Star*Soldier Gloss: Page 35 (September 16, 2008)

[Bandit LOAF]

This is the Star*Soldier gloss for the first powerups page:

CONCEPT: This is a directly gameplay related section. We planned it from early in the project but didn't have a concise list of powerups until very late in the game... and when it arrived it came with these absolutely beautiful high resolution renderings of each one! I ended up expanding the section to give everyone a better view of them. Maybe we can post the original images somewhere, they're quite spectacular - if not the most interesting technology in the world. Speaking of which, take a look at the amount of detail that transfers from the source reenderings to the in-game models... you can even see tiny rivets and such. A lot of love went into the graphics in Arena.

The next three updates will be fairly short, as there isn't much continuity in these pages. I wanted to make it clear that the powerups 'existed' in the Wing Commander universe (hence the repair droid technobabble on page one) and then let them stand alone afterwards. One other interesting point to note - not only is Arena not the first Wing Commander game to feature powerups (Proving Grounds, Wing Commander IV demo, WC:CCG) but we now see that every cancelled Origin project (Shadow Force, Strike Team, Privateer Online, Privateer 3) would have also used them in some way.

• "Taryn Cross, E.S." - Taryn Cross was the Exploratory Services Captain from the original Privateer; Brownhair (and every player) had a cute crush on her.
• "repair droids" - Ties the powerup game mechanics to a concept from Privateer. Nuff said.
• "nearly invincible" - Note the toning down of the game's extremes. The same occurs throughout - are phase shields in Wing Commander 2 'really' impenetrable, or are they just treated that way in the game? Let the background material decide...

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Original update published on September 16, 2008

 

[Gamer8585]

"Taryn Cross, E.S." - Taryn Cross was the Exploratory Services Captain from the original Privateer; Brownhair (and every player) had a cute crush on her.

*sniff*....it feels so good to know I'm not alone...

Seriously I think she was the first fixer in the game that didn't feel like she was going to try to stick something sharp in Brownhair's back or ask him to do something either: a) Insanely dangerous, 2) Insanely illegal, or 3) both. Plus she was damn fine.

"nearly invincible" - Note the toning down of the game's extremes. The same occurs throughout - are phase shields in Wing Commander 2 'really' impenetrable, or are they just treated that way in the game? Let the background material decide...

Now this is something that really confused the hell out of me back in the day. In Wing 1 you could punch though a Ralari with a Hornet (kind of made the whole Kilrathi war machine something of a joke). In Wing 2 you could only take down a capship with torpedoes (and there annoying 20sec lock time), which made capships far more imposing and I attributed it to an advance in shield technology and learned cap ships had "phase shields." Then in Wing 3 any fighter could destroy a capship (not as easy as in Wing 1, but not torp necessary like in Wing 2).

So I thought about this for a while, I remember in Wing 2 they said torps were necessary because they had tech that could match the phase pattern of the shields. So...what happened between Wing 2 and 3? Did that phase patten matching tech get faster and smaller to the point it was integrated into the ship computer? And if so then how come the shields on capships were still effective (albiet more like stronger versions of fighter shields?)

Sorry, this is just a game mechanic that has bugged me for a while. I think the mechanics of jump lines/drives have been worked out, I was just wondering if the whole "phase shield" thing has too.

 

[Nomad Terror]

The basic idea is that weapon vs shielding technology is a constant uphill battle.

In Wing Commander 1, the weapon strength was sufficient to punch through capital ship shielding.
In Wing Commander 2, the capital ships had better shields.
In Wing Commander 3, fighter weapons had improved and could now overload the phase shielding of capital ships.
In Wing Commander 4, capital ship shielding improved further yet.
In Prophecy and beyond, we see a trending towards plasma weaponry which is able to punch through phase shielding when no other energy weapon in the game is capable of.

 

[Gamer8585]

The basic idea is that weapon vs shielding technology is a constant uphill battle.

In Wing Commander 1, the weapon strength was sufficient to punch through capital ship shielding.
In Wing Commander 2, the capital ships had better shields.
In Wing Commander 3, fighter weapons had improved and could now overload the phase shielding of capital ships.
In Wing Commander 4, capital ship shielding improved further yet.
In Prophecy and beyond, we see a trending towards plasma weaponry which is able to punch through phase shielding when no other energy weapon in the game is capable of.

Oh. I see its just a brute force type thing. I.e. One side makes a sharper sword the other then makes a stronger shield, causing the first side to make their sword sharper, leading the second to strengthen their shield, and on and on and on...

Edit: I was thinking that there was some special tech involved with capship shields. I once thought they bent time/space around the ship preventing blasts from reaching the hull, but torps could detected the way they did that and slip though to the hull. Guess, I over complicate things sometimes....

 

[Nomad Terror]

I think Phase Shielding *is* a special type of tech, but not in the way you were describing. The fact that torpedoes *did* pass through the shielding completely is testament to the fact that special technology had to be made to counteract the specific weakness of the phase shielding.

However, any barrier can be battered down with brute force and that is what had to happen to fighter guns.

Interestingly, in a game where we do see guns that are both unable and able to damage capships, like Secret Ops, the plasma weaponry really doesn't seem to damage the phase shielding, but rather the hull directly. But perhaps this is just a game implementation rather than what they were really trying to convey.

 

[Delance]

This is a work for the AGWC Newsgroup FAQ.

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

Q: Why can't some weapons damage enemy captial ships?
A: Because shield and weapon technology keep iproving. Here is a list for the fighter-based weapons and if they are effective against capital ships:

WC1: ..... Guns: All ....... Missiles: All
WC2: ..... Guns: On Capships Missiles: Torpedoes, Mace
WC3: ..... Guns: All ....... Missiles: All
WC4: ..... Guns: All ....... Missiles: All
WCP/SO: .. Guns: Plasma .... Missiles: Torpedoes

Note: On WCP/SO, guns and some missles are effective against some external targets of capital ships like gun turrets, but can't damage the key targets like bridge or engines.

 

[Death]

Also, note that in Action Stations (from the viewpoint of a post-WC4 recounting, but talking about events at the very start of the war in 2634), there's commentary about one of the enemies of the Kilrathi almost taking down a cruiser with just fighter weapons with a pure "brute force" attack, until the leader was taken out and threw the strike into confusion.

(Or something to that effect, can't find my copy of AS, at the moment.)

 

[Wedge009]

"Taryn Cross, E.S." - Taryn Cross was the Exploratory Services Captain from the original Privateer; Brownhair (and every player) had a cute crush on her.

She was a refreshing change of personality from the paranoid Sandoval, the bossy Tayla, the treacherous Lynch, the bookworm Masterson, the man-hating Murphy, and the nerdy Monkhouse, this is true. However, I wouldn't say many female players would have necessarily thought of dear Taryn in that way.