Various WCSO/WCP Continuity/Source Questions

Jason_Ryock

Vice Admiral
Ha, that's what you call a thread with multiple unrelated questions.

Most of these are for LOAF though if anyone else has an answer please jump in. I've been digging at this stuff all day in the Forums.

1) General Continuity - What IS and what ISN'T considered official in-universe information?

(EX: We have the so called "Marlin" class [the upside down Hydra]. In another thread you stated that it was 'official' by appearing on the game box. Thus, all things that appear on the gamebox are official? Or did it's inclusion in Star Soldier 'make' it official?)

2) How are we to rate the documents plunkett.doc and murphy.doc?
2A) Were these documents created by you?
2B) When were these documents created in relation to the release of WCP and
WCSO?
(The information here is unsourced which makes me wonder about it's authenticity, unless the entire document is canon material? Were this the unnamed Plunketts we see in the WCSO 'cutscenes' and would it be possible to check their names with MED?)

3) The TCS Kumano and the TCS Pytlivy are lsited as destroyed in the Plunkett Document, when did that occur?

4) I often reference this list when talking about WC Carriers, and you often tell me not to because it's no longer authentic. What's no longer authentic about it?

5) Is that massive radar dish on the nose of the Murphy the centerline plasma canon that's not reflected in game (according to the murphy documents)?

6) Should the Mercury or the Hades be treated as a ship name based on their inclusion in WCSO (as the mercury.iff ship file and the Hades-class Cruiser)?

7) The TCS Lexington (as it appears in WCIV) is listed in the ship database as being a Concordia class and on the Carrier List Document you made as being a Lexington class, which is correct?

8) What are the major differances between the Lexington Carrier class and the Concordia Carrier class?

9) Is there a reference anywhere as to what ships might or might not have capship missile launchers?
9A) Is it assumed all ships have some kind of anti-capship missile launcher?

(I seem to recall once, maybe in WCP? someone saying they were old and out of date and mostly useful for targeting drones for practice or something like that.)

10) What's the major difference between Torpedoes and Capship missiles, and is it ever discussed in universe somewhere?
 
1) General Continuity - What IS and what ISN'T considered official in-universe information?

(EX: We have the so called "Marlin" class [the upside down Hydra]. In another thread you stated that it was 'official' by appearing on the game box. Thus, all things that appear on the gamebox are official? Or did it's inclusion in Star Soldier 'make' it official?)

The "canon" is anything published by Origin/EA or a licensee - so that includes games, manuals, boxes, advertising, promotional materials, official guides, web sites, novels, CCG cards, television episodes and the movie.

In the case of the "Marlin", it officially exists because of its naming/appearance on the WCP Gold box -- but we *can't* say for sure it's the ship shown in Star*Soldier, since the 'commentary' wasn't official.

2) How are we to rate the documents plunkett.doc and murphy.doc?
2A) Were these documents created by you?
2B) When were these documents created in relation to the release of WCP and
WCSO?
(The information here is unsourced which makes me wonder about it's authenticity, unless the entire document is canon material? Were this the unnamed Plunketts we see in the WCSO 'cutscenes' and would it be possible to check their names with MED?)

These documents were created by John "Captain Johnny" Guentzel around the time of Wing Commander Secret Ops (he was lead designer on that project). The were prototypes for a project he wanted to develop - a complete "Joan's Fighting Ships" for the Wing Commander universe. Since they were never actually published, they aren't "official" (but you can bet anyone telling a future history of the Plunkett for some reason will *probably* refer to them).

3) The TCS Kumano and the TCS Pytlivy are lsited as destroyed in the Plunkett Document, when did that occur?

Those are exclusive to the Plunkett document; Johnny was trying to give the history a broader feel to it by implying stories we hadn't heard. It's possible he made up a story in his head, but I wouldn't count on it.

4) I often reference this list when talking about WC Carriers, and you often tell me not to because it's no longer authentic. What's no longer authentic about it?

