Capital Ships - Weapon Placement

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.
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It's hard to say.

The REASON the Drayman and the Diligent look alike in Wing Commander I is because they were originally the same ship. The plan was that Wing Commander I would have one ship, the Drayman, which would look differently depending on whether it was a tanker or a transport. There was no separate "Diligent" class in that concept.

They had to cut the Drayman tanker art (and several others) from Wing Commander I to save disk space. Then it came back in The Secret Missions, now as a separate ship called the Diligent. Despite the fact that it looks just like a Drayman with a tanker it never actually appears as a tanker (its one appearance in The Secret Missions is as a 'sport.)

... the only other thing I would note in this case is that when these ships were redesigned for Super Wing Commander they no longer looked alike. The Drayman became a Babylon 5 and, like the internet itself, the Diligent was now a series of tubes. To the best of my knowledge, no canonical specifications for the Diligent have ever been published (it's strangely missing from the updated SWC Claw Marks.)

(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.)
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Short answer: no clue. :)

There IS Privateer concept artwork where the Drayman is the Wing Commander I version rather than the slipper-looking thing from Privateer. That said, Privateer borrows its other 'returning' Wing Commander I ships (Salthi, Dralthi) from Super Wing Commander and not the original game... and the SWC Drayman looks nothing like the Privateer one. Privateer 3 also had a merchant freighter named Drayman (no mark) which was patently different, though, with an entirely contradictory set of specifications.

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.
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The same behind-the-screens backstory applies to the Dorkir and Lumbari; the Lumbari artwork was created as the freighter version of the Dorkir tanker and dropped for space limitations only to be reused as a new transport. Then they look completely different in Super Wing Commander.

... but! Unlike the Drayman/Diligent we DO have canonical specifications for the Lumbari. Which tell us that it's less than two thirds the size of the Dorkir... and so they can't be the same ship. Presumably just another instance of the Kilrathi using a similar design on different scales.
 
Okay, thanks. Just to play it safe, I think I'll give each ship their own entries (as separate classes).

Okay...next up is the Ralari. Claw Marks says six turreted lasers and a mine; WCPedia agrees. Ships database......Antimatter Guns? Seriously? I thought Antimatter Guns were first introduced in WC2.

And yet the ship's database description best fits the line drawings... okay, so this is a case where the six lasers are what it had, and the other stuff is what it looks like it has, right? I might have to nix the AMGs on principal...

Dual turrets are dorsal and ventral amidships; the dorsal probably could fire in 360 degrees except for the area around the ship's fantails. Can't really tell about the ventral turret, but it also appears to be a 360-degree emplacement. Two more dual sponsons are near the bow, port and starboard; these look like they have a 90 degree arc at best (probably less). And then there are two large guns near the wingtips; these are forward firing hardpoints with very limited arcs. Mine-dropper is probably on the aft fuselage; it looks that area would have sufficient clearance not to have to worry about hitting the engines.
 
Okay...next up is the Ralari. Claw Marks says six turreted lasers and a mine; WCPedia agrees. Ships database......Antimatter Guns? Seriously? I thought Antimatter Guns were first introduced in WC2.

And yet the ship's database description best fits the line drawings... okay, so this is a case where the six lasers are what it had, and the other stuff is what it looks like it has, right? I might have to nix the AMGs on principal...
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I can unravel this. The in-game ship has single-mount six laser turrets and an IR missile. Claw Marks LISTS six turreted lasers and a space mine... but it shows four dual-mount turrets and two fixed forward guns. The antimatter guns come from the Confederation Handbook, which gives the Ralari 15 point defense turrets, 2 dual-mount laser turrets and 2 antimatter guns. (Antimatter guns did exist in 2654, they show up on several ships in the Handbook.)
 
Quarto said:
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.
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I tried (and still am with my own stuff) to keep the texture scaling level among all the ships. For example: a warning logo is the same size on a small fighter as it is on a massive bomber. When you start dealing with such a massive size difference (compare Torgo to the clarkson) you'll need a lot of texture space for the really really really big ships. Take the Torgo for example, there's some 19 textures just for the hull, and that was after I did some massive optimizing/cheating.

One of the reasons why there are such massive ships in freespace2 and it's mods (like Inferno) is they use tiling/repeating textures. While it looks good for some occasions, this leads to cringe worthy textures. Imagine wallpapering a kids room with MLP only to have both corners have the ponies head cut off or just having the head, yuck. Also repeat tiling doesn't give you the nice uniqueness that you can get from having each inch on the ship have it's unique texture area.

Also more on a technically note, the normal map shaders don't like tiling, you'll get some really screwed up effects with it.

