The Expanded Universe discussion

Okay so I'm trying to read Rogue Squadron, and it's pretty good/fine so far. However the biggest problem I'm having with reading the book is picturing the fights/simulations. Does anyone have any idea how to make it more visual for me?

I have almost read the entire series now and I had the same issue when I started.

Some fights/moves make seem to make sense if you read them a couple of times over, but in my experience some situations don`t really add up no matter how carefully you read them. When in doubt just try to make up a visualization yourself :P

After a while (if you keep reading the series) you seem to get a better grasp of what is going on, but as far as the fights between star-fighters go it is more a battle between the different types (x-wing, Tie Fighter, A-wing etc) and the specific edge each of hem has over the other (Tie= Fast but no shielding, Y-wing= Slow but heavily shielded, etc).

Thank you for that help. Glad I'm not the only one that has a hard time trying to see what's going on. I'm not an expert on air fights, nor have I ever really sat down and spent time looking for videos of jets/planes doing crazy battle maneuvers. Also, even in the movies (with the exception of the prequels) there isn't very much "space fighting" so it's very hard to visual.

I'm planning on continuing the series if I ever get through this book. xD Maybe if I read some of the comics it'll help. Because I do want to continue, I have them all, it's just so hard to visualize.

Because there is no up or down in space it really complicates things, and even if you had a perfect 360 view of a fighter and its adversary the writer can still pretty much do what he wants to influence the outcome in whichever way he wants.

So the best thing to do is try not to get too bogged down. If you have to keep re-reading a certain paragraph it really doesn`t make the action fluent.

Good luck with continuing the series. It is really worth reading. This series was my introduction into the expanded universe and it really fleshes out the characters of Wedge Antilles and Corran Horn.

Alli wrote: "Okay so I'm trying to read Rogue Squadron, and it's pretty good/fine so far. However the biggest problem I'm having with reading the book is picturing the fights/simulations. Does anyone have any i..."

I had the same problem. I just skim through the space fights and look for keywords. The series is definitely worth reading though. The characters are the best part of the books, not the space dogfights. Stick with it, you'll be glad you did.

I've discovered that I'm fairly good at predicting character relationships. Haha.

The dogfights, I would suggest star wars galaxy the old mmo, but it is dead. Hmm, I guess I just picture the star war movies in my head anytime I think of a dog fight. The characters in the book are great from Stackpole and Allston

I would suggest watching the original trilogy again to get familiarized with the ships and have a basis for visualizing battles. I guess I never had a problem relating to the space battles. If it helps, port means left (both have 4 letters).

Yeah but even in the original trilogy there isn't very many ship fights. The most detailed thing I can thing of, and that's simply due to technology I assume, is Episode III at the beginning.

Watch the death star battle at the end of Return of the Jedi. It has virtually all the ships used in the X-wing series (X-wings, A wings, B-wings, Y-wings, Tie Fighters and Interceptors, Mon Calimari crusiers, and Star Destroyers). That set of scenes is usually what I visualize when reading the battles.

It's not imagining the ships that is hard, it's imagining just the movement and the fighting. But I'll grab my dvd copy and watch it sometime.

Something that I used to do when I first read this series was to play the Rogue Squadron game for the N64. It helped to visualize those long, descriptive battle sequences.

That would probably help if I had a N64. Off to YouTube I go.

I just wanted to say that I adore the name Whistler for a droid.

Those were my favourite books of all the Star Wars novels I have read. Same as Tim up there, when I read them I was playing the Rogue Squardron games. I also had a whole slew of Micro Machines star fighters that I'd use to imagine the battles. My favourite astromech name was 'Vape', but he appears later on in the series.

Like Alli, I also have those worries. I haven't started it yet but I will once I get off the computer. My other worry is that I won't like the series because I was never really into the dog fights. But hopefully I will like it.

To give you some hope: I did like the first book. I haven't read farther than that.

That does give me a lot more hope. I do enjoy it so far. I'm on page 42.

The great thing about the X-Wing series is it's not as much about the dogfights as it is about the interactions between the members of the squadron, and their general snarkiness with everyone else. If you kinda liked Wedge during the movies, you'll LOVE him in this series.

I never played the Rogue Squadron games, so I have no point of reference there, but I've read about 50 books in the EU in the last 6 months, and this is BY FAR my favorite series, mostly because I love Allston's writing.

Hmm, I liked the series because of Michael Stackpole and not Allison. Rogue vs Wrath I suppose.

I enjoyed the X-wing series because it focused not on the Big Three on other side characters from the movies. It was fun reading about Wedge, Hobbie, and Janson and their adventures rather than it always being Luke/Leia/Han.

I finished Rogue Squadron. It was surprising better than I thought it would be. I love Corran and Mirax (Hopefully I spelled the names right.). They are probably my favorite characters. I enjoyed reading the dog fights also which really surprised me since I wasn't a fan of them in the movies or video games. I started Wedge's Gamble and loving it so far.

Okay, I read the 4 Rogue Squadron novels by Michael A. Stackpole, and loved all four of them. Like you guys might had remembered, I was iffy about them at first. Now I am reading the Wraith Squadron trilogy by Aaron Allston. I finished the first one Wraith Squadron, and thought it was just okay. I didn't much care for the characters nor the plot. The plot felt like it was too jumpy. Anyone else felt like this about them?

I am reading Iron Fist right now. About the first 50 pages into it.

I'm surprised, reading over this old thread, that no one suggested what I'm about to suggest. Go find the old PC LucasArts game "X-Wing". Or even "TIE Fighter". The layout of the cockpit, the mapping of different controls to the keyboard, the snap-rolling to starboard or port, the shunting of power from shields to engines, the targeting reticules, the highlighting of enemies in one color and friends in another, and all those kinds of things, are exactly how Stackpole and Allston describe them in the books. When I picked up the X-Wing novels, I felt like I was right back in the cockpit. For me, it made the books all that more enjoyable, because I could visualize due to the way the games were played, exactly what the pilots were thinking as they sat in their cockpits trying to fly those relatively tiny things in the vastness of space!

TIE Fighter: The Official Strategy Guide