Landing/Launching

[StarLight]

Which has been the most superior?
WC1 and WC2 simply was a hangar...with a dead end at the end of it, so if you flew to far, you'd crash into it (in reality I'm talking, not in the game)
WC3 and WC4 had that open hangar, where you could fly right through and have lots of fun, especially in enemy ships
WCP and WCSO had that hangar and launcher...now correct me if I'm wrong, but I read somewhere that having seperate launching pads and landing pads made it easier to cycle craft...the bad point of it though is if they are destroyed, as they were quite frequently done in WCP...why did they persist with it in WCSO? Not to mention that with such a small fighter crew on the Cerebus, you wouldn't need to have separate launching and landing bays...

And btw...I'm not quite sure on this, but was it that there actually was a landing bay on the Kilrathi destroyers? The older version in Wc3, not the newer ones they later made in the game...right at the side, around underneath that tachyon turret...coz i think there is and tried going through it but the destroyer moved too fast for me to get through it

 

[Penguin]

IMHO the open hangars of WC3/4 were the most fun

You could barrel roll through them & blow away whole decks worth of Dralthis. You could even shoot torpedoes right through them - imagine being the deckhand - you're servicing a bird, hear an odd noise, look up & a torp blasts right past you

The Cerberus was probably built around the same time as the Midway & incorporated the same technology. As for launch tubes getting destroyed - you need to improve your fleet defence tactics. No offense, though.
Yeah the light destroyer (IIRC) in WC3 had a hangar. It's the 1 with the pointy forward ends.

 

[Shane]

Also with multiple launch tubes, even if a tube gets damaged, you can still use other tubes. The Midway was designed, iirc, so that any craft could launch from any tube. And if you have a badly damaged fighter land on the Old style decks and it cracks up, then you have to clear the deck before you can launch. The launch tubes/recovery decks are a much better system, imho. You can launch and recover at the same time. The WC3/IV were the most fun, btw. I did like the fact you could do a manual landing which was not possible with WC1/2.

[This message has been edited by Shane (edited November 09, 2000).]

 

[Crusader11]

In terms of playing:
I'd have to agree that WCIII/IV had the best landing system for gameplay value. Being able to do cool barrel roles around it and generally do things that must've driven Rollins crazy was really great. However, I think WC1/2 had the best for sheer coolness factor, in that, I really liked the way the various launching and landing sequences were rendered, particularly on the different planets/bases/ships in the whole WC2+SO1+SO2. I thought WCP's ladings were dull. You had no control of your ship and the pre-rendered sequences weren't that good. Though the launching was good. I liked watching my ship get hauled over and dropped into the launch tube.

In terms of "reality":
The combination in the Midway of hangars and launch tubes has to be the most superior. By being able to use both the hangar, and fire ships out of launch tubes at a high rate, it really improved the magnum launch capablities of the carrier. It's one real problem was that you apparently couldn't launch from just the hangar, so once the launch tubes were damaged, you were SOL. IMO, this is the true deign flaw. If you could also have fighters launch from a central hangar, then you would be better off.

And, the Kilrathi:
And yes, though I can no longer recall which cap ships in particular, at least one of the WC3 Kilrathi biggies had hangar bays. You could fly into them on the PC version, though, due to the poor collision detection, you could not do it properly on the PSX version.

[This message has been edited by Crusader11 (edited November 09, 2000).]

 

[Earthworm]

WC1 and WC2 simply was a hangar...with a dead end at the end of it, so if you flew to far, you'd crash into it (in reality I'm talking, not in the game)

Unless something went wrong, a tractor beam would be pulling you into the hangar, just like it does in all of the games, so there wouldn’t be much danger of actually crashing into a wall at the end of the deck.

WC3 and WC4 had that open hangar, where you could fly right through and have lots of fun, especially in enemy ships

The WC3/WC4 ships have practicly the same hangars as the WC1/2 ships, except that they’re open at the other end. However, that other and is considered a second deck, and can also launch fighters.

