Tactics, ships, & roles, oh my! (Discussion) :)

Mosquito and Dragonfly RPs. oh yes, they were quite nice. I just right clicked, then held down the left button...releasing the right button allows you to keep firing those rocket packs off without forcing you to fly in a straight line. useful trick! :)
 
What is this crazy business with right and left clicking? Don't you play Wing Commander with a 10+ button joystick/throttle combination, too?
 
My favorite type of mission to fly has usually been escorts. The main reason I like them the most is that you really have to hustle to take care of your escort assignment (especially in the first two Wing Commander games).

I always had a soft spot in my heart for the Raptor. It was fairly nimble and it could chew up most anything. I hated flying broadswords in WC2, and I'm guessing that the broadsword is probably the single most hated craft in the Wing Commander universe. I imagine that pilots who were on the WC's shit list ended up drawing Broadsword duty.

I could play the missions from WCP all the time. The flyable craft were awesome, as were all the weapon selections. The Vampire was a total blast, and after a successful mission, sometimes I would just fly around and do powerslides while watching in external camera mode. Also, the 'drop tank' feature on the Wasp was cool, too. If WCP had the same solid writing that 3 and 4 had, it may have been the greatest game ever made.
 
This thread may help as well.....Most Loathed starfighter
Click to expand...

Fun thread, although it left me wondering why that guy got banned. Anyhow, was there ever a mission editor or any kind of modding tools released for the WCP engine? Or, for that matter, were any other games using that engine ever made? It seems like a shame that such a great game engine was used for only one game (two counting SO).

((I'll now wait for someone to point out some blindingly obvious game made with the engine that I didn't know about so that I'll look stupid ;) ))
 
Editing tools are available--you just have to ask around the WC community. If you just want to edit ships, there's an editor for that in the CIC downloads section. As for games using the Prophecy/SO engine, there is Unknown Enemy, a fan-made campaign portraying the Border Worlds dealing with the Nephilim invasion, and the soon-to-be-released Standoff, which portrays the Battle of Earth.
 
I liked the Sabres, Vindicators, and Banshees the most out of the pre-Prophecy ships. For a strike misson I would use my heavy fighters to attack from one direction while sending my Bombers and Light fighters in from the opposite direction and use my medium fighters to protect the carrier. (Wing Commander or Squadron Commander, Recon, Strike.) In case anyone is wondering as soon as the Kilrathi war is over I would resign from Confed and join one of the Border World miltias.
 
i like the devastator pretty much... with that heavy plasma cannon, i can take on everything. also the wasp is a real killer
 
Ok, let us be carefull and not devolve in one more most loved/hated fighter...

I'm really puzzled in what concerns tactics in WC. I usually pick one target and stick to its six until it's gone, I never work in terms of specific meneuvers like loops, immelmans, kickstops and the like. I just follow the cat and shoot it. Anyway pull some elegant shit and maneuvers and stuff?
 
Well, just on the standard patrol missions (When there's no urgency involved) I do go for the fancy moves. But if it's a protection type mission, then it's more just straight in and no showboating
 
always when i get to fly a new ship, i fly into the first enemy group i see, guns blazing, blowing one of them up with my newfound firepower, to pull away a few secs later noticing my shields and armor have been hammered away by my prey's more fortunate wingmates.... then the real dogfights begin...

glued to the six of an enemy does seem the best way to steer clear of enemy fire...
 
The AI in some of the games almost dictated that you had to just follow them around until they were dead. Certain ships did require a degree of manuevering (mostly ones with rear turrets) but simple flight manuevers were almost always what was needed (yo-yos, Immelmans, and the AB slide) to get into a good deflection shot position.

In WCP and SO the AI got a fair amount smarter (especially Devil Ray Aces) and you needed to pull a few fancy tricks out. Made the game much more fun and difficult to play.
 
Examples of some of my tactics...

Heya, fellas.

The topic of specific fighting tactics has been brought up, so I figured I'd chime in again (been awhile since I've posted anyway):

In WC1 & 2, my most impressive actual piloting tactic was just rolling through asteroid fields to dodge the asteroids (with WC2 especially, I found that more often then not, I'd get whacked by a rogue asteroid if I didn't change my roll angle a few times passing through an asteroid field...or maybe that's just my own paranoia - dunno)...

Tactics for me didn't really come into play on a grander scale until WC3. And for this, I'll give you 2 examples - fighting Vaktoth heavy fighters (which they seemed to like throwing at me frequently) and cat Corvettes. Both of these buggers were armed to the hilt with some serious firepower from where I was sitting...and in case anyone missed it in an earlier post, I've never really been one for going crazy by firing missiles...so gun fights with these two things were always a little trying on my patience.

To deal with the Vaktoth, I found out that if I went head to head with them and rolled so I was at a 90 degree angle to them as we closed in, they could only pelt away at me with their center gun, but my rate of closure and orientation was such that their outer wing mounts couldn't touch me. I guess the boxy profile of many of the WC3 era Confed birds lended themselves well to more precisely attacking a certain area, though, because I could still nail the Vaktoth with full guns myself.

As for the Corvette, I was chewed up by far too many of those during my experience with WC3. Then I figured out that if I changed my power settings to give a little extra to my shield recharge rate and swung around the back, there was this sweet spot where only the Corvette's main gun (not sure what it was, but it fired a bigger shot of a different color) could try peppering the area it thought I was flying in. So I'd have to close towards this thing, ducking and weaving its fire as well as any of the other turrets if I managed to leave that sweet spot. Then when I was close enough, I did strafing runs on that main gun until I knocked it out. Once it was finally destroyed, it was simply a matter of finding that sweet spot again where I could just pelt away at the Corvette without facing any return fire until kablewy.

I'll give this whole discussion a bit more thought and see if I can come up with any additional tactics I've used in any games. In the meantime, thanks for listening to "FireFalcon's Ballsy Tactics of Sheer Stupidity." :)

Your fellow community member (and still working ever so slowly on his continuation of the storyline following the events of Prophecy),
FireFalcon ~};^
 
Oh, Corvies and Vakies in wc3... quite the pesky pests. Many a piece of armor lost to their weapons. Pakthans had nasty turrets too, but were bigger and slower (in relation to the vak, not the corvie)... and easier to kill.
 
yeah, i've had my share of being messed up by corvettes.

oddly enough, i loved fighting vaktoths. on the other hand, paktahn's were just brutal for me.
 
Come on you guys admit it, theres nothing sexier then flying a Morningstar of the Concordia, BEST CARRIER, BEST FIGHTER! Oh yeah Im good, and no the Broadsword is not nearly as hated at the Scimitar, at least the broadsword can defend itself!
 
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