Lance Gripes

M

Mancubus

Rear Admiral
ok, the another gripes thead!. but this time for a presumably best fighter you ever get to fly... or is it?

In theory its THE best. it's got shields of a bomber and armor of a bomber.
A cruise speed of a light fighter, the manuvrability of medium fighter, and AB speed of Hellcat... only with infinite fuel. it carries more missiles than a arrow, banshee or contemporary Excalibur, more Torps than T-bolt. It has very good guns, fission cannon, It can cloak, and in it,you can see cloaked fighters, so every thing is perfect... And yet I came to hate this fighter every time i had to fly it.

So, here is why:

First of all its multiple personality disorder. I mean as F-107 Lance it is all good confed new superfighter, and then as Dragon it becomes a terrorists' tool

Then there are "Infinite" afterburners witch tend too, well, stop working. I thinkthey stop working while you afterburn and fire at the same time, or something like it, but all i AM sure, is that it stops working, without any warning when you need it.

Then there is a pointless Fission cannon. Why pointless? the main guns are good enough (espetialy with autotracking) to put down fighters, and the gun is still a bit to weak to take down capships IMO. The main guns are nice, too but not excelent - i mean compare them to Excalibur's, even WC IV one's.

Then there are the missilies -10 ok that's a lot but... only six of them can actually be loaded with whatever you want... I mean what (in-universe wise) were the engineers thinking while desining them - well let them carry 10 missililes, but only 6 imrecs nahahahahaha (crazy scientist's laughter)

But the worst are the impressions while flying. First the red hud. I mean c'mon, even the galxiest most evil genetically engeneered superpilots desereve to have relaxing sight on long deep space patrols. And the computer voice comes from psychopathic murderer. Also, I always fond handling not so good. it actually can be outmanouvered by lots of fighters


As a conclusion - while I first flew it, I was expecting something spectacular, but it just didn't give you "master of the universe" that you had in Excalibur. I never came back from the mission in Dragon with all my missiles just because i didn't need them, like it was with Excalibur. And it just didn't have the soul, so many other WC fighters had
 
My only complaint about the Lance is that the cloak is useless against other Lances. But the battles would have been pretty lame if it did, I guess.
 
The afterburners draw power from the gun capacitors, the same way ships in the original privateer did. I'm not 100% sure, but I think they weren't quite unlimited if I recall correctly--there would be a very slow energy drain (i.e. the gun capacitor recharge rate was SLIGHTLY smaller than the afterburner energy draw rate). This means that if you fired the guns and depleted the capacitors, the afterburn would cut out. Again, I'm not 100% sure, but I seem to recall that you could compensate for this by adjusting the power levels slightly, increasing power to guns, which would increase the capciator recharge rate. That way, even with empty capacitors, the recharge rate would be slightly GREATER than the afterburner drain rate and they would continue to function. Of course, firing the guns would still completely drain the caps, so it would cause a momentary interruption in the afterburn, but it would resume almost immediately.

All that said, I never thought the fighter was that great either. Good, definitely. But not fun to fly. And like you said, its large size and only average speed and maneuverability meant that light fighters could outfly it. Take away its cloak and an Arrow or Bearcat (or even a Banshee) pilot could take one down with equal piloting skills and enough fuel. In fact, neglecting the cloaking device, I ALMOST perfer the Banshee--at least the Banshee's leech cannons and scatter gun were FUN to use, unlike the Fission Cannon...

The Bearcat was always my favorite WC4 fighter. Clean flying, fast, maneuverable, powerful, good shields, decent armor, small target profile from most angles...about my only gripe with the Bearcat was that its guns were wingtip mounted and hence not great for extreme close up or extreme long range firing...
 
I disagree about the comment on red cockpit instrumentation - In real life BMW has been using red lights to illuminate dashboards for at least a decade and a half... user fatigue certainly isn't a problem. Of all the WC4 cockpit colours, the blue scheme for the Border Worlds is the worst for long flights. Bright blue lighting stings your eyes like no other :(

The combination of primary guns on the Lance might not be "fantastic", but is certainly enough to shred most ships in the post-war navy. My only gripe is that they are relatively wide, not too much of a problem but it can be slightly annoying.

Its true strength lies in the almost-infinite ability to execute "slash and run" attacks, engaging afterburner and cloak on the way out, turn around, and joust with your opponent head-on again.

I agree about the over-the-top computer voice and the impractical fission cannons, though.
 
About cockpit colours : for example Volkswagen is using blue dashboard lights in its cars, I never found it bad (used to drive VW myself) the thing with lance Hud is also the strange looks of the instruments, wich IMO are pretty ugly and a bit harder to read.

