Announcing Wing Commander Pioneer (August 11, 2005)

Nope. Only the Hunchback, Tarsus, Hauler, Minotaur (to be renamed), and Fighter. Actually, the Hunchback isn't purchasable.
 
Yeah, we're pretty much set against doing any player-purchasable Milspec stuff. The idea itself is a bit too.....fanboyish. We're not ruling out having the Raptor/Rapier as ships that you see. They just don't fit in the confed forces in the area you'll be operating in.
 
I've already mentioned this to BradMick, but I thought I'd bring it up here again: IMHO, the Confed fighters are all too similar for my taste. I understand the idea of design ethos, and I simply love the Corsair, but once I looked at the, Hurricane, the Wildcat ... I was really dissappointed. IMHO, the designs BradMick created were a lot more refreshing and full of character ... the ones right now look like your stereotypical, soulless sci-fi rockets. The Wildcat, for all its Bearcat-SWC Hornet resemblance, had a clunky elegance to it that honored its WWII namesake quite fittingly. As for looking the same, I can't think of a single WC game in which any of the flyable ships resembled each other - with of course, the exception of Armada, and even then it was two ships out of ten.

Happily, this does not apply to the rest of the designs - the civillian ships have character while paying homage to classic Privateer designs. The Tarsus also looks quite fine, although I'm a little troubled over it apparently being some sort of merc job - the Tarsus is an Exploratory Corps cast-off, it's not a combat ship. I'll also confess to being disappointed that the Gotha won't be making an appearance - it seems like it would be a fun ship to design.

Still. great work. It's a very ambitious project, and with the crew you have, one of the few that actually has a shot at succeeding.
 
The Tarsus Is going to be a long-range scout, just like in the original Privateer. It's just going to be comparitively newer, and thus more powerful. It's a great ship for cargo-hauling loners. That includes bounty hunters. The Merc ship is the soon-to-be-renamed Minotaur.

As for the designs - Brad and I talked at length about the Wildcat and Hurricane. And I've gotta admit that there was some...spirited discussion on both sides. The eventual solution was that Brad made those designs originally for his re-imagined movie-style Battle of McAullife. He wasn't trying to fit them into a WC1 time frame, as that's not what he was after. We had to go towards some more recognizable as coming from the canon Wing Commander. Now as it stands, the Hurricane is not a final design, the Wildcat is. By that I mean that the textures and materials haven't been created yet - so it's able to be changed. I'll talk to Brad more about this - maybe we can come up with something more creative.
 
1st person shooter!! EXCELLENT!!

I just wish it was set in the WC3-> onwards. Oh well, cant have everything.

Ed
 
Chevie was, at a guess, riffing on the "FPS shooter" misunderstanding, mixing in WC stuff with the FPS titles "Half Life", "Unreal", and "Return to Castle Wolfenstein".
 
Howard Day said:
As for the designs - Brad and I talked at length about the Wildcat and Hurricane. And I've gotta admit that there was some...spirited discussion on both sides. The eventual solution was that Brad made those designs originally for his re-imagined movie-style Battle of McAullife. He wasn't trying to fit them into a WC1 time frame, as that's not what he was after. We had to go towards some more recognizable as coming from the canon Wing Commander.
Click to expand...

See, that's the thing. The one thing about Wing Commander is that the Confed fighters have never really had a "recognizable" design ethos - the ones that comes closest, I guess, is the Douglas Aerospace trio of Hellcat-Excalibur-Bearcat, the Stiletto-Morningstar, and the Phantom-Banshee (and all three groups, I might add, look totally different from each other).

As LOAF put it recently, "the Tiger's Claw's fighter complement contains both Firefox and The Last Starfighter", the Concordia has a Colonial Viper crossed with an X-Wing and a Vought F7U Cutlass; Wing Commander III has the A-Wing, a flying lawn dart, and whatever the Thunderbolt is - a bloated F-102, I suppose. And so on, and so forth. I realize what you're trying to achieve, but endlessly ripping off the Hornet is not the way to go about it.
 
Ok, Bob. I'm having a hard time understanding where you're coming from on this. There are definate design similarities between ALL the WC1 fighters. Perhaps not in overall shape, but in what shapes they're constructed out of. Maybe it takes an artist's eye to see it, but they're definately there. Color, shape, and form are very similar between the fighters. The designs have been very consistent (within each game's timeframe - ie, each successive game had consistent designs, a mark of good game design)

As for your rather silly comment on the "Endlessly ripping off the Hornet", I totally fail to see what you're talking about. There's only one design that comes even close - the wildcat - and it is so far distant it's almost funny. Please, point to some characteristics that are "ripped off". The only one I can possibly see is the triangular shape of the hull, and the cockpit location.
Well, guess what?
Every WC1 fighter has this hull shape and cockpit location, or a minor variation of it. So, that's out.
The locations of the guns? Completely different. (Those are Accelleration Compensators embedded in the leading edges of the wings, for those paying attention. Not gun mounts. See the Scimitar in-cockpit damage display for reference. )
It has 4 guns.
The engines are laid out differently.


So, I call bullshit on that comment. It has nothing to back it up, and was made just to be snarky.
Here's the deal: We're trying to make a well-designed and consistent game here. To do that, all the art has to play by some simple rules.
A.)The main gameplay and art reference will be WC1 (Art) and Privateer (Gameplay)
B.)If any new designs are made, they must conform to the same universal building blocks as those used in WC1
C.)Textures and materials should be consistent and logical (More rust/busted paint for older ships). They should be as detailed as humanly possible.
D.)We should always strive to extrapolate and expand the existing universe - but never override it.

Brad's designs, while excellent, were not created with this project or those rules in mind, and are thus not going to be in the game. (I do love em, Brad!)
I should be clear - at some point we will most likely be starting a feedback forum. If you have a better design, by all means submit it, and we'll consider it. Your name in the credits, man! There's some incentive for you!
 
Howard Day said:
The Tarsus Is going to be a long-range scout, just like in the original Privateer. It's just going to be comparitively newer, and thus more powerful. It's a great ship for cargo-hauling loners. That includes bounty hunters. The Merc ship is the soon-to-be-renamed Minotaur.
Click to expand...

Actually, I like the idea that Confed would be selling off its obsolete ships to civilians. According to Action Stations, the Minotaur is in fact the predecessor of the Broadsword from the beginning of the war. The three forward guns plus turrets configuration would also be an interesting variation from the paired guns of Privateer.

The Hauler and the Fighter really ought to have names though. How about calling the Fighter the Legionarie, implying that it is the predecessor to the Centurion?

As for the designs - Brad and I talked at length about the Wildcat and Hurricane.
Click to expand...

According to Action Stations, the Hurricane is a light atmosphere-capable fighter with a single nose-mounted gun (perhaps a neutron gun if you're going with the idea that Tachyon and Particle guns are not yet in the Confederation arsenel). The Wildcat, meanwhile, is an obsolete medium fighter like the Scimitar--perhaps it should have 2 lasers/2 mass drivers, less armor, and a little more speed than the Scim? The Corsair is the Confederation's replacement for the Wildcat, and dominates before the Raptor comes into common use.
 
Actually, the fighter is closer to the Talon than it is to the Centurion. Shape-wise, anyway. Manus? (Insert random "Manos: The hands of fate" reference here...) Another name for Talon?
Hmm... And yes, the hauler is going to get an actual name. Any thought/suggestions?
 
homepage or what?

there's no homepage about that project, is it right? when i click the link i only get a list of files in a directory, using web format.
 
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