sea_monkey
Spaceman
I shouldn't say "not like" because I thought they were enjoyable works of fiction, but I don't consider End Run, Fleet Action, Heart of the Tiger or the other books to be "the official word" on what happened in the WC universe. Some of the things I didn't like:
1) Kilrathi and Terrans too evenly matched. From playing the game I always got the impression that the Kilrathi outnumber the Terrans by AT LEAST 4 to 1 and probably more. Anything less and the games were just ridiculous with missions where you came back with 20 kills. When the Kilrathi lose 3 Snakeir at Firekka, that is bad but when the Terrans lose the Tiger's Claw it is a catastrophe.
In the books they make it seem like the Kilrathi have only a slight edge in numbers, like 1.5 to 1. In that case the odds of ever having two pilots with 100+ kills on the same carrier would be 1 in a number with 30 zeroes.
2) Too carrier centric. #1 -- I always got the impression that the Kilrathi employed lots of heavy cruisers as their main force instead of carriers. You see lots of Fralthra around but few carriers. Thrakhath's flagship is a heavy cruiser.
#2 -- in space carriers aren't as big a deal. In WW2 you needed a carrier to transport aircraft from point A to B through the Pacific. So they were the limiting factor in any engagement. In space, *every ship* has a hangar since there are no transporter beams like in Star Trek. So every ship can carry a fighter or two. The big issue in WC is the # of fighters in an engagement.
For instance, in the Battle of Earth it made no sense for Confed to be fretting about how many carriers they had or to focus strikes on enemy carriers. They could just scramble all fighters from the various bases in the solar system, they don't even need carriers. Plus Confed's target should have been the cruisers with the nukes all along, the enemy carriers serve no purpose but to carry fighters to the battle.
So it strikes me as a little silly that the Kilrathi super carrier is considered some kind of "ultimate weapon." Who cares? The question is do you have 300 good fighters to put on that carrier that can match up with Confed fighters?
Other stuff I can't think of right now ...
1) Kilrathi and Terrans too evenly matched. From playing the game I always got the impression that the Kilrathi outnumber the Terrans by AT LEAST 4 to 1 and probably more. Anything less and the games were just ridiculous with missions where you came back with 20 kills. When the Kilrathi lose 3 Snakeir at Firekka, that is bad but when the Terrans lose the Tiger's Claw it is a catastrophe.
In the books they make it seem like the Kilrathi have only a slight edge in numbers, like 1.5 to 1. In that case the odds of ever having two pilots with 100+ kills on the same carrier would be 1 in a number with 30 zeroes.
2) Too carrier centric. #1 -- I always got the impression that the Kilrathi employed lots of heavy cruisers as their main force instead of carriers. You see lots of Fralthra around but few carriers. Thrakhath's flagship is a heavy cruiser.
#2 -- in space carriers aren't as big a deal. In WW2 you needed a carrier to transport aircraft from point A to B through the Pacific. So they were the limiting factor in any engagement. In space, *every ship* has a hangar since there are no transporter beams like in Star Trek. So every ship can carry a fighter or two. The big issue in WC is the # of fighters in an engagement.
For instance, in the Battle of Earth it made no sense for Confed to be fretting about how many carriers they had or to focus strikes on enemy carriers. They could just scramble all fighters from the various bases in the solar system, they don't even need carriers. Plus Confed's target should have been the cruisers with the nukes all along, the enemy carriers serve no purpose but to carry fighters to the battle.
So it strikes me as a little silly that the Kilrathi super carrier is considered some kind of "ultimate weapon." Who cares? The question is do you have 300 good fighters to put on that carrier that can match up with Confed fighters?
Other stuff I can't think of right now ...