Question for Wing Commander Swamis

Your premise for criticism is in and of itself entirely inane (that bastard! he put *violence* in his war novel!) and your proof is even more so - Wing Commander is absolutely nothing if not a very direct adaptation of carrier warfare into space... direct to the point of often choosing to ignore logic/common sense to enforce the analogy.

(And, again, this is 1995 agwc Forstchen-as-root-of-all evil stupidity because the vast majority of the landing accidents you're skirting around come from books he didn't write the prose for (HotT and TPOF, which he only outlined) and one he didn't have anything to do with at all (Freedom Flight).
 
I'm not criticing anything, it was a general coment. I was actually thinking about ER and FA. I'm not anti-forstchen. My view of him as a bloody guy comes mainly from reading a couple of his non-WC books.

I read HotT and TPoF only once, and never got to read FF... I read ER and FA many many times. and he really likes to give enfasis to the danger of carrier ops that we never, ever not even once meet in the games. Sure, books are canon and all, but when they directly conflict with the games (especially on stupid technical stuff - and NOT plot things), I'll take the games.

you say: "Wing Commander is absolutely nothing if not a very direct adaptation of carrier warfare into space... direct to the point of often choosing to ignore logic/common sense to enforce the analogy." Granted, agreed, but this particular issue is not present in our first hand experience with taking off and landing.
 
Do you know what would happen to the fun factor if you could die during a launching or landing which the payer has no control over? It would be like randomly dying during a cutscene. The fun factor would drop drastically if you could die during a part you don't control.
 
I think anyone who started with WC1 would disagree with you - we've *all* made the exact same mistakes discussed in the books for the exact same reasons. Who here hasn't come home from a tough mission, a single gun left and a fizzed out comm unit and then accidentally rammed the 'Claw?

(And no, this is not remotely an issue of something contradicting - because no one in their right mind believes that the "WC Universe" features high tech space fighters that can be flown by eight year olds.)
 
I am neither saying that landings on space carriers are more dangerous as todays landing on a carrier or easier but one thing i think should be mentioned:

In Wc3 (Tolwyn arrives at the victory) and in Wc4 (Paulson arrives at Lexington) we see in both scenes a full companie (or at least the important ship personell) REALLY close to the landing shuttle at attention to greet the visitors. They dont seem to be afraid of the shuttle which is coming in really close to them and i think if its really so dangerous they wouldnt stand there.

(of course shuttle and fighter landings/takeoffs are probably really different but i remember that bondarevsky even got ratings for a shuttle landing in false colors, so maybe they arent as different....)
 
Atekimogus said:
I am neither saying that landings on space carriers are more dangerous as todays landing on a carrier or easier but one thing i think should be mentioned:

In Wc3 (Tolwyn arrives at the victory) and in Wc4 (Paulson arrives at Lexington) we see in both scenes a full companie (or at least the important ship personell) REALLY close to the landing shuttle at attention to greet the visitors. They dont seem to be afraid of the shuttle which is coming in really close to them and i think if its really so dangerous they wouldnt stand there.

(of course shuttle and fighter landings/takeoffs are probably really different but i remember that bondarevsky even got ratings for a shuttle landing in false colors, so maybe they arent as different....)
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A landing in a peacetime situation (or relatively so, in WC3, thanks to being in a quiet corner of the galaxy at the time) of a slow shuttle isn't really comparable to "hot" landings by combat craft in the middle of a warzone, though. At the very least, shuttles probably have more in the way of safety-related equipment, being able to spare some space/mass for it.

As for Bear's having a shuttle rating (as well as Casey and Maestro in WCP, who came to the Midway from a stint as shuttle pilots in the diplomatic corps), that he, as primarily a combat pilot, does have one doesn't necessarily make shuttle landings comparable to those of combat aircraft. I mean, it's easy to have a rating as a bomber pilot and a fighter pilot (at least in WC), when the two haven't all that much in common as far as normal operations go. (Try to jink around a bomber as if it were an Arrow, or fly straight as if an Arrow were a bomber, and see how well you [generic "you"] do.)
 
Edfilho said:
I'm pretty sure carrier take off and landing procedures are really difficult and dangerous. Even in games it's REALLY complicated to pull them of.

But I'm also pretty sure all SPACE take offs and landings in the WC games were neither difficult nor dangerous... Both operations are difficult because of stuff like stalling and lift. You find neither of them in space... Especially when your ship can hover gently even above planetary surfaces (with gravity).

Also, Space carriers are not submited to stormy seas and stuff like that. there are no waves that I know of to rock the ship. No winds either...

I can't see why it should be as hard as the books portray. In no games we face this kind of problem. Of course, how could I know how things will work in the 2600's? Well, a bit of logic AND the stuff I've seen enough things in the games that fit my conception. WC3 and 4 landings are quite easy to do, and they don't strike me as being absurd.
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Four words for you, regarding the space-landings in WC1-4 (with the exception of the Intrepid in the WC4 Novel): Automated Carrier Landing System.