Edit BTW the blue of the BW fihters is by no means bright.
 
Mancubus said:
ok, the another gripes thead!. but this time for a presumably best fighter you ever get to fly... or is it?
Click to expand...

So now I'm a trend starter huh? Jesus has the world gone topsy turvey??:p

Mancubus said:
First of all its multiple personality disorder. I mean as F-107 Lance it is all good confed new superfighter, and then as Dragon it becomes a terrorists' tool
Click to expand...

The wraith was in the same boat though... the "perfect fighter." yet it doesn't get this sort of flak... in the wrong hands, any fighter can get a bad name. Look what good one did in the right hands.

Mancubus said:
Then there are "Infinite" afterburners witch tend too, well, stop working. I thinkthey stop working while you afterburn and fire at the same time, or something like it, but all i AM sure, is that it stops working, without any warning when you need it.
Click to expand...

... never suffered this myself... it always worked fine for me. Do you play with the keyboard or something?

Mancubus said:
Then there is a pointless Fission cannon. Why pointless? the main guns are good enough (espetialy with autotracking) to put down fighters, and the gun is still a bit to weak to take down capships IMO. The main guns are nice, too but not excelent - i mean compare them to Excalibur's, even WC IV one's.
Click to expand...

I'll be the first to admit I'm not a plasma groupie, but its a solid gun. I'dve personally been happier with a Tach/particle or Tach/neutron gun mix

Mancubus said:
Then there are the missilies -10 ok that's a lot but... only six of them can actually be loaded with whatever you want... I mean what (in-universe wise) were the engineers thinking while desining them - well let them carry 10 missililes, but only 6 imrecs nahahahahaha (crazy scientist's laughter)
Click to expand...

... I think its Bwahahahahahaha you're going for. :p
Mancubus said:
But the worst are the impressions while flying. First the red hud. I mean c'mon, even the galxiest most evil genetically engeneered superpilots desereve to have relaxing sight on long deep space patrols. And the computer voice comes from psychopathic murderer. Also, I always fond handling not so good. it actually can be outmanouvered by lots of fighters
Click to expand...

Its always been my experience that ships designed for a fight are often the least attractive. Your fighting a war, not winning a beauty contest. If you want relaxing, go take some time on the luxury yatch in wcpso. I'd rather the scarey voice keeping me on my toes...

As a conclusion - while I first flew it, I was expecting something spectacular, but it just didn't give you "master of the universe" that you had in Excalibur. I never came back from the mission in Dragon with all my missiles just because i didn't need them, like it was with Excalibur. And it just didn't have the soul, so many other WC fighters had
 
I prefer the 2xplasma+2xtachyon combination of the Lance because the gun energy pool lasts longer, thus giving a longer burst of fire than the Excalibur's 4xtachyon+2xreaper.

This allows it to more effectively engage a horde of weaker opponents as there is less "quiet time" between gun salvos.
 
I rather like the Dragon... And I even found a use for the fission cannon in Outrun Ella.

About the Dragon's guns... Of course, they're very powerful, but aren't the Bearcat's guns actually more powerful if you manage to hit your target with the 4 Tachyon guns? Besides, the Bearcat seemed to have a better energy pool than the Dragon...
 
The guns on the Bearcat are light tachyons, not the full-up versions found on the Excalibur.

As for why the Wraith didn't catch flak like the Dragon, while the Wraith is good, it's still obviously a medium fighter (vice a bomber masquerading as a medium fighter, like the Lance), it doesn't have cloak or infinite AB, and most importantly you're not forced into it for the rest of the game if you don't want to fly it. :p

(No, Academy doesn't have a full game... but Armada does. :D )
 
Mincemeat said:
I disagree about the comment on red cockpit instrumentation - In real life BMW has been using red lights to illuminate dashboards for at least a decade and a half... user fatigue certainly isn't a problem. Of all the WC4 cockpit colours, the blue scheme for the Border Worlds is the worst for long flights. Bright blue lighting stings your eyes like no other :(
Click to expand...

More importantly, Red lighting preserves your night vision better than yellow, white, green, or blue. When flying a spacefighter, keeping up your night vision is important since it will let you make visual contact at longer ranges.
 
Mincemeat said:
I disagree about the comment on red cockpit instrumentation - In real life BMW has been using red lights to illuminate dashboards for at least a decade and a half... user fatigue certainly isn't a problem. Of all the WC4 cockpit colours, the blue scheme for the Border Worlds is the worst for long flights. Bright blue lighting stings your eyes like no other :(
Click to expand...

What about that purplish color in the Avenger? You can't see a damn thing!
 
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