Fleet Battles...

One thing that I didnt like in WC... theres a raging war going on... yet you never take part in ANY massive endor style fleet battles... you just go mission to mission... one cap ship here and there... COME ON!!! I specialize in knocking out large capital ships, I love it in the big fleet battles, I take a light bomber in, knock out the command ship, sending the enemy fleet into disary (not as easy as it sounds), the go back to my ship, rearm, and take out any carriers or battleships (depending on the game), basically by the time I'm done the enemy fleet is little more then a vast array of cruisers, destroyers and smaller ships... heh! The only issue is, THEY DO NOT HAVE NE OF THE IN THE WC series!

To go back to the original threat question, a standard fighter may or maynot be able to take a capital ship down on their own no matter what they say, not including to what Maniac Marshall says about how he took a capital show on his own. Certain fighters were design with a specific function.

In relation to Starlancer. I think the fighter roles were a bit wierd yet it was good how they set the guidelines out as you would have the fighters take out the ships defences and let their command ship or the bomber wing to launch their torpedos.
Personally they should have design a heavy fighter/bomber ship which they did not have. Sure the bombers in Starlancer had a standard gun system but it did not have a high success rate of surviving a gun fight with another fighter, it definitely need a upgrade....
 
With regards to taking out torpedo tubes, I think the answer is yes, you can do it. Can anyone else on the team confirm that?

I think I remember doing it while beta testing.
 
With regards to taking out torpedo tubes, I think the answer is yes, you can do it. Can anyone else on the team confirm that?

Sorry I am a bit slow but what game are you refering to
 
I think Sphynx nailed it right on. It muast be a balance of player "input" and allied performance. The player must be important for the cap ship battle's outcome, but he/she mustn't fell like the only pilot with half-a-brain in the entire fleet.

I got that damned feeling several time, in several games, including WC. Anyone here can remember the horrendous Rapier wing from the Kyoto in WC1, they were actually a fucking liabilty. I made a point of skipping them on my way to the cap ship and killing them on the way back. Pilots as bad as those put the Confed's war efforts in jeopardy.

they were so bad that no one blamed me for icing them, ehehehe...

Xwing was also severly crippled in that aspect. That really evil protect the medical shuttles while they dock with a frigate mission was a good example. if the wingmen had a little bit of sense, you could leave a couple of them to protect one flank while chasing the bombers on the other.

BTW, the marines in HL1 and the bots in Unreal Tournament are really freaking good ai.
 
Oh, sorry Dahan. I was referring to the up and coming fan project, Wing Commander Saga.

Edfilho, I think you gave some great examples of what I've been trying to get at. Thanks! Those are the types of experiences that we are trying to learn from in the way that we are creating our missions. We have some very good FREDers working for us, and they are doing a great job (in my opinion) of balancing scripted elements, player critical elements, and general random combat.

Like I said, if all goes well, we may throw in a simulator mission or two into the prologue that will give a smaller-scale taste of what we are talking about. And, I can't spoil anything in the prologue (without being drawn and quartered and then hung from the Brandenburg Gate), but you can feel pretty safe that you will run in to at least a few capital ships there, wouldn't you say? :)

There is one mission from the main campain I wish I could tell you about... but I can't. Let's just say, it will be capital ship action like you have never seen, with great pains taken to make the experience a delicate balance of the elements I have described. It should be a lot of fun!

(I'd better shut up now before Tolwyn or Starman comes and boxes my ears).
 
Oh, sorry Dahan. I was referring to the up and coming fan project, Wing Commander Saga.

Do yuo know what is the current status for the game? I had a look at the website and there isnt any new info on it so far?
 
Sphynx said:
Oh, sorry Dahan. I was referring to the up and coming fan project, Wing Commander Saga.

Edfilho, I think you gave some great examples of what I've been trying to get at. Thanks! Those are the types of experiences that we are trying to learn from in the way that we are creating our missions. We have some very good FREDers working for us, and they are doing a great job (in my opinion) of balancing scripted elements, player critical elements, and general random combat.

Like I said, if all goes well, we may throw in a simulator mission or two into the prologue that will give a smaller-scale taste of what we are talking about. And, I can't spoil anything in the prologue (without being drawn and quartered and then hung from the Brandenburg Gate), but you can feel pretty safe that you will run in to at least a few capital ships there, wouldn't you say? :)

There is one mission from the main campain I wish I could tell you about... but I can't. Let's just say, it will be capital ship action like you have never seen, with great pains taken to make the experience a delicate balance of the elements I have described. It should be a lot of fun!

(I'd better shut up now before Tolwyn or Starman comes and boxes my ears).

