Cloaking ability

StarLight

Spaceman
Okay, in Wc3 Confed made an attempt at truly impentetrable cloaking, which was a huge success...
In Wc4 Confed are making heaps of ships, well, at least Arrows and Excaliburs with cloaking ability. And then the Black Lance of course had cloaking ability with not only their capital ship but the Dragons.
So tell me, why didn't Confed use cloaking in WCP? or WCSO? It says under the SAR, I think it is, or the SWACS, that the ship has cloaking ability and never uses it!
And the same goes for auto tracking...I mean auto tracking is pretty lazy but why get rid of it?
 
One word:

Budget.

You`ll notice the cloaking device isn`t the only thing they "got rid of", as you put it.
They also reduced the size of fighters and a lot of other things I can`t remember now.
 
WCP mentions anti-cloaking technology... And a number of cloaked Excaliburs never came back from a patrol.
 
The F-103A mounted a shroud device -- not quite the same as a complete cloak. The post-war variants (B and D) did *not* mount cloaks -- the only Excalibur to mount a total cloak was the RF-103 recon variant.

The Project ships (the Lance, the cloakable transport and their variant of the Arrow) were cloakable -- but they weren't under Confederation control, as far as we know.

Further, in the years since the Kilrathi War, several anti-cloaking mechanisms were invented -- namely, anti-cloaking gun in Proving Grounds and the ability of the Lance to see cloaking fighters in WCIV.

That said, the Nephilim render cloaks invlunerable -- a scene that was removed from Wing Prophecy explains this, but it is also mentioned in the manual when half a dozen RF-103s are shot down.

The *real* reason claoking was removed is twofold... apparently it was difficult to make it look good in the new engine, and there's no point to it. The players *never* cloaked in WCIII and WCIV, except when they were forced to... Origin is definately in favor of the whole keep it simple, stupid thing.

(And autotracking, of course, was removed because it made the game too easy.)
 
Bandit LOAF said:
(And autotracking, of course, was removed because it made the game too easy.)

Waaay too easy. Also quite difficult, if you see on the Excalibur's side mounted guns, they could only perceivably rotate up and down, not side to side, else they'd shoot the ship itself! Also, dogfighting at close ranges would mean that the guns would have to track at incredibly fast rates and, well... you get the picture.
 
the front of the Vamp, looks like the night vision on a apachi helicopter, which is almost fully rotatable.

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twist·er (twstr): n. 1. One that twists, as in the manufacture of rope or yarn. 2. Sports. A ball thrown or batted with a twist. 3. Informal. A. A cyclone. B. A tornado. 4. Confed pilot, hero of the kilrathi war, renowned fleet admiral.
 
Yeah, that's another thing. I never worked out what that thing is on the front of the Vampire and Panther.
 
Wedge009 said:
Yeah, that's another thing. I never worked out what that thing is on the front of the Vampire and Panther.

The little turret looking thing was ment to be like an anti-fighter defense for the SSFs, but because of WCP's budget cuts, it never was programmed in, or somethign along those lines. Earthworm or LOAF can tell you more than me
smile.gif
They seem to be the top dogs of knowledge around here.........

Punisher: Auto-tracking was like what hte Dragon had in WCIV (amoung other ships in various games), you didn't have to aim. You just had to have the target in sight basically, and your guns would dial in or "track" for you, so it made dogfighting alot easier.


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Member of the LMG and hating it (Disgruntled Man)
Real heros wear SCBAs, not capes.--Me.

[This message has been edited by Knight (edited November 02, 2000).]
 
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Knight said:
The little turret looking thing was ment to be like an anti-fighter defense for the SSFs...

Pardon me, but I'm not sure what an SSF is.

Knight said:
Auto-tracking was like what the Dragon had in WCIV...

Did the Dragon have tracking? I don't seem to recall that. In any case, it musn't have been as effective as the Excalibur's. Now that was auto-tracking.
 
I knew that
smile.gif
Thanks anyway.

But really, the defence for SSF's would be the guns. They're manoeuvrable enough already, it's not like they need turrets-which-aren't-even-strong-enough like the bombers.
 
