How thoroughly are we able to mess with canon / the designs of the ships / stuff like that in this?
Cause if we are REALLY able to mess with things... I do have a writeup....
The WC1 Fighters... lets see. I'd change the Arrow to the wc1 fighter, make it some kind of crappy, not heinously fast, two laser version. That is written up as an OLD fighter, it could've been in WC1. The problem with the design on the hornet is the SCALE, and those HUGE GUNS way out there. The Arrow wouldn't have these problems, and is already known as being an "old" fighter.
The Scimitar -- it exists for two reasons: 1. be cheap, 2. be medium carrier based fighter. It's okay for there to be a REALLY CRAPPY fighter early in the setting, really. It just needs to be replaced *as soon as possible*.
The Raptor -- Yes, it's actually OKAY for a heavy fighter/bomber like this to exist, pre-phase shields making it completely obsolete for being a bomber.
The early variant Rapiers -- I actually really like these. A good space superiority fighter is GREAT, really.
Wing Commander 2 / Privateer Era
Ferret: To me, the ferret is the basis for the end all, do all, light fighter in Wing Commander. Going all the way up through Prophecy and beyond, I seriously don't see any reason that any light fighter couldn't have instead been a "lets upgrade the ferret again!" option. The only thing I would do would be to give it three laser cannons rather than two mass driver cannons. Or maybe two lasers and a photon. Or two photon cannons. Whatever -- as long as the blast goes far and quickly, and doesn't drain too much energy, it'd work great. Full of dumbfire rockets, with 3 photon cannons, and improved avionics, this thing could SERIOUSLY hold its own in SO timeline. Really. I consider it a better base for a fighter than the Black Piranha. In fact, there is only ONE fighter that I could find on humanity's side that I could POSSIBLY see as EQUALLING the Ferret. And that is whatever theoretical, non civilian, upgraded military version of the Demon might exist somewhere. That fighter also does what every light fighter should do -- be small, fast, hit hard, and be hard to hit.
Epee and Stiletto: Basically, I could see these as two different company's FAILURES to make a fighter that is better at being a light fighter than simply 'upgrading the Ferret'. I'd say that canonically, the existence of one, MAYBE two fighters where people tried to make better versions of the ferret, and failed, is okay to exist. Then the lessons learned with these fighters can be used to *make the ferret better*. The stiletto was too big and easy to hit, and did I mention that the guns shot fires too slowly for a dogfighter, and the Epee didn't have the reactor or the armor needed... again, just putting 3 lasers on a Ferret with improved avionics, and it can do everything an Epee can do, only better.
Gladius: to me, this fills the role of the Scimitar: Being cheap, being able to do ALMOST anything except jump, can be outfitted for a ton of missions, is okay in the hands of newbies, and did I mention its cheap? I would've been happy to start out with a Gladius in WC2, before upgrading to 'better' fighters. The thing can dogfight okay, it can carry a torpedo, the only thing it CANT do well is jump! This should totally be a really really common fighter, ALL OVER.
New version of Rapier II: Hallelujah, we have found the main medium, good price to performance ratio, Space Superiority fighter for the next like, 30 years! The newer rapier is just THAT GOOD. With improved avionics and shields, it could totally keep up with even Nephilim ships quite well; there really isn't any need to fund hellcats or Tigersharks when you already have Rapier IIs. Besides, you have the gladius as the 'cheap, jack of all trades' fighter. Its WAYYY better than the Hellcat. The only time you would RETIRE the Rapier II is if, at some point in, i dunno, the Nephilim Conflict, that they pull out the old Wraith design and update it to be the latest and greatest Space Superiority Fighter.
Saber, Strike Sabre, and Morningstar
These ships are all GREAT. They can jump, dogfight, have a good gun loadout, good armor, great shields, strike capability, good maneuverability. They should've stuck with the Morningstar, worked through the damn jump problems (seriously in a few years EVERYTHING has a jump drive!), and used that as the 'go to, high quality, can jump, can strike, heavy strike fighter' until light torpedoes were invented! I mean, LOOK at the Morningstar. It's basically an updated Strike Sabre -- the two ships are REALLY similar, and were probably made by the same company... yes, they should've upgrade to the Morningstar as soon as the kinks were worked out, and they could've KEPT the Morningstar, and be able to salvage tons of Sabre parts for it, instead of the Thunderbolt!
