Random Q's from an annoying Newb

Which reminds me... what ever happened to the conventional plasma gun, meson gun, and the reaper gun? You see all the other guns from the pervious WCs, in prophecy and SO O(except for maybe the neutron gun... I can't remember). But besides maybe time consumption on the game designers clock... in prophecy, all the fighters that used to carry these guns have been modified not to anymore. The old Excaliburs carry 4 Tachs and 2 Ion, and the Thunderbolt... I can't really remember her layout...

The Thunderbolts in Secret Ops had four Ion Guns and two Tachyon Cannons.

Wing Commander has lost a lot more than just those three guns, though.

There's the 'unknown five' weapons added to the continuity by Armada -- Electron Gun, Flux Cannon, Mass Accelerator Gun, Matter Disrupter and Sonic Accelerator.

There's WC4's Fission Cannon, Righteous Fire's Fusion Cannon... the Photon Gun (Armada, WC3, WC4)... Academy's Plasma Bolt... Privateer's Ionic Pulse Cannon...
 
I think Armada also demonstrated why it's not really a good idea to have that many different guns in one game - the more guns you have, the less difference there is between them.
 
I think Armada also demonstrated why it's not really a good idea to have that many different guns in one game - the more guns you have, the less difference there is between them.

I dunno... I kinda liked in WC4 how they had different guns do different things. You had a rapid fire cannon that was projectile based, a leech gun, a scatter cannon, a chargable fission cannon, etc. Perhaps if they did more things like that... you know like a gun thats designed to take down shields. It takes them down faster and more effectively then any other gun, but its crap against armor, so you use a secondary gun for the armor... Then you've got guns like the leech cannon that drain power, guns that mess with ship systems, guns like the heavy plasma designed for capship use, multi-purpose guns, Projectile guns, energy guns... etc.

Honestly had Armada, Privateer, and WC3 done that it would have made a lot more sense... and been a lot more fun customizing your ships. But thats just me.

I will say this though; I love the laser cannon. I know some people don't, but I always have. Excellent range, minimal power drain, sleek... minimal damage... but who cares? You can lean down on the trigger and use it as kind of a rapid fire weapon. I think thats why I like the Tach gun too... its very similar in many respects, except that it drains more energy.

I will say, I was hoping to see a triumphant return of the Reaper gun in Standoff on the Wraith, but I can see how little sense it would have made to bring it back for one ship. I'm also very curious, what is the weapons layout on the Tarsus if there is one... I've only seen it fire lasers and that was one time in Standoff, given its customizable features in Privateer.
 
I think Armada also demonstrated why it's not really a good idea to have that many different guns in one game - the more guns you have, the less difference there is between them.

I think it's more an issue of presentation. Privateer added the same amount of new guns... but also forced the player to consider them all. No one especially cared about the new guns in Academy, either, and there were only three of them.
 
Actually just under 1 month...check out this thread.

The website could use regular updates. There's only been one in the last six months.

Finally, I prefer the WC1/ late WC3 idea: have heavy fighters double as bombers with a simple loadout change.

Loadouts didn't change in WC1/3 (except for the Excalibur at the end). It was WC2 that gave heavy fighters torpdoes with a simple loadout change.

It works on so many levels, may not carry the 8 torpedoes that are used on Broadswords... but I played through WC2...

Broadswords in WC2 carry four torpedoes.

and I never ran out of torpedoes... unless I somehow managed to launch one at an enemy fighter... which happened a couple of times.

It shouldn't have. If you tried to launch a torpedo at a fighter, it would just give you a "Need Lock" message in yellow on your left VDU.
 
The website could use regular updates. There's only been one in the last six months.



Loadouts didn't change in WC1/3 (except for the Excalibur at the end). It was WC2 that gave heavy fighters torpdoes with a simple loadout change.



Broadswords in WC2 carry four torpedoes.



It shouldn't have. If you tried to launch a torpedo at a fighter, it would just give you a "Need Lock" message in yellow on your left VDU.

I have to disagree with you here sir, I'd rather they spend time finishing the game rather then worrying about constantly updating thier progress. If the game gets done faster, I'll live in limbo for the time being willingly.

4 torpedos, two on each wing... thats right... I don't know where i got 8... Its been too long since i played...

I know, I can't explain what happened with that torpedo either, I'm positive it was one, but I don't know how it went after a fighter, i think my game has a glitch or something...
 
I have to disagree with you here sir, I'd rather they spend time finishing the game rather then worrying about constantly updating thier progress. If the game gets done faster, I'll live in limbo for the time being willingly.

That's mainly why I'm doing the asking. If people are expecting news more often, then there's more pressure to get things done.

Since last November, there's been just one site update. An update every other month would be an improvement at this point, and even weekly updates wouldn't impact the timetable for the game. There's a bunch of one-person projects out there who let people know what they're up to several times a month, so if there is progress being made, it shouldn't be a big deal to mention it.
 
4 torpedos, two on each wing... thats right... I don't know where i got 8... Its been too long since i played...