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But you have to admit, two additional lasers, or MD's, would be very usefull. Especially if you didn't have to aim them.

***Did the Dragon have tracking? I don't seem to recall that. In any case, it musn't have been as effective as the Excalibur's. Now that was auto-tracking.***

Yes, it had tracking. It may seem less effective, since it has weaker guns.
 
Didn't all the ships in WCP have auto track for the guns? I remember the rounds curving a bit off to hit a targte sometimes.
 
okay...maybe confed didn't have cloaking technology but didn't the kilrathi? and once confed conquered teh kilrathi they would have ripped off the cloaking technology and placed it in their own ships?

i mean when someone usually conquers someone else, they're gonna make the best use of them, aren't they?

and how the heck would the lance have got cloaking then? it must have been from confed first, but tolwyn kept it a secret or soemthing and just passed on the technology to them...
 
StarLight said:
okay...maybe confed didn't have cloaking technology but didn't the kilrathi?
Both Confed and Kilrathi had cloaking technology, it just wasn't usefull anymore.

and once confed conquered teh kilrathi they would have ripped off the cloaking technology and placed it in their own ships?
It's ineffective, so why *rip* it from anyone? Besides, the first Confed cloaks were based on captured Kilrathi cloaks. I don't remember if the Shroud from the Excals was based on the Kilrathi technology, but it wasn't as usefull as the Kilrathi cloaks. It didn't cover the ship from sensors or naked eye if you were close enough.

The Banockburn from FA caried a cloak pulled out of a Strakha. And, Confed gave the Kilrathi a lot of freedom after the war, because they were affraid of their possible comeback. Something like the Germany did after WW I

i mean when someone usually conquers someone else, they're gonna make the best use of them, aren't they?
Confed didn't conquer the Kilrathi, actually.

and how the heck would the lance have got cloaking then? it must have been from confed first, but tolwyn kept it a secret or soemthing and just passed on the technology to them...
Like I said above. The Confed cloaks came from the Kilrathi. Just like many other tech, including the PTC, and Particle guns.



[This message has been edited by Earthworm (edited November 04, 2000).]
 
Loaf said:

That said, the Nephilim render cloaks invlunerable -- a scene that was removed from Wing Prophecy explains this, but it is also mentioned in the manual when half a dozen RF-103s are shot down.

which reminds me...why did all these scenes that are fairly important to us get taken out? I mean, on my Wc3 copy, i don't have the scene where hobbes tells of why he left...i only found about that in the wc3 script i got from cic...and the part about blair's wife leaving him in wc4...i don't have that either...are there differnt copies of the games or what? coz i'm missing stuff, which i notice cic has copies of, but shouldn't they still have all been on the cd's???
 
The cutscenes you can download from the CIC, were taken from the console versions of WC, including the Hobbes explenation. The scene were Rachel talks about whe she's leaving was never included in any version of the game. Even if it is in the WC4 script, there are huge parts of scripts that get thrown out just before shoting starts.
 
EARTHWORM - You can download scenes that have been removed from WC games off CIC? How? Do I have put them in a certain place in my directory......for which games......?

"THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION"

THE PUNISHER!
 
The PUNISHER: You can get various WC3 videos from the CIC's files section. The really important one is the Hobbes explanation. The rest contain useful little tidbits & some cool action scenes. You view them independent of the game.

StarLight: AFAIK the only place where it is mentioned that Rachel left Blair is in the WC4 novel The Price of Freedom. In the extract that shipped with WC4 the game, Blair watches a holovid where Rachel says she's dumping him because she can no longer stand living on his farm. I don't believe it mentioned they were married though.

Earthworm: "And, Confed gave the Kilrathi a lot of freedom after the war, because they were affraid of their possible comeback. Something like the Germany did after WW I."
I'm not sure if I'm following your reasoning on this. I know that Confed gave the cats quite a bit of leeway after the war but if they're afraid of some future Kilrathi retaliatory revenge attack then wouldn't it be wiser to conquer & subdue the Kilrathi completely? As for the WWI reference I believe the Allied powers drafted the Treaty of Versailles with the express intention of eliminating Germany as a world military power for good. That doesn't quite fit with post war Kilrathi/Terran relations.
 
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