Concordia and Yorktown

frostytheplebe

Seventh Part of the Seal
I don't know why, but I always get the sad impression that people don't like the Yorktown class because it "Resembles the Concordia class." I've heard this on another forum some years ago when they were rating Wing Commander 4. With that in mind, I have two questions... why did they create a new ship out of the almost identical design that was the Yorktown? Why not use the Lexington Class if they wanted it to be a heavier carrier?

Second, why is the Concordia so well thought of? You only really see it in WC4 and both times the ship winds up in your gun sights. Out of all the Carriers I've destroyed, the Lexington was definitely the easiest. That list includes the Victory AND the Intrepid by the way.
 
I don't know why, but I always get the sad impression that people don't like the Yorktown class because it "Resembles the Concordia class." I've heard this on another forum some years ago when they were rating Wing Commander 4. With that in mind, I have two questions... why did they create a new ship out of the almost identical design that was the Yorktown? Why not use the Lexington Class if they wanted it to be a heavier carrier?

A shipyard can replace the powerplant with a different model, redesign the internal layout to optimize the use of space, and otherwise use the exact same hull and get away with calling it a different class. One example off the top of my head is the Gato and Balao-class sumarines, where the primary difference was the steel used for the hull and various other improvements that didn't result in a new external look, but were sufficient for a new class name.

Second, why is the Concordia so well thought of? You only really see it in WC4 and both times the ship winds up in your gun sights. Out of all the Carriers I've destroyed, the Lexington was definitely the easiest. That list includes the Victory AND the Intrepid by the way.

It's not unheard of for video games to bias certain statistics in the player's favor.
 
You fragged the Victory and the Intrepid?

And the Tigers Claw, and the Midway, and... you know I think the only Confed ship I didn't successfully frag at any given time was the Concordia... I tried, but that ship would not die! I even tried it with the Magic 8 Saber!
 
I don't know why, but I always get the sad impression that people don't like the Yorktown class because it "Resembles the Concordia class." I've heard this on another forum some years ago when they were rating Wing Commander 4.

Anyone who played the games in order and was involved in their storylines loves the Victory and (obviously) doesn't especially like the Lexington. Not only was it an /evil/ ship, but it was (as you note) a pretty cheap ship design when considered in the flow of linear time.

But there's another sort of fans who is very interested in piecing Wing Commander together in some cosmological sense; to them, the Victory is a strange extra in the table of ship organization while the Concordia-class is the shining 'fleet carrier' spoken of so highly and whose existence is numbered and branded in the various novels.

With that in mind, I have two questions... why did they create a new ship out of the almost identical design that was the Yorktown? Why not use the Lexington Class if they wanted it to be a heavier carrier?

You have to remember that Wing Commander IV had an *incredibly* short development cycle -- less than a year, meaning that art had to be developed *very* quickly. One of the decisions was to use a lot of the team's art assets to focus on retexturing existing ships in as impressive a way as possible (which they would have more time to do) instead of building an entirely new set of models (which was a lot harder to do in 1995). (The famous 'fly through bays' are an issue, too -- with so quick a development cycle you're stuck reusing as much as you can... and the engine was already designed to work that specific way.)

Note that Borst & DePalma's script intends for the Lexington and the Princeton to be the same class as the Concordia from Wing Commander II, not an entirely new ship called Concordia class.
 
Well, I agree that it was unimaginative to keep the Concordia and Yorktown classes so visually similar, but modern U.S. carriers don't look all that different from each other externally even though they are generations apart. The Kitty Hawk's outward configuration wasn't too different from a Nimitz-class carrier, although their guts are pretty different. From an operational standpoint, what a ship can do is probably more important than the way it looks.
 
Note that Borst & DePalma's script intends for the Lexington and the Princeton to be the same class as the Concordia from Wing Commander II, not an entirely new ship called Concordia class.

Too bad... THAT would have been awesome. Charging at the Lexington to blow it out of the sky BEFORE it can fire off the PTC.
 
Well, just to speculate here, Wouldn't the Yorktown make sense as a ferry/single sector defender?

It could be a ferry for fighters and bombers to other system's larger stations to be loaded onto larger fleet carriers or for second-strike capabilities in a single system. The justification of rushing the Yorktown class to the line in WCIII was that there weren't many Fleet carriers to do every job. So maybe before hand ships like the Victory were meant more for sector patrols and other inner-sector duties that may require the capability to launch fighters from a distance.

Though, I've never really been a fan of it's similarity to a Concordia-class, the big difference to me is the CSM launcher, though, It may be because the Yorktown needs to defend itself against larger cap ships.
 
Avenger has 4x1 hardpoints, salvo them all at once, 30 second mission?

Thats pretty much all the mission was for me, especially if I leeched it.

Well, just to speculate here, Wouldn't the Yorktown make sense as a ferry/single sector defender?

It could be a ferry for fighters and bombers to other system's larger stations to be loaded onto larger fleet carriers or for second-strike capabilities in a single system. The justification of rushing the Yorktown class to the line in WCIII was that there weren't many Fleet carriers to do every job. So maybe before hand ships like the Victory were meant more for sector patrols and other inner-sector duties that may require the capability to launch fighters from a distance.

Though, I've never really been a fan of it's similarity to a Concordia-class, the big difference to me is the CSM launcher, though, It may be because the Yorktown needs to defend itself against larger cap ships.

Perhaps, but by the end of the war, I'd be surprised to find out that there were many of them left. By WC3 we see the Victory, a rather insignificant carrier, being defended at any time by a cruiser and a destroyer (some times two). The Coventry usually wasn't there when you landed, I'd always assumed it was running point for the fleet. My guess it they were trying to protect what carriers they still had. Plus by itself I doubt the Yorktown class has much survivability, so I'd be surprised to find out there were many left.