Broadsword: This is the main, dedicated 'if you have a huuuge hangar, and you want to have something somewhat mobile that carries torpedoes, you use this'. To me, THIS is basically a perfect ship. I think they should use this as much as possible, SUPPLEMENTING it with more 'advanced' bombers as need be.
Crossbow: 'Like a broadsword, but can go in a SMALLER HANGAR.' That is all that you need to know -- its not a superbomber, really, its only use is 'when you don't have room for a broadsword', which it does just fine. This gets a pass, because sometimes, you need a SHORT bomber, which this does just fine. The earliest THIS should be replaced is the Shrike, which does the 'squat bomber' REALLY well. I would've loved to have had a chance to fly this in wing commander 3 and 4! It was MADE for a short small carrier like the Durango! Really! Look at the stats of the Crossbow vs the Avenger -- I would rather've had some update on the Crossbow that acts and flies kind of like the Avenger on the Durango! that would've been awesome!
Armada/WC3 Era:
Phantom and Banshee: ...why do these things exist? They are so weird, and Armada's weird take on how things in the wing commander universe work seems to be so... arbitrary. As it is, there are only a few things in Armada-verse that SEEM to fit the way the rest of the universe is set up, and I don't consider these two of them.
Wraith: Great ship, but not actually so much better than the Morningstar to make the case for it to exist...until the Nephilim come. It's lots better than the Rapier II though, so I can see them designing it and putting it on the backburner until Prophecy era as "too expensive", but by that point, they have need for a *medium* scale supership that can go, in numbers, on smaller vessels. Yes, it's stats are so good that it can definitely hold its own with its Prophecy counterpart, the Panther. An updated version of this could totally have replaced the Panther in Prophecy, and wouldn't require 'from scratch' design work, too.. that should've been when the damn thing FINALLY sees production. I really like this better than even the Black Panther... REALLY!
Hellcat: Should NOT exist. Everything it can do, the Gladius and a recent version of the Rapier II can do better. PERIOD.
Longbow: I like this better than the Broadsword for one thing, and ONE THING only: it has an afterburner. If you figure out how to put an afterburner on a Broadsword, this really doesn't have a reason to be any better than a Broadsword. But if, for whatever engineering reason or whatever, it is REALLY HARD to put an afterburner on a broadsword, and EASY to put it on the longbow? Than the Broadsword is retired right then and there! If that is NOT the case, than they are equal, until one particular thing happens: the development of a bomber scale reactor and a particular gun that requires a particular shape for a ship. You know what I'm talking about -- even IF it becomes possible to put afterburners on Broadswords, this ship having roughly the correct shape to put a particular massive gun on WOULD put the nail in the coffin of the Broadsword. The minute that there is a longbow variant whose ONLY job is to carry it and torpedoes... that's when Broadsword is totally obsolete, just like the Raptor! Seriously, look at the size and mass of the longbow vs Broadsword vs Devastator, and how the Longbow was engineered to have LOTS of room to carry torpedoes. It should be EASY to reengineer the damn thing to carry that gun...
Excalibur. I love this ship, especially because it has a reason to exist its a heavy fighter that is jump capable, not necessarily torpedo capable, but MADE for the reverse engineered cloaking devices. This thing should totally exist for special forces, and be used for special forces purposes quite often! SO posited it as a 'weaker' fighter than what you were flying when you rescued them, but that totally isn't fair to its capabilities. Weird variants of this with a new, weird reactor should've taken the place of the Lances...
WCIV Era
Bearcat. I like this one, it definitely has a reason to exist! This is the "we use the things we learned in the Excalibur program to make a non strike heavy fighter, stealing the basic form from the Centurion". This is a GREAT heavy fighter, and I can totally see this and Morningstars working together as the heavy fighter and the heavy strike fighters well into the Nephilim conflict. Too bad about that gun placement, but I am *sure* by the time Prophecy rolled around, they could have fixed it. To me, with a fixed gun loadout, this could be a better ship than the Vampire, even the Black Vampire! Especially when they got those light torpedoes to fit on everything, THIS should be the main heavy fighter you play with all the way through Prophecy and SO! Really! When those light torpedoes come out, its finally time to retire the Morningstar in favor of a Bearcat variant -- if you can fix the gun placement, its THAT GOOD.
Banshee: I like it. I like it a lot. The only problem is, it could be completely replaced with an upgraded / licensed version of the Demon, which has a place in the setting more than these WEIRD arbitrary ships, really. Border Worlds should be getting the SCRAPS of confed, not weird ships of their own... I would've LOVED to see what Pliers could do with some old military specced Demons!
