Ship Length Comparison (April 5, 2022)

Bandit LOAF

Long Live the Confederation!
Ever wonder just how big Prince Thrakhath's enormous dreadnaught in Wing Commander III would be scaled correctly? To find out, we've put together a collection of Wing Commander III ship length charts which show three different scales: standard capital ships, capital ships and bases and then everything compared to the 22 km dreadnaught. Pretty interesting!





A Wing Commander IV version is also available. These charts use the in-game models scaled to known, canonical lengths. When a ship does not have an established length (such as the Intrepid or the Behemoth) it is not included.





As a bonus, here are the same type of charts using the sprites from Wing Commander, Wing Commander II and Super Wing Commander. Note that several of the ship lengths vary between Wing Commander and Super Wing Commander, including the Sivar, the Star Post and the Snakeir!




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Original update published on April 5, 2022
 
Just checking: is the scale consistent between the games/images? Maybe not... the Vesuvius looks bigger than it should be, compared with the Kilrathi dreadnought. (I didn't do a detailed analysis, though.)

I'm guessing there were polygon count and texture limitations but it's a shame just how badly the windows on the Kilrathi dreadnought scales compared with the other WC3 ships. I'm not arguing for or against the validity of the 22 km length, just noting how implausible it is given the size of those windows...

...but I suppose by the same token the point lights on the WC2 bases are massive compared to the Confederation dreadnought. Ah, sprites.
 
I'm guessing there were polygon count and texture limitations but it's a shame just how badly the windows on the Kilrathi dreadnought scales compared with the other WC3 ships. I'm not arguing for or against the validity of the 22 km length, just noting how implausible it is given the size of those windows...
Reminds me of an amusing take on the size of supermassive Imperial ships in Star Wars.

SW Windows.png
 
Just checking: is the scale consistent between the games/images? Maybe not... the Vesuvius looks bigger than it should be, compared with the Kilrathi dreadnought. (I didn't do a detailed analysis, though.)

It's not, the Wing Commander 3 images each have their own scale. Wing Commander I, II, IV and SWC should all match up, though!

Makes me wonder how the Hvar'kanns got out so quickly after the disaster with the Hakagas.

Maybe they were already around! Or maybe they were part of the Hakaga fleet. Fleet Action specifically mentions new battleships under construction as part of the project... and it makes sense to me that the invasion fleet would need both carriers and siege platforms/ways to move large numbers of troops to newly conquered planets.
 
I'm guessing there were polygon count and texture limitations but it's a shame just how badly the windows on the Kilrathi dreadnought scales compared with the other WC3 ships. I'm not arguing for or against the validity of the 22 km length, just noting how implausible it is given the size of those windows...

Unfortunately, in-game, the ships don't scale right, or else actually flying around the Dreadnought would be a time consuming affair! (as it is in False Colors when they describe flying around this lengthy 22,000 meter beast) So given that it's scaled down, the windows are a reasonable size for the perceived scale of the craft in the engine.
 
The Wing Commander Bible that comes with WC3 and WC4 list the following stats for the Dreadnought:

Length 2,200 Meters
Maximum Velocity of 100KPS
Mass of 290,000 tonnes
38 Turreted Lasers
Full Compliment of Fighters

Fore and Aft Shield 8000 cm eqiv

Armor Fore/Aft/Left/Right: 1500 CM Each

Granted some of the things in the WC Bible need to be taken with a grain of salt. That being said 2,200 Meters matches up scale wise in the FMV shot after the Duel with Flash when Thrakath and Melek are discussing plans for deploying the bio weapons. We see in the beginning of that shot that a Kilrathi Carrier which we know is around 920 Meters in length is cruising along side, and while dwarfed did not appear to tiny as it does based on the comparison above.

However It wouldn't be the first time there were scaling discrepancies... Other series such as Star Trek were notorious for this back in the day.
 
Unfortunately, in-game, the ships don't scale right, or else actually flying around the Dreadnought would be a time consuming affair!
Yeah, I remember this also being argued in the various discussions about whether or not 22 kms is really valid. It was nice how flying bow to stern of the Midway in Prophecy was actually time-consuming, adding to the sense of its size compared with capital ships of the previous the games. But as I mentioned, I wasn't interesting in bringing back those discussions, simply remarking on the size of the windows / resolution of the textures given the scaling presented here.
 
Granted some of the things in the WC Bible need to be taken with a grain of salt. That being said 2,200 Meters matches up scale wise in the FMV shot after the Duel with Flash when Thrakath and Melek are discussing plans for deploying the bio weapons. We see in the beginning of that shot that a Kilrathi Carrier which we know is around 920 Meters in length is cruising along side, and while dwarfed did not appear to tiny as it does based on the comparison above.

Yeah, that's the thing. While the Bhantkara doesn't come across as "tiny" in the FMV, it's also nowhere near half the length of the Dreadnought. The same goes for the losing endgame scene where the Victory rams one. After Eisen says, "They're not taking my ship," you watch the Victory and Dreadnought collide, and it's only as big as the aft pylon of the Dreadnought. Not quite as small as a 720/22,000 meter scaling would suggest, but still closer to that than a 720/2,200 meter scaling where it would be a third as big.
 
Yep, pretty hard to get that sense of scale with the sprites that were used. It doesn't help that (I think) the same sprite is used for the Confederation space station and star base in WC2 - and they are supposed to be drastically different in size.
 
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