WC4 Mod For Homeworld 2 In The Works (June 5, 2006)

[Delance]

That last scene was quite symbolic. And a good use of that particular set.

The Black Lance fighters only show up very near the end of the whole thing, until that point they were using other craft and pilots since they couldn't act directly. The whole point was to make it look like there were other forces at work. It was smart: they needed a lab and a bioconvergence chemist, so they use legitimate Confed Forces to grab them, what looks like an agression to the Border Worlds. The milita responds, and know they are attacking Confed.

 

[LeHah]

The idea that the Project is some kind of elite high-tech faction is entirely fanon. In the book as in the game they're a tiny splinter group that achieves its ends by using mercenaries and unwitting Confederation forces to do its dirty work.

Well, given I was more impressionable youth when the game first came out, I was a little confused by certain little aspects of WC4. I understood that the Black Lance was a "wheels within wheels" type operation - but the fact that the game gave them all the really nice ships made me think that they had some kind of crazy powerful (if limited in numbers) force.

Of course, in later years, I saw that I was more than a little mistaken. However, I don't think the game does a particularly good job of balancing the idea that the Project isn't a super-community with an armada of unstopable weaponry. The first time you take out that Dragon/Lance, you can cloak, drop torpedos, fire fusion guns, huge salvos of nose-mounted canons and even drop a flashpak. Then you see they have the Vesuvius, an asteroid base, a cloaked base, GE soldiers and the greatest fighting Admiral of the fleet. Its a little heavy to digest in hindsight but there it is.

In the end though, you are right. Its not like we're shown that the Project is a seperate entity like the UBW or Landreich - Tolwyn is still in his Confed uniform when the fleet moves in during the losing end game.

As for capital ships, you know the obvious ones: the Jammer, the Fighter Transport, the shuttle, the Vesuvius, the Axius Starbase, the Cloaked Spacelab.

The fighter transport you refer to is the one found early in the novel, while Blair is on patrol for the Lexington? Or is that the modified Caernaven?

Oh -- the Black Lance Carrier. It's something that appears in Wing Commander IV's innards but is never used in a mission... that's where that model came from. There's no known class name for it.

It's interesting to look at because it reminds me a great deal of what ships turned out to look like in Prophecy.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

The fighter transport you refer to is the one found early in the novel, while Blair is on patrol for the Lexington? Or is that the modified Caernaven?

Neither -- it's in the game. You first find it when you capture the Lances (in either Speradon or Circe). It shows up again during the escape-from-Axius mission. This is what it looks like:

 

[Delance]

That's it. Why did the Black Lance feel the need to use a special transport, I wonder? It looks great, but wouldn't it be less suspicious to use an ordinary transport?

 

[LeHah]

Who's to say that its not an ordinary transport? Just because we've never seen it before or since WC4?

 

[Delance]

Wilford: Colonel, we’ve got an urgent situation: Intelligence reports an extraordinary Confed ship in your vicinity, with a top-secret cargo that could be highly critical to our efforts. It’s imperative that you disable and take control of this vessel. Repeat: Disable. Do not destroy it. We need what’s on that ship.

 

[Ironduke]

Wilford: Colonel, we’ve got an urgent situation: Intelligence reports an extraordinary Confed ship in your vicinity, with a top-secret cargo that could be highly critical to our efforts. It’s imperative that you disable and take control of this vessel. Repeat: Disable. Do not destroy it. We need what’s on that ship.

Still doesn't necessarily mean that "extraordinary" refers to the ship class, though. Could as well be that the transport simply doesn't appear on any of Wilford's schedules ("extraordinary" in the sense of unregistered freight traffic passing through his sector).

 

[czacen]

well the only reason i can find for the need to develop a new transport, esp one to carry valuable hidden cargo, is to make it with a design that enhances its stealth. the b-lance transport has a lot of flat dark surfaces and its engines and intakes are much less visible at long range, same for the b-lance carrier. in some ways it shares the same basic design principles of the raptor, B117 or the commanche.

 

[LeHah]

...Intelligence reports an extraordinary Confed ship in your vicinity, with a top-secret cargo...

Extraordinary can be construed as any number of things. The mission of the craft, an emphasis that this is no ordinary convoy mission, etc. It doesn't specificly denote that the transport in and of it's self is special.

In fact, it would fly in the face of reason. With the exception of the Dragon/Lances (which can cloak anyway) all the ships used by the Project are common Confed ships.

 

[Quarto]

In fact, it would fly in the face of reason. With the exception of the Dragon/Lances (which can cloak anyway) all the ships used by the Project are common Confed ships.

...Except that the Black Lance transport clearly follows the same design lines as the secret base in Axius, the Dragon, and the (unused) Black Lance carrier. There may be no direct evidence that the transport is not a standard Confed type - but the game makes it exceedingly clear that this is indeed a special type of ship. That's not to say it's custom-designed for the Black Lance, of course - probably, it's just another special ops ship.

 

[LeHah]

probably, it's just another special ops ship.

I somehow doubt that the word "extraordinary" could be applied to "just another special ops ship".

I don't deny that theres an obvious design to BL stuff - but then the Hellcat looks like the Excalibur looks like the Dragon