Lexington Depression

Dragon1

Dragon1

Rear Admiral
Hello everyone,

I have recently re-acquired a copy of Wing Commander IV and began playing it for the first time in almost three years. Having defected Confed, I have come to the mission where Eisen orders you to escort the Intrepid through the jump point in the Silenos nebula. During the mission, Eisen states, "...don't get sentimental on me Colonel. You know what you have to do...", meaning, remove the TCS Lexington from the path of the jump point.

Up to this point in the game, my choice to defect was based more on being able to fly the cool BW fighters as opposed to the same old Hellcat and Longbow, not so much on the story providing me with a true motivation to defect Confed.

Eisen's little speech is interesting, he implies to Blair that the Lexington must be neutralized (in the case of the game, destroyed or leeched). The Lexington, reborn after the Battle of Earth, and arguably one of the few Confed fleet carriers in service immediately after the Kilrathi war was something of a symbol of Confed- or, more to the point, of the soul of Wing Commanders I-III. The in-game model is even a cleaned up version of the Victory. Destroying this ship really serves as a full disconnection from Confed, perhaps the game makers point. But, because of the my past playing Wing Commander for so many years, I had a really hard time firing the torpedoes to kill the ship.

Further, for reasons beyond my current understanding of the game mechanics, the ship only takes TWO torpedoes to kill, even though the specs on the WCIV torpedo show 2000 damage units and the core points of the Concordia-class CV = 6000 armor units (so, at the very least, THREE torpedo hits to kill). They could have at least made the damn thing harder to kill! and where by god are its escort ships?

All in all , I love Wing Commander IV, but this mission for me is really the lowest point in the game. Again, the ship could be leeched, but this isn't even brought up in the mission briefing. I think the game designers wanted the Lexington destroyed, even if that wasn't the official resolution in the Wing Commander IV novel.
 
I think you might be overanalyzing this again. As you mentioned, officially, the ship was not destroyed, and adding the option to Leech it wasn't just an afterthought. Unique cutscenes were made for both destruction and disabling. If you have a problem firing torpedoes, then don't. Giving players the choice makes for a better game overall. Even if this doesn't actually affect the ending, these two different options are a consistent theme throughout the game. From snubbing the fighter in the bar to destroying the Ella Superbase to assuming Tolwyn's position and the command of the Black Lance, Wing Commander IV is full of big decisions that have the potential for very dark results.

 
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I get your meaning Chris. It was just kind of a spur of the moment post to stir things up. I just got done blowing up the Lady Lex and hour ago at work. I guess I am more upset with just how easy WCIV made it to actually kill the fleet carrier.

Just two torpedoes, or 15-20 leech shots. No escorts, and worse, the rear turrets mounted on the right and left engines don't function giving the large carrier a massive blind spot aft.

Other than evading Longbows, the difficulty in this dramatic mission is almost nill. Why were capships made so easy to kill in Wing Commander IV, certainly the Kilrathi capships of Wing Commander III were more difficult.
 
Shot in the dark because I have yet to play WC4 on the PC, but maybe it has to do with your difficulty setting?
 
Can you really leech the Lexington? I never thought to do that. Eison always set me off the leash saying destroy it so I did.
 
Falcon988 said:
Shot in the dark because I have yet to play WC4 on the PC, but maybe it has to do with your difficulty setting?
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Well I usually play on the max difficulty and that mission was a cakewalk.
 
Dragon1 said:
Why were capships made so easy to kill in Wing Commander IV, certainly the Kilrathi capships of Wing Commander III were more difficult.
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Eh, In WC3 you were usually up against destroyers and cruiser, Which tend to be a bit more dangerous than a carrier... you know, AMG's and lots of laser turrets. IIRC the Kilrathi carriers weren't all that badass either(or maybe they were, can't remember.) The Lexington was also an ancient design, (although the ships itself might have been fairly new, I'm not sure.) which doesn't help much.:)
 
Pendy said:
Can you really leech the Lexington? I never thought to do that. Eison always set me off the leash saying destroy it so I did.
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Yes, you can leech the Lex, and get a slightly different following cutscene, with the Lexington adrift and without lighting instead of a wrecked hull.

In the novel, Blair disabled the Lex by prematurely detonating a torpedo right in front of its flight bay, damaging the launch equipment enough that trying to launch would be suicidal. "Mission kill" doesn't always mean "destroy the ship"... as anyone who's been greeted by "hangar was destroyed" endings in Prophecy and Secret Ops can tell you. :p
 
Dyret said:
Eh, In WC3 you were usually up against destroyers and cruiser, Which tend to be a bit more dangerous than a carrier... you know, AMG's and lots of laser turrets. IIRC the Kilrathi carriers weren't all that badass either(or maybe they were, can't remember.) The Lexington was also an ancient design, (although the ships itself might have been fairly new, I'm not sure.) which doesn't help much.:)
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What happened to the AMGs? We know that they were in WCIV because the Vesuvius and the Saint-Helens had them. Why did they not include them on the destroyers and cruisers.

