The WC Icon

WC Iconic fighter

  • Hornet

    Votes: 2 4.8%
  • Rapier II

    Votes: 10 23.8%
  • Saber

    Votes: 1 2.4%
  • Arrow

    Votes: 1 2.4%
  • Excalibur

    Votes: 2 4.8%
  • Dralthi MKII

    Votes: 23 54.8%
  • Vaktoth

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Hellcat V

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • TBolt

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Vampire

    Votes: 3 7.1%

  • Total voters
    42
Very interesting.

Only 9 sorties with the Wasp? That surprises me. Seems like the Midway's and Cerberus' patrols did their job very well :).
 
Farbourne said:
I know this because I think I am the only person on the planet that actually perfers the Bearcat to the Dragon and would pick it whenever available.

Wow, I thought I was the only one.
 
Wow, I thought I was the only one.

Despite the larger spread of the Bearcat's tachyons which many people complain about I often choose it during the scramble missions on the way to Sol. Too often we want to choose the "uber" fighter (Excal in WC3 and Lance in WC4), I often found myself taking the Thunderbolt and Bearcat because I found them to be more "fun" to fly.
 
Despite the larger spread of the Bearcat's tachyons which many people complain about I often choose it during the scramble missions on the way to Sol. Too often we want to choose the "uber" fighter (Excal in WC3 and Lance in WC4), I often found myself taking the Thunderbolt and Bearcat because I found them to be more "fun" to fly.

Yeah, I pick the Bearcat a lot because you don't get a lot of chances to fly it.

If people are curious, I just went through the CIC game guides and counted up the number of times you fly each and every ship.

Good list.

Note that I think the game guides were a little wrong for some of the WC4 missions...they say you can only choose the Dragon for a few missions (like the Ella starbase mission), when I am quite certain (and the posts in the game guides agree with my memory) that you can pick other fighters, especially the Bearcat. I know this because I think I am the only person on the planet that actually perfers the Bearcat to the Dragon and would pick it whenever available.

You are limited to the Dragon in the Ella Starbase mission if you choose to flashpak it. It might be an oversight if you can choose other fighters in the alternate mission to run past Ella though.
 
I always think Vampire when I think WC because of WCP: Gold's awesome cover art, but the WC ship is definitely the Dralthi.

I don't get why you put the Dralthi II specifically though.
 
Despite the larger spread of the Bearcat's tachyons which many people complain about I often choose it during the scramble missions on the way to Sol. Too often we want to choose the "uber" fighter (Excal in WC3 and Lance in WC4), I often found myself taking the Thunderbolt and Bearcat because I found them to be more "fun" to fly.


Indeed, I found the Bearcat to be more fun than the Lance. The relative dearth (IIRC) of missiles was a killer in WC4, but the thing was fast, so damn maneuverable, and packed a helluva punch with the four Tachs!
 
I always think Vampire when I think WC because of WCP: Gold's awesome cover art, but the WC ship is definitely the Dralthi.

I don't get why you put the Dralthi II specifically though.

A few reasons I guess... A its the only one you get to fly in the main series, B. Its almost the exact same physical design as the KF-100 but it had many improvements.
 
I found the Bearcat to be the cleanest flying fighter in the entire series. Somehow, it never felt as finicky as the other super-maneuverable high-powered fighters (the Rapier, the Excalibur, the Vampire) in the games, while still being able to fly circles around everyone else. And I loved the four tachs, although making them centerline mounted instead of wintip mounted would have been even better.

I think I counted the "flashpack Ella" mission correctly as Dragon (excuse me, "Lance") only. But I think I've only flown that mission once...I perfer to save the flashpack for Mr. Vesuvius, so when I think of the "Ella" mission, I think of the one where you have to run the guantlet by it. And in that one you definitely get the Bearcat as an option if you have them.
 
I think I counted the "flashpack Ella" mission correctly as Dragon (excuse me, "Lance") only. But I think I've only flown that mission once...I perfer to save the flashpack for Mr. Vesuvius, so when I think of the "Ella" mission, I think of the one where you have to run the guantlet by it. And in that one you definitely get the Bearcat as an option if you have them.

I disliked Flashpacking Ella. So many innocents are killed when the Intrepid can just swing past the base and only engage military targets.
 
As the article suggests, the first appearance of the Dralthi II (in games) was during the Secret Missions 2. All those laser-blasting Dralthi we saw previously were Dralthi Is.
 
Download the manual for Wing Commander Arena and check out page 16 (pages 28 & 29 if you go by the numbers on the corners). It has silhouettes and short write-ups of most of the Dralthi family. As for their appearances...

KF-100 Dralthi - The movie.
Dralthi - The original game.
Dralthi Mk. II - The Secret Missions 2 add-on.
Drakhri - Wing Commander II and Academy.
Dralthi III - Armada, I think.
Dralthi IV - Wing Commander III and IV.
Dralthi Mk. VII - Privateer.
Dralthi IX - Arena, of course.
 
To be honest I was actually sort of surprised. Up until WC3 the Rapier was as much a staple fighter as the Dralthi. I was shocked when WC3 didn't offer a new incarnation of it...
 
The Dralthi is by far the most iconic WC fighter but after it, I agree, the Rapier II comes. I always liked the entry in the Academy manual about the Rapier.
 
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