It just doesn't make sense -- it's an attempt to use a very limited amount of information (how many Concordia-class ships are in production in Action Stations, how many ships are around at a few specific times in the late 60s) to define something that doesn't need to be defined (how many carriers there are at all times).

5) Is that massive radar dish on the nose of the Murphy the centerline plasma canon that's not reflected in game (according to the murphy documents)?

It's what inspired the document mentioning a plasma cannon, anyway. Remember that the Murphy wasn't even supposed to be a Wing Commander ship -- so it's not a case of it being designed specifically with a plasma cannon in the first place.

6) Should the Mercury or the Hades be treated as a ship name based on their inclusion in WCSO (as the mercury.iff ship file and the Hades-class Cruiser)?

Hades, since that's the published class (in the manual, at the WCSO website). Stuff dug out of the game unused isn't official (with a slight bit of latitude; cutting up Righteous Fire lets us pretty much confirm that the surplus Kilrathi ships that use the same graphics as the Salthi are Salthi).

7) The TCS Lexington (as it appears in WCIV) is listed in the ship database as being a Concordia class and on the Carrier List Document you made as being a Lexington class, which is correct?

These are different ships. There's a Concordia-class TCS Lexington in the novel Fleet Action and then in Wing Commander IV (it's the same ship; it was gutted at Earth and later rebuilt). Between the gutting and Wing Commander IV there was another Lexington - the carrier from Wing Commander Armada (which was lost on its secret mission). That's the Lexington-class Lexington.

8) What are the major differances between the Lexington Carrier class and the Concordia Carrier class?

One is the gray human carrier from Wing Commander Armada, the other is the Confederation carrier ship from Wing Commander IV (the one that looks like the Victory).

9) Is there a reference anywhere as to what ships might or might not have capship missile launchers?
9A) Is it assumed all ships have some kind of anti-capship missile launcher?

(I seem to recall once, maybe in WCP? someone saying they were old and out of date and mostly useful for targeting drones for practice or something like that.)

I think you're mixing two references. The Midway launches a volley of 'training missions' in Wing Commander Prophecy... and then Victory Streak claims that capship missiles are "mostly found on the launch racks of older ships' (in WC3).

That refers to the 'big and dumb' CSMs the Confederation uses in Wing Commander III and IV; indeed, we see them only on the Ralarrad, Yorktown and Caernaven-classes.

There are newer capship missiles - the Skipper cloak missile fired by Kamrani corvettes and the Nephilim missiles fired by Hydras and such.

I don't think we would assume that all ships have them. They're big, ungainly and ineffective weapons.

10) What's the major difference between Torpedoes and Capship missiles, and is it ever discussed in universe somewhere?

Torpedoes lock on a target and 'pass through' the shields and damage only the armor; capship missiles are *huge* explosives that take out a target by knocking down the shields and armor in one blow.
 
1) When did the massive post-war decommissioning take place?

2) What ships served as the mainstay of the fleet between the decommissioning and the induction of the Midways? (Vesiuvus-class?)

3) Do we know if the ships that were decommissioned were scrapped or mothballed?
(For some reason I thought there was a S*S reference to them being mothballed.)
 
I think you're mixing two references. The Midway launches a volley of 'training missions' in Wing Commander Prophecy... and then Victory Streak claims that capship missiles are "mostly found on the launch racks of older ships' (in WC3).

That refers to the 'big and dumb' CSMs the Confederation uses in Wing Commander III and IV; indeed, we see them only on the Ralarrad, Yorktown and Caernaven-classes.

There are newer capship missiles - the Skipper cloak missile fired by Kamrani corvettes and the Nephilim missiles fired by Hydras and such.

I don't think we would assume that all ships have them. They're big, ungainly and ineffective weapons.

In the documents recently released for what Prophecy was intended to be, we see capships armed with anti-ship missiles. Some are even listed as having vertical launchers specifically for these anti-ship missiles. They appear to be far weaker than either torpedoes or the old-style CAPMISS. May we assume that these weapons are the modern equivalent of the CAPMISS featured in WC3/4? Could these be the 'training missiles' that the Midway fires off?
 
