I like the idea of a WC1 and WC2 Mod Project.
I've seen many proposals of such re-makes done before, but the same thing almost invariably happens...
1.) They take the exact same models of the ships used in WC1 and WC2 and put them into the modifed engine, whether this be a WCP engine, or what have you.
2.) They do the same as before, but they paint the ships differently.
In my opinion both of these are un-acceptable
1.) For WC1, the models are very basic (duh, they were made in 1990). They have many cartoony elements that don't look as realistic as WC3, WC4, and WCP models. Examples would be the Bengal-Class' nearly totally uncovered flight-deck. Granted for the time it would make the ship easily distinguishable as a carrier. But keep in mind, this is not an 20th Century aircraft-carrier in space. Just covering the flight deck up would do wonders. In WC2, where do I begin. Some of the ships (The Gilgamesh) look alright. Others look downright ludicrous. Most look almost totally cartoony. Practically every single Kilrathi ship. And some of the designs don't even make sense... even from a sci-fi perspective. For example, even a sketch of a Strakha lists something like useless pods or something. The Kilrathi capships, almost all of them look like they're out of Star Trek. They all got warp-nacelles, or something like that. They didn't have that in WC1, and they're certainly not the main-engines... they're located nearer to the centerlines. They also don't follow the Kilrathi design ideology followed in WC1 and WC3. The Waterloo looks like you took a half a dozen aircraft-designs, and then scaled them up to ridiculous proportions. It's like you took an XB-70, except you added a conventional wing outboard of the main-wing, swept it forward a bit, then turned the long neck into a bubble and made it look like a blimp/submarine, then added a submarine's sail on top of it, and then added two flight-decks on either side of the wings, and put a runway on top of that underneath it is some opened area which looks like a WC3 style fly-through hangar, except it doesn't do anything, then added a giant elevated hangar-surface on it, and then turned it into a tower with spires which don't seem to serve any purpose. It has two fins which look like twin-tails except they're dwarfed by the elevated conning-tower structure and don't seem to do anything. It seemed like they slapped a bunch of stuff together and tried to make it look all spiffy. In 1991 it may have, but by WC3 it looked rather ridiculous. Technically, WC3 ships are older than WC2 ones, but WCP ships came even later and they follow the WC 3 and WC 4 trends, they are more streamlined yes, but not to the extent of WC2. And then the paint-jobs. Oy! In 1990, and 1991 it made sense, limited colors, and to make it look spiffy they added some snazzy colors. But when you put that on fancy WC3 or WC4, or even WCP designs, it looks silly. The WC3, and WCP's Gray's and Blue's (WCP was gray and purple I think), but either way, those colors worked. Also just a generic white worked too. It also worked in WC:ER... after all, the Tarawa is painted that way.
2.) Just taking a WC1 or WC2 Model and painting it gray and blue doesn't cut it... it looks better, but it still looks silly. Oh, on it's own, it looks fine, but if you put a WC3 or WC4 model in there it looks ridiculous. Even a Gray and Blue WC2 Waterloo looks silly compared to even a WCP model.
I'm not the best artist, but I can draw up ideas better than that... sketches at least. I've given up the 3D thing. I just suck
The sketches would just be rough-drafts, keep in mind.
But here are some good ideas... (Most of these are WC2 related)
Use the WC3 Strakha model in Lieu of the WC2 one. It looks better. Since all the WC2 ships are all tiny and stuff, use the WC3 size instead.
KILRATHI STUFF
-The Kilrathi Capships... get rid of those damn pods. They look silly. Make the struts into a more claw-like structure. If they have a fighter capacity, put a bay in them. The Ralatha does have a bay... the Fralthra doesn't appear to have one, and it has a bigger fighter compliment. The Kamekh... I was actually thinking, as silly as this sounds, to re-do the Kamekh with more Pakhtahn characteristics.
-Asymmetry... the ships do not necessarily have to be asymetrical. But they should be fang-shaped and aggressive.
