Searching floor plans for WC1/2 capships

criticalmass

Vice Admiral
Hi all,

I'm looking for a rough diagram, blueprint, or floor plan of a WC1/2 capship; Bengal or Dreadnought class would be especially interesting.

It doesn't have to be picture perfect, just a basic schematic telling you where you end up when you leave the launch bay, where the briefing room, bridge, quarters etc. are in relation to the ship's outline.
If something like this already exists in one of the original manuals / docs, give me a hint (as I only own the Deluxe CD version without any paper documents),

Thanks in advance!
 
Pretty much all the original documentation for the games can be found here:

https://www.wcnews.com/manuals.shtml

I don't think any floor plans exist for these ships, though. Origin distributed "blueprints" for the fighters (really just drawings with a few specs), but nothing for the capships AFAIK.
 
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Yeah, the main floor plan stuff comes from the novels, and obviously those are described via text and not pictured out.
 
I tried that. It was a long long project. I will probably try it again. My office just got AutoCAD. ;)
 
See if you can find a book on modern carriers, even WWII era would work, and extrapolate the rest from there. As far WC3 you could assume that the pilot ready rooms onboard the Ranger class are just down the corridor from the hatchway opening onto the flight deck, it's logical because that is where the pilots come streaming out when the scramble alert sounds.
C.A. Mobley and Michael Benson put out a Complete Idiot's Guide To Aircraft Carriers that's a pretty interesting read in it's own right and Tom Clancy put one out as well, but I haven't read it so I don't know how good it is.
Out of curiosity, why do what it?
 
Shaggy said:
See if you can find a book on modern carriers, even WWII era would work, and extrapolate the rest from there.
I've thought about that too, since the basic setups are still the same as on a naval vessel, but I wanted to ask first - for the obvious reason that there always will be some piece of text that I don't know, which could then disproof my "envisioned " layout.

Out of curiosity, why do what it?
I was toying around with the programming language for an interactive fiction system some months ago (to create a "virtual library"-kind of thing), but the project was canceled. Now I suddenly have a bit of time, and I was tempted to start building a WC carrier layout structure in the system, populate it with characters, items and parameters, then add some tasks and see how it all holds together. But it's just a tryout, I wouldn't call it anything near a fan project. But who knows...

BTW, didn't somebody start to design a map for some FPS game, using the insides of a carrier? That might help quite a bit.
 
Which dreadnought are you asking about?

We can probably collect some pretty extensive (and generally contradictory) pictures of the inside of a Bengal-class ship. There's a deck plan of the movie Tiger's Claw in the Confed Handbook.
 
Bandit LOAF said:
Which dreadnought are you asking about?

The ship identified as such in the Encyclopedia... - I didn't want to mention the Concordia outright, because it would be a little overuse of the old tug to have even more action onboard, but it would be nice to compare to a Bengal layout. IF there ever is something like a project, identifying the right ship, theater, timeline etc. would be next, but that's way over yonder.

We can probably collect some pretty extensive (and generally contradictory) pictures of the inside of a Bengal-class ship. There's a deck plan of the movie Tiger's Claw in the Confed Handbook.
If this isn't too much work, I'd love to have that (since the IF engine is able to use graphics, it would be cool to have screenshots of locations too).
The Confed Handbook sounds like a nice item, too (although the Tiger Claw layout must be quite different from the game Tiger's Claw) - would it be a huge effort to have a peek at the deck plan?

If anybody's interested, the system I'm talking about is ADRIFT , with some custom code attached.
Uh-oh, I just see that the site is down. Keep trying, it's worth looking at.
 
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criticalmass said:
The ship identified as such in the Encyclopedia...

Just to clarify... in Wing Commander, Dreadnaught is a ship type (like cruisers, or carriers, or destroyers) rather than a class. There are several different classes of dreadnaughts, including the Confederation Class (which you are referencing), the Sivar class, and a couple of others.
 
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Actually I like the idea. If Pilots and Privateers ever gets off the ground (it's been temporarily scrubbed due to all the hate going around WCU) having those around would be pretty cool. :)
 
criticalmass said:
The Confed Handbook sounds like a nice item, too (although the Tiger Claw layout must be quite different from the game Tiger's Claw) - would it be a huge effort to have a peek at the deck plan?

