What is up with the gun chart?

DangerousCook

DangerousCook

Rear Admiral
Ok, so here is the gun chart - https://www.wcnews.com/articles/gunchart.htm

Now, I'm not disputing the accuracy of these numbers or anything (I'm just really surprised at how low some of them are)

Just as an example, scroll down to the Tachyon Gun. The strongest it ever gets on the chart is WC3/WC4/WCP - which is supposedly 7.0 CM worth of damage.

Am I the only person who thinks this is low? If a ship's shields are, let's say 250 CM (which was pretty common in WC4 particularly) then 4 Tachyon Guns - equalling about 28 CM aka 280 "DU" would need to score 9 direct hits to drop the shields alone. The energy drain during the gameplay alone would require at least 2/3 salvos to do this, not counting for the enemy's shield recharge rate.

There's probably an error in my calculating or reading the chart, right? What's the deal?
 
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Is it not possible that ship pages that still use the old format display shielding and armor in damage units rather than actual centimeters of durasteel (even though it does say cm)?
 
Well I guess I already found my answer:

Bandit LOAF said:
One armor unit equals .1 centimeters of durasteel equivalent. This is printed on page 33 of Victory Streak, among numerous other places. Stop making me say that.
Click to expand...

It just seems really low...

You've said many times that the "old" maneuverability statistics (such as 4 degrees per second) were flat out wrong (taking about 45 seconds for a 180 turn...)

Aren't these gun statistics wrong in that same sense? Just about every other source we have in terms of actual gameplay, the novels, videos from the games, the movie, the TV series etc. show ships being destroyed rather quickly by guns and missiles.
 
The problem is that the armor listed for the *fighters* is wrong - it should be '200 armor units' instead of '200 centimeters'... in terms of how gameplay actually works, anyway.
 
Thus, roughly speaking, in terms of the game's internal computation, an Excalibur has approximately twice the shield and armor strength of a WC2 Rapier II.
 
DangerousCook said:
Am I the only person who thinks this is low? If a ship's shields are, let's say 250 CM (which was pretty common in WC4 particularly) then 4 Tachyon Guns - equalling about 28 CM aka 280 "DU" would need to score 9 direct hits to drop the shields alone. The energy drain during the gameplay alone would require at least 2/3 salvos to do this, not counting for the enemy's shield recharge rate.
Click to expand...

Doesn't 2-3 salvos to drop the shields on a 250 fighter seem just about right? Keep in mind that the Kilrathi fighters we fly in WC3 when we get the Excalibur often have less than this.
 
There's definitelly something strange with that gunchart. It lists WC1's Mass Driver at 4.5cm and the Neutron Gun at 3.0cm, while wasting more energy thab the Mass Driver (which would make the Neutron rather pointless).

Also, I did some bloody testing in-game and found out that I can nail a Drayman with some 13 salvos of Neutron shots. The Mass Driver can accomplish the same act of treason with 20 salvos. I did both tests twice, and the numbers were consistent.

As a side note, the Mass Driver does have better rate of fire, but it also depleted all of my Raptor's energy before killing the transport. So, the last two or three salvos in those twenty didn't benefit from the MD's better rof. The Neutron Guns didn't have this problem.
 
I also always wondered what the in-game damage values of the WC1 and 2 (and Acadeny) were.

According to the WC1/2 guide, the Neutron Gun should pack 25% percent more of a punch than a MD.

But there are pointless guns in WC. IIRC, the Pulse Particle from SOPS is superior in all aspects to the Chain Ion, except refire delay where it is its equal.
 
Ah, but Wing Commander 1 was back when guns were guns, not bizarre wachamacalits to increase the number of dubious "options" to the player! ;)
 
I read something else interesting in the WC1/2 Guide recently, while preparing to Wingkipedia WC1 - the damage done by lasers and neutrons decreases as they are ranged further away... but that of mass drivers does not.
 
That's a very good question - though it seems unlikely that the WC1/2 Guide would mention it if it wasn't...
 
Wow. I know next to nothing about the capabilities of PCs and programming at that time but I always automatically thought that such a detail would be out of reach at that time and thought of it as fluff text - just like how the cap ship weapons were not fully represented.

If it's really implemented in WC1 then it raises even higher in my esteem which I thought would be impossible.
 
The lack of cap ship weapons is either a bug (they are *there*, they just don't fire) or a balancing decision (it's possible beta testers found that capship escorts were too easy with them active). It's certainly not an issue of whether or not it's possible - after all, Kilrathi ships fire their turrets at *you*. :)

As for the gun thing, it doesn't seem like it'd be too hard - a simple mathematic formula to calculate the damage. Inflict DAMAGE divided by (DISTANCE/1000) or something.
 
While the WC1/2 Guide makes for a really cool piece of fiction - almost like the novelization of WC1 and 2 - I don't think its information is very trustworthy. :(

The guide states that the "Attack my target" order will make your wingman stick to the same target as you even if you switch targets - and even has some "special" tactic that is based on this assumption. Well, every time I've played I verified that this order will make your wingman attack your current target and stay there - even if you later switch to another target.

Also, the guide sugests that you use "by-the-book" torpedo runs against the Ralatha in Novaya Kiev D, and even states that it's no problem at all. As we all know, try this approach, and the AMG of that gunjockey of a destroyer captain will eat you alive!
 
ChrisReid said:
Doesn't 2-3 salvos to drop the shields on a 250 fighter seem just about right? Keep in mind that the Kilrathi fighters we fly in WC3 when we get the Excalibur often have less than this.
Click to expand...

I guess "salvos" is the wrong word to use... since I already stated that 9 shots from a quad-tachyon gun firing ship was needed to drop the shields. What I meant to say was 2-3 full depletions of the gun's energy banks - whatever the terminology for that may be.
 
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