CONFED
Waterloo: I wonder what the guy who designed this thing was smoking. I obviously show my dislike for this vessel quite often. I have nothing against it's capabilities, but, man, do I hate the way it looks. There are some ugly vehicles that fight wars damn well, but this vehicle don't make sense. There is no sense in all those rounded surfaces, two conning towers as well. No reason. When Battlestations/Action Stations/General Quarters is sounded, the Captain heads straight for the CIC anyway on most ships. Even Eisen was in the CIC in numerous cases in combat. I don't know why you'd even need a second conning tower. And again... the uncovered flight-deck thing... all that area that is used for a runway could easily be convered and hangar-service areas be added. A whole bunch of fighters could be carried in that area. The wings also serve no purpose either, you could fit thrusters on the fuselage and still get a decent roll-rate considering the ship is pretty wide. Since the Waterloo's design is so bizarre, I would prefer doing some kind of re-design of the ship
Confederation Class: It could use some work, and I do have some ideas. As weird as it is, I did make some sketches of what a WC3-ified Confederation-Class could look like. It would preserve the forward part of the ship. The aft part would be different though.
Exeter: Exeter carrying 18 fighters? Forget about it. If I recall correctly, the original WC1 specification was 8, maybe 9. Two shuttles max and that should be 11. With a 360 meter frame and it's basic overall shape, that ship would be packed to the gills. Maybe those little 9 meter WCM Rapiers... but not WC1 fighters. I'd like to extend the conning tower straight through from top-to-bottom to make it more like the Sheffield's. That dome could be on the bottom too (the same one they have on the top behind the bridge. It could be changed to an octoganal shape if polygon-concerns come into play, or if you just like that shape.
GENERAL STUFF:
Armor: WC1 armor ratings are too low. My recommendation is to bump all capship ratings up by 10. For the Corvette this rule would not apply. Plus a Corvette isn't even a Capship technically.
Shields: WC1 shields should also be phase-shields. After all, those Strakha seemed to fire torpedoes at the Tiger's Claw... Why would they do that if they didn't have phase-shields? Even if you don't want to make all the capital ships with phase-shields, at least make the carriers with phase-shields. Ideally, I'd prefer only the Corvette to not have phase-shields.
Fly-Through Bays: Oh, don't give me this stuff about extra internal area.... the Bengal for example, if you covered up the un-covered area and put hangar bays on the side (like on the Ranger-Class for example) you could make up for all the space you "lost" by making it a fly-through design. It might be a little tight, but after all that's what the ALS is for... after all, Hunter ended up banging up his fighter on one landing.
Flak Cannons: A lot of the older WC ships have flak-cannons, I'd prefer to replace them with point-defense guns.
Does anybody like any of these ideas? This is just a concept.
-Concordia
I've seen many proposals of such re-makes done before, but the same thing almost invariably happens...
1.) They take the exact same models of the ships used in WC1 and WC2 and put them into the modifed engine, whether this be a WCP engine, or what have you.
2.) They do the same as before, but they paint the ships differently.
In my opinion both of these are un-acceptable
1.) For WC1, the models are very basic (duh, they were made in 1990). They have many cartoony elements that don't look as realistic as WC3, WC4, and WCP models. Examples would be the Bengal-Class' nearly totally uncovered flight-deck. Granted for the time it would make the ship easily distinguishable as a carrier. But keep in mind, this is not an 20th Century aircraft-carrier in space. Just covering the flight deck up would do wonders. In WC2, where do I begin. Some of the ships (The Gilgamesh) look alright. Others look downright ludicrous. Most look almost totally cartoony. Practically every single Kilrathi ship. And some of the designs don't even make sense... even from a sci-fi perspective. For example, even a sketch of a Strakha lists something like useless pods or something. The Kilrathi capships, almost all of them look like they're out of Star Trek. They all got warp-nacelles, or something like that. They didn't have that in WC1, and they're certainly not the main-engines... they're located nearer to the centerlines. They also don't follow the Kilrathi design ideology followed in WC1 and WC3. The Waterloo looks like you took a half a dozen aircraft-designs, and then scaled them up to ridiculous proportions. It's like you took an XB-70, except you added a conventional wing outboard of the main-wing, swept it forward a bit, then turned the long neck into a bubble and made it look like a blimp/submarine, then added a submarine's sail on top of it, and then added two flight-decks on either side of the wings, and put a runway on top of that underneath it is some opened area which looks like a WC3 style fly-through hangar, except it doesn't do anything, then added a giant elevated hangar-surface on it, and then turned it into a tower with spires which don't seem to serve any purpose. It has two fins which look like twin-tails except they're dwarfed by the elevated conning-tower structure and don't seem to do anything. It seemed like they slapped a bunch of stuff together and tried to make it look all spiffy. In 1991 it may have, but by WC3 it looked rather ridiculous. Technically, WC3 ships are older than WC2 ones, but WCP ships came even later and they follow the WC 3 and WC 4 trends, they are more streamlined yes, but not to the extent of WC2. And then the paint-jobs. Oy! In 1990, and 1991 it made sense, limited colors, and to make it look spiffy they added some snazzy colors. But when you put that on fancy WC3 or WC4, or even WCP designs, it looks silly. The WC3, and WCP's Gray's and Blue's (WCP was gray and purple I think), but either way, those colors worked. Also just a generic white worked too. It also worked in WC:ER... after all, the Tarawa is painted that way.