My guess was that what few carriers were left by the end of the war were handed over to be used as sector police and patrol when confed was trying to keep the peace as they transitioned into a peace times.
 
Well, just to speculate here, Wouldn't the Yorktown make sense as a ferry/single sector defender?

Remember, you're talking about a light carrier. In the real-world sense light carriers are around to pick up the slack in areas fleet carriers are too busy to deal with. Given we're talking about WW2-in-space, I think it's a safe bet that Yorktowns have always been serving up front.

The justification of rushing the Yorktown class to the line in WCIII was that there weren't many Fleet carriers to do every job.

The thing about the Victory, from all the implications, was that it never left the front line in the first place. This is a prewar ship that by the time Blair came aboard was overdue to be replaced and retired from service. And it's not the only example of Confed being unable to cycle a ship out of service (the Johnny Greene comes to mind).

So maybe before hand ships like the Victory were meant more for sector patrols and other inner-sector duties that may require the capability to launch fighters from a distance.

Except that Confed's fleets have always been primarily concerned with the front lines. The roles you describe were handled by ISS and the planetary militias.
 
It's probably Standoff fanon, but is it mentioned anywhere else that the Verdun is a Concordia-class ship? I don't remember reading about it in Fleet Action, but who knows...
 
It's probably Standoff fanon, but is it mentioned anywhere else that the Verdun is a Concordia-class ship? I don't remember reading about it in Fleet Action, but who knows...

Granted I don't have my copy of FA onhand to reference and it's been a bit since I've reread it but I don't recall them specifiying the class. I do remember from the descriptions I assumed that they were related to the Concordia (beyond the obvious remarks of them being fleet carriers and seeming to like 5 human carriers per engagement).

Though it brings something up with the Connie during the BOE and preceeding battles... Where was the PTC? Damaged? Decomissioned thanks to the treaty? Perhaps not used thanks to high risk of friendly fire? Or the simple fact they didn't want to get close enough to the Kilrathi fleet to use it? Could have been used 'off screen.' Its all conjecture and can be put down to writing styles etc, but when your in the battle of your life wouldn't you use every weapon at your disposal? Just always wondered.
 
It's probably Standoff fanon, but is it mentioned anywhere else that the Verdun is a Concordia-class ship? I don't remember reading about it in Fleet Action, but who knows...

FA only mentions the carriers by name. It doesn't give too much information beyond that. (I think it might mention the number of fighters on the Saratoga or Leyte Gulf at one point, but beyond that it doesn't say anything I can recall)
 
The justification of rushing the Yorktown class to the line in WCIII was that there weren't many Fleet carriers to do every job.

Is there actually a source for this? I know people have repeated a backstory about the Victory being 'brought back to service' or some such over the years, but I think it's mostly fanon--everything, everywhere that I can think of indicates that the Victory (and Eisen, specifically) have been fighting through the whole war.

Though, I've never really been a fan of it's similarity to a Concordia-class, the big difference to me is the CSM launcher, though, It may be because the Yorktown needs to defend itself against larger cap ships.

I don't think there's anything that says the Concordia *doesn't* have a CSM launcher - they just seem to show up when they're needed. :)

My guess was that what few carriers were left by the end of the war were handed over to be used as sector police and patrol when confed was trying to keep the peace as they transitioned into a peace times.

The Wing Commander IV novel claims that the '40 series CVs' were scrapped -- likely referring to the Victory's sister-ships.

It's probably Standoff fanon, but is it mentioned anywhere else that the Verdun is a Concordia-class ship? I don't remember reading about it in Fleet Action, but who knows...

It's a reasonable retcon on Standoff's part, but no it isn't mentioned anywhere. Fleet Action doesn't describe the carriers (even the Concordia) physically… and of course the book was written several years before the 'Concordia class' concept was created in-real-life. :)
 
Is there actually a source for this? I know people have repeated a backstory about the Victory being 'brought back to service' or some such over the years, but I think it's mostly fanon--everything, everywhere that I can think of indicates that the Victory (and Eisen, specifically) have been fighting through the whole war.

I remember Eisen saying something like he spent MOST of his career on the Victory somewhere in the novel. Or even a cutscene, have to check that. Since he was ensign on her maiden voyage this "most" might lead people to believe he was serving on different ships in between. I know in reality it is not only possible but standard to do that, but it hardly happens in games and movies for continuity's sake, and if the Victory really spent so much time in the front line, i don't think they bothered shipping officers to and fro all the time (Edit: Damn i think i'm moving in a circle with this argument).
Plus recalling mothballed carriers seems just like what Confed might be forced to do after the Battle of Terra.
I'm not saying the Victory's recommission is officially confirmed anywhere, but it's not that implausible either.
 
Eisen does indicate that he served elsewhere in-between tours on the Victory, in the novelization.

We know Victory wasn't recomissioned after the Battle of Terra because we know Flight Wing 36 had been serving aboard her for more than a year when the game starts ("mostly in secondary theaters and rear echelons").
 
So potentially fending off Pirate raiders and stray Kilrathi forces.

Possibly, but it doesn't really indicate that.

Secondary theaters would be regions of the front line that aren't the main focus of the war at the time, likely meaning anywhere where the fleet carriers of the two sides aren't. Rear echelons suggests covering the region behind the front line -- where all the logistical support takes place (so, convoy escort between the homewards and the fleet, that sort of thing).

One good indicator of the kind of action Victory was seeing is the monthly 'pilot award' bits in Victory Streak -- Cobra's mentions escort runs, Vagabond's mentions an entire Kilrathi fleet...
 
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