Capship engagements...

[Dundradal]

Same reason I would shoot them down too...although I must not have realized what direction they were heading in...

Also I think you can just let the ajax and the frathli slug it out and the ajax will win without skinning turrets although it will not be in the best shape

 

[Sycrusian]

I suppose they'd kill eachother eventually... but it'd be a fair fight, which would frustrate the game player. (You should never have a situation where you doe verything you're supposed to but you still lose...)

Too bad the guys that made the PSX port of WC3 didn't think about that when they switched Flint's AI for a kamikase's when you go rescue her in Locanda.

I always have to constantly order her to attack the Darkets. Otherwise, she will just ram the cruiser and blow up there. And when we get back to the Victory, I ask for clearance and hit Auto ASAP, before she rams the Victory (and blow up there)!

Yep. It IS frustrating...

On the other hand, I don't remember ever seeing a Confed capship lose a battle against a Kilrathi one in that game. Looks like they always win by default, so it's not a real battle...

Hell, all of this make me feel I really never played WC3/4...

 

[Viper61]

Also I think you can just let the ajax and the frathli slug it out and the ajax will win without skinning turrets although it will not be in the best shape

I think it depends on what level your playing at, on the higher skill levels it seems like you can blow towards a Confed ship and it yells for help.

C-ya

 

[McGruff]

Why should they? Carriers aren't supposed to get into slugging range with other capships, they sit back while their fighters and bombers do the fighting. If they do get into slugging range of enemy capships, it's almost certain they got there because the carrier skipper seriously screwed the pooch.

The same reason the Confederation class carriers had a phase transit canon - survival.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

The Confederation-class were dreadnoughts... and they had the Phase Transit Cannon because Confed needed to rush and close the technology gap created by the Kilrathi Proton Accelerator Gun...

 

[Expendable]

Sides, the Confed class dreadnought finally meshed together high-caliber firepower of a battlewagon with a large fighter complement.

And, WC2 would be much different without the Concordia spitting out pink balls of death.

 

[overmortal]

It's like the WC version of the BFG 9000.

 

[Dundradal]

I think it depends on what level your playing at, on the higher skill levels it seems like you can blow towards a Confed ship and it yells for help.

C-ya

Possibly, on higher skill levels it does seem that confed ships have lost a few cm's from their armor...

 

[McGruff]

The Confederation-class were dreadnoughts... and they had the Phase Transit Cannon because Confed needed to rush and close the technology gap created by the Kilrathi Proton Accelerator Gun...

My WCP manual is on loan to someone, but isn't the Midway class susposed to pack the firepower of a small fleet into a single ship?

 

[Expendable]

I thought the Midway was supposed to pack a ton of point defense cannon, reducing the number of escorts needed for anti-strike craft defense.

Personally, I like Vesuvius' better.

 

[Death]

My WCP manual is on loan to someone, but isn't the Midway class susposed to pack the firepower of a small fleet into a single ship?

Not quite. The design principle for Midway class carriers is that in peacetime (relatively speaking, anyway, given the pirate rumble in Valgard [IIRC] that the Midway ran into before the Nephilim invasion), they are able to operate independently, but in wartime they're supposed to operate as part of a carrier battlegroup.

Having said that, though, the Midway does carry the firepower of a small fleet. It's just carried in its fighters (where just about every ship designed primarily as a carrier has their primary firepower), given that they carry over twice the fighters/bombers of war-time Concordia class carriers (120, IIRC, vs Midway's 255).

 

[GeeBot]

What's the last carrier you saw in real life that had a battleship turret on it? Probably the only ships that follow this design philosophy are in the Soviet/Russian navy; they have a number of designs that integrate a short flight deck with a bunch of missile launchers or heavy gun turrets. However, these ships don't have the capabilities of full-sized carriers (not that anyone but the U.S. Navy have "real" carriers these days anyway).

That said, the Midway isn't really defenseless. As previously mentioned, it has ion cannons (my guess are fixed forward-facing mounts, these would be easy enough to hide embedded within the hull), and some really dense point defense. However, I believe that the Midway-type carriers are described as being able to replace a small fleet, not that they were 1-for-1 equivalent.

The chief motive behind the Midway (besides cutting down on EA/Origin's capship modeling budget) was as a cost-cutting measure. A single do-it-all megacarrier, with its point defense, fighters, Marine division, and science group, could replace the functions of a whole fleet of more specialized ships (science ships, Marine transports, escorts, other carriers). Obviously, the Midway, as a jack-of-all-trades, can't do things as well as more specialized designs, so in more dangerous times it makes sense to team up with dedicated capital combatants, like the Plunketts and Murphys, with the Midway taking up the carrier role.

All this theory aside, it makes it awfully convenient for the story writers to pull out all sorts of tricks without having to worry about how they're going to bring these folks along. (Marine assaults? Let's throw them in a hold somewhere. Independent operations far from supply? Let's have a hydroponics bay that can supply a whole colony. Strange alien threat? Let's hand it over to our science division. Hundreds of fighters and bombers? Let's scale the thing up to a megacarrier.) Personally, reading about the Midways in the Prophecy manual, I had the expectation that they'd all be destroyed early on into the next war.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

Having said that, though, the Midway does carry the firepower of a small fleet. It's just carried in its fighters (where just about every ship designed primarily as a carrier has their primary firepower), given that they carry over twice the fighters/bombers of war-time Concordia class carriers (120, IIRC, vs Midway's 255).