1) When did the massive post-war decommissioning take place?

After the war. :)

According to the Wing Commander IV novelization, Tolwyn fought tooth and nail to keep the fleet together - which prevented a lot of decommissioning from taking place. We're told that the "40 series" CVs were mothballed (ie, the Victory) and we learn that other ships were sent to the scrapyards (TCS Liberty) or sold off to lesser powers (Wake-class ships, to the Landreich).

Post-war fighter strength was kept high, again thanks to Tolwyn's machinations... but we do know that various classes (Broadswords, for instance) were sent to the boneyards.

2) What ships served as the mainstay of the fleet between the decommissioning and the induction of the Midways? (Vesiuvus-class?)

The short answer is that we just don't know. We see multiple Concordia-class ships in service after the end of the war (including the Princeton, which is supposedly fairly new?) and Prophecy's manual talks about escort carriers as though they're an important part of the fleet in 2681.

Certainly several Vesuvius-class ships were built between Wing Commander IV and Prophecy.

3) Do we know if the ships that were decommissioned were scrapped or mothballed?
(For some reason I thought there was a S*S reference to them being mothballed.)

As I mentioned above, a combination of the two -- that's how it works in real life, too... aircraft and ships were stored in mass quantities after the war and broken down over time.

The S*S reference was about the battlecruisers after the Nephilim war, IIRC.
 
Can we assume ships like the Poseidon-type CV and Mercury-class CA are in service even though they did not make an appearance in the completed WCP?
 
Well if it's like the real Navy that would qualify as a, it depends.

If the ship has been run hard and put away wet, well it's off to the razor factory. This only occurring once the money is raised to pay for its disposal. In the meantime it will be tied up somewhere like the two carriers that should still be moored a Newport, Rhode Island.

If the ship is still in good enough condition to have a theoretical useful life it can be stored in the reserve fleet aka mothballed. Given the scenario surrounding the Battle of Earth it would appear they do in fact mothball ships. It does cost money to maintain the real thing in "mothballs", and wouldn't be unreasonable to assume the same for Wing Commander.

Hence political bodies being what they are may be more inclined to sell or leave it to rot while funds are raised to send them to the razor factory, simply because it's cheaper. Given how the WC Senate behaves they would tend to favor this solution.
 
CIC News Update for May 28, 2009. "Captain Johnny" provided background information for what I think was early development stuff for WCP.

The file exceeds the 100 kb upload limit. If you check the news archives for that day, you should still be able to retrieve it.
 
CIC News Update for May 28, 2009. "Captain Johnny" provided background information for what I think was early development stuff for WCP.

The file exceeds the 100 kb upload limit. If you check the news archives for that day, you should still be able to retrieve it.

Yeap, I found it. Most curious indeed - the Mercury CA eventually became the Cerberus. Internal files and markers still refer to at as the Mercury CA throughout the mission files. It's interesting to see that grounded in the WCP development, I was always confused how they went from Mercury to Hades to Cerberus. The Hades+Cerberus connection I always got, but Mercury seemed like such a jump.

The Nautilus Destroyer is interesting too. I wonder if that eventually is what the Murphy was molded on? Wasn't the Science Vessel from WCP some kind of Nautilus class?

The Poseidon confuses me. Some of the elements - like the reference to the alien gun - seem to suggest that the concept of the Poseidon became the concept of the Midway (in fact the big note that says "THIS IS A FURTHER DESCRIPTION OF THE MIDWAY" seems to indicate that rather strongly).

But there are some other issues. It's given length is 850m - just 50m longer then the Concordia-class length. And yet it has more then twice as many fighters as the Concordia (250 to 95). More comparatively, it's mass is a less than quarter of the Vesuvius-class, but it carries more then half as many fighters as the Vesuvius. There's something wrong with that concept!

