Hey Bandit (LOAF)

Wing Commander Bible?

Series' with spanning continuity often have writers bibles to help keep everything working together properly.

How many fighters did it launch?

Over the course of SO1, Blair destroys (up to) 26 Epees, 17 Ferrets and 6 Crossbows. Two more Crossbows are mentioned in the dialogue... plus two more Epees for Bear and Bodybag... and then a whole mess (4-6) of Epees escorting the Gettysburg in the last mission. That's nearly sixty fighters that *Blair* alone encounters. :)

Okay. But keep in mind in Operation Backlash, one of those cruisers could be a Gettysburg and I wouldn't mind having stats for that.

The statistics just plain don't exist, though - save for minor things like number of fighters and approximate size.
 
Bandit LOAF said:
Series' with spanning continuity often have writers bibles to help keep everything working together properly.

Understood. Where do you get this WC-Bible?

Over the course of SO1, Blair destroys (up to) 26 Epees, 17 Ferrets and 6 Crossbows. Two more Crossbows are mentioned in the dialogue... plus two more Epees for Bear and Bodybag... and then a whole mess (4-6) of Epees escorting the Gettysburg in the last mission. That's nearly sixty fighters that *Blair* alone encounters. :)

At max that's 59 fighters. How much does a Fralthra carry? (60 right?)

Just one more question regarding this topic. Was it listed as a cruiser in WC2 SO1?

The statistics just plain don't exist, though - save for minor things like number of fighters and approximate size.

For the story, I need to have exact stats for it, so I guess I'll start making them up. I could use help determining if they're too excessive or not.

So far, my specs are
Length: over 800 meters
Mass: 45,000 metric-tonnes
Armament: 4 AMG's (two on the forward top part of the ship arranged battleship fasion, and two on the bottom arranged battleship fasion.) Forward turrets are dual barrelled, and the set behind them are triple
Torpedo Tubes: 8 Forward, 2 Aft
Missiles: 4 Missile Launchers (Bengals have 6)
Secondary Armament: 22 Point-Defense Turrets (Same as Bengal)
Maneuverability: 4/4/4 DPS
Top Speed: 120 kps
Fighter Capacity: 18
Shuttles: 5

No idea yet on shields or armor.

Ridiculous or not?

-Concordia
 
Understood. Where do you get this WC-Bible?

Captain Johnny gave me the version I was quoting earlier. I'm working on a project to archive a lot of old development materials, so I've come across a few more iterations since then.

At max that's 59 fighters. How much does a Fralthra carry? (60 right?)

The Fralthra carries 40 fighters (as does the Waterloo cruiser, according to the KS manual).

Just one more question regarding this topic. Was it listed as a cruiser in WC2 SO1?

I'm not sure what you mean by 'listed as'. Targetting it just showed 'Gettysburg' on your VDU.

For the story, I need to have exact stats for it, so I guess I'll start making them up. I could use help determining if they're too excessive or not.

I can't comment on the stats you've given. I can't imagine a situation where exact statistics are necessary for a story... they leave things like the Tarawa stats vauge specifically so it can more easily be written about.
 
psych said:
Sorry pal, but that's my job. And I prefer not being forced to work with annoying people as she.

Actually, I have little objection to the Austin design other than I would have made it a little more Exeter-ish (the wings would have had a greater chord).

It's a good design though, and the gun arrangement is just the way I like it.

-Concordia
 
Bandit LOAF said:
The Fralthra carries 40 fighters (as does the Waterloo cruiser, according to the KS manual).
Actually, that kind of makes sense(edit-more than kind-of)... if a Waterloo-class cruiser can carry 40, the carrier configuration could probably squeeze in another 20 somewhere... Maybe it was a carrier variant, after all.
(Note this is just speculation, I'd ask Chris Roberts- but I'm pretty sure he'd be annoyed.)
Dang blasted ebay... I knew I was missing out on something when I got KS without the manual...
 
I've always been slightly annoyed how the Fralthra has more armor and shielding than the Concordia ... I understand it probably has something to do with the PTC taking up so much mass, but damn, it'd be nice if the flagship of the 14th fleet was at least as well protected as a generic cat flivver.
 
