Mystery Kilrathi Ship: The Spikeri

B

BlueClaw

Spaceman
Has anybody ever encountered the Kilrathi ship Spikeri before? I suspect that it may be a bug in SM2. I encountered it in the last mission of SM2, where you have to defend the Tiger's Claw from several waves of enemy fighters. Instead of encountering the usual Dralthi and Gratha wings, my targeting picks up a seemingly invisible pair of ships that it identifies as Spikeri. I can lock onto the ship, I know it's there because I ram into a solid object (and die), and it can be destroyed by continuosly firing into the middle of the red target brackets. The Spikeri, which I suspect to be a sort of capship due to its slow speed, appears to have no defensive weapons, as it did not fire upon me when I approached. Can anybody provide an explanation to its existence, whether it is a bug or not, or has anybody at least encountered it?
 
That's strange. I get something similar when I play WC2 (DOS version). Sometimes I'll be fighting invisible fighters which I can't lock onto but I can see their engines.
 
Hmmm...in WC2 the Strakha fighters are supposed to be mostly invisible, decloaking only long enough to fire at you. It could be that the invisible ships you encounter in SM2 are prototype stealth ships.
 
But you aren't supposed see them in the second mission of the game. THe ships I saw weren't Strakha, but invisible Drakhri. THe had all the stats of other Drakhri, but they were invisible.
 
I've never encountered it -- but it's completely possible. Like the various SM ships, the Spikeri was cut from the original game -- but it was never used again later. It was a Kilrathi corvette of some sort, based on the stats included with the game (the graphics were cut, of course, since games had to fit on only a few disks back then...).
 
Hmm, that's really strange... encountering the Spikeri in SM2 should be utterly impossible, because the Hhriss was placed in the Spikeri's slot. The name 'Spikeri' doesn't actually occur anywhere in the SM2 EXE.... yet you encountered it anyway :eek:. On the other hand, the stats were included with the basic WC1, and as LOAF points out, indicate some sort of corvette.

Here's what we know of the Spikeri:
Length: 80 metres
Weight: 1000 tonnes
Speed: 150 kps max, 100 kps cruise
Acceleration: poor (equivalent to Venture)
YPR: 4/4/4
Shields: 7/7
Shield recharge rate: 4 (halfway between Raptor and Venture)
Armour: 8/8/6/6
Weapons: NULL

There are, as you can see, some oddities about these stats. The length and weight are identical to the Venture, as far as I can calculate them. However, in-game, the length and weight stats are saved in a confusing system; there is a length value, a weight value, and then a scale value which acts as a multiplier for the other two values - but we don't really know exactly how this multiplier works. So, my length and weight values are reasonably probable, but still mostly guesswork.
The shields and armour are also interesting - this must be the only WC1 Kilrathi ship where the rear is protected just as well as the front.
And the weapons... well, their lack inside the game doesn't actually mean the ship was unarmed. It just means that the programmers never bothered to implement them.

What would really interest me is whether this ship was included in the SWC manual (since SWC seems to have graphics for it). LOAF?
 
Ah, one of those sources :p. There was no chance of getting the original WC1 bitmaps for it, I suppose?

But this makes me wonder - the Spikeri wasn't included in WC1/SM1/2 because of the space limitations. Along comes SWC, which is not subject to any such restrictions. They make new graphics for the Spikeri; they also make a new campaign (SM1.5). So... why is the Spikeri not included after all?
 
I've got an anecdote that might help shed some light.

I have a copy of Goldeneye for the N64 that is especially unique to all other copies; in the complex area in multiplayer, located in one of the hidden niches lies the Spyder gun (charged plasma pistol iirc). Here's the oddity: the gun was canned from American games because Rare (the developer) got behind schedule on the deadline for the game's release, so it was to be included only in Japanese versions of the game several months after the US release. I called the company, gave the game serial #, and they said that my game was made at about the same time the decision about the gun was made. Apparently, the programmer decided to just leave what was in there and leave it at that!! :D

So...this may also be the case with the Spikeri sighting. If it is, then I congratulate you on your fortune!:cool:
 
Whoa, that's a piece of luck. I had just assumed (along with many others, I suspect) that the Spyder was renamed Klobb (after Ken Lobb). Can you actually use the gun?

Regarding the Spikeri - perhaps you could get a screenshot if it happens regularly?

I also recall a sighting of a merchant flying a Dralthi in Priv RF - how hard is it to get it (and more importantly, how do you do it)? I haven't tried to find one yet.
 
