Question about Prophecy-era Confed fighters/bombers...

X

X_FIREFALCON

Spaceman
Hey, Wing Commander community...

It's been awhile since I've posted...I've been busy working on my little fan-fiction story for a follow-up to the events that transpired in WC:prophecy...and have (naturally) been trying to use many details on characters, ships, etc. included on this site so that I have enough of a background to do things justice without completely perverting the storyline of WC (even though I'm still going to have to go out on a creative limb to include all the things I'm hoping to include)...

However, I came across something that has left me scratching my head that I'm hoping someone (or everyone!) here could help me with:

When I was looking back through the ships used in Prophecy and SO, it looks as though ALL of the fighters and bombers (with the exception of the Wasp interceptor) are jump capable. I just wanted to touch basis with the definitive pros - the diehard WC Community - to doublecheck on this one. It seems a little extreme to have virtually every fighter and bomber onboard the Midway being independently jump-capable...including the Pirahna...but if that's indeed accurate, it could influence some aspects of my story down the road. I guess this never dawned on me before because I can't remember independently jumping in a fighter or bomber once in Prophecy...so I'm guessing this must've been mentioned in some additional literature I either didn't take the time to leaf through or never had the opportunity to leaf through...

Again, all of this is just for my own knowledge as I continue scribbling this thing down. :)

Thanks in advance, guys (and gals).

Still a big fan of your community,
FireFalcon ~};^
 
We see all the non-Wasp fighters/bombers jumping at various times in Prophecy and SO - in the Pirahna's case, I believe it's only seen jumping in the fourth mission of the Midway's sim - the Kilrathi gauntlet, with Maestro at the controls. The Panther (during the mission after Blair is captured), Vampires, Shrikes, and Devestators are seen jumping in Prophecy (mostly towards the end, when the Eisen carrier group sends the Wolfpack squadron), and the Tigershark jumps in escorting a Pelican convoy in SO.
 
Until the Dragon in WC4 all of the fighters had finite fuels supplies. In Prophecy and SO it looks lik all of the fighters have a matter\antimatter engine setup similar to the Dragon, at least that's what it seems judging by the intakes. I haven't notice any intakes on the Wasp, and it's much smaller than the other fighters once you kick the booster off.
 
Thanks, fellas...

Hrmmm...shows how observant I am...I'll have to play Prophecy and SO again sometime soon. :)

Thanks for the information, guys. Also, about the fuel supply...I understand about the matter/anti-matter thing...but in Prophecy and SO (not sure about the Dragon in WC4)...don't they have limited afterburner fuel? Or was that infinite as well? I seem to remember a fuel gauge that did diminish as you went through a mission...or was that just my imagination?

Thanks again, guys...every little bit helps. :)

- FireFalcon ~};^
 
Actually we know right from the beginning cutscene that the Pirahna is jump-capable. Casey taunts Maestro about it - "Come on Maestro, I've been ahead of you since the last jump point". Obviously meaning that they went through a jump point to get to the Midway.
 
Mentioning a jump point doesn't necessarily mean it was jumped through. Being static points in space (or relatively so, anyway), they can also be used as navigational waypoints, like for example when performing a patrol mission in Privateer.

As for fuel, it does run out in WCP/SO, but not as fast as it does in earlier WC games. Considering that designs after the Kilrathi war also have to be economical for an economy that is still recovering as of WCP (hence the argument over the Midway-class mentioned in the ICIS manual), coming up with more efficient engines that don't suck down fuel as fast makes sense in terms of in-universe logic.

(That efficiency thing isn't canon, really, but it is a consideration based on facts available from canon.)
 
Hmmm...

Thanks for the responses, guys.

I guess there are just a few assumptions that have to be made about some of this stuff based on the limited information on hand. And Death - good point about the economics behind everything (I'll have to keep that in mind as well)...

I still think it seems a little ridiculous to have everything being jump capable...but hey, if that's the way it was written, that's the way it was written, so I'll have to do my best to stick to it. Still, I'm scratching my head over the whole Pirahna being able to jump...maybe that would make sense from a recon point of view or something...

But coupled in with the economics, one would almost think that the equipment would be cheaper - the fighters would be more flimsy (rather than innovative like the Panther and the Vampire with those swing engines), have junk weapons (maybe something more like Border World weaponry in WC4), not be jump capable, etc.

I guess part of me just liked something about the WC2 era where the only fighters/bombers jump-capable were huge and moved like fat tugboats or experimental, faulty, and accident-prone like the Morningstar...

Just seems a little cheap that virtually everything now can jump independently of a capital ship...but again - if that's the way it is, then that's what I have to go with.

