Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
Haha to be clear, I am never, ever going to stop making that mistake.
... but you can all keep making fun of it.
... but you can all keep making fun of it.
Capital Ships - Weapon Placement
- Thread starter capi3101
- Start date
Red Baron
Rear Admiral
Well honestly, when i first read these news i didn't think it was a mistake - be it unintended or deliberately. Sorry if i missed a joke there.
I'm glad Saga decided to shrink it down to the size it has in the mod. It was a good gameplay decision that made it a "managable" ship and a challenging yet plausible goal to achieve. I'll continue to pretend (and lie to myself if that's what it is) it's 2.2km long, until the original designer shows up with a notarially certified document that proves it was always designed as a 22km hulk. Which i have no doubt will happen some day.
Oh great, now we have the Kilrathi Dreadnought and the Paradigm in one thread.
I'm glad Saga decided to shrink it down to the size it has in the mod. It was a good gameplay decision that made it a "managable" ship and a challenging yet plausible goal to achieve. I'll continue to pretend (and lie to myself if that's what it is) it's 2.2km long, until the original designer shows up with a notarially certified document that proves it was always designed as a 22km hulk. Which i have no doubt will happen some day.
Oh great, now we have the Kilrathi Dreadnought and the Paradigm in one thread.
Aginor
Vice Admiral
Yeah. things are getting worse 
The KDN in Saga is ok. It is huge and a whole fleet is needed to kill it. just like intended. And that is what matters ingame.
But honestly: Now I would love to see how it looks with 22km. But I'm not sure whether it would be even possible in the engine. It would need a huge texture and that is the problem. Just scaling it would look really bad. The sector HQ is only possible because it despawns during the mission. A fleet battle near such a huge thing wouldn't work IIRC.
The KDN in Saga is ok. It is huge and a whole fleet is needed to kill it. just like intended. And that is what matters ingame.
But honestly: Now I would love to see how it looks with 22km. But I'm not sure whether it would be even possible in the engine. It would need a huge texture and that is the problem. Just scaling it would look really bad. The sector HQ is only possible because it despawns during the mission. A fleet battle near such a huge thing wouldn't work IIRC.
Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
AHH! Sorry, I thought YOU were joking. You said "22,000 km" and highlighted it... I assume that I had accidentally written km instead of m in my post, which I do CONSTANTLY.
Sorry, sorry. Yes, the dreadnaught is actually 22km/22,000m long. There really wasn't ever any question other than people just thinking it sounded too big. The fact that it's so large is actually a plot point in False Colors.
Mace
Vice Admiral
Yeah. things are getting worse
The KDN in Saga is ok. It is huge and a whole fleet is needed to kill it. just like intended. And that is what matters ingame.
But honestly: Now I would love to see how it looks with 22km. But I'm not sure whether it would be even possible in the engine. It would need a huge texture and that is the problem. Just scaling it would look really bad. The sector HQ is only possible because it despawns during the mission. A fleet battle near such a huge thing wouldn't work IIRC.
Well, the project is done, but..
Who says it would have to be one ship from the engine's perspective? It might be possible to chop it up in say 8 different ships that are docked together, you could destroy/criple the different sections actually making the sceneraio that it could be functional and manouvering even with half of the ship gone, ofcourse a real big explosion would take the "docked ships" along with it, and making it harder to kill(which is the idea of a dreadnought in the first place)
Quarto
Unknown Enemy
See, now, this is one of those things that just utterly mystify me. Saga is based on the FS2 engine. And one of FS2's key selling points was that it had incredibly huge capships, way bigger than anything before. Didn't they also have some tens-of-kilometres-long ships? Anyway, the point is, you guys were working with an engine designed to handle huge ships, I would have kinda expected Saga to take advantage of this to show the biggest capship ever seen in its full scale. You're right that it would have taken a lot of work, especially with textures (I'm positive that's what the key problem was in WC3 already), but for a big game finale... it would have been utterly priceless.
Even if the dreadnoughts were a mere 10 km long in-game (with 22km still showing up in the technical viewer), it would have been something, flying past this... ahem, behemoth of a ship. It's really too bad you guys didn't seize the opportunity.
Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
I think it's because the player needs to fight the dreadnaught in Saga... so it would be harder to have it as an impossibly giant mega-ship.
Would have been cool to see, though!
Would have been cool to see, though!
Aginor
Vice Admiral
It was also kind of a logistical problem. The KDN was there, Klavs did it the way it is. The only modeler on the team for most of the time was Scooby, and he already had enouh to do without it. It took him months to do the sector HQ and a new KDN would have taken even longer.
And no. FS2 does have huge ships but none even close to the canonical KDN with high-res textures. And there are quite a number of problems with such huge ships.
So there was a KDN that was almost ready to go, with a fitting size that allowed a fleet battle with the ship in the misssion. It was the logical decision to just use it. AFAIK nobody complained that it was too small or weak.
And no. FS2 does have huge ships but none even close to the canonical KDN with high-res textures. And there are quite a number of problems with such huge ships.
