Draymans had multiple turrets.

D

dan_w

Spaceman
Just reading the story of the scarab again,

I assumed command, sent most of the crew back to their guns and the rest to restoring our maneuverability. This was too big a job for our one repair droid.

Outside, three Talons still circled us, two of them damaged. I knew that, given our condition, we couldn't do much to them but there had to be something. Switching power from guns to shields, I resolved to use the ship's bulk as her defense. It didn't take long for a Retro to make the mistake of flying directly in front of us. I engaged afterburners and sent the Scarab's weighty prow through the tiny ship. I had the comm lines open and shouted orders into the air.

"I'm taking the shields down. Hank and Johansen use the extra power to blast those freaks. Everyone else hold your fire. On my mark. NOW!"
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So, Hank and Johansen are manning 2 turrets, and there are other gunners: at least 2, since it's in plural, and probably more, since they constitute "most of the crew".

Or is there any question about the Scarab being a Drayman? Certainly it wouldn't be a Galaxy or an Orion, and certainly wouldn't be a Paradigm... Are there any other cargo ships in WC?
 
According to the Priv manual art, it is a Drayman ... a Wing1 Drayman, though; and since the art was never published it can't really be considered canon.
 
According to the Priv manual art, it is a Drayman ... a Wing1 Drayman, though; and since the art was never published it can't really be considered canon.
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You have this reversed - according to the manual art, it's a ship we haven't seen anywhere else that is *distinct* from a Drayman.

There are certainly Draymen with turrets... as Claw Marks will show you. The big round white ones in Privateer don't seem to have any, though.

... and there certainly are other cargo ships in WC -- the transports in WC3, the Clydesdale-class, the Free Trader-class, the Armada transports, etc.
 
Okay, thanks. I think the story makes it obvious it was a Drayman, though. When Kane is pacing the deck as Burrows comes in, he's muttering "2 cargo ships were attacked when approaching this base, why weren't we attacked?" paraphrasing. Adding my own words: "All things being equal...", otherwise the answer might be staring at his face: The other ships were attacked because they were weaker, whereas this one has multiple turrets? But he's trying to solve a puzzle, and a puzzle implies "all other things being equal", and the two preceding ships are definitely identified as Draymans. Q.E.D.

... and there certainly are other cargo ships in WC -- the transports in WC3, the Clydesdale-class, the Free Trader-class, the Armada transports, etc.
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I see. I still think the story makes it obvious it's a Drayman. Are there MANY paintings of Draymans without multiple turrets, or could that have been an oversight?
 
there are 2 drayman versions. the WC1 Drayman, and the Privateer Drayman. the WC1 drayman had laser turrets, and Privateer drayman had only 2 meson guns.
 
Now, what use would a Drayman have for meson guns, or any guns for that matter, escapes me: To aim "guns" one has to turn the ship. But Draymans don't turn. Do they?
I'd call that a "canon bug" and flush... ;-)

BTW, I notice in WCU now pirates confronting Confeds in Draymans. Have they gone mad?
 
I seriously think that Drays without turrets might as well get a "target" paint job... so let's have them turrets :) if you buy a 1000000c ship you wanna make sure it doesn't get blown up by one asshat in a talon.
 
hmm...that's funny, because whenever i played the original privateer, the majority of the time it was a drayman who was pumping sustained meson fire into my tail that killed me more often than pirates did. freindly fire in the original was pretty bad. The Privateer Drayman had 2 Meson guns, and it may not have turned particularly fast, but it did turn. check the original stats for the priv drayman. i understand what bob means though, in the manual art the picture is of a drayman Mk. I, or hte WC1 drayman which had turreted laser cannons.
 
I have a solution: ALL Privateer style Draymans were destroyed by pirates or retros, so the only ones still flying are the WC1's. PROBLEM SOLVED! ;-)
 
The Privateer Drayman had 2 Meson guns, and it may not have turned particularly fast, but it did turn. check the original stats for the priv drayman.
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I guess I never waited around long enough to witness the myracle.. ;-)
 
Here's the Scarab from the manual art:

scarab.jpg


While we can't say for sure what the Scarab is, we can certainly claim that the original intent was to have it be a separate type of ship.