Aginor said:
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.
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The KDN was Klav's base model, but due to the way he designed it and the way I uvmap, I found it easier to create a new model using his as a template. Went a lot faster. In fact several of his ships ended up getting replace, the rapier, sabre and confed I believe.
 
Ok,my bad. Didn't remember that, sorry! So it was already a lot of work for you. And of course you explained the thing with the textures a lot better then I did. I never got that far with my own texturing work.
 
Bandit LOAF said:
I can unravel this. The in-game ship has single-mount six laser turrets and an IR missile. Claw Marks LISTS six turreted lasers and a space mine... but it shows four dual-mount turrets and two fixed forward guns. The antimatter guns come from the Confederation Handbook, which gives the Ralari 15 point defense turrets, 2 dual-mount laser turrets and 2 antimatter guns. (Antimatter guns did exist in 2654, they show up on several ships in the Handbook.)
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Okay...checking....checking.......okay, good - I won't have to make a systemic change to WCRPG to include AMGs on the Ralari. Probably means the Ralari will have the highest SI of any ship of its era, but that's not really that big of an issue.

(Well.....that's not considering the Sivar, of course, which I should be considering).

WC2 craft are definitely going to give me fits. I have the listings of their weaponry from the WC2 documentation, which matches the Ship's Database and WCPedia, but once again does not match what appears to be the locations of weapons emplacements in the VDUs - the VDUs have a lot more red in them. Unfortunately, I have silhouettes for WC2 instead of line drawings (of course), so it's harder to say "yes, that's a weapon turret" as easily. Not sure how to proceed here...I can either go back to the WC1 ships and go with their armament in game, or I can try to enlist the help of fans to see where the guns are - probably the Standoff folks.
 
Okay...checking....checking.......okay, good - I won't have to make a systemic change to WCRPG to include AMGs on the Ralari. Probably means the Ralari will have the highest SI of any ship of its era, but that's not really that big of an issue.
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I think that from a 'real universe' perspective you have to assume that pretty much any capital ship has some sort of capital weaponry.

WC2 craft are definitely going to give me fits. I have the listings of their weaponry from the WC2 documentation, which matches the Ship's Database and WCPedia, but once again does not match what appears to be the locations of weapons emplacements in the VDUs - the VDUs have a lot more red in them. Unfortunately, I have silhouettes for WC2 instead of line drawings (of course), so it's harder to say "yes, that's a weapon turret" as easily. Not sure how to proceed here...I can either go back to the WC1 ships and go with their armament in game, or I can try to enlist the help of fans to see where the guns are - probably the Standoff folks.
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You can look at the original 3D models where they're available. For example, here's the Gilgamesh: https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/redbaron_3dview29.jpg
I think the most 'canonical' thing is just to use the information from the manuals plus any additional turrets seen on the VDUs, though.
 
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Bandit LOAF said:
I think the most 'canonical' thing is just to use the information from the manuals plus any additional turrets seen on the VDUs, though.
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Okay. Not necessarily an optimal solution, but that's probably what's going to have to happen.

Before I get any further along on this thread, I'll mention that I've been collecting notes on capital ships and have been converting them into WCRPG stats in bulk lately. It's behind the scenes work, which is why it's been a while since anything's been edited on the wiki. I've just about got all of that wrapped up at this point. It's looking like I'm going to have to move Behemoth and Durango over to the non-canonical chapter for lack of information (that whole "ill-defined stats" bit again). So, hopefully for the last time, I'll ask if there are any canonical printed sources of information for either craft (mainly needing performance and defense characteristics) , or if I get to make things up for them.


Where was I at......oh yes, the Fralthi (the one from WC1, not the movie). Here's one where none of the sources agree with one another. I'm seeing eleven guns in the line drawings -
1-2: Sponsons on either side of the ship's prow, aimed forward.
3-5: Dorsal, forward of the ship's conning tower. One aimed forward, one to portside ahead, one to starboard ahead. Each looks like it has between 135 and 180 degrees of arc.
6: Ventral, below the ship's conning tower. 360 degrees of arc except for where the outboard engine pylons and nacelles block it.
7: Dorsal, aft between the inboard engines. The engines themselves reduce this turret to a 90 degree arc aft.
8-11: Two port and two starboard on the outer side of the outboard engine nacelles. Each probably has 90 degrees of arc.

Missiles are indicated by CIC but nowhere else, so I probably won't add them.

I don't have a reliable side image of the Sivar, so I'll probably head for the Snakeir next (when I have time to do so, of course).
 