Any chance i can be a beta tester or something?:D
 
I can say that the prologue is very, very close to being done. It won't be long. The main release will take a little longer. The official estimate is 2669 :)! Seriously, though, we have the first 20 missions of the main campain in pretty good shape (not yet finished, but with minor fine-tuning to be done), and we have over 20 more to go. A lot of the work we are doing on the prologue will enable us to release the main campain more quickly.

As far as beta-testing, I don't know what the possibilities are at the moment. If anyone is interested in helping (and people who can texture or render 2D or 3D art could be particularly useful), please contact either Tolwyn or Starman (you may have better luck sending them a PM over at Hard Light Productions, since they are very busy and spend most of their working time on our internal forums over there) and they will let you know if we currently have a place where we could use you.

Thanks for your interest in helping us along. We certainly want to make this a quality product, and to get WC Saga into your hands as soon as is reasonably possible.
 
Sometimes it's fun to just escort the big ships. Of course this should happen on occasion, or it stops being fun. There's a WC2 mission where you escort a destroyer to attack a Kilrathi destroyer, and it's great stuff.
 
Delance said:
Sometimes it's fun to just escort the big ships. Of course this should happen on occasion, or it stops being fun. There's a WC2 mission where you escort a destroyer to attack a Kilrathi destroyer, and it's great stuff.

Yeah, I remember that mission. Its one of my favorites.
 
Good point, Delance. I think the trick it to provide a variety of missions (scouting, striker, recon, escort, heavy strike, air superiority, etc...). That way, it keeps things fresh, and sets up the reasons for the big battles when they occur.
 
I dunno, Its impossible to do in WC 2, but Ive always seen in WC3 if you pound away enough with your lasers (or w/e primary weapon a ship is equipped with) you'll not only take out its shields, you will take down the entire ship... not the fastest or highly recommended way, but it can be done.
 
Sphynx, I would them recommend you guys take a look at Starlancer. It is a text book case of bad scripting.

Whenever the dogfight starts to get fun, they pull you out of it. Usually they make you chase torps and bombers, which is really boring if overdone (i.e. more than once every 3 missions). Other times, you have to race around the maps chasing something ... without the chance to kill some enemies in peace.

Of course scripring is necessary, if you guys just dropped us in a nav point to kill all enemies and nothing else happened, it would become old very quickly. But there is a balance point, and starlance left this point waaaay behind.

Freespace got it a bit better.
 
I know what you mean Ed, but some times I liked having to break off a dogfight to shoot down torps. In WC3, in both the skipper missile mission, and the Locanda bioweapons mission, I could take out all fighters and the destroyer/corvette launching the missiles and still have time to catch up with the missile and destroy it before it reached it's target. I couldn't do that in Starlancer, and that aspect put me into the game a little more, the frantic race to save your carrier.
 
Sarty said:
I know what you mean Ed, but some times I liked having to break off a dogfight to shoot down torps. In WC3, in both the skipper missile mission, and the Locanda bioweapons mission, I could take out all fighters and the destroyer/corvette launching the missiles and still have time to catch up with the missile and destroy it before it reached it's target. I couldn't do that in Starlancer, and that aspect put me into the game a little more, the frantic race to save your carrier.

Man, you're a beast. I always struggled on those missions.
 
Delance said:
Sometimes it's fun to just escort the big ships. Of course this should happen on occasion, or it stops being fun. There's a WC2 mission where you escort a destroyer to attack a Kilrathi destroyer, and it's great stuff.

At which point the destroyer promptly runs away, and you have to kill the Ralatha yourself.
 
Edfilho,

I hear you, cara. Those missions in Starlancer were much too scripted. We have definately kept that in mind. So, having played Starlancer and having participated in beta testing, I can tell you that the WC Saga big battles I have tested so far do not feel like the endless torpedo chasing that was present in Starlancer. While you do need to take out bombers and watch for torpedos, and you do need to take out enemy turrets on cap ships, we know one of the reasons people fell in love with WC are the dogfights.

A fleet battle may include initial contact with light and medium fighters on anti-fighter and wild weasel missions, followed by maybe some cap ship missiles. Then, bombers and fighter escort closes in. Following that, enemy cap ships close in with fighter and bomber escort to slug it out. That's a very basic outline around which there will be a a great deal of variation, but even a single fleet action battle will include a fair amount of variation. Don't expect them to all be that straightforward! :) Don't worry, though, you will have plenty of missions where you don't have to worry about chasing torps at all.

So, you will have plenty of fun in pitched dogfights with enemy fighters, dodging between cap ships and using friendly fire to your advantage. I'll tell you what: the ones I have tried so far have been thrilling. I think you're going to like it.
 
Back
Top