recharge, so they need to begin ready to fire.
• Route all power from weapons to engines, keeping shields steady.
• Unless subject to a multi-TIE orbit, boost shields 150% to front.
• Full burn directly toward the TIE.
• The TIE will first attempt to coast to open the field, but will find that he cannot. He will be forced to turn tail to increase range. Depending on his skill and experience, he may take a long time to realize his predicament, further cementing your advantage.
  • If he turns tail, now is your chance; he's never going to get any closer once that engine starts firing. Center the target and blast him.
  • If you fail to achieve a kill, you now have no weapons, so don't bother chasing. Swap all available engine power back to weapons, flip, and open the field. With any luck, he'll take a while to notice you've flipped.
  • When he does realize what's up, you'll have spoiled the entire orbit. The TIE will be setting up a new one. This usually means he'll be presenting a side arc. Depending on the final range, either keep weapons hot to blast as much as possible, or switch back to engines to close to acceptable range.
    • The further away he was, the easier it will be to start the orbit again, and the harder it will be to hit him before he does. For this reason, many rebel pilots prefer not to fire engines at all after flipping, counting on the TIE to assume you're opening when they see your profile in scope. Thus, once he stops firing, you start closing, and you're still right on his ass. YMMV.
  • If he never figures it out, he'll just keep running. If he does, don't follow him; let him come back to you and start the whole thing over.
  • If he's particularly clever, and/or wise to the counter-maneuver, he'll be waiting for the flip. He can flip faster than an X-Wing, and the lucky bastard's got a perfect three-axis alignment centered on his (the one smart thing about the Sienar design), so he can return fire to your butt while closing twice as fast as you can run away. At that skill level, he's more than ready to juke away at the first sign of a counterflip.
    • The only advice is: when you point your butt at him, flip shields rear 150. If he gives you the gas, retro into his face. The smart ones don't want to die in a flying coffin; he'll juke, you track him and give him the four-finger salute.