Vindicator: Yea, its okay, kinda like the Hellcat, kinda not... uhm, but shouldn't the Border Worlds be using the "cheap, just okay" fighter that has already been established though? Namely the Gladius?
Avenger: Like previously noted, I would've LOVED to fly some upgraded version of the Crossbow in WCIV, because its generally assumed that PREVIOUSLY in the 'main' games of WCII and WCIII, you were generally flying on a BIG HUGE carrier -- putting one of the established 'little' bombers in this short carrier is a no brainer, and if anyone could've gotten afterburners on the thing and tweaked the engines and lowered the mass without lowering its survivability, and improved the gun loadout, its Pliers. Totally! Seeing what someone creative could do with an older bomber with lots of hard work, and a few decades of technological scraps would have been AWESOME.
Dragon / Lance: Ugh. Way too hardcore, totally out of capability with everything else in canon even DECADES after it came out, this seems like a far too arbitrary ship to even EXIST in the setting, and after WC4, they seem to have ignored it completely! WC4 should have used an updated version of the Excalibur for this sort of work, what with the cloaking and the weird gun loadout and everything. The EXCALIBUR was supposed to be the spec ops ship, I'm sure they could've put some weird expensive reactor that was later shown to cause cancer or something so they stopped using it on spec ops Excaliburs, right?
Prophecy/SO
Piranha: Not needed with upgraded Ferrets and Demons
Tigershark: Not needed with upgraded Rapiers
Wasp: Okay. This can totally exist. Very much a specialist fighter, this does something that no other fighter does, and because of that, its GREAT.
Panther: Not needed with upgraded Wraith
Vampire: Not needed with upgraded Excaliburs and Bearcats
Shrike: Okay, yea, I can see this as being possibly better than even the most tricked out Crossbow. Its a good bomber, it has a lot more miniaturized than the Crossbow did... and can for SURE have afterburners. Though, who knows what a modified crossbow might be capable of by this era? It really is hard to say -- its possible that a fully upgraded Crossbow could be JUST AS GOOD as a SO Black Shrike, and, due to different materials having about as much mass. If that *IS* the case, than there isn't any reason to upgrade beyond the Crossbow.
Devastator: They could totally have just put that gun on a longbow. Seriously.
TL;DR version:
Light fighter:
Basically... Ferret > all light fighters, if you presume that someone somewhere put 3 photon cannons and better avionics on the thing. The Demon, with four lasers or something, could be a good 'alternate', to the latest version of the Ferret.
Medium Fighter:
Wraith > Rapier II > all other medium fighters. This would be, to me, the best medium pure dogfighter class in the games. Even the SO Black Panther wouldn't necessarily be greater than an updated Wraith... and Rapier II variants and upgrades could last until the Wraith was REALLY needed.
Cheap do-all fighter:
Gladius > Scimitar. Gladius is used because they are cheap and soooo versatile, but they are never 'the best'. Weird Gladius variants should be popping up all over, it should basically the AK-47 of Wing Commander.
Heavy Fighter:
Excalibur (with cloak) > Bearcat > all other heavy non strike (non torpedo) fighters. The Bearcat is simply a cheaper, non special forces equivalent to an Excalibur, to me. If by Prophecy they can give a Bearcat Light Torpedoes AND jump capability, AND centerfire guns, then it can basically be the main non special forces heavy fighter for the entirety of confed!
Heavy Strike Fighter with Jump:
Excalibur with the new light torpedos and cloak > Bearcat with the new Light Torpedos (assuming jump by Prophecy timeline) > Morningstar > Strike Sabre
Not too much to say here, other than Morningstar should've had a VERY VERY long run as your 'heavy, high end, do-all, go to super strike fighter', until miniaturization allowed Excaliburs and Bearcats to carry light torpedoes, letting the damn things finally retire.
Light Bomber
Shrike ?>? Avenger ?>? Crossbow: Its sooo hard to figure out if the smaller, lighter bombers can scale or not. It's completely possible that Crossbows, if upgraded sufficiently, could have almost the exact same combat stats as the Shrike, or the Avenger. If thats the case, than one 'light' bomber could've done for Border Worlds AND Confed throughout both wars!
Heavy Bomber
Longbow with that big cannon > Broadsword > Everything else. Not a lot to say here. Broadsword doesn't have the shape for the gun, Longbow has afterburner before broadsword. If a Longbow and a Broadsword with afterburner were put next to each other, they'd be about the same... its the fact that Longbow has the shape for that gun that would retire the broadsword.