Bob McDob said:
I've always been slightly annoyed how the Fralthra has more armor and shielding than the Concordia ... I understand it probably has something to do with the PTC taking up so much mass, but damn, it'd be nice if the flagship of the 14th fleet was at least as well protected as a generic cat flivver.

Look at it this way . . . the Concordia has a lot larger mass then the Fralthra. Let's take an example from real life, and fire an anti-ship missile at a tugboat with . . .let's say . . . three times the armor plating then that on an aircraft carrier. It will definately take many more missiles to sink that aircraft carrier then that tugboat.

That's because once it goes through the armor plating, it has to damage the inside, force massive structural fatigue, give enough force to make the whole thing break apart bypass all the redundancy systems and emergency systems, and sink the damn ship once and for all. An aircraft carrier has mass, in which a tugboat doesn't. Same as the Concordia. 73,000 tons is a lot more then the 20,000 a Fralthra has.
 
Bob McDob said:
I've always been slightly annoyed how the Fralthra has more armor and shielding than the Concordia ... I understand it probably has something to do with the PTC taking up so much mass, but damn, it'd be nice if the flagship of the 14th fleet was at least as well protected as a generic cat flivver.
Well, sure, the Concordia has less armour, but it's got 5 times the shields (500 cm versus 100 cm). If you go by the manual stats for the armour, that still gives the Concordia 1000/900 cm of total protection compared to the Fralthra's 800/700 cm. And if you go by the in-game stats, the Concordia ends up even better, with 577.5/567.5 cm of protection compared to the Fralthra's 185/185 cm. Admittedly, the Concordia is still at a disadvantage when facing weapons like the torpedo that ignore shielding altogether, but then again, virtually every capship in that era can be destroyed with one or two accurate torpedo hits, so the extra armour is not much of an advantage for the Fralthra.
 
Not to mention Quarto...

The Concordia's damaged... she already took a few torpedo hits at the start of WC2... so her 567.5 armor rating probably would be like 750 had she not gotten the sh*t beaten out of her.

I wouldn't be suprized after the Battle of Earth if she had only 150 cm left.

-Concordia
 
Bandit LOAF said:
Yeah, I'm sure they *never* repair valuable fleet carriers.

Hey! Good to see 'ya LOAF.

Actually *IN* WC2 the ship had just gotten pounded... so it probably would have lower armor stats.

While the Concordia would have had to have had repairs assessed on it at one time or another, a large amount of damage the ship sustained would have required a base to repair it. Yet, she was almost constantly out on the lines during this time. From '65 to '69 she had seemed to be continuously out there. And a carrier could sustain quite a beating from 4 years of combat, and not to mention maintenance difficulties befall a carrier periodicially. I guess the supply ships can fix that. But reactor changes... even the WC carriers have that problem (WC Kilrathi Carrier in Fleet Action had a reactor-leak).

-Concordia
 
Gettysburg configuration theories...
#1: the one listed in the stats *is* the carrier version, and there is a pure-cruiser version with very very low fighter capacity and something else where the hangars are. The "shoulder" placement on the hangars is similar enough to missile launchers on the Broadsword that I am wondering if a CSM missile launcher pack isnt too far off target (and also something rarely seen in WCU, so there is a hole to be filled). Im not entierly certain but I think there was some correlation between smaller fighter launch tubes and CSM launchers... so they could have a dozen ferrets on standby and a ****load of CSMs ready to brutalize in a fleet engagement. The huge number of fighters carried by the Gettysburg would be explained by the small size of the fighters (see below).

My other theory is that it wouldnt be too hard to simply enlarge the hangar area existant on the ingame version to create a larger carrier variant... the visible difference would be low enough that you wouldnt need a new sprite for something as low-pixel as WC2.

Also consider that the fighters we see the Gettysburg launching are the smallest of their type in the game - switch Crossbows for Broadswords and Epees for Rapiers and you have a 50% increase in # of fighters while taking up approximately the same amount of space, albeit a very un-diverse grouping of fighters. This leads that you might be able to fit 60 fighters into the ingame space for 40, or if you increase the capacity to 60 with standard fighters you get almost 80 (leaving plenty for the rest of the Connie to play with while Blair makes his quota).
 
Actually *IN* WC2 the ship had just gotten pounded... so it probably would have lower armor stats.