So there was a KDN that was almost ready to go, with a fitting size that allowed a fleet battle with the ship in the misssion. It was the logical decision to just use it. AFAIK nobody complained that it was too small or weak.
capi3101
Admiral
22,000 m, not 22,000 km. Had to double check that one myself once. Even I would have problems with a Cat ship bigger than the Death Star...
Red Baron
Rear Admiral
Yes well these news say 22,000km (yes twenty-two thousand kilometres): https://www.wcnews.com/news/2011/08/11/raiders-of-the-lost-manuals-part-2
Which, at the time i read it, i didn't think was a mistake by LOAF, but:
1. a mistake by one of the people writing the different manual revisions that was carried over, which kind of supported my wishful thinking that the 22,000m are a mistake as well
or
2. just shows that at the time the game was designed, zeroes where used at an inflationary rate, and the KDN could very well have ended up the size of a Dyson sphere as well.
Obviously none of those two is the case, so we're back where we started.
Which, at the time i read it, i didn't think was a mistake by LOAF, but:
1. a mistake by one of the people writing the different manual revisions that was carried over, which kind of supported my wishful thinking that the 22,000m are a mistake as well
or
2. just shows that at the time the game was designed, zeroes where used at an inflationary rate, and the KDN could very well have ended up the size of a Dyson sphere as well.
Obviously none of those two is the case, so we're back where we started.
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Mace
Vice Admiral
Well the SW counterpart would be the "Executor", Vaders own SSD, that was also the imperial flagship(present at the battle of Endor, appears in the X-wing series in a cutscene when you are captured), and that was 19,000m. 22,000km is ridiculous, you would need a shuttle to visit different sections of the ship, plus it would be more than halfway the distance between the earth and the moon, and make the Vesuvius-class at 1,600m look a kid's toy.
capi3101
Admiral
Hmm...should I be treating the Drayman-I and the Diligent as the same class of ship (i.e. the Diligent is a specific Drayman)? I'm not really noticing a lot of significant differences between the two.
(For the record, I'm referring to the WC1 Drayman as the Drayman-I and the Privateer Drayman as the Drayman-II; my understanding is that they're supposed to be the same craft, but there may be enough differences in overall shape, armament and defenses to warrant a second entry in the capship catalog. I'll have to analyze the Privateer Drayman a bit more to know for sure.)
So...on the line of WC1 transports, let's talk about the Dorkir. Okay...so we've got another difference between what's listed in game and what's on the line drawing; the line drawing shows five turrets, two on the dorsal aft near the engines that look like they'd cover 90 degree arcs to aft port and starboard, one on the dorsal forward of the storage tanks; that one looks like it would have clearance in the aft hemisphere, and two on the ventral of the forward section off a weapons pylon, one aimed forward and one aimed aft and both looking like they'd cover most of a hemisphere. Interesting that in this configuration, the Dorkir appears to have the least amount of gun coverage to forward; a craft or torpedo approaching close enough to the forward dorsal would go unchallenged...
Three mines too; I don't see anywhere obvious to put a mine-dropper. Maybe the aft section forward, below that gun turret. Seems like a risky place to put one, though.
The Lumbari...same question would apply here as between the Drayman/Diligent - are they in fact the same class of ship? I get the impression that they aren't. Guns ventral and midway along the draft port and starboard to forward, one aimed aft along the dorsal of the cargo box, and one more aimed aft along the flat aft portion of the forward section. Each looks like it'd have a full hemisphere arc of fire; the firing arc coverage looks a lot tighter on the Lumbari and there's more firepower forward. Still not obvious where the mine-dropper would be located.
Out of town at the moment; not really where I can do more, was lucky to have this much time...
(For the record, I'm referring to the WC1 Drayman as the Drayman-I and the Privateer Drayman as the Drayman-II; my understanding is that they're supposed to be the same craft, but there may be enough differences in overall shape, armament and defenses to warrant a second entry in the capship catalog. I'll have to analyze the Privateer Drayman a bit more to know for sure.)
So...on the line of WC1 transports, let's talk about the Dorkir. Okay...so we've got another difference between what's listed in game and what's on the line drawing; the line drawing shows five turrets, two on the dorsal aft near the engines that look like they'd cover 90 degree arcs to aft port and starboard, one on the dorsal forward of the storage tanks; that one looks like it would have clearance in the aft hemisphere, and two on the ventral of the forward section off a weapons pylon, one aimed forward and one aimed aft and both looking like they'd cover most of a hemisphere. Interesting that in this configuration, the Dorkir appears to have the least amount of gun coverage to forward; a craft or torpedo approaching close enough to the forward dorsal would go unchallenged...
Three mines too; I don't see anywhere obvious to put a mine-dropper. Maybe the aft section forward, below that gun turret. Seems like a risky place to put one, though.
The Lumbari...same question would apply here as between the Drayman/Diligent - are they in fact the same class of ship? I get the impression that they aren't. Guns ventral and midway along the draft port and starboard to forward, one aimed aft along the dorsal of the cargo box, and one more aimed aft along the flat aft portion of the forward section. Each looks like it'd have a full hemisphere arc of fire; the firing arc coverage looks a lot tighter on the Lumbari and there's more firepower forward. Still not obvious where the mine-dropper would be located.
Out of town at the moment; not really where I can do more, was lucky to have this much time...