Why don't torpedoes count?

Ilanin

Captain
I can't remember if this is a Standoff-only thing of it if also happens in Secret Ops, but either way you guys are probably more likely to know the answer than anybody else, and it's kind of bugging me. Why don't torpedoes a) count as weapons fired in the debrief? or b) give you kills? - for example in Rescue Run I will come back having fired three missiles and with four kills even if I knocked out the four Sartha and the frigate.
 
I don't think Capship kills ever counted in any WC game, Origin or fan made. Historically, as far as I remember, fighter pilots never recorded kills against anything other than enemy fighter planes.
Oh, and don't forget I do have over 400 years worth of A.B.S. experience in all things I care to think about. :D
 
My answer, is I have no clue. It must have been a design choice in the original WCP/SO code.

I'm not sure about the other games. I was never really concerned with kill scores. I just wanted to achieve the mission objectives. ;)
 
I don't think Capship kills ever counted in any WC game, Origin or fan made.
They did in Wing Commander (1).

But I think aces didn't count for some reason... or did they? there seem to be lots of bugs/glitches related to Kilrathi aces...
 
I was never really concerned with kill scores. I just wanted to achieve the mission objectives. ;)

:rolleyes: Don't lie now - there's something strangely satisfying about leading the killboard. This sounds suspiciously like the famous "I buy them for the articles, not the pictures!" :)

@Shaggy - That's an interesting point regarding whether or not capital ship kills counted historically. I think it depended on the airframe in question - I'll have to go back and look, but I know I've seen Avenger and Helldiver aircraft with flat top silhouettes on the side indicating confirmed sinkings. If I can find them I'll scan/post!
 
:rolleyes: Don't lie now - there's something strangely satisfying about leading the killboard. This sounds suspiciously like the famous "I buy them for the articles, not the pictures!" :)

Ha! Yes I know the saying, but I was never interested in constantly checking the score to be honest, so I could never guess if capships were included.
 
They did in Wing Commander (1).

But I think aces didn't count for some reason... or did they? there seem to be lots of bugs/glitches related to Kilrathi aces...

Wing 1 is actually very, very carefull with it, in the debriefing you will hear if you took down a mission critical capship, or an ace. You can win the mission and hear the victory song, and get chowed out during a debriefing for not making the kill(while also having the mission succesfull theme). AFAIK the non-mission critical capships count as kills always.

I figured that at that time the mission objectives in the briefing were not the in-game objectives(like you are not supposed to go after the first fralthi, but get the winning music if you do, and the neutral music if you do not).
 
@ELTEE I remember seeing the same thing, but then again those are bombers. I think the traditional perception of a kill board though usually carries the perception of dogfighting kills and nothing more, but that's just my view.
In Freelancer it keeps track of how many fighters, battleships, gunboats, and space stations you've destroyed separately. In an MMO environment, particularly a Privateer type game, it would be kind of cool to have global scoreboards that did that. Then you could watch the scoreboards and hire escorts or wingmen that have been really good at dogfighting or smashing capships to help you out.
 
@ELTEE I remember seeing the same thing, but then again those are bombers.

Yes, of course - but I think it's important to make a distinction between navalized 'bombers' like the Avenger attacking mobile ships at sea versus B-29's making a high level raid on a stationary factory. IMO we fly the former in WC. Obvious examples are the Crossbow, Longbow, etc. (Granted, the Broadsword takes it's designation from the Flying Fortress, but I still don't equate it to it's real-life inspiration in terms of tactical employment.)
 
I'm pretty sure that WC has always counted capships to the player's total kill count... right until WCP :). What happened in WCP? We don't know - someone from the WCP team would need to explain. I've always kinda assumed that capships don't count as kills because in WCP, it's rare for the player to destroy a capship solo. I even tried a couple of times to ensure that no one else touched a capship to check if this is the case... but it turned out that no, even then, you don't get a kill.

I can't imagine this being a technical limitation, so it's probably intentional design. Maybe they originally wanted to have a separate capship kill count (this has happened in some Origin games - in Pacific Strike, you had separate tallies for planes, ships and buildings), but for some reason decided to remove it. Impossible to tell.

As for torpedoes... I must say, I'm pretty surprised to hear this. Are you absolutely sure? I'm fairly convinced torpedoes do count towards missile accuracy...
 
I'm wrong, torpedoes do count (I hadn't fired off all of my FF missiles in that mission and thought I had). I'll have to do some tests as to whether or not capships count for the killboard in WC3 and 4 when I get on to Let's Playing those games once I'm done with Standoff (also, I kind of need to actually write the Episode 5 part of the Guide, I know, I'm terrible).
 
I'm not sure about the other games. I was never really concerned with kill scores. I just wanted to achieve the mission objectives. ;)

Heh - agreed with the exception of Standoff, where it's a real challenge to keep up with the killscores of your colleagues. I fight dirty in Standoff, often finishing off a kill that my wingman has worked hard for. Hell, you know they'll do it back to you.

But seriously, anybody noticed how good the other pilots' kill tallies are? I actually like not being the hotshot at the top of the board with a hundred kills on the nearest competitor, it makes me work harder. Also, more realistic than any of the other games (think of Bossman's crappy tally at the start of WC1).
 
The problem with the other pilots' inflated kill numbers in Standoff is that, um, well, the Kilrathi only have so many fighters. And so this:
jpGuB.png

part-way through Episode 4 presents something of a problem, since it's about three-quarters of the total number of fighters the Kilrathi actually had, according to Fleet Action.
 
Well now, keep in mind - most of the pilots in Standoff already have a kill score when they show up on the carrier. IIRC, some of them have more than a hundred kills. So, those kill scores reflect more than just the current campaign.

That said, the game's random killboard inflation does produce a rather weird result overall. We had no control of it, so we couldn't tone it down - I wish, for example, that we could specify that bomber pilots do not get so many kills (look at Saxman up there, in that screenshot - jeepers, that guy hardly ever shoots at fighters, and yet...). Sillier still, you can see how fake it is when you watch what happens to pilots who fly with you regularly. They start to fall behind... because if they fly on a mission with you, their kill score is only increased by the amount that they actually killed during the mission (usually no more than a couple of ships). But if they don't fly with you, then their kill score is increased by a random amount based on the player's kill score. The player's kill scores tend to be high, so...

On a sidenote - we actually made sure to implement sensible kill scores for all pilots, including those that never show up on the roster. If you were to add Blair onto the roster, for example... you wouldn't be able to catch up with him even if you killed every single fighter encountered in Standoff :).
 
On a sidenote - we actually made sure to implement sensible kill scores for all pilots, including those that never show up on the roster. If you were to add Blair onto the roster, for example... you wouldn't be able to catch up with him even if you killed every single fighter encountered in Standoff :).

Heh, cool - did you actually try and estimate his canonical kill score by 2669?
 
Yeah, I did. I don't recall now what his kill score is, but IIRC, it's well beyond three thousand.
 
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