Still, I would have liked to have seen it. It also gives reference to a CVE class. So we can tell the designers had intended - though this was never actually made to happen in universe - for there to be at least three carrier types in Confederation service: A light CVE class, the CV class, and the CVX class.

I would assume that they replaced the CV class with the Vesuvius class, since there is no reason to have two classes occupying the same role in the Confederation fleet.

More interestingly - we have the Princeton coming online not very long before WC4, according to LOAF around 2673. He actually lists a whole smattering of Concordia-class ships coming online that year, which is interesting because that would mean the Concordia's were still in production in the post-war years. Could the Concordia-class with 96 fighters be occupying the CVE Class of the Confederation at this time??? We'll never know. But it's a funny speculation.
 
In the documents recently released for what Prophecy was intended to be, we see capships armed with anti-ship missiles. Some are even listed as having vertical launchers specifically for these anti-ship missiles. They appear to be far weaker than either torpedoes or the old-style CAPMISS. May we assume that these weapons are the modern equivalent of the CAPMISS featured in WC3/4? Could these be the 'training missiles' that the Midway fires off?

I don't quite recall this, but my gut tells me they were an earlier version of the Midway's missile launcher rather than a specifically anti-cap-ship weapon. (There's a reason the "big" anti-capship weapons generally don't show up in the game: they don't affect gameplay in any sort of fun or necessary way. On a tight time budget there just isn't room to make sure the Midway has working ion cannons or the Nephilim ships have big jutting lightning spires.)

Can we assume ships like the Poseidon-type CV and Mercury-class CA are in service even though they did not make an appearance in the completed WCP?

I don't think so, these names were never published anywhere.

(Also, in this particular case Poseidon refers to an early name for the Midway and Mercury was an earlier Hades-class. All the Nephilim ships have 'alternate' names buried in the code, too... but we only recognize "Marlin" as canonical because they happened to print it on the package for some reason. More importantly, we know they made a conscious decision ultimately to *not* use the other names...)

Yeap, I found it. Most curious indeed - the Mercury CA eventually became the Cerberus. Internal files and markers still refer to at as the Mercury CA throughout the mission files. It's interesting to see that grounded in the WCP development, I was always confused how they went from Mercury to Hades to Cerberus. The Hades+Cerberus connection I always got, but Mercury seemed like such a jump.

The TCS Cerberus (specific ship) is a Hades-class cruiser.

Remember that she would have had a different role, had she appeared in Prophecy -- an ordinary ship of the line instead of a special black ops plot point. That's where Mercury came from (I actually wonder if the design is from Prophecy or not... it might actually be the home cruiser from the abandoned Maniac Missions project...).

I would assume that they replaced the CV class with the Vesuvius class, since there is no reason to have two classes occupying the same role in the Confederation fleet.

I don't think that's safe to assume; a massive Vesuvius-class ship is limited in ways that a Concordia-class ship isn't (and vice versa).

More interestingly - we have the Princeton coming online not very long before WC4, according to LOAF around 2673. He actually lists a whole smattering of Concordia-class ships coming online that year, which is interesting because that would mean the Concordia's were still in production in the post-war years. Could the Concordia-class with 96 fighters be occupying the CVE Class of the Confederation at this time??? We'll never know. But it's a funny speculation.

The Lexington was also new in some practical sense (rebuilt and re-commissioned in the last days of the war). Given five years to build a carrier, of course, they would still be coming online after the war suddenly ended (unless unfinished ships were broken up for scrap).

Concordia-class ships certainly aren't CVEs, though - they're full fledged fleet carriers, lacking the speed and maneuverability (and limited expense in resources) of the CVEs. More likely, the Eagle-type (possibly Harrier-class) CVEs are the ones referenced in the ICIS manual.
 
Could the Lexington-class Heavy Carriers still be in production following the war? Is there any conclusive proof that this particular class was new? Looking through "Voices of War," I failed to find any reference to the Lexington (Heavy Carrier) being new.
 