Close, but plus three cigars - 252 fighters for the Midway-class.

 

[AdmiralHuang]

I always thought that while the Midway looked cool, it was really easy to destroy. What, three well placed heavy torpedoes and boom?

 

[SabreAce]

Capships in WCP seemed far too easy to destroy - just my opinion, but the Tiamat, for example, should have taken a bit more damage before exploding.

 

[Viper61]

The chief motive behind the Midway (besides cutting down on EA/Origin's capship modeling budget) was as a cost-cutting measure. A single do-it-all megacarrier, with its point defense, fighters, Marine division, and science group, could replace the functions of a whole fleet of more specialized ships (science ships, Marine transports, escorts, other carriers). Obviously, the Midway, as a jack-of-all-trades, can't do things as well as more specialized designs, so in more dangerous times it makes sense to team up with dedicated capital combatants, like the Plunketts and Murphys, with the Midway taking up the carrier role.

I've always thought it was interesting that to save money, Confed began building jack-of-all-trades carriers. Yet they have 7 specialized craft (not to mention the leftover Excals and Thuds, and maybe Bearcats) that do the equivalent of ~4 wartime craft and have 'heavy artillery' cruisers, which hints that there are light or heavy (maybe both) cruisers in operation (not to mention the Hades class).
I guess a possible explanation is I'm comparing apples to oranges. Wartime carriers cost tons more in capital and resources than other capital ships (and fighters). Maybe the money saved on the carriers far outweighs the additional costs of specialized smaller capital ships and fighters (Not to mention the extra logistical costs involved in keeping a battle fleet together and supplied that a megacarrier cuts).

Edit: Yay, just noticed I'm a 'full bird' now. At this rate, I'll be able to choose an avatar sometime early in 2007 .

C-ya

 

[McGruff]

I always thought that while the Midway looked cool, it was really easy to destroy. What, three well placed heavy torpedoes and boom?

Don't you know, "traitors never win"

 

[Dundradal]

What's the last carrier you saw in real life that had a battleship turret on it? Probably the only ships that follow this philosophy are in the Soviet/Russian navy; they have a number of designs that integrate a short flight deck with a bunch of missile launchers or heavy gun turrets. However, these ships don't have the capabilities of full-sized carriers (not that anyone but the U.S. Navy have "real" carriers these days anyway).

The japanese during ww2 converted the aft sections of battleships into flight decks for a small wings of planes. They still had their main turrets of the fore section.

Capships in WCP seemed far too easy to destroy - just my opinion, but the Tiamat, for example, should have taken a bit more damage before exploding.

I agree with this to a point. The ability for turrets in wcp to down torpedos added an increased difficulty however they did seem way to easy to kill by just running a few torpedos at it. Although most heavy capships (heavy destroyers, cruisers, carriers, etc) in WC go down with about the same amount of torps (except for the kat dreadnaught) I mean I'm not quite sure how much protection armor, no matter how strong can give against repeated nuclear or anti-matter detonations.

I've always thought it was interesting that to save money, Confed began building jack-of-all-trades carriers. Yet they have 7 specialized craft (not to mention the leftover Excals and Thuds, and maybe Bearcats) that do the equivalent of ~4 wartime craft and have 'heavy artillery' cruisers, which hints that there are light or heavy (maybe both) cruisers in operation (not to mention the Hades class).
I guess a possible explanation is I'm comparing apples to oranges. Wartime carriers cost tons more in capital and resources than other capital ships (and fighters). Maybe the money saved on the carriers far outweighs the additional costs of specialized smaller capital ships and fighters (Not to mention the extra logistical costs involved in keeping a battle fleet together and supplied that a megacarrier cuts).

Sort of similar to the US after WW2, it retired/scrapped a lot of its airpower, yet still had an amazing variety of aircraft. Capitalism and war go hand in hand so companies that produce aircraft will constantly try to sell more and more models to the govt.

 

[Viper61]

Sort of similar to the US after WW2, it retired/scrapped a lot of its airpower, yet still had an amazing variety of aircraft. Capitalism and war go hand in hand so companies that produce aircraft will constantly try to sell more and more models to the govt.

Thats usually not how it works. The Gov't usually sayd 'we need a craft to do X'. Companies then propose ideas for new craft and the gov't narrows it down to 2 or 3 options. These companies then build prototypes and give demonstrations to the gov't who then choose a winner. This company is awarded a contract and they start building planes. They keep churning out new variants until the gov't says 'okay, we've reached the limit of this planes abilities (or we want a new toy), we need a new one to "replace" it'. I can't think of an instance where a company produces a multi-million dollar plane (not to mention the set-up costs it takes to make just 1-2 of something) and then shops it around, hoping someone will buy a contract. Contractors don't dictate to the gov't when they can buy new planes .

C-ya

 

[Nob Akimoto]

I can't think of an instance where a company produces a multi-million dollar plane (not to mention the set-up costs it takes to make just 1-2 of something) and then shops it around, hoping someone will buy a contract.

Only semi-close example I can think of is the F-20 Tigershark, which was made as a low-tech/low-maintenance fighter to replace the F-16 for foreign sales.

Of course, thing failed, and Northrop essentially wasted all their money on developing it.