Technically the Broadsword can carry more. IIRC, FA implies that a Broadsword can carry 4 Mk IV Heavy Torps or 6 Mk III/II lighter torps. I believe the mention is during the Battle of Sirius, although Hunter also makes some mentions about new torpedo tech in the opening battle at Munro. But I do recall the mention of some BS's carrying Mk IVs while others carried the lighter versions.
 
Technically the Broadsword can carry more. IIRC, FA implies that a Broadsword can carry 4 Mk IV Heavy Torps or 6 Mk III/II lighter torps. I believe the mention is during the Battle of Sirius, although Hunter also makes some mentions about new torpedo tech in the opening battle at Munro. But I do recall the mention of some BS's carrying Mk IVs while others carried the lighter versions.

... I'm starting to wish that the Firekka had a few of them...
 
It would never fit through the door :D

Sabres and Crossbows are fair replacement though, may not be the B-52 like the BS, but they will get the job done.
 
Well, if a lone Sabre could take Kilrathi sector HQ, it can get the job done.
Oh, we'll see about that :p. Remember, in WC2 you never encountered more than four or five enemy fighters at once.

Sitting here and working (right at this moment) on a Standoff mission where Bradshaw goes off almost (but not quite) on his own in a Sabre against a target much, much smaller than a Hakaga, I can tell you it's hard, damned hard :p.



Incidentally, after yet another lenghty period of almost no progress, we've made some very positive strides this week, so I'll be pushing us to finally get a proper update done this weekend (or early next week at the latest). It may be happening with excruciating pain, but this episode is slowly coming together.
 
Hmm. There's a lot of things smaller than a Hakaga :D
The challenge is the best part. I don't want to beat a mission on the first try without having a hell of a time doing it.

As long as you keep chugging along I'm willing to wait. Not like I'm going anywhere. :)
 
The Crossbow is much smaller than the Broadsword - one is 36 metres in length, the other is 24 metres.
 
According to that final Sepcial Ops, the Crossbow is a much better attack craft than the Sabre. Blair was pretty much nuts for trying that kind of stunt with a Sabre. Again. That's part of what makes the Sabre so cool, actually. Even with the extra wing from the Concording, that mission is hard.

So it makes all the sense of the world that it's very hard again on Standoff. The Sabre has the potention of awesome things when in the hands of an exceptional pilot.

Anyway, I wonder who Blair's gunner was on the final mission of WC2, and must have he thought when he realized Blair decided to single-handled attack a Kilrathi Starbase with the Kilrathi Prince and his elite guard.

Incidentally, I love how Thrakkath instantly knew who that single human pilot gunning for him would be.

Khasra: My lord! A single Human pilot has attacked our forward patrol and is heading towards our position!
Thrakhath: Maverick. I will deal with that insignificant pest. Ready our fighters for the Humans’ main attack, and I will take care of Maverick myself.

(thanks to Wedge for the transcript)
 
Incidentally, I love how Thrakkath instantly knew who that single human pilot gunning for him would be.

Oh come on. If you had a couple run-ins with a "single pilot" which he had bested you, whom you then knew was transfered to the ship coming to kill you, would you not assume it was him coming after you?

BTW, is there any mention anywhere of the name/fate of the Concordia class carrier stolen by the Border Worlds in WC4? Someone told me it was the Verdun, but I don't know where he got that...

Did the BWs keep it as part of some kind of war reparations or return it.

Eder... I just finished playing Unknown Enemy and to you sir, I have this one question... Whose idea was it to blast the Intrepid!? I really loved that ship!!
 
BTW, is there any mention anywhere of the name/fate of the Concordia class carrier stolen by the Border Worlds in WC4? Someone told me it was the Verdun, but I don't know where he got that...

Did the BWs keep it as part of some kind of war reparations or return it.

The carrier was the TCS Princeton (CV-48).

The Border Worlds didn't even keep the Intrepid, I dbout they were allowed to keep the Princeton - but who knows (we know they didn't keep the Mt. St. Helens, for what that's worth).
 
Also, the only thing I really did for UE were a few ship models that they were still missing in the last few months of development - mostly retextures of Standoff ships that were already done at that point, or improvements on existing WC4 models.

I didn't have any involvement besides the modelling, so Quarto is the guy you want to talk to about the storyline.
 
Eder... I just finished playing Unknown Enemy and to you sir, I have this one question... Whose idea was it to blast the Intrepid!? I really loved that ship!!
Oddly enough, I really don't know. You have to keep in mind, UE was really two separate projects - the first one started in 1999 and died later that year, the second started when we revived UE in early 2000, with a completely different team. Needless to say, When we set about reviving UE, the first thing we did was check what parts of the original project would still be useable for the "new" UE. One such thing was a cutscene showing the Intrepid being destroyed by the bugs. So, since we had that, we kept the Intrepid's destruction in the storyline.

...Then it turned out that the cutscene in question was at best half-finished, and we couldn't really use it because there was no source code for it. So, we ended up having to make it from scratch anyway :p.

(a similar thing happened with the Dauntless - we kept it in the new UE because there was already a model of the Bengal-class out there - but in fact, by the time UE was finished, we'd gone through no less than three completely different versions of this ship, each produced by different modellers)
 
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