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Originally posted by Quarto:
[T]he Fusion gun absolutely cannot be based on the Steltek gun...
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Well . . . probably . . . possibly . . . it’s really hard to say.:)

We know that at the time of “Righteous Fire” the Confed military must be familiar, and indeed comfortable, with the tech underlying our hero’s Steltek gun. Otherwise it would be next to impossible to account for the several comments made in RF about the gun, the Drone, and the Steltek. The question is: when did Confed become familiar with that tech? Was it only after the time of “Privateer”, or was it in fact before? A few of those same comments in RF can be used to argue the latter (though almost every “reasoned” argument one tries to make about Gemini Sector ends up being little more than a reasonably good “what if” story).

The point is we simply don’t have enough facts to rule out the possibility that Confed has earlier obtained and examined similar samples of Steltek tech. And given that possibility, we really can’t say for sure to what degree Steltek tech has influenced or is influencing Confed tech at the time of RF.
 
As far as I can remember, Nemesis, nobody made any comments about the Steltek gun in RF. At least not such comments which would indicate knowledge of its inner workings. Everybody knew that it was a powerful gun of an unregistered type, but that's all. The Drone and the Steltek, as far as I remember, were not mentioned at all in RF.
 
Hmmmmm.......now that I think about it, no, no one's made any OFFICIAL comments. If anything was found, SRA might've simply clamped the lid on the whole affair. The Retros aside, there was an awful lot of confed ship traffic when your Privateer took out the drone. Maybe something survived?
 
Well .... Let's see.

Confed have been losing ships left right and center to a mysterious flying egg. They lure it to a secluded jump point and bushwack it with a sizeable fleet. Hmmm ... it seems to be laughing at us. Mysterious privateer hero turns up and proceeds to scramble said egg with a couple of shots. Coincidence? I think not.

One would suspect that Confed have a pretty good idea about the existence of the Steltek gun (and presumeably about the Steltek too). One would suspect that they would be hesitant to let the privateer wander off into the sunset without having some idea of what makes it tick. There are several ways that they could do this, including :
a) Get their own from the remains of the egg. It had at least 5 of the buggers, so it is not impossible that one was recovered. There were a lot of confed ships in the vicinity when the egg was fried.
b) They had a good long look at the privateers gun before letting him walk away with it. Presumeably he would not be too happy about this, but given the choice of loaning Confed the gun for them to examine, and having to fight my way through a Confed fleet, I know which I would choose. Particularly if they let me keep the gun afterward and 'sweetened' the deal with mucho cashola.

While obviously some time passes between the end of Privateer and the start of RF, I personally doubt it was long enough to develop a new gun and have it on the market, so the appearance of the Fusion gun may well be coincidence. On the other hand, a new gun would be worth a lot of money (and they were damn expensive from memory), so if the private sector (or black market) could get their hands on them, they would certainly be made available as soon as possible.

I still think it highly unlikely the privateer would escape Confeds clutches with his egg-shooter still a secret. Jeez, even the Retros know he has it.
 
Consider that Grayson had a gun capable of causing serious damage to Confederation forces, as well as piloting skills respected by Admiral Terrel himself... further, he had previously proved that he had no qualms about engaging the Confederation when forced to.

The other guns we see in Privateer are *not* current milspec technology -- we're using WC2 style lasers when the rest of the Confederation fleet has the latest, significantly more dangerous WC3 variant, and so forth... the fusion cannon may be exciting new technology to Gemini, but it's just a watered down version of the real thing.

(Note that the Steltek drone does, in fact, have exactly five guns...).
 
Originally posted by Quarto:
As far as I can remember, Nemesis, nobody made any comments about the Steltek gun in RF . . . The Drone and the Steltek, as far as I remember, were not mentioned at all in RF.
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Originally posted by Roach:
[N]ow that I think about it, no, no one's made any OFFICIAL comments.
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Here are two comments the bartenders make:

1. “I sure am glad that Steltek drone was destroyed. A lot of folks thought it was a new Kilrathi super-weapon. We figured the Kilrathi were about to overrun Gemini. Of course, now there’s a lot of anxiety about the Retros. . . .”

2. “I know you! You’re the guy who nailed the Steltek drone! I’m pleased to meet you in person. We haven’t heard any more from the Stelteks. Too bad. They seem like pretty smart guys to me. I wonder just where they went, and whether they’ll ever be back.”

At Oxford, Masterson says to our hero: “I heard news [about your gun being stolen]. I thought that gun was dangerous in your hands . . . .”

And at Perry, our hero tells Goodin: “Someone ripped off my Steltek gun.” To this, Goodin eventually replies that she can’t really help him because she has no information about “stolen guns”. (Yeah, she’s real concerned.)

I think it’s hard to account for Goodin’s “who cares” attitude to both the fact that our hero has a Steltek gun and the fact that it’s been stolen (let alone the public airing that the Steltek, the Drone, our hero, and “the gun” have been getting, albeit in varying degrees) unless it’s true that Confed has at some point prior to RF examined the gun and is familiar with at least its non-boosted capabilities–for example, how well they compare to those of the new (or soon-to-be) commercially available Fusion Cannon. (So yes, Goodin wouldn’t hesitate then to view the Steltek gun as just one more stolen gun.)

On the other hand, it’s a good question why Goodin isn’t concerned about the gun’s power booster, which renders the gun nearly twice as powerful as the Fusion. Well, maybe Confed removed the booster in the aftermath of “Privateer”. (Of course, the booster’s charge may also have run out as the Steltek promised, but I can’t quite see Goodin being as unconcerned as she is if the booster, even though depleted, is still a part of the gun.) Or maybe Confed knows absolutely nothing about the booster because the gun was evaluated before our hero went off to destroy the Drone and encountered the Steltek.