Shot in the dark because I have yet to play WC4 on the PC, but maybe it has to do with your difficulty setting?
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Even at maximum difficulty, the Lex still goes down with two torpedoes. I am a little confused about the mechanics of the game. As stated earlier, the torpedoes are stated as doing 2000 untis of damage and the Concordia-class has 6000 core hit points (this would mean at least three torpedoes to kill). So what's up?

Also, why the missing aft turrets?

Is there any way to mod WCIV to make these ships a little more difficult? Any edit-program designed by HC1?
 
Dragon1 said:
What happened to the AMGs? We know that they were in WCIV because the Vesuvius and the Saint-Helens had them. Why did they not include them on the destroyers and cruisers
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Maybe they were to expensive to have on regular ships during peace time... And what would be the point anyway, It's not like confed would be likely to come up against larger capships in the nearest future, anyway.

Of course the Plunkett seems to be an exception, but we don't know if that would be around during the WC4 era. Maybe the Border Worlds conflict made Confed more cautious... who knows.
 
Dyret said:
Maybe they were to expensive to have on regular ships during peace time... And what would be the point anyway, It's not like confed would be likely to come up against larger capships in the nearest future, anyway.

Of course the Plunkett seems to be an exception, but we don't know if that would be around during the WC4 era. Maybe the Border Worlds conflict made Confed more cautious... who knows.
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The Plunkett and the Midway were both developed in peacetime so perhaps the BW conflict telled them to get ready for action! :)
 
Imagine if they decided to just mothball ships that were X years old and not replace them. The bugs would have pwned the place.
 
AMGs were switched for lasers in Wing Commander IV because you spend so much time attacking those ships -- in Wing Commander III it didn't matter how difficult it was to blow up a Confed designed ship...
 
But in Wing Commander III, Kilrathi capships had AMGs. Many missions were fought going up against Fralthi IIs and the such.

LOAF, in the universe continuity, were the DDs and CCs from WC III the same as those from WC IV that were lacking the AMGs and had less protection? Would it be a stretch to say that the Wing Commander IV ships were older and didn't incorporate the same technology that the Sheffield, Coventry, and Ajax had?
 
Dragon1 said:
But in Wing Commander III, Kilrathi capships had AMGs. Many missions were fought going up against Fralthi IIs and the such.

LOAF, in the universe continuity, were the DDs and CCs from WC III the same as those from WC IV that were lacking the AMGs and had less protection? Would it be a stretch to say that the Wing Commander IV ships were older and didn't incorporate the same technology that the Sheffield, Coventry, and Ajax had?
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As already discussed Confed didn't really have much of a chance of coming up against other capships in the WC4 era so they were probably scrapped.
 
Excerpt from 'VICTORY STREAK' on the Antimatter Gun

The anti-matter gun is a more powerful version of the particle cannon and comprises the secondary armament of most friendly and enemy capital ships. This weapon can punch through the heaviest shields, and it delivers four times as much damage as the most powerful gun on any fighter. Capital ships rely on the anti-matter gun to defend against corvettes, heavy fighters and bombers that are attacking. Although not effective in atmospheric conditions, the small nuclear explosion and resulting heat and radiation from one shot are often enough to down a fighter in space.
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In fact, it would appear in 2669 when standard heavy fighters and bombers and were equipped with phase shields that the AMG was an integral part of defense. Not so much an offensive weapon against capships, but as a defensive weapon against Corvettes, heavy fighters and bombers.

So why scrap it. Surely, the guns would have been more than useful against Avengers and Broadswords (or anything else the BW could field).
 
Dragon1 said:
In fact, it would appear in 2669 when standard heavy fighters and bombers and were equipped with phase shields that the AMG was an integral part of defense. Not so much an offensive weapon against capships, but as a defensive weapon against Corvettes, heavy fighters and bombers.
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Then ask yourself: how often will confed face any of these threats during peacetime? We see pirates deploy a frigate *once*... that's it. Apart from that there's only the light and medium fighters, and the odd transport. all which are quite vulnerable to laser turrets. putting AMG's on the ships would be pointless and probably quite expensive, so why bother?

why scrap it. Surely, the guns would have been more than useful against Avengers and Broadswords (or anything else the BW could field).
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The Border World conflict wasn't something people had been going around waiting and preparing for.:)
 
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