It isn't mutch to go on really.
I'd have to agree with the others that you'd have to go with your own imagination to get this project off the ground.
 

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Thanks Marc - it's a good start, and I think I'll work on from there.
I've looked at some historical/WWII layouts, and at a LOT of Traveller deckplans now (boy, do they ever do something else in that RPG than design spacecraft interiors?), and the rest just needs to be guessed at.

Interestingly I actually hit upon a Wing Commander deckplan - somebody over at Black Lance created some detailed deckplans from the sickbay and brig of a Vesuvius-class carrier (which might also be copied off from somewhere, but they are neat nonetheless).
 
criticalmass said:
BTW, didn't somebody start to design a map for some FPS game, using the insides of a carrier? That might help quite a bit.

Several people, myself included, had attempted to make various FPS maps for the Wing Commander universe. Nothing came of any of them.
 
criticalmass said:
somebody over atBlack Lance created some detailed deckplans from the sickbay and brig of a Vesuvius-class carrier (which might also be copied off from somewhere, but they are neat nonetheless).

Those are pretty neat, but if had to guess on their origins, I'd say someone used the floor plans from StarTrek Deep Space Nine and modified them...
 
Lehah, you attempted making a FPS map of a carrier? Really, I didn't know that. What engine were you planning to use and why'd you stop?
 
If someone were to want to try and make maps for, say, wc2 concordia (or a ship of the same class and design but different name, a sister ship?), There are certain areas that we do know a bit about. For example there is extensive Info on the outside dimmensions and look of the ship from which certain info about the location of the bridge, and flight deck area's could be extrapolated along with the rough number of deck there would need to be in between. As well as rough area of any mechanical areas related to the engines and jump drive. (There may be info in the novels that someone could kindly provide to help at least a little bit anyway)

After that, there are extensive shots of the flight deck areo of the concordi in game that could be used to reproduce that area. Then theres the "lounge," barracks, col. devereaux's office, Tolwyn's office, briefing room, comm room, brig, and the bridge. There may be other room seen in-game too, but that's what I can think of off hand. All these could be partially modelled from what is seen in game. Unless their actual location is stated in a novel, then I would use some of the previous suggestions to guesstimate where they should be.

Don't forget that, like in wc3 there is most likely a gunnery control room near the bridge as well.
And there should be quarantine/ decontamination room/ equipment near the flight deck.
 
LeHah: Thanks for the info - pity that this didn't take off, but I'm beginning to realize that this is quite a task.

AD: That's exactly what I'm going to do now - draw up scale designs using the known facts, trying to identify structures and levels, and extrapolate the rest from common warship layouts.
As I'm not planning to produce actual deckplans (as the ones in the Black Lance example), but only a "room" structure for my Interactive Fictions system, it won't look as pretty nor will there be any 2D/3D modeling involved. But who knows where this will lead to.

One last thing (I'm starting to sound like Columbo - or like Blair in the wingman-picking sequence in WC3):
The online version of the WC2 playguide seems to have a problem loading the silhouettes of the Concordia - I've only got the side view (see attachment). Anybody got the top view?

EDIT: I've found the Pdf version with a perfectly clear top view. Here it is. Hold the weddin'...
 

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I don't have the top image either, but I do have this...

But you know what you should do? get a message to BradMick. The guy's a gold mine when it comes to visuals, I don't know how he does it, but he seems to have a picture for everything.
 

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Maj.Striker said:
Lehah, you attempted making a FPS map of a carrier? Really, I didn't know that. What engine were you planning to use and why'd you stop?

Many, many moons ago, I had started on work of a map of the Victory for Duke Nukem 3D. I had only gotten as far as the flight deck and the Flight Control area. I had been working on the elevator (a notoriously bitchy thing to work on with that engine) and the captain's briefing room when I scrapped it. It was really difficult work, though I had thrown in a couple of cute surprises (Buttons placed in certain locations would drop the force field at either end of the launch deck and you'd get sucked out into space - though it was actually just a moveable floor switch at speed -1).

Now that I look back on it, if I had finished it, there would've at least been one glaringly obvious error in my design (I had the repair bays beneath the flight deck. I had put the little 'cubby holes' as elevators that went down a level.)
 
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