But at this point we’re already knee-deep in “what-ifs” and you can craft as good a story as I can.
 
I dont think that ConFed would pass a chance to inspect the Steltek weapon, they must have done it and let him keep it, if he made a wrong move against ConFed he would never be able to set foot on a no-pirate base or planet again.
The Steltek are know to ConFed but the Steltek dont care about the war, only in keeping the Steltek old technology form being use.
The Drone was in the Steltek view their resposability, so they helped to destroy it, after that the weapon lost its more powerful side.
And RF is passed some time after the drone is destroyed.
 
is the steltek gun OFFICIALLY a fusion gun? because it seems unlikely to me. a fighter is very small, and fusion requires temperatures of tens of millions of degrees. maybe in a cap ship it would be possible. of course i could be wrong, and they might have discovered cold fusion. and a way to make a tiny tokamak
 
Officially, the Steltek gun is just that - a Steltek gun. No information is given about how it works.
 
Originally posted by Dragon
The Drone was, in the Steltek view, their responsability, so they helped to destroy it, after that the weapon lost its more powerful side.
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What do you mean? I believe the Steltek gun, once boosted, stays boosted until you switch to RF.

Still, those posts are interesting arguments for the Steltek gun being linked to the Fusion, yet I think this will be another of those unconfirmed things, like the Eisen carrier.
 
The weapon is boosted by the Steltek but it was not to be boosted after the drone being destroyed, that was what the Steltek says.
But it does, it sould not.
 
Wedge, did you read the posts, or just skim them? There is *NO* evidence to support such a link.

What is this obsession with linking things to alien tech, anyway?
 
Hey, I'm all against the link idea. And yes, being able to log on only twice a week forces me to skim through some threads, but I'm sure someone (Azrael?) made some fair points towards the link idea.
 
Originally posted by Wedge009
Originally posted by Dragon
The Drone was, in the Steltek view, their responsability, so they helped to destroy it, after that the weapon lost its more powerful side.
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What do you mean? I believe the Steltek gun, once boosted, stays boosted until you switch to RF.
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To be honest it's been a long time since I played Privateer, but from past experience what I suspect happens is this :

As you play through the game, it gets 'harder' the further you progress through the storyline, i.e. enemy weapons do more damage (or your shields become weaker), yours do less (or their shields become tougher). When you complete the (vanilla) game, the difficulty level resets to the default, so your ship suddenly becomes a lot tougher.

Now I'm certain that this happens. Whether your gun remains 'boosted' is difficult to quantify, since ALL your guns are now doing a lot more damage. I guess the only way to check would be to count the number of shots to take out a specific target before boosting and after the game, RELATIVE to a known weapon.
 
The Steltek gun and Pod

That Steltek gun is a level 1 gun when you find it at the derelict base. After you meet up with the Steltek being, your gun becomes level 2. It remains level 2 for the rest of the game and even after the defeat of the pod. IT DOES NOT BOOST THE REGULAR WEAPONS AT ALL! I have compared the 2 types of Steltek guns after completing the game with a save game editor. I loaded 2 level 1 Steltek guns on the outer mounts on my Centurion and 2 level 2 Steltek guns on the inner points. There is definately a difference between the two. The level 2 gun fires more rapidly than the level 1 gun. It also maintains its level of damage. In other words, that level 2 gun STAYS level 2 long after you blow up the pod. There is no limit in the number of shots at all. Normally if you put 4 guns of the same type, it only takes 1 key to activate and deactivate them all, in the above test with 2 level 1 and 2 level 2 Steltek guns loaded, it took 2 keys to activate the guns. That means they are DIFFERENT! Load up 4 level 1 or level 2 guns and it only takes 1 key to activate them, of course the guns are useless in RF. They will be there, show the proper green ball of fire, but be so weak that even the laser will have more power than they do! Grab Mario Brito's Steltek Indurance mission for Privateer, and see what I mean about the difference between level 1 and level 2 Steltek guns! You get 4 level 2 Steltek guns to take on wave after wave of Steltek pods.

RFBurns

"Youre the guy that blew up that big green egg!" [bartender, Privateer RF]
 
piranha sucks against heavy fighters.

it reminds me of when i had to destroy 4 jalthi in a hornet. of course, i would of had a wing man had he not carelessly died. even then it would of been hard.

as i recall, wing commander 1 had more balanced (if still unlikely) odds than 3-5. by the end of wc3 my flight roster had 3,000+ kills for 8 pilots... and none of them were dead (well, except cobra/hobbes)
 
Hornet is cool. You learn to appreciate it, at least in the XWA TC. :)

But of course, if you eat the Jalthi's sixguns more than once, you're toast...which is why I like the Scimitar more if I'm going after anything above a Krant.
The Raptor is still my all-time favorite, the Rapier A is kinda bleagh.
Haven't converted any WC4 or WCP craft, although I think Steele did some and we might include them for shits and giggles.
 
yeah, but the hornet only has lasers. it takes so long to take down jalthi shields, and you have to tail them or your dead. but whenever you tail them their 3 mates come up behind me and kill me.

the thing about this mission though is that halcyon says "we need you in our fastest ships for this mission" then proceeds to put me in a hornet. strange, snce the rapier is quicker. and 4 jalthi is easy meal with a rapier.

i asked about the venture corvette in some other thread, i dont know if you answered but i cant find the thread now. any chance you could tell me dreddnott?

did you change its weapons because lasers is kinda crap for an anti fighter ship?
 
The Laser in SWC is one of the best guns to toast a CapShip. Keep shooting that kitt'n, and you do lot of dammage because your constant shooting at the weak spot.
 
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