I think I may have discovered the cause of the Spikeri appearance. This has only happened to me in the KS version of Secret Missions 2, as I have not attempted it in the DOS versions. If anyone wants to try to duplicate the incident, follow these steps:
Open WC1.EXE. Proceed to load up an SM2 savegame of the last mission of Secret Missions 2 (for some reason the game allows you to do this, even though you are in the Vega Campaign game). After fighting off a first wave of Dralthi, then a second wave of Salthi, instead of the two Hriss heavies that usually appear, two orange capship blips will appear on your radar. The targeting screen should identify them as Spikeri. Your targeting brackets can spot their location, but the ships themselves cannot be seen.
 
My question is... is there a graphic for the Spikeri in the target VDU? Or is it just blank with the name of the ship in it?
 
There is no graphic of the Spikeri in the target VDU, except for the name of the ship, the range, and the three brackets on either side that are supposed to represent shields.
 
Ahh, that makes perfect sense. Since the Hhriss are in the same slot as the Spikeri would have been (unlike later WC games, WC1 had the ships coded into the EXE, and therefore had a limited number of ship slots), the Hhriss get replaced by Spikeri.
I'm surprised it works at all, really. I used to experiment with the original WC1 to try to get the freely-available KSaga versions of the add-ons to work with the original WC1 EXE, and met with dismal failure because the game would insist the new ships were not there even when the data files from KS were present. I guess KSaga is more tolerant of non-existent ships.
 
Originally posted by Wedge009
Whoa, that's a piece of luck. I had just assumed (along with many others, I suspect) that the Spyder was renamed Klobb (after Ken Lobb). Can you actually use the gun?
Click to expand...

No doubt about the Klobb, but I saw the Spyder in EGM magazine as a screenshot before I bought the game. As a matter of fact, it was part of an article explaining to those that mailed in why they coud never find it. It looks like a sleek, futuristic-looking Desert Eagle, but with a much wider barrel.:D And I can use it, but only at the Complex in multiplayer, because that was the only area the guy programmed in before being told to finish up. It is completely usable in the Nippon version.

On the matter of KS 'sightings', I come across an invisible ship that I can only manually track (no lock on for this sucker!) in WC2. It leads a small strike fleet in a mission that escapes my mind, but it's mission critical! Wierd...
 
Originally posted by Wedge009
I also recall a sighting of a merchant flying a Dralthi in Priv RF - how hard is it to get it (and more importantly, how do you do it)? I haven't tried to find one yet.
Click to expand...

Regarding the issue of merchants flying Dralthi in Privateer, I believe there's a file available for download on the CIC called the 'Fly-a-Dralthi' patch, which changes all Tarsus craft in the game to Dralthi, including your own.
 
Originally posted by Wedge009
I also recall a sighting of a merchant flying a Dralthi in Priv RF - how hard is it to get it (and more importantly, how do you do it)? I haven't tried to find one yet.
Click to expand...

IIRC the ship appears in the Pyrennes System, you must go there and search the navpoints,you must do it when you are not flying any mission in that system.
 
Originally posted by Wulf
No doubt about the Klobb, but I saw the Spyder in EGM magazine as a screenshot before I bought the game.
Click to expand...
Of course... on the back of the box there is a (early) screenshot of the game in the Military Archives level - the windows didn't look as good as in the actual game and player was using a gun which I never found. I assume this is the Spyder? And how do you rate it compared with the other guns?

Originally posted by BlueClaw
Regarding the issue of merchants flying Dralthi in Privateer, I believe there's a file available for download on the CIC called the 'Fly-a-Dralthi' patch, which changes all Tarsus craft in the game to Dralthi, including your own.
Click to expand...
No patch necessary, it's a bug - see Ghost's post.

Originally posted by Ghost
IIRC the ship appears in the Pyrennes System, you must go there and search the navpoints,you must do it when you are not flying any mission in that system.
Click to expand...
Does it matter when in the game you try it? I remember RFBurns saying it was only in the early stages of the game. Pity I don't have the time to try it right now...

Originally posted by 15th Rampage
Where can we find those images, I didn't find them in the Ship Databace
Click to expand...
Not there, LOAF has the actual source files of the ships before they're converted into bitmapped sprites. Unfortunately, I don't think he has permisison to release them (yet).
 
The images of all the SWC ships (not the models themselves, just images) were released by LOAF last year. Go to the Articles section. There's an article there called 'SWC ships of the day' or something along those lines.
 
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