2.) Just taking a WC1 or WC2 Model and painting it gray and blue doesn't cut it... it looks better, but it still looks silly. Oh, on it's own, it looks fine, but if you put a WC3 or WC4 model in there it looks ridiculous. Even a Gray and Blue WC2 Waterloo looks silly compared to even a WCP model.
I'm not the best artist, but I can draw up ideas better than that... sketches at least. I've given up the 3D thing. I just suck
The sketches would just be rough-drafts, keep in mind. But here are some good ideas... (Most of these are WC2 related)
Use the WC3 Strakha model in Lieu of the WC2 one. It looks better. Since all the WC2 ships are all tiny and stuff, use the WC3 size instead.
KILRATHI STUFF
-The Kilrathi Capships... get rid of those damn pods. They look silly. Make the struts into a more claw-like structure. If they have a fighter capacity, put a bay in them. The Ralatha does have a bay... the Fralthra doesn't appear to have one, and it has a bigger fighter compliment. The Kamekh... I was actually thinking, as silly as this sounds, to re-do the Kamekh with more Pakhtahn characteristics.
-Asymmetry... the ships do not necessarily have to be asymetrical. But they should be fang-shaped and aggressive.
CONFED
Waterloo: I wonder what the guy who designed this thing was smoking. I obviously show my dislike for this vessel quite often. I have nothing against it's capabilities, but, man, do I hate the way it looks. There are some ugly vehicles that fight wars damn well, but this vehicle don't make sense. There is no sense in all those rounded surfaces, two conning towers as well. No reason. When Battlestations/Action Stations/General Quarters is sounded, the Captain heads straight for the CIC anyway on most ships. Even Eisen was in the CIC in numerous cases in combat. I don't know why you'd even need a second conning tower. And again... the uncovered flight-deck thing... all that area that is used for a runway could easily be convered and hangar-service areas be added. A whole bunch of fighters could be carried in that area. The wings also serve no purpose either, you could fit thrusters on the fuselage and still get a decent roll-rate considering the ship is pretty wide. Since the Waterloo's design is so bizarre, I would prefer doing some kind of re-design of the ship
Confederation Class: It could use some work, and I do have some ideas. As weird as it is, I did make some sketches of what a WC3-ified Confederation-Class could look like. It would preserve the forward part of the ship. The aft part would be different though.
Exeter: Exeter carrying 18 fighters? Forget about it. If I recall correctly, the original WC1 specification was 8, maybe 9. Two shuttles max and that should be 11. With a 360 meter frame and it's basic overall shape, that ship would be packed to the gills. Maybe those little 9 meter WCM Rapiers... but not WC1 fighters. I'd like to extend the conning tower straight through from top-to-bottom to make it more like the Sheffield's. That dome could be on the bottom too (the same one they have on the top behind the bridge. It could be changed to an octoganal shape if polygon-concerns come into play, or if you just like that shape.
GENERAL STUFF:
Armor: WC1 armor ratings are too low. My recommendation is to bump all capship ratings up by 10. For the Corvette this rule would not apply. Plus a Corvette isn't even a Capship technically.
Shields: WC1 shields should also be phase-shields. After all, those Strakha seemed to fire torpedoes at the Tiger's Claw... Why would they do that if they didn't have phase-shields? Even if you don't want to make all the capital ships with phase-shields, at least make the carriers with phase-shields. Ideally, I'd prefer only the Corvette to not have phase-shields.
Fly-Through Bays: Oh, don't give me this stuff about extra internal area.... the Bengal for example, if you covered up the un-covered area and put hangar bays on the side (like on the Ranger-Class for example) you could make up for all the space you "lost" by making it a fly-through design. It might be a little tight, but after all that's what the ALS is for... after all, Hunter ended up banging up his fighter on one landing.
Flak Cannons: A lot of the older WC ships have flak-cannons, I'd prefer to replace them with point-defense guns.
Does anybody like any of these ideas? This is just a concept.
-Concordia
(The Light of Murada thing)
