CIC's birthday

Filler

General Graphics Guy
On behalf of the UE team, I'd like to wish the CIC a happy fifth birthday.
I hope everyone liked the UE gifts :)
 
Hmm, well this is a disappointing response... after all those questions regarding UE2 fighters, I would have expected someone to ask for details about these new-fangled Spectres :p.
 
At first glance, I thought they were Piranhas... then the image description pop-up on the UE news page confused me into thinking they were Scimitars.

Didn't Primarch's SO missions include an unused drone ship which he called a Spectre as well? [Actually, I could be thinking about the reconaissance Tigershark.]
 
So how many new designs does the BW have in UE2? So far I've heard about the Rapier IV and the Spectre. Anything else? Also, timewise, when is UE2 in relation to Prophecy/SO?

Best, Raptor
 
Good question. It still has not been revealed what ship will fulfill the bomber role in UE2. The Rapier IV might be modified to carry two to four light torpedoes, but something will still be needed for the heavier stuff. The upgraded Avenger from the UE1 simulator is slightly overkill, so it is unlikely that we will be flying it.
 
Timewise, UE2 is an almost direct continuation of UE1 (like, days or even hours).

There are plans for four new ship designs in UE2 - a patrol fighter, the Spectre light combat fighter, the Rapier IV strike fighter, and a bomber. We will probably not reveal anything about the bomber any time soon, simply because it's still extremely incomplete. Not all of these ships are new inventions, BTW.
 
Very cool. BTW, is the Spectre the fighter that someone once said looked kind of like HTL's Retaliator? I can see some resemblence in the wallpaper, espically the chopped off nose and the wingtips.

Best, Raptor
 
Quarto said:
Timewise, UE2 is an almost direct continuation of UE1 (like, days or even hours).

There are plans for four new ship designs in UE2 - a patrol fighter, the Spectre light combat fighter, the Rapier IV strike fighter, and a bomber. We will probably not reveal anything about the bomber any time soon, simply because it's still extremely incomplete. Not all of these ships are new inventions, BTW.

That sounds appropriate--all the roles are filled that way--the patrol fighter for interception, the Spectre for missions with lots of light opponents or bombers (where speed is vital), the Rapier for general space superiority and light bombing, and the bomber for heavy ordinance.

Regarding the patrol fighter, I like the idea of having something ultralight and ultrafast. For example, the Ferret as seen in UE1 would have been fine for this if it had autoslide and more decoys. The Epee would have been okay too if it had as much armor as the Ferret--but as it is the Epee is so fragile that avoiding getting hit demands more attention than attacking the enemy ships.
 
Raptor said:
Very cool. BTW, is the Spectre the fighter that someone once said looked kind of like HTL's Retaliator?
That is correct. However, I actually got the ideas for the nose from the Excalibur (it'd be easier to recognize if the wallpaper showed the underside of the ship), and the ideas for the wingtips from the Piranha :)

The parts which I did base on the Retaliator are the wings themselves, and the way the tail winglets connect to the main wings.
 
Heh. Well, the nose probably comes from the fact that the Retaliator is based on the Dragon, which was itself based on the Excalibur. Basically, the Retaliator is what the Excal would have been if it had been further developed for killing fighters, rather than as a special ops craft like the Dragon.

Best, Raptor
 
Hmm, then I guess the similarities between the Retaliator and the Spectre end at the appearance, because the Spectre pre-dates the Excalibur by a few months, and it doesn't use any of the Excal's sophisticated technology (although it was developed by the same company).

Ijuin, the thing about patrol fighters is that they're not designed for combat. Hence the lack of autoslide and decoys on the Ferret. This is difficult to simulate in the game, I know, but patrol fighters are really supposed to just find the enemy, not fight him (I think we really need to design a few missions that make use of this concept). As for the new patrol fighter... well, I personally also like the ultralight and ultrafast approach, but I'm not sure if that's what we'll use in this case. While I'd love to have something as light and fast as the Armada Arrow, I'm concerned that this would make it seem like the BW has superior equipment to Confed (since the Piranha is nowhere near that fast).
 
Eder said:
...the ideas for the wingtips from the Piranha...
That explains some of my confusion, then...

Quarto said:
While I'd love to have something as light and fast as the Armada Arrow...
In Armada itself, the Armada really didn't appear to fly that fast. Must be a game engine thing.
 
Quarto said:
Ijuin, the thing about patrol fighters is that they're not designed for combat. Hence the lack of autoslide and decoys on the Ferret. This is difficult to simulate in the game, I know, but patrol fighters are really supposed to just find the enemy, not fight him (I think we really need to design a few missions that make use of this concept). As for the new patrol fighter... well, I personally also like the ultralight and ultrafast approach, but I'm not sure if that's what we'll use in this case. While I'd love to have something as light and fast as the Armada Arrow, I'm concerned that this would make it seem like the BW has superior equipment to Confed (since the Piranha is nowhere near that fast).

Well I think that the Ferret was sufficiently fast--600 kps matches with the Black Vampire, which is the fastest ship that we see Confed using, and its 1800 kps afterburner speed is a bit more than the Black Vampire's 1600 kps. Compared to the Piranha, the Ferret used in UE1 had 20% more speed and about 1/3 less shields and armor. Its energy guns were also comparable--2 Mass Drivers vs. 2 Ion/1 Laser. Actually I think the Ferret would be fine if it just had an extra pair of missiles (anything except dumbfires) and more decoys.
 
I agree that the Border Worlds shouldn't have technology that is superior to what Confed has. However, I don't think there's anything wrong with a BW design being better in one specific respect to its Confed counterparts. The Vindicator, for example, had much better ship killing capability than the Thunderbolt, but this was evened out with weaker guns and armour. In same way, I can see a Border Worlds scout fighter that can outrun a Pirhana, but doesn't have the armour or perhaps the dogfighting capability.

Best, Raptor
 
Ijuin said:
Well I think that the Ferret was sufficiently fast--600 kps matches with the Black Vampire...
Which Ferret are you talking about?

Raptor said:
...I can see a Border Worlds scout fighter that can outrun a Pirhana, but doesn't have the armour or perhaps the dogfighting capability.
Wow, the Piranha has already sacrificed armour and weaponry in favour of speed and manoeuvrability. I'd hate to think how flimsy anything lighter might be...
 
Heh. Well, what else do you expect in the Border Worlds? ;-) In HTL, we use Arrows, complete with Kilrathi War era weaponry and armour in the recon role. They are most definitely not supposed to make heavy contact with the enemy. I would expect a recon fighter in a game to have a little more combat capability, but not by much.

Best, Raptor
 
Wedge009 said:
Which Ferret are you talking about?

The UE1 version of the Ferret, which could cruise at 600 kps and afterburn at 1800 kps, and carried 2 DF/2 HS missiles.

Wow, the Piranha has already sacrificed armour and weaponry in favour of speed and manoeuvrability. I'd hate to think how flimsy anything lighter might be...

Funny. The Piranha has at least double the armor that the Arrow and Banshee had in WC4, so I would say that it had a decent amount. The UE1 version of the Ferret had something like 130/130 shields and 130/130/90/90 armor--almost double what the UE1 Epee had. This makes the UE1 Ferret slightly better protected than the UE1 Epee. That, combined with its slightly greater speed and faster-firing, more energy-efficient guns, would make the UE1 Ferret preferable to the UE1 Epee in my book provided that the Ferret were given 4 HS/2 DF like the Epee has.
 
Well, I suppose I might consider making the patrol fighter really fast and useless in combat; might be interesting to have a bunch of patrol missions where disengagement is the better part of valour.
 
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