Morningstar or Sabre?

Which would you rather use for your navy?

  • Morningstar: Delta-Winged Nukey Goodness, Baby!

    Votes: 20 46.5%
  • Sabre: Twelve (12)! Torpedo madness!

    Votes: 23 53.5%

  • Total voters
    43

chanman

Spaceman
Alright, so it looks like that there are several overlaps in the WC2 inventory.

First up - If you had a choice, would you take the Morningstar or the Sabre?



Me? Ah'm a Sabre man. Don't get me wrong, I love me some Mace Tactical Nuke in the mornin' as much as the next guy, but I don't want no delicate jump drive stranding me an' mah boys when we need to git home post-haste.

Yes, the Morningstar's got thicker shields, and ho-mo-genized gun armaments, but the Sabre's got 4 front guns to three, and good ol' Bobby's in the turret's always got your back in a Sabre. 'sides, the Sabre's got lots an' lots of missiles or torpehdoes, damn Cats always seem to come in twos and those stupid R&D boys give us ONE nuke each. Hey man, it's like the expect the airboss to send more than two of us on a strike. And never miss. Or that your wingman never gets shot down.

And of course, I'm always happier when CSAR's toolin' around in Sabres. You're telling me that when us hotshot fighter jocks get our rides blown out, they'll send a fargin' Bomber with no afterburners to pick us up? I'd almost rather walk. Almost.
 
appearance matters, and the morningstar is just pretty! :p

pretty has its price - notice how the Morningstar becomes anorexic and ends up a Stiletto? :p

I know I started a thread on that two years ago, but I looked back and realize why they look alike - Delta wings, twin dorsal fins, ventral fins, canards, bubble cockpits on the front of the nose, multiple engines.... They look like each other the same way the MiG-29 and Su-27 do. More so than even the two Rapiers.

OTOH, the other ship in the poll, the Sabre, looks ilke the Hornet after 10 straight years of heavy weight lifting and illegal steroid abuse. :p (no, really, take a look at the Hornet and compare it to the Sabre - stubby, twin outward canted wideset fins, cobra 'hood' canards, broad, moderately swept wings - it's most apparent from the top or 3/4 from above)
 
My main gripe about the Sabre is that its mass drivers are too widely spaced for both of them to hit the target, which negates the utility of having two of them. If the mass drivers were nose-mounted, it would be great.
 
I always am a fan of tail gunners. Sabre's pack more missiles. The odds are good that Sabre's could also carry the Mace if properly retrofitted. Thus, why I am in favor of the Sabre.

Also, the mass drivers of the Sabre need no moving to the nose, just simple calibration. Obviously, the technician in charge of determining the range in which the projectile streams converge was drunk or incompetent. So, if the convergence was reduced, the hit percentage by the mass drivers would increase.
 
When did the Sabre carry twelve torpedoes?

Number is probably over by a bit. The very last K'Tithrak Mang mission in WC2 seemed to have nothing but torpedoes on the Sabre.

Oh, and I was wrong about the Morningstar, apparently it can carry two torpedoes.

I really need to get the game reinstalled so I can play it again.
 
The Sabre had six torpedoes in the last mission of Wing Commander 2 -- left over from when the mission originally involved attacking K'Tithrak Mang *and* Prince Thrakhath's flagship. In the final product, it seems like an extreme number...

... and here's their multi-views:

privstiletto4.gif


wc2morningstar4.gif



Not the same 3D model... but it's safe to say that there's a decided Strike Commander influence in both ships.
 
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Ah, thanks! I knew it was a large number, even if I don't recall just how large.

And in addition...

wc2sabre4.gif

wc1hornet4.gif


Not the same, but they do have a similar space frame shape, especially from the top and back.
 
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Oh, man...well LOAF just ruined this one for me! :eek: At certain angles (especially from behind), I feel like I'm looking at the same dang ship!!!

For my own part, though, the Sabre always has been and always will be my #1 baby. Wing Commander 2 was my first foray into the Wing Commander experience, and everything from tangoing 1-on-1 with Jazz to the balsy attack on K'Tithrak Mang...man, it just seemed like a bird with a lot of attitude and the #1 choice at the time to ferry Blair off on some personal vendetta of a mission (for me, Blair's attack on K'Tithrak Mang was the most memorable mission of any of the games - yes, including the Kilrah run in WC3).

The Morningstar was cute and innovative, but seemed to fade into obscurity just as soon as it reared its head. That coupled with the fact that Maniac kept preaching about how wonderful it was kind of made it a bittersweet ride for me, and the whole tactical nuke thing seemed a bit ridiculous too (if I could SEE it, Ayers Rock was no more).

The Sabre felt like an oversized bird of prey (kind of gave me the whole F-14 Tomcat feel) - everything from the look to what I could do with it in a dogfight made it the most enjoyable craft for me to fly in the history of Wing Commander.

There's just too many good memories I have from back in the day to ever allow any WC craft to top the Sabre for me.
 
On a side note, (no, not about about torpedoes, missiles or even nukes) wasn't the Morningstar supposed to be among the ships to choose from (in most missions) in Wing Commander 3? I could have sworn it was in the Origin(al) script. At least, one of the first scripts ever penned for the game.
 
Well apparently there are few problems in Wing Commander that can't be solved by firing sufficient torpeoes at them.
 
Personally, I like the Sabre better. To me the fighter has more character, it seems like a good attempt at a wartime fighter-bomber, something that can hold its own in a dogfight but also attack capital ships or fixed installations. I imagine that the Sabre would be used all over the Confederation in a variety of roles and engagements.

The Morningstar just seems like the newest tech toy. Something that looks good, but may not be the best due to all its new technology or its cost.

This is just my opinion of these two fighters. To me the Sabre has character, kind of like the Raptor, Scimitar, and Thunderbolt. These look like fierce fighters to me. The Morningstar is just a nice looking ship that looks nice parked on the flight deck.
 
On a side note, (no, not about about torpedoes, missiles or even nukes) wasn't the Morningstar supposed to be among the ships to choose from (in most missions) in Wing Commander 3? I could have sworn it was in the Origin(al) script. At least, one of the first scripts ever penned for the game.

I've never seen a Wing Commander 3 script with anything like this.
 
I never really liked the Morningstar that much. You fired off the mace and what did you have left?

The Sabre felt safer, and it could fight its way through multiple nav points.
 
The morningstar was the craft you could manouvre more faster, and rely on skill(or just pure luck for that matter), to get in and out of a fight. With a morningstar you could perform a quick strike, take down one or two capships fast and then fight your way through a remaining escort at most(much like the wasp).

The sabre was indeed a more subtle ship, and more suitable to fly out with if you didn't know what to expect, you could always fly her home.

Depends on the mission, if I was up against a single carrier and her escorts in defense of my own, I'd take my chance in the morningstar, the quicker you can end the battle, the less time for your own group to be under fire. And yes, I'm pretty sure toasting their home-away-from-home, along with a few of their buddies in one single big kaboom will seriously hurt their ego's, and put "the fear of god" into them.

If i was sent out against a battle group, I'd take the sabre, and a refueling ship along with the strike force.
 
The Sabre always struck me as the F-15 Eagle, but put into a videogame. Both are incredible mutipurpose fighters, but the Sabre aint the best as far as a pure dogfight capacity. Though IMO the Sabre can only be beaten in a straight up dogfight by the Epee, the Rapier II-G, and (maybe) the morningstar.
 
Well, there's also the Gothri, a ship that felt like a reverse-engineered Sabre, right down to the missile loadouts.

The designer who decided to pit you against them while flying a Crossbow was just plain sadistic.
 
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