Thanks again, guys. I guess it won't be a huge hindrance to my story, but it's good to know the facts before I fall into writing a story based on inaccurate assumptions.

- FireFalcon ~};^
 
I don't think there's any good indication that the fighters in 2681 have matter/anti-matter engines like the Lance. *All* Wing Commander fighters have hydrogen intakes... the visual cue in Wing Commander IV that was supposed to indicate the special engine was that they happened to glow red. (On the other hand, the Excalibur had the same type of engines... and it did not have any special color to its intakes).

The fighters in Prophecy do not have the ability to recharge their afterburners like the Lance did... but then the Excalibur didn't have this ability, either (it *could* jump several times with very little fuel -- since we don't jump ourselves in Prophecy, we don't know if the fighters can do this).

(If I had to decide, I'd say that they do not -- given the fact that they don't have the afterburner ability... any matter/anti-matter powered ships developed after WC4 should logically have that. Also, note that the fighters if Wing Commander Prophecy are *not* a blanket eight years older... heck, the Tigershark and the Piranha have lower designations than the Lance apparently did. These fighters were on the drawing boards and possibly even in service when the Lance's special engine was a surprising secret.)

I still think it seems a little ridiculous to have everything being jump capable...but hey, if that's the way it was written, that's the way it was written, so I'll have to do my best to stick to it. Still, I'm scratching my head over the whole Pirahna being able to jump...maybe that would make sense from a recon point of view or something...
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I think the treatment in Wing Commander II has always made the idea that jump engines a technical rarity sort of overblown. Many, many ships in Wing Commander have had jump engines -- in other sources we've seen that Rapier IIs, Hornets, Sabres, Ferrets, etc. can all have jump engines mounted pretty easily.

But coupled in with the economics, one would almost think that the equipment would be cheaper - the fighters would be more flimsy (rather than innovative like the Panther and the Vampire with those swing engines), have junk weapons (maybe something more like Border World weaponry in WC4), not be jump capable, etc.
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I believe the transition is supposed to be similar to going from World War II to the Cold War... during the war, Confed mass produced cheap fighters and taught anyone to fly them -- and afterwards they developed highly advanced spacecraft that were much more expensive.
 
Thanks for the discussion, LOAF. Insightful as always. :)

Alright...so everything except the Wasp can jump...

And we're going to assume that the only fighters currently in service as of the timeline in Prophecy that function in matter/anti-matter power are the Excalibur and the Dragon then (though we don't actually get to see any Dragons in Prophecy), right? Hrmmm...for that matter, is there ever any follow up regarding the Dragon? Was it like a limited edition thing that only the Durango in WC4 and a few Black Lance cap ships had? Were they produced after the events of WC4, or rounded up and destroyed? Or is it just one of those things left up in the air that we have to speculate about? Just wondering, as the history and fate of the Dragon might factor into my story as well...

I suppose you're right about the jump engines on smaller fighters and bombers...I guess some part of me just wants to fall into Battlestar Galactica mode where all the smaller ships need to be onboard for a jump or else they'll be left behind...makes it a bit more exciting than them just running late and being able to jump out on their own. It also kind of cheapens the necessity for large-scale ships, especially if you can have something like the Excalibur make multiple jumps without the need to refuel...with just some well-arranged bases across sectors, one has to wonder if there would even be a need for capital ships to an extent...

LOAF, good commentary and analogy about the progression of technologies in Confed coming out of the Kilrathi War and heading into Prophecy...it would make sense to field everything off the production line during a full-blown war and just scaling up technologies and decreasing the number of ships in service for peace time...makes sense economically and practically.

Thanks again...I'll give this some more thought...

- FireFalcon ~};^
 
Officially we have no info on the destiny of the Dragon fighters, but there is some consensus about them not being made anymore due to the absurdly high cost. The existing ones were probably retired or employed in special ops.

Well, since there is no canon data, you can work them out as it fits your story. Sure, it won't be canon - but it won't contradict canon either. Just don't overdo it. A fleet of 200 Dragons suddenly jumping in would be pretty corny. :)
 
I suppose you're right about the jump engines on smaller fighters and bombers...I guess some part of me just wants to fall into Battlestar Galactica mode where all the smaller ships need to be onboard for a jump or else they'll be left behind...makes it a bit more exciting than them just running late and being able to jump out on their own. It also kind of cheapens the necessity for large-scale ships, especially if you can have something like the Excalibur make multiple jumps without the need to refuel...with just some well-arranged bases across sectors, one has to wonder if there would even be a need for capital ships to an extent...
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I think carriers are still a requirement... because your fighter is limited by all sorts of expendables -- things like oxygen, fuel, etc. are going to make crossing whole star systems by a tiny fighter reletively unlikely. Also, the amount of jump fuel is certainly much more limited than on a carrier -- perhaps as few as one or two jumps.