The CV codes based on traditional lines are:

CV: Plan fleet carrier, WC Concordia-class by definition

CVA: Attack Carrier, WC Bengal seems a good fit
This designation was later dropped due to work of Admiral Holloway implementing a more better system of handling the problem of organizing carrier air wings. Traditionally the implication was the capability to launch nuclear weapons.

WC Strike Carriers seem to be meant for rapid strikes with an emphasis on avoiding the enemy detecting and delivering a strong response.

CVS: Anti-Sub, WC Yorktown-class seems a good fit with the Eagles effectively replacing them
This designation was given to older and smaller carriers who couldn't support the larger modern fighters. For the Confederation there would be some utility to have a carrier able to do jobs that don't require a full fledged Fleet carrier.

CVL: Leader, WC Confederation/Vesuvius/etc. classes seem to fit well enough
L traditionally indicates Leader and means the ship is a lot bigger form of its class.

CVE: Escort, WC End Run-class is intentionally based on this
Traditionally if the vessel gets the E it is not only a smaller version of its class, but cheaply made. In other words E might as well stand for Expendable in practice.

This is Tin Can Sailor territory and WC sticks with CVE being a modified transport vessel like the Casablanca-class CVEs who held off the Japanese Center Force off Samar during the Battle of Leyte Gulf.


Other then the problem of retaining the single point of failure problem of a single bay, why wouldn't you continue the Concordia-class? They're much better designed for continuous operations then any Confed carrier we see that is not derived from the same design.
 
CVL: Leader, WC Confederation/Vesuvius/etc. classes seem to fit well enough
L traditionally indicates Leader and means the ship is a lot bigger form of its class.

CVL stands for Carrier Heavier Than Air Craft Light (ie Light Carrier). The classic example being the Independence-Class Light carriers converted from cruiser hulls.
 
The CV codes based on traditional lines are:

Traditionally, you're still missing a few:

CVB - Large Aircraft Carrier
CVN - Nuclear Air Craft Carrier
CVX - Experimental Aircraft Carrier

You're also being rather specific about these names, it should be noted that modern navies have used CV's in Dedicated CVS's roles without changing the designation, despite the complete reconfiguring of the ship on a permanent duty basis. There is also no gounds for saying a WC ship 'fills' a CVS role unless you can explain to me how their are submarines under water in space that require specifically configured air wings and sonar gear to hunt.

CVA can also refer to a Heavy Carrier or (and this designation was only used during WWII to my knowledge) a Fast Carrier, not just an Attack Carrier, even though technically neither of these designations technically fits the abbreviation CVA.
 
Yep, goofed on L being Light instead of leader. I was thinking about Samar and how the Fletchers were being mistaken for Baltimore-class Heavy Cruisers. Seem to remember someone designating them CLs and failed to check. My mistake.

Other then the Sea Shadow how many vessels do you know that have a X code upon commissioning? That tends to indicate a project and is removed by the time you have an actual vessel to commission such as with the recent DDX program.

Given there aren't radically different powerplants needing to be advertised in the WC universe, why bring up CVN? While nuclear power was a radical advancement it's not like the Forrestal-class isn't practically the same ship minus the advantages of a nuclear power plant.

As for CVS vs CVA the dropping of the distinction is attributable to Admiral Holloway reorganizing the way Carrier Air Wings were handled under CNO Admiral Moorer in the late 1960s. This both designated all carriers CV and made it so there was no standard air wing. It's discussed in detail in Chapter 14 of Admiral Holloway's book Aircraft Carriers at War. Still that CVA -> CVS is the only thing analogous to a redesignation of a mainline carrier due to obsolescence I'm aware of and is the analogous situation, and is certainly the one with the most history.

Given the only vaguely analogous situation to the Yorktowns in WC otherwise was the Ranger which I recall only being used for training, and it's basically Top Gun in space I'm more inclined to take it as a reference the venerable Essex-class verse later carriers instead of to a pre-Essex vessel, personally.
 
