Elite Carrier Wing

Oh what would you choose?

  • Ferret

    Votes: 2 6.7%
  • Saber

    Votes: 3 10.0%
  • Crossbow

    Votes: 1 3.3%
  • Broadsword

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Rapier

    Votes: 7 23.3%
  • Longbow

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Thunderbolt

    Votes: 17 56.7%

  • Total voters
    30
  • Poll closed .
I don't think it's that easy - a Broadsword may have heavier armor than an Epee... but it also takes more skill to maneuver properly, and it's also going to be more of a target for enemy fighters. I don't think actual combat assignments are as easy as "good ship, better ship, best ship".
 
Well, there is truth to that, and my statement only works in some cases. Being a bomber pilot is indeed much different than being a fighter pilot. But, when given the choice between, say, a Hellcat and a Sabre (the Sabre, roughly, being the "better" of the two for survivability), wouldn't a rookie want the ship he's less likely to die in? The flight characteristics are, indeed, a bit different, but not dramatically (not that I noticed, anyway), and the Sabre is more armored and shielded, plus has "better" guns . . . sort of.

Actually, those two ships might not be the best for comparison, since they're from two entirely different flight engines. Apples and Oranges. But, you see my meaning.
 
Again, I think you'll run into the same problem - the Sabre is a higher priority target... and it's more of a bear to fly. Plus, it's more money lost for Confed when its lost.

(Personally, I'd imagine that the modern Sabre-D is a pain in the ass to fly - coordinating stuff with your radar officer...).
 
I thought that the D was a upgrade for the single seater version of the Sabre.

And, wasn't the 2 seater only for those older model escort carriers?
 
Bandit LOAF said:
The 'Claw had lots of squadrons (in WC1 alone, the Yellowjackets are mentioned)... they were divided by ship class, not by status (as everyone pretty much flew every ship at some point).

Yeah, that's true, I was thinking in game terms.

It's interesting how the whole squadron thing is not relevant (on the games) until WCP.
 
Uhh . . . WC1 has you in different squadrons. You just get moved between them every four missions or so ;)
 
Yeah, that's true, I was thinking in game terms.

It's interesting how the whole squadron thing is not relevant (on the games) until WCP.

That's because Prophecy mixes up the term 'squadron' with the term 'wing'.
 
Yeah, that gets confusing sometimes ... judging from the games, a typical wing consists of two ships, with two combined in intense missions.
 
'Wing' in Wing Commander refers to two different things - what is classically considered a wing (the entire fighter complement of a standard fighter) and what is classically considered an element (two fighters).
 
And CAW Patricia Drake commands the entire air wing. That means all squadrons, and all wings (charlie, alpha and bravo). It's not all very clear, and I'm not sure if the writers had a clear definition of everything.
 
I believe her title was "Commander Air Group", or CAG. Seeing as how they typically refer to her as "the CAG" and all.
 
Not to mention calling her the CAW would be rather silly, since you'd end up with a bunch of pilots sounding like crows.

That just made me think of something, though... presumably, they sold copies of the various WC games overseas, and thus had to internationalize it, which meant (at least in the later installments) dubbing... I wonder if they were any interesting changes made in the translations.

About the whole bomber/fighter pilot thing: as far as we know in the WC games, there really wasn't such a distinction. Pilots basically had to fly whatever craft was best suited for the mission at hand, assuming they were qualified for it. During the war, most Confed designs were multipurpose (even though the Broadsword was a bomber, you often had to dogfight in it, and I think the Saber even carried a torpedo in the final mission of WC2).

Even in the later games, when you actually had distinct fighter and bomber classes, you still didn't have pilots that specialized in one type or the other (although you generally stopped flying the more flimsy "beginner" craft as each game progressed). In WC4, you were pretty much free to assign your pilots to whatever kind of craft you wanted to take out that day. You were also flying craft from two different factions. And then there was the simulator pod in WCP, which you would presume didn't have some sort of exotic reconfigurable cockpit for each of the different craft.

I guess from these facts that it's probable that there was a standard set of flight controls that had evolved by then, after hundreds of years of experimentation, with just a few minor variations in layout, and that flying one craft was pretty much like flying any other. Or you could conclude that this was just a game fiction to ease regular upgrades as the game progressed, and that since you were such a hotshot pilot, you could take on pretty much any ship at ease. I prefer an explanation which doesn't take such an external viewpoint, though.
 
Yeah right, Patricia Drake is the CAG. But wasn't there a CAW somewhere? Maybe Angel on the Concordia?
 
Delance said:
And CAW Patricia Drake commands the entire air wing. That means all squadrons, and all wings (charlie, alpha and bravo). It's not all very clear, and I'm not sure if the writers had a clear definition of everything.


In any other game, it'd be said that the Midway had *three* wings. Each wing has its own Wing Commander (like Blair in WC3)... Drake is the Commander Air Group, and commands all three wings.
 
Just three wings? I thought there were more wings on WCP, just like there were more squadrons oN WC1.
 
No... three wings ("squadrons") in WCP. Each wing consists of several squadrons (which don't get referred to in WCP).
 
Now that's kinda confusing. Anyway, you don't actually command any wings in WCP, therefore it should've been called WingElement Prophecy. =)
 
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