To be honest I think those missile loads on the capships are really strange. I mean, two missiles? On a cruiser? Really?
It's the same with the one porcupine on the Ralari IIRC.
But ok, it's from the WC1 ingame stats, it had to be balanced there. Missiles were hard to dodge in WC1.

Everything that tells me is that it has at least one launcher. The rest should be balanced (for gameplay reasons) depending on the purpose of the ship in the mod/fiction/game/whatever. Just my 2ct.
 
See, I kinda feel the same way. With the older ships (WC1, and to a lesser extent WC2), I've considered changing missile stats from single missiles to tubes (up to ten missiles) or even banks (up to 25). Those ships had some pretty crappy defenses as described - you could conceivably destroy a WC1 capital ship with a concentrated volley of the same type of missiles you find on fighters. Two missiles, however, wouldn't do much more than put a hole in an enemy's shields for a while.

Bays (up to 100 shots) are available in WCRPG, but I wouldn't want to change things too much. Keeping true to the original games is one of my goals - it just gets difficult to do when I start to think about the logic of some things...
 
Alrighty...now I come to my first real problem: the Sivar-class. I have the Jane's supplement that talks about the ship, but unfortunately, it only gives the top-down line drawing of the Sivar. I can't tell if it has any weaponry on its underside or not. Based on the model's imagery from WCPedia, it actually doesn't look like there's any. I dunno...maybe I'm just looking at it wrong. It wouldn't be consistent with how the Cat ships have been up to this point.

Strangely enough, the same Jane's supplement also contains line drawings of the Snakeir, from both the top-down and side profiles...and it also looks like it doesn't have any weaponry on its underside...
 
Strangely enough, the same Jane's supplement also contains line drawings of the Snakeir, from both the top-down and side profiles...and it also looks like it doesn't have any weaponry on its underside...
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There's just no way to know right now. I ASSUME there are more turrets on the underside...

... and we might find out someday. The line art was actually done first as the basis for the models and then reused for the manual. Since several ships didn't appear in the finished game they were cut and later reused in that Computer Gaming World. As such, the views we haven't seen did exist at some point.
 
Alright, time to get back to work. So, the next ship on the list is the Clydesdale. Every source lists 2 Flak Guns as the only weaponry aboard. For WC2 ships in general, I'm assuming the sources are listing what the ships actually had in the game.

The VDU seems to contradict that.

clydesdale.png

The VDUs for WC2 look the same as they were for WC1 - dark green's the hull, light green is propulsion, blue is inhabitable areas and red are weapons emplacements. From this image, it looks like there should be six emplacements - two fixed guns forward, two amidships, and two topside aft with one on top of the engines (and who knows what's on the ship's ventral).
 
By the way - I only caught part of that conversation on Friday night on #wingnut (where Bob McDob had put the P2 ship sizes up on his WCPedia sandbox). How "official" is that data? Any way I can ask him to recheck the figures for the Mk-II Faldari? It's way, way smaller than the Mk-I, which is the only reason why I ask.
 
I suppose it's moderately official: he extracted the models (which are theoretically to scale in the engine) and then measured them all.
 
Been busy the last week or so, but I've made a a lot of progress these last few days. I've finished going through the WC2 ships and I was able to knock out Lexington and Shiraak pretty quickly today. I don't have any stats for the Belleau Wood or the Jakhari, so they're in 7.4 and the Armada ships are done for now. Which moves me on to the ships from Privateer.

Take a guess as to which one's first. Go ahead - guess.

Yep. It's the Paradigm (no cat sniffing).

So, the notes I have for the Paradigm say there are two Meson Blasters, two Tachyon Guns, an Ionic Pulse Cannon, three turreted Mass Drivers, three turreted Lasers, ten dumbfire missiles, two ImRec missiles and a heat seeker. The VDU for the Paradigm shows thirteen weapon emplacements - which would certainly fit for five fixed guns, six turrets and two missile tubes.

So....any idea which one is which? Anybody have a screenshot of a Paradigm firing her guns? That'd actually be genuinely helpful in this case.

There's also a definite lack of perspective shots when it comes to the Paradigm. I have a top down view from the Privateer documentation and there's the same glamor shot at both WCPedia and the Ships Database; that's about it. I know y'all have mentioned where I can find models of the thing; can you remind me one more time? It'll make evaluating the firing arcs of each emplacement easier to judge.
 
Lemme ask this question (again?) : are there any stats available for the Belleau Wood- and Jakhari-classes? This can include any information from the Armada design docs (if they're available). I have an idea for what I'm going to do with them if there aren't any, but I figured I should check first.
 
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