Could the Lexington-class Heavy Carriers still be in production following the war? Is there any conclusive proof that this particular class was new? Looking through "Voices of War," I failed to find any reference to the Lexington (Heavy Carrier) being new.

Sure, they could be. I think we believe they're a new design because a) we hear about the Confederation's upcoming heavy carrier in broad terms in Fleet Action and b) the Lexington herself, which would be the first ship of the class, is new in Armada.

The CV codes based on traditional lines are:

Wing Commander uses CV for a variety of ships - Lexington and Vesuvius heavy carriers, Bengal strike/"utility" carriers, Yorktown light carriers and Concordia fleet carriers.

We do see CVE for the Wake and Harrier classes. The Wakes were the transport conversions from End Run, the Harriers were the more dedicated followup.

The Concordia (Confederation-class dreadnaught) is CVS-65 -- so it must mean something other than submarine hunter in WC.

There's also a CVA of an unspecific class in End Run (part of Banbridge's fleet).

(And then the Midway-class are CVX.)
 
Checking back over my notes while the light cruiser and consequently CV-light are concept almost entirely built around the Washington treaty, DL as Destroyer Leaders persisted until the mid 70s. Usage was proper even if there was no need to apply it to CVs historically.

I retract that concession, as designation was proper and the meaning was clear.

Casablanca-class were basically the first CVEs from the keel up instead of conversion from merchant ship historically. They were basically antisub platforms, and were redesignated quite a bit.

That's sad that the Bengal would get busted down to utility. The design must not have aged well.

Anyone that's played WC3 and noted the designation on the way back in should have appreciated I was drawing analogies with my demarcations.

Jason_Ryock said:
The Poseidon confuses me. Some of the elements - like the reference to the alien gun - seem to suggest that the concept of the Poseidon became the concept of the Midway (in fact the big note that says "THIS IS A FURTHER DESCRIPTION OF THE MIDWAY" seems to indicate that rather strongly).

But there are some other issues. It's given length is 850m - just 50m longer then the Concordia-class length. And yet it has more then twice as many fighters as the Concordia (250 to 95). More comparatively, it's mass is a less than quarter of the Vesuvius-class, but it carries more then half as many fighters as the Vesuvius. There's something wrong with that concept!
Is there? We know the Bengal class featured Automatic Landing Systems and the Concordia/Yorktown class consistently shown the bay to be at least 3 times the height of the lifts. With an appropriate ALS installed you should be able to cram in 3 times the complement, by adding at least two more decks. It'd add a few thousand tons, but that's a small fraction of the total mass of a normal fully loaded Concordia. Stretch it out at little, upgrade the engines and you could probably go even faster.

The Midway is pretty much the biggest ship we see, largely empty space, and explicitly designed as a kind of budget carrier. Why would it qualify as a good metric of what Confed can do if it really wants to, unlike say Vesuvius? Does the Poseidon have vaguely the same gun load, shield load, armor load, performance statistics, and therefore powerplant load as a Vesuvius? That would tend to be more representative of mass then number of fighters.
 
That's sad that the Bengal would get busted down to utility. The design must not have aged well.

It was the other way around - there was an original pre-war Bengal utility carrier that was massively redesigned as a strike carrier in the mid 2640s; the Tiger's Claw was the first of these.

Does the Poseidon have vaguely the same gun load, shield load, armor load, performance statistics, and therefore powerplant load as a Vesuvius? That would tend to be more representative of mass then number of fighters.

The Poseidon is just the Midway -- any specifications that the previous poster pulled out are just non-finalized specs for the Midway model.
 
Looking at the document, LOAF, there are two distinct entries- one for the Poseidon, and one for the Midway. While the Poseidon has the same description, the specs are clearly not the same. If the final Midway is merely the developer's evolution from the Poseidon, why list both on the same document. It would appear that the Poseidon is actually positioned to help contrast the stats of the Midway against other, more standard Confed carriers.
 
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