Obsolete ships

Definitely painful Napoleon. :) But my configs were set up for decent cheesing, not overcheese. I didn't modify any hardpoint, or tweak any energy stats. Just experimented with combos.

I did import the Dragon once, and the only real tweaking I did to its stats were its maneuvering and acceleration to bring it up to current Prophecy standards. Its performance landed somewhere between the Vampire and Panther in maneuvering, and accelerated quick enough and fast enough top speed to keep up with the other newer ships. For loadout, I left the original hardpoints, and just gave it the torpedo loadout of the Black Shrike, and 2 mosquito pods with 32 loads, just to be reasonably fair. The ship already came with a tachyon/pulse particle combo, and it was nasty!
 
The Dragon's main advantage is heavy armament and cloaking. The thing turns for crap - it's almost as bad as the T-Bolt.

For most mission types, I'd take the Bearcat over the Dragon. Unfortunately, the Dragon is the "star fighter" (pardon the pun) of WC4, and because of this, you don't get near as much time in the cockpit of the Bearcat as I'd like.
 
The Dragon, poor at maneuvering?? :rolleyes: Sounds like mutually exclusive terms to me. (Unless you compare her stats to the performers in Prophecy)

The Bearcat on the other hand was still a more than decent ship. My only complaint about it is the placement of the guns. Mounting them on wingtip I feel is a mistake. The tachyon guns are powerful, but the placement makes them horribly inaccurate, particularly at close range furball.
 
You only need a Dragon to....
a)Fly to that Planet.
b)entering and leaving Axius.
c)Flash either Ella or the Vesuvius.
d)Defending the Interpid.
e)Going to Earth.

That is only 5 (or 6, depends on the way you see the Axius mission) required mission.
I use the Bearcat sometimes, a good Dogfighter but those guns...if it was not for the autotraker we would miss more that hit.
 
Your Point being dragon, by your name I would assume you would be a pro-dragon guy otherwise your name should be Bearcat. BTW does anybody find it wierd that Confed would have hellCATS, i mean their mortal enemies are CATS why would they name one of their fighters that?
 
WW II, the Wildcat (one was used by Tolwyn in his pilot days), The Hellcat (history, the first US Navy plane that could match a Jap Zero) and the Bearcat(history, one squadron was operational just before the WW II ended)
BTW I am from europe.
I like the Dragon well over the Bearcat (I use it before the Dragon,it beats the Banshee any time), I was jut pointing out what missions could only be played by using a Dragon.

[Edited by Dragon on 02-04-2001 at 22:12]
 
yea I am aware of the WWII history behind the ships i am just saying im not sure they made sense for Wing Commander. BTW I would think there would be some Bearcats around in WCP time, they were brand new ships in IV and that was only 8 years before Prophesy, they should have a longer life than just 8 years, what about upgrades, they could have been in the game instead of the Tigershark which would be the next fighter in the series.
 
Originally posted by Napoleon
BTW I would think there would be some Bearcats around in WCP time
Click to expand...
And who said they weren't? They were like a lighter version of the Excal, and with no matter/antimatter drive which would make them cheaper, so if there are Excals around the SO time, there might as well be some Bearcats flying around.
 
You may as well ask why they made one called the TIGERshark.

The Hellcat was a WW2 carrier fighter, successor to the Wildcat and (long time) predecessor to the Tomcat.

Reusing names hardly unoriginal. The Thunderbolt was a WW2 and a modern day anti-tank strike aircraft. The Vietnam era Phantom is, from memory, technically the Phantom II so presumeably there was a Phantom I sometime. There have been Scimitars, Sabres, Banshees, Panthers, Vampires and Devatsators.
 
The Excal had an M/AM yet no infinite afterburn and they massproduced them, so howcome the Dragon was so expensive if a fighter sized M/AM drive was around?
 
Did the Excalibur have an M-AM drive? I don't recall anything in the documentation stating that it did....

And speaking of short lifespans, what about the Morningstar? On a related topic, whose idea was it to make the Mace a remote detonated weapon instead of a contact warhead? I don't believe confed R&D developed a Tac-Nuke simply to kill fighter squadrons in close formation.
 
What? You mean that when my Mace missile hits a Fralthra, it's not supposed to explode? Dammit, then my copy of WC2 has a bug! :)
 
Both the Excalibur and Dragon had matter/anti-matter drivers. The difference is that the Dragon has those huge glowing red scoops on the front like a capship. That provides the "infinite" afterburner, and adds greatly to the expense.
 
The Bearcat in WCIV was using new Ion drive engines, which were found to be unreliable (much as the Morningstar power plant in SpecOps). Could be a reason why the Bearcat isn't as prevalent later in WCP, though I agree there are probably some around.
 
There is something about that in the terran engineirs page but since I never see something in a "official" origin/ea page....
perhaps the piraha replace the bearcat in ConFed squadrons.
 
Originally posted by Napoleon
The Excal had an M/AM yet no infinite afterburn and they massproduced them, so howcome the Dragon was so expensive if a fighter sized M/AM drive was around?
Click to expand...


Perhaps the Dragon had special charging banks that were developed by the Black Lance engineers. Since both Excal and Dragon had cloaking and M/AM power plants, the huge cost difference could be the charge storage banks, since the Excal did not feature the unlimited afterburn. Just a wild guess! :) I also think that those killer fusion cannons may have had something to do with the high cost also, plus the locking wings on the Dragon.


RFBurns

"These guys are history!" [Hawk, WCIV]
 
Locking wings should not cost to much, its just 2 motors that can move it. And Dragon, the Bearcat is more of a medium fighter than a light, it would be more likely that the Tigershark replaced the Bearcat
 
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