Well, for Pre WC1 Bombers, there was really no point for them unless it was for anti-planet strikes.
Space to ground (or ground to ground) runs and anti-shipping strikes. And long-duration patrol missions, too.
Anyways, is the rapier in the movie the Pre-WC1 rapier? It definately doesn't hold a candle to the game rapier, and it the movies supposed to be pre Wc1 right? Also it looks to be using some sort of chaingun as it's primary weapon. I guess that could be replicated with a photon cannon which looks similar in effect.
That's a Gatling Neutron Cannon. The movie takes place several months before WC1.
(I hate bucking the cannon. But Origins out of business, and I the cannon died with it.)
That's the kind of thinking that had the Aces Club kill Blair and blow up the Victory. (WC3 ended the war! They won't continue WC!)
As for the movie Rapier, it's a model I, wheras the one that comes out in the game is a Rapier II. There are a few people that know a whole lot more on the subject and the clasifications.
Essentially, they're completely unrelated save for the name - like the P-47 Thunderbolt and the A-10 Thunderbolt II today.
(If someone models pre-war fighters, be sure to include the Merlin-class fighter mentioned in The Confed Handbook!)
I'm pretty sure Confed picked up the torpedo pretty soon after Action Stations, which is 20 years beore WC1. Besides, you could model my favorite incarnation of the Broadsword, the WCATV version which is around circa WC1.
It took fourteen years from the start of the war for Confed to start to outfit the Broadsword-class bombers with torpedoes - it's not a solid indication of anything, but it raises some questions as to whether or not they immediately reverse engineered the weapon or simply came up with WC1-style anti-shield weapons very quickly.
In any case, the canon timeline places the Raptor as being used for the first time in the Enyo Engagement of 2639.
That's the first time it's *referenced* - but there's no solid evidence that that's exactly how old the Raptor is. For all we know, Raptors could be pre-war fighters... there's just no "service entry" date available for them.
Other sources name the Hurricane as the pre-Scimitar med-fighter...and WC1 name the Scimitar so old that when it is retired in 2655, it is not a minute too soon...
I don't think there's any source that mentions both the Hurricane and the Scimitar in the same breath. Based on information known about both, they seem to be about the same age - which is very, very old (the first reference to the Scimitar is in 2527, and the first reference to a Hurricane is in 2592 - neither are service entry dates).
I always imagened the pre-Hornet confed light fighter as being along the lines of the salthi - faster lighter and with much lighter armor and weapons load...
Hmmm, I don't really see fighters getting slower as time passes - everything we've seen to date indicates that the top speed is slowly increasing. I'd imagine that a pre-WC1 light fighter was slightly slower than a Hornet (400 kps, maybe).
As I understand it, the Hurricane was contemporary with the Scimitar (the Scim being over fifty years old even before Action Stations). As described, the Hurricane was a trans-atmospheric fighter, designed to fight in air as well as space, whereas the Scimitar was a pure vacuum fighter. I would envision it to have similar weapons to the Scim, but less armor and more speed.
WCA(TV) blows that theory out of the water - nine episodes out of ten involve Scimitars in atmospheres.
If the Scimitar is that old, why isn't it in Action Stations? Oversight or research error, maybe?
Hodgkins's Law of Parallel Planet Development
? The source setting the Scimitar's age (the Confed Handbook) is newer than Action Stations (1999 v 1997).
Not if you subscribe to WCATV . I'm sure I'm about to hear the "missile explosion overpressure" comment Halcyon makes in WC1 or its add-ons. We just have to assume that the Scim can be configured in some way for atmospheric flight.
Heck, Halcyon's comment itself implies this. You don't need to remind your highly trained pilots that their ship can't currently fly in an atmosphere if it's completely and physically impossible for it ever to have done so.
Based on this info I could probably get a decent start. Anyone care to offer up any other opinions?
A few ideas (all 'non canon'):
* The 'main' Action Stations fighters (Hurricane, Wildcat and Corsair) are all so-named to imply their World War II equivalents - down to their placement in the universe (the Hurricane is the older underdog that those who fly love, the Wildcat is the big carrier-based fighter at the outset of the war and the Corsair is the up and coming advanced fighter... etc.) That in mind, you might want to space-ify some elements of their namesakes.
* Another way to look at the Wildcat is that it's the predecessor to the Hellcat and the Bearcat. De-smooth the Bearcat and you get the Hellcat... now take it back another generation! (On the other hand, I've always been in favor of the idea that the 'Hellcats' in the WCA intro are actually Wildcats... which would explain the crazy statue...).
The notes in Action Stations are fairly limited - details exist only as to things like where the Hurricane's storage hatch is located.
I have heard the shield/weapon seesaw idea before and I can't say that it entirely makes sense. Say you've got a WC2 era capship that is impervious to the fighter mounted guns of the day. According to theory, by WC3 the guns have advanced to the point where they will now cut through the ship's phase shields. If this were the case, wouldn't the new super mass drivers etc. now punch through one side of an enemy fighter and out the other? If gun power was to increase drastically enough to overcome the power plant of a battleship, how could fighter based defenses possibly keep up?
Shields increase, too - look at the fighters in WC3... their shields are now hundreds of centimeters equivalent rather than the significantly-less-than-20 values seen in WC1 and 2. (As does armor - Privateer introduces tungsten/plasteel/isometal armor that's 10x/20x/60x as strong as the equivalent amount of durasteel. A fighter armored with 2 cm of durasteel in 2654 could be armored with 120cm durasteel eq. of isometal in 2669.)
I think your right about the differences between even realtively identical aged fighters. They are made by different companies. Just like the Talon and the Arrow, which were designed at the same time in competition with each other. The Talon looked more WC2-ish and the Arrow looked more WC3-ish. But they were designed for the same mission profile.
I think that's a fandom thing (though not one I'm overly familiar with). To the best of my knowledge, there's no stated correlation between the Talon and the Arrow. We first see the Arrow used in Academy (in 2654)... and the Talon is first referenced around the same time (though as a ship being surplused rather than a new design).
Needle v.2--light fighter
I don't think Confed ran out of pointy objects to name ships after in *reverse* order