(I used to argue the same idea, that the manual implies that the Scarab is a Drayman. It's not really clean enough - 'all things' could simply be that all three ships are similarly sized transports. I actually included specifications for the Scarab in the ships2 Drayman update -- https://www.wcnews.com/ships2/wc1drayman.shtml -- in all likelyhood I'll remove them when the site is finished.)

Specs for the "military" Draymen are also included in that link.

I must agree with the others, though - the regular Privateer in-game Drayman were a pain in the ass to shoot down.
 
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Thank you for the picture. *chuckles* To me, that thing looks like at least two ships that were sort of hybrided together (the nicest way I could think of to put it). No wonder the guy says it was a bucket of bolts merchant ship held together with bootlaces and luck..

I really like the way that ships database looks- that is some great work.
 
The Scarab reminds me a bit of ships from Priv2... It'd be nice to put it in game though. The pods in the fore look a bit Steltekish ^^;


The pirates needed a capship of sorts, so I gave them a Dray with a nice paint job and good guns on the turrets. Right now the capship logic is "park self in front of target and plink away with everything", which doesn't work well with transports obviously... I need to separate capship AI's.
 
But LOAF, the page on your link lists the Scarab as a Drayman, and gives it the same length, mass, etc., so how come you say it wasn't? Isn't that your own page? I'm confused...

Also, what's the distinction between Privateer Manual and Privateer Draymans. I notice that most of them turn at 2 degrees per second, but that the Privateer one turns at a whopping 55 deg/sec!!! (They probably installed main engines on it for the maneuvering jets...).

As far as them being hard to kill, they are if you are in a big hurry. I remember when I played Privateer the first time, after several missions not seeing any enemies, I began to wonder if I was supposed to attack any ships, so I started blasting a Drayman, and I finished it after a few minutes. The only damage I took was from ramming it accidentally.
And that was with a Tarsus, with a single laser.
 
Edit: See LOAF's last post. Shoulda quoted, stupid me.

Of which appears often on Egyptian tombs such as in the Valley of the Kings.

Image from Wikipedia is linked here.

A distinct difference from any Human ship design we've *ever* seen.

As, actually, was the Drayman of Priv 1, which looked nothing like it's WC1 counterparts. So different that I'm wondering if it could reasonably be called a Drayman. There's no resemblance.

Theories?
 
Also, to back up my contention re the Priv Drayman. Look at the Drayman for Priv.

Look at the Drayman for WC1.

Look at the Transport for WC4.

WC1 and Priv, despite sharing a name, look nothing similar.

WC1 and WC4 look awfully similar.
 
well, seeing as how it is called 'Drayman', it is reasonable to think that it is, in fact, a Drayman. why question something that is set in stone?

the scarab is from the unpublished manual art.

also, lets consider this. after fighting a race of aliens for forever and a day, is it not reasonable to assume that some human designer wouldn't have been inspired in some way by alien design? and who says that just because design scheme 'a' was used for all human designs up to a certain point, they can't change gears if they so desire?
 
But LOAF, the page on your link lists the Scarab as a Drayman, and gives it the same length, mass, etc., so how come you say it wasn't? Isn't that your own page? I'm confused...
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Well... that's what I was explaining in my post above - why I was wrong to treat it as a Drayman.

Also, what's the distinction between Privateer Manual and Privateer Draymans. I notice that most of them turn at 2 degrees per second, but that the Privateer one turns at a whopping 55 deg/sec!!! (They probably installed main engines on it for the maneuvering jets...).
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One is the set of specifications listed in the game and one is the set of specifications that actually appears in the game. The "2/2/2" dps thing is something that carried over from the original Wing Commander's manual... 55 dps is how it actually moves in the game. (Consider that a ship which turns at 2 dps would take 45 seconds to turn in one direction.)

A distinct difference from any Human ship design we've *ever* seen.
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Eh, I'd say it has a passing resemblence to the Errant-class.

As, actually, was the Drayman of Priv 1, which looked nothing like it's WC1 counterparts. So different that I'm wondering if it could reasonably be called a Drayman. There's no resemblance.
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It was part of a (failed?) attempt to 'redesign' the original ship set -- which is why the Dralthi and the Salthi in Privateer look like their 'Super Wing Commander' counterparts rather than the original ships.

It's got to be *called* a Drayman, though -- the manual says so.
 
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