WCP and WCSO had that hangar and launcher...now correct me if I'm wrong, but I read somewhere that having seperate launching pads and landing pads made it easier to cycle craft...the bad point of it though is if they are destroyed, as they were quite frequently done in WCP.

The launch tubes are there, because they’re safer. A kamikaze cat during the war could fly through a hangar taking out fighters, and doing serious damage to the ship.

..why did they persist with it in WCSO? Not to mention that with such a small fighter crew on the Cerebus, you wouldn't need to have separate launching and landing bays...

The Cerberus can carry about 30 fighters, the six pilots we see in SO aren’t the usual flight wing from the Hades class. The Hades is the closes thing Confed has to an escort carrier at the SO time.

 

[Wedge009]

I thought WCP's ladings were dull. You had no control of your ship and the pre-rendered sequences weren't that good.

Uh, they weren't pre-rendered. But I agree, it's still nice to fly your ship in, even if it's only a dead end hangar door. Plus that landing sequence takes so long and it's unskippable!

Funny thing about the game not being consistent with 'reality'. The Midway has six launch tubes, but the game can only handle them as two components. True, that a torpedo hit on one tube is likely to destroy or render inoperable the surrounding two tubes, but it's still annoying. In fact, what's annoying is having yer hangers completely wiped out. Worse than having the carrier blow up.

 

[Shane]

That's what you're there for

Do your job right and that it isn't a problem

Seriously it can be a problem, but it adds some realism. The earlier games didn't takke damage into account that way. As long as the ship survived you could land with no sweat. Also, iirc, the reapir crews were fantastic, the whole ship would be red, but by the next mission she was a healthy green again.

 

[Quarto]

Unless something went wrong, a tractor beam would be pulling you into the hangar, just like it does in all of the games, so there wouldn’t be much danger of actually crashing into a wall at the end of the deck.

Wow, Earthworm, you had a tractor beam pulling you into the hangar? I wanna be like you

.
Though, I do believe that in SWC, fighters were indeed pulled in by tractor beams. Mind, I only saw SWC once and it was a long time ago, so...

To note, it's not the existence of the launch tubes that makes the Midway special... after all, we've seen launch tubes back in WC1. The real difference is that the Midway's fighters are not stored in a central hangar bay accessible from outside; and that there are six separate launch tubes.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

Quarto, we use our ACLS -- auto carrier landing system -- for a reason!

 

[Quarto]

Of course LOAF, but judging from the cutscenes (and there has been plenty of cutscenes showing landing fighters), the ACLS is not any sort of tractor beam. I've always assumed that it's just an automatic pilot of sorts.

Very nice use of a WC1 quote, though

.

 

[Shane]

To note, it's not the existence of the launch tubes that makes the Midway special... after all, we've seen launch tubes back in WC1. The real difference is that the Midway's fighters are not stored in a central hangar bay accessible from outside; and that there are six separate launch tubes.

I love situations like this. I've always assumed in the real world, Origin switched from the tubes in WC1 to the launching sequence we see in WC2 because of a change in art direction or some similar explanation. I'm wondering how one reconciles the change in the WC universe. I guess one could argue it was a Philosphy shift, or the tubes in the Bengal Class were problematic and it took a while to get the design right, so they scrapped it for the WCII-IV era cap ships. Of course some of those, like the Victory were older than the Claw, so it makes sense they may not have them.

 

[Chernikov]

Was the Claw not an "experimental" or "enhanced" version of the standard Bengal? (would explain the tubes) And where were the tubes supposed to be located? IIRC they were in the ends of the arms, and the arms themselves look a little skinny to be transporting ships through.

As far as the Concordia not having tubes, that might be a function of the era (the Waterloos also have a similar feature) or it could be due to the ships having to go into battle with other capships on a regular basis. Having a ship with heavily armored blast doors over rear-located hangars, as well as the lack of delicate launch tubes, would be a benefit. The open bays of the Ves and the Concordia class should be better for magnum launch situations, though.