While the Concordia would have had to have had repairs assessed on it at one time or another, a large amount of damage the ship sustained would have required a base to repair it. Yet, she was almost constantly out on the lines during this time. From '65 to '69 she had seemed to be continuously out there. And a carrier could sustain quite a beating from 4 years of combat, and not to mention maintenance difficulties befall a carrier periodicially. I guess the supply ships can fix that. But reactor changes... even the WC carriers have that problem (WC Kilrathi Carrier in Fleet Action had a reactor-leak).

Just WC2 takes place over almost three years - there's plenty of empty time in their for the Concordia to be repaired. We know Confed regularly refits their fleet carriers, because we see several times that various ships are in drydock at any given time. That aside, armor replacement (ignoring that armor probably isn't destroyed in the strictly 'numerical' quality you've claimed) probably isn't a yard operation...

#1: the one listed in the stats *is* the carrier version, and there is a pure-cruiser version with very very low fighter capacity and something else where the hangars are. The "shoulder" placement on the hangars is similar enough to missile launchers on the Broadsword that I am wondering if a CSM missile launcher pack isnt too far off target (and also something rarely seen in WCU, so there is a hole to be filled). Im not entierly certain but I think there was some correlation between smaller fighter launch tubes and CSM launchers... so they could have a dozen ferrets on standby and a ****load of CSMs ready to brutalize in a fleet engagement. The huge number of fighters carried by the Gettysburg would be explained by the small size of the fighters (see below).

That just adds more confusion -- since the stats in the Kilrathi Saga manual say the cruiser version carries 40 fighters... and then the Gettysburg carries ~60.
 
Ah, not having the KS manual I was unsure if "cruiser version" referred to the 40 fighter model or something else as 40 fighters seems reasonable for a smaller attack carrier. I still think that a Waterloo with massive racks of CSMs in place of hangars would be cool though.
 
Bandit LOAF said:
Just WC2 takes place over almost three years - there's plenty of empty time in their for the Concordia to be repaired. We know Confed regularly refits their fleet carriers, because we see several times that various ships are in drydock at any given time. That aside, armor replacement (ignoring that armor probably isn't destroyed in the strictly 'numerical' quality you've claimed) probably isn't a yard operation...

Are you serious? I thought WC2 was in 2665, WC2 SO1 and SO2 ends in '67 right? Then there's End Run, which is in '67 and Fleet Action in '68.

That just adds more confusion -- since the stats in the Kilrathi Saga manual say the cruiser version carries 40 fighters... and then the Gettysburg carries ~60.

It's probably gotta carry more considering how in Combat, fighters tend to get periodically killed and such. Not even considering that carriers rarely launch all their fighters, this might be different for a cruiser though. I'd say it could be as high as 72.

Was the Carrier-Waterloo capable of the same speed as the Cruiser Version? Is the armor, and gun arrangement the same?

-Concordia
 
Are you serious? I thought WC2 was in 2665, WC2 SO1 and SO2 ends in '67 right? Then there's End Run, which is in '67 and Fleet Action in '68.

WC2 starts in '65 and ends in '67. SO1 and SO2 take place over a very short period of time in '67. There's *plenty* of time during the course of WC2 for the Concordia to make repairs - as we see only a few days out of a thousand. (And then, of course, the Concordia is drydocked before the BoT, too -- lots of chances for yard-level repairs.)

It's probably gotta carry more considering how in Combat, fighters tend to get periodically killed and such. Not even considering that carriers rarely launch all their fighters, this might be different for a cruiser though. I'd say it could be as high as 72.

There's no evidence anywhere that carriers hold more fighters than they do pilots - I've seen this claimed many times since it's how the "real navy" works... but every indication is that a carrier has a pilot for *every* space fighter.

Was the Carrier-Waterloo capable of the same speed as the Cruiser Version? Is the armor, and gun arrangement the same?

There's no way of knowing.

Ah, not having the KS manual I was unsure if "cruiser version" referred to the 40 fighter model or something else as 40 fighters seems reasonable for a smaller attack carrier. I still think that a Waterloo with massive racks of CSMs in place of hangars would be cool though.

Though I certainly understand the fan reaction to the CSM's huge yield, the WC3 manual is quite correct in claiming that they're outdated technology -- CSMs are very, very easy to defend against in the modern (ie, WC1 forward) era.
 
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