The problem with landing in WC comes down to one very simple problem - you have to match vectors with the carrier from your little fighter, so that you're at a relative 'stop' when it comes time to land. One reason that Bear had a tough time landing in the novel 'End Run', at least at the start, was because the Tarawa's deck was so small and cramped - it didn't leave him much time to match velocities and then to come to a relative stop (as far as the carrier's concerned, since the carrier's ALSO moving) within the distance allowed by the bay itself.

You know why docking with a space station in real life is an operation that tends to take a few hours? Same problem - you've got two objects moving at different velocities that have to match them, and then you've got to bring them to a relative stop right next to one another... without jostling the other body's vectors too much so that it has to burn fuel to adjust position, or damage equipment in the resulting collision if you miss.

As they've noted it, sea-based pilots have it easy, since they didn't have to worry so much about matching vectors, and bolters were a lot easier to survive since the bay wasn't an enclosed area. Ditto, the speeds were a lot lower and the vectors a lot easier to deal with, even with wind and waves involved - all you had to do to land was effectively 'stall' the craft over the carrier's deck, or at least to slow down enough so that the cords that are part of the landing system could hook you to a stop.

In microgravity, going too high or too low's definitely an issue, especially if your vectors are all wrong; even gravity won't always help you in such a situation, especially if you clip the top of the hangar, or if you come in too fast and the bay doesn't have another end to fly through. Remember that the vectors are the problem - both you and the carrier are moving at relatively high speeds, and the trick is to perfectly match them so that you're able to come to a stop without hitting the back of the hangar. Besides, you've also got to adapt to the changing flight characteristics of flying into atmosphere if the bay has it... another thing that current pilots don't deal with.
 
Edfilho said:
Well, computers making it easier is a lot more sensible.
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Automated Carrier Landing System.

However, in combat landings, they don't seem to always have the time to use the ACLS, or at least not the full computer-controlled landings, where is where pilots can prang their planes. ESPECIALLY with combat damage involved, affecting the computers or control systems.

Still, when you've got an enclosed space to slip into, plus changing flight characteristics once you hit the hangar, it doesn't sound like piloting's child's play.
 
It's probably not the nightmare described in the books, either. Especially the take offs, which should be relativelly easy even considering the elemenst mentioned above. The space fighters need not worry about stalling, they could just be "dropped" the underside of the CV like in TIE fighter without much fuss.

I really think that the operations portrayed in WC3, 4 and P are quite satisfactory, gameplay wise
 
Most of the time when you land (in game anyway), the ship doesn't seem to be moving at all.

And even in full on newtonian movement, it wouldn't be that hard to manage it (when you're not under fire at least). The wheeled craft would be easier still since they could just touch anywhere on the deck, use dorsal thrusters to glue them down (to prevent bouncing) until they lost the suspension inertia and/or rolled into the gravity field.

I would imagine they'd have many backups too. ALS for most cases. It's always going to be easier and faster. Almost a requirement under fire (if it's available). Plus they'd probably have an ILS similar to today's systems. An LSO for when those both fail, and an old school meatball system for when comms are dead too.

It wouldn't be childs play, but I don't think it would be as difficult as some seem to think. Particularly with the tech level in WC. (just my thoughts anyway)
 
Edfilho said:
It's probably not the nightmare described in the books, either. Especially the take offs, which should be relativelly easy even considering the elemenst mentioned above. The space fighters need not worry about stalling, they could just be "dropped" the underside of the CV like in TIE fighter without much fuss.

I really think that the operations portrayed in WC3, 4 and P are quite satisfactory, gameplay wise
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It should be noted that in most of the books, the difficult landings are ones performed in situation where there's damage to the plane (End Run's banged-up Sabre), the bay's very small or retrofitted for its current operations (the Tarawa, at least initially seemed to be in this situation, if only because Bear had some issues with making sure he'd stopped the fighter clear of the safety nets), or the ship was alien or heavily damaged (False Colors, Freedom Flight). Or, in Hunter's case during the second Dralthi joyride, he was in a rush and the ship was a few seconds away from jumping.

Otherwise, they're fairly routine... at least when they're not in combat, or things are normal. Hunter talks a lot about the ACLS in the first novel, and Blair thinks about how banged up the Intrepid has to be to have ALL the automated landing systems down..
 
True enough... Tolwyn's landing on AS come to mind too. his ship (and his legs) was shot to ribbons
 
The only Fatal non battle launch I know of was the guy who didn't turn after launch and then lost his engines right in front of the Tiger's Claw.
 
i always lead myself to believe that the ship's navigational computers compensated for the gravity field, to give it a more "natural" feel..

following "newtonic" laws, and "thinking" that an artificial atmosphere and gravity were inside the hangar(saluting marines near the landing shuttle), the shuttle would rocketeer straight through the hull....

from what i have seen/learned here, the tiger's claw had the most launch bays(side launch ports, elevator ramp thingy, launching off the flight deck...
thus being the most effective carrier, second would be the midway...

concordia, intrepid and victory would just be to easy to cripple for realism....
 
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