Corvette blues

I never used autoslide either, but there is a reason why my brother always called me "screwdriver":
I flew a lot of barrel rolls to avoid enemy gunfire. I always thought corvettes were hard to kill in an arrow, so i just tried this maneuver and found out that (if you practise it) you can avoid the lasers and at the same time shoot precisely enough to damage the Kamrani.
Additionally you shouldn't come too close, because then barrell rolls don't work anymore, lasers are too fast and hit you eventually. Just use the range of your own lasers and wait a little longer for the kill :)

The other good maneuver against the Kamrani I used is this: make sharp turns, aim fast and kill at least two turrets by firing at them just for a second, then turn away and repeat. Then stay in the right direction and kill the corvette. Boom.

It doesn't work so well against fighters while attacking, because they are too small a target to get hit by you effectively, but it is great when you need to recharge shields but have no afterburner fuel left to get away.
 
I found corvettes to be easy to handle in WC3. Maybe when I was new at it they may have been tough, but I can't remember. I'd either have the Excalibur or the Arrow. I'd just avoid flying in a straight line when getting into position whether it was flying close enough to fire accurately or flying away after a strafing run. I used a lot of afterburners as I was closer to the corvette (but I wouldn't waste them when I was 7,500+ away from it). The only time I flew in a straight line was to fire my lasers when I had them lined up. I think I allowed more power to be directed to my shields. I never wasted missiles on them. I always attacked from behind and generally aimed for the rear turret, although the Corvette usually blew up before the turret did. I used autoslide sparingly when approaching and retreating in order to save on afterburners.

On nightmare level, I found the Dralthi to be the toughest opponent. For some reason their missiles couldn't be shaken. I'm not sure if this was a glitch in my Macintosh game, but decoys wouldn't work on Dralthi missiles and a flight of them caused me to run low on afterburners.

I found WC3 corvettes to be a good way to kill your wingmen. I'm not sure about the others, but when I was flying with Hobbes, I'd want to send him to his doom. Sending him after corvettes by himself was a good way to do that.
 
I found corvettes to be easy to handle in WC3. Maybe when I was new at it they may have been tough, but I can't remember. I'd either have the Excalibur or the Arrow. I'd just avoid flying in a straight line when getting into position whether it was flying close enough to fire accurately or flying away after a strafing run. I used a lot of afterburners as I was closer to the corvette (but I wouldn't waste them when I was 7,500+ away from it). The only time I flew in a straight line was to fire my lasers when I had them lined up. I think I allowed more power to be directed to my shields. I never wasted missiles on them. I always attacked from behind and generally aimed for the rear turret, although the Corvette usually blew up before the turret did. I used autoslide sparingly when approaching and retreating in order to save on afterburners.

On nightmare level, I found the Dralthi to be the toughest opponent. For some reason their missiles couldn't be shaken. I'm not sure if this was a glitch in my Macintosh game, but decoys wouldn't work on Dralthi missiles and a flight of them caused me to run low on afterburners.

I found WC3 corvettes to be a good way to kill your wingmen. I'm not sure about the others, but when I was flying with Hobbes, I'd want to send him to his doom. Sending him after corvettes by himself was a good way to do that.


Yeah, the flying drunk mission on Nightmare is freaking hard. An arrow, up against six vaktoths, then six dralthi, all lobbing missiles at you. Although, using the autoslide would have made this a lot easier, looking back on it. I guess i wasn't the brightest crayon in the box when I was 13.

As far as the Corvette, I usually flew from the front and tried to zap the turrent on the way in. Then I'd crawl right up behind it, pop the top 2 turrets, and it was cake from there.
 
Yeah, the flying drunk mission on Nightmare is freaking hard. An arrow, up against six vaktoths, then six dralthi, all lobbing missiles at you. Although, using the autoslide would have made this a lot easier, looking back on it. I guess i wasn't the brightest crayon in the box.

You were drunk at the time, the oversight is forgivable. :D
 
However, Autoslide seemed to be pushing the disbelief of physics a little too far...especially because you could use it to make perfect 90° or 180° turns. The fact that it appeared only in WC3 and not in any other WC game (I think...it wasn't in WC4, was it?) also made it seem an odd, and transient, addition to the physics as well.

The autoslide was in WC3 (Arrow/Excalibur), WC4 (Banshee/Bearcat/Dragon) and in Prophecy/Secret Ops (Piranha, Panther, Vampire).

I found Corvettes very easy to kill in Arrows/Excaliburs using autosliding. If you're directly behind them there's only one turret that can hit you, and it's fairly easy to take out. They were also fairly easy to kill in Thunderbolts with the heavy gun loadout, but in Hellcats I'd generally avoid them.

Run out of afterburners and they became hard with anything though.

The Corvettes in Prophecy were a huge disappointment. Possibly the easiest opponent in the series...
 
Run out of afterburners and they became hard with anything though.
I agree with this. It's a good argument for the deadliness of Corvettes.
The Corvettes in Prophecy were a huge disappointment. Possibly the easiest opponent in the series...
I actually had a tougher time with the Prophecy Corvettes than I did in WC3. I always seemed to take some kind of damage against them. It seemed much tougher to completely avoid turret fire with your flying skills. Then again, I was usually flying a Dralthi with alswantsmoreships or a Piranah.
 
I agree, the WCP Kamrani was even better than the WC3 Kamrani: first because you couldn't take out its turrets and second, I agree with frosty, it was rather agile, always turning some turrets on you.
 
The Corvettes in Prophecy were a huge disappointment. Possibly the easiest opponent in the series...

I actually meant the Nephilim corvettes when I posted this, I'd completely forgotten that the Kamrani made an appearance in Prophecy as well.

I found the Kamrani in Prophecy much easier, if you were really really patient then you could slowly take it down without really taking any damage. All the turrets are lasers this time, and you're in much better ships (potentially). Hard in a Dralthi, and physically impossible in a Moray or a Squid, but not too bad in Confed ships.
 
I always loved to blast the barrakudas with that small unguided missiles. Just took a few seconds to destroy them.
 
Yep, Dragonflies were perfect for it. When they switched to Mosquitos in SOPS I used them less on Barracudas because they'd drop decoys like crazy and ruin the 100% missile score.
 
It's a persian last name, actually. (There is, for example, a basketball player in the iranian national team who is named Mehdi Kamrani)
So if you ever travel to Iran, you might find a whole lot of people who have that name.

It doesn't sound like other Kilrathi names, though.
There are no "th"s, and strange consonant-combinations, like in K'ha'haf or Fralthra.

But I agree, it is a nice name for a Kilrathi capship.
 
Yeah, we did. Back then, I was rather worried we'd kick up a storm by naming it (we actually came up with a new system of Border Worlds fighter designations specifically to avoid inventing Confed designations for various ships). Surprisingly no such thing happened - and instead, a few years later, we were hugely gratified to see the name appear in the Arena manual.
 
I never had a problem killing the WC3 Kilrathi Corvettes (Just several runs at that big rear gun, with forward shields ramped up, pretty much fucked it up).

It was[/s] tedious though, so I hated it.
 
A few years back, I remember arguing in favor of the auto tracking Excalibur guns as being very valuable and not just for lazy pilots or those with bad marksmanship. Strafing runs on a corvette is a perfect example. If you have any of the other fighters, you must expose yourself to rear turret fire since in order to shoot at it you have to fire in a straight line. If you're in the Excalibur, turn on the auto tracking guns and fire while changing directions, so you'll be hitting the corvette while it can't get a fix on you.
 
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