 

[Shane]

The Claw was the first Bengal, according to Claw Marks. There were design differences between it and later Bengal's, they were 10 meters shorter and displaced less mass. The open bays have their problems though in the fact that they expose more of the hanger to the enemy, and you can't launch and recover at the same time. I always thought those arms seemed thin as well, and wondered if they were actually in the raised are on each side of the flight deck. Not to mention the launch itslef seem to go a longer distance than those "nacelles" off the arms are long, but maybe it is a perception issue on my part.

[This message has been edited by Shane (edited November 10, 2000).]

 

[StarLight]

what about that other ship...i'm not sure what class or what it is called, but the one in Wc4...where blair lands and finds himself mixed up with the those weirdos...uh black lance...that's it...ummm that one had not 1 but 2 open hangars...any point to that?
and btw...in wc3 i remember fighting against those blasted cruisers, which were like the hardest thing to blow up, tho managable, i noticed they didn't have any hangars or anything else like that, and yet i'm quite sure i flew against ships from it, unless they had jumped in from somewhere else...

 

[StarLight]

that reminds me...how long were those darn carriers? coz they must have been a helluva long distance, more than that what is stated...coz, for example, u fly across the midway and time it in seconds and then look back to how fasst u r flying in kps...and u realise that the ship is a couple of km long...doesn't seem to realistic to me...nor practical...a 5km or so long ship

 

[Twister]

haven't read all the posts yet, but starlight; that blacklance "ship" you land on is infact a starbase..., and it is very...uhm handy...for a starbase to have more than one bay, whit all the trafic comeing and going that is...

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twist·er (twstr): n. 1. One that twists, as in the manufacture of rope or yarn. 2. Sports. A ball thrown or batted with a twist. 3. Informal. A. A cyclone. B. A tornado. 4. Confed pilot, hero of the kilrathi war, renowned fleet admiral.

 

[Anagram]

Well, I think that my favourite launch and load system was in WC III and IV. I not only had the fun of afterburning out of the launch tube, I also had the fun of berating my dad for auto-piloting out each time he flew. Nt to mention that I cautiously landed my fighter each time, while he auto-piloted in too.

But the WC launch style has one point in its favour: the fact that it propels you at nearly 2500 kps.

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Maestro: "Lighten up Spyder! We're not gonna die! We're gonna WIN!!"

Zero: "Hey, Maestro... Uhh... If you DIE, can we pick through your stuff before we head back to Sol?"

Maestro: "You can burn in Hell."

 

[WildWeasel]

The Claw was the first Bengal, according to Claw Marks.

Wasn't the TCS Bengal technically the first Bengal-class strike carrier built? I think the Tiger's Claw was just the first one to officially go on duty.

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Put that in your pipe and smoke it!

[This message has been edited by WildWeasel (edited November 11, 2000).]

 

[Chernikov]

Shane: that sounds about right to me. I originally had a similar idea, until the someone came up with the idea of launch tubes and whatnot on the arms (which, other than the narrow arms, seems plausible. I think someone was watching a little too much Battlestar Galactica

As for the tubes being next to the launch deck; I think that they are a little too narrow. Someone has an online version of the WC1 manual with detailed drawings, but I lost the link, so I couldnt be certain.

 

[Wedge009]

Originally posted by Anagram:
I not only had the fun of afterburning out of the launch tube, I also had the fun of berating my dad for auto-piloting out each time he flew.

Gee, I wish my dad shared our enthusiasm for games, that's why I had to wait until he bought a faster computer before I could play WC3/4 on the older ones.

Originally posted by Anagram:
But the WC launch style has one point in its favour: the fact that it propels you at nearly 2500 kps.

Really good for autoslide... but only if you're headed in the right direction.