Officially we have no info on the destiny of the Dragon fighters, but there is some consensus about them not being made anymore due to the absurdly high cost. The existing ones were probably retired or employed in special ops.
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I think the best answer is probably just that it only serves with special ops units, and was only designed to do so in the first place. Consider the 'proper' name... Black Lance. It seems to fit alongside the series of special ops ships in Prophecy - F-108S Black Panther, F-109S Black Vampire, etc. I would suggest that the ship we see in Wing Commander IV is the F-107S Black Lance, and that there either is or is not an ordinary, less impressive F-107 Lance.
 
Thanks for the info, Edfilho. :)

Thanks, Edfilho.

No worries...I'm trying to keep the corny stuff to a bare minimum (if any exists at all) in my story...I was never intending on having Dragons exist in great supply anywhere...in fact, I was still determining whether or not to have any period. But I'm just wondering what possibilities exist out there...like could they conceivably be in service somewhere...and I think you answered my question. :)

But yes...no worries...trying not to have anything terribly corny. I'm still trying to keep everything reasonably possible within the confines of the WC universe, else I wouldn't be asking all these hypothetical questions.

Of course, when all is said and done, the community may very well shred it to pieces and set fire to it if I even choose to bother you with it when the time comes...but hopefully being that it's just ambitious freebie fan fiction writing and not profitable jargon scratched down at the expense of Wing Commander itself...you (the potential critics) will be a little more accepting and/or forgiving if it turns out to not be all it's cracked up to be... :)

But we'll see...it's still a way's off...at this point, I'm still trying to put future ideas together and see what I can fit into the concept I already have. Well that, and I'm also trying to iron out the rough edges... :)

But again - thanks for the replies, everybody. :)

- FireFalcon ~};^

[addition] Thanks, LOAF. I definitely agree with you about the Dragon (Black Lance) being a special ops thing...rest assured if I even use the concept, it will be in very small supply in appropriate situations. You made a good point about the designation of the Black Lance too, suggesting that a slimmed-down version of it could exist that's more a standard issue as opposed to a Black Ops thing...I'd have to think for a bit before deciding if I should toy around with that idea any, though...though I might have a place where it'd be more appropriate to have a less impressive version of this bird...hmmm....

And I suppose you're right about the limitations on range of smaller craft. I guess you would have to have a mobile base (i.e. a cap ship) to move the smaller ships close enough to have them be useful in multiple systems or in long-term engagements. Still, that makes the possibility of ships like the Excalibur being able to jump multiple times kind of overkill, though, doesn't it? I mean who cares if it has enough fuel to jump a dozen times if it can't carry a large enough oxygen supply to make it to a dozen jump points? But I'm really arguing a moot point here. Just because there's no practical application of the potential allowed by a jump system (and the relating fuel usage) like what's onboard the Excalibur doesn't mean the potential can't conceivably be there...it'd just be a bit unnecessary. But alas, I'm getting off topic here. Point is - there's still good reasons to have capital ships around...gotcha. :)
 
Hey, Falcon, no need to worry, I trust your inteligence... :) I was making a joke with the standard Sci-Fi fan fics you see around, where the heroes get thrown in the direst and most desperate of situations, and suddenly a fleet of <insert übership here> shows up and saves the day...

Disclaimer: I'm not refering to any specific work, nor to any WC fanfic.

Yeah, LOAF is right... Even if these fighters can go on without refueling, the poor pilot needs a lot of consumables to stay alive. Not to mention that he'd probably go crazy after long. It's like nuclear submarines. they could stay submerged for a looooooooooooong time, but humans require it to emerge and visit a port from time to time.
 
Heh :)

Well, thanks for the compliment about my brain's ability, Edfilho. :)

No worries...I've already planned ahead a bit in my storyline...I'm only thinking of having three "uberships" currently, and they'll have their fair share of shortcomings...and when I say three, I mean only three (not three designs that hundreds are produced after...just literally two prototype fighters and one experimental capital ship)...

For the large-scale fleet engagements I'm planning on, though...nah...the most impressive thing fighting in them will be the Midway...I'm not planning on any unexpected fleet of uberships saving the day in the story I have cooking. Makes it more fateful without the uberships anyway, don't you think? :)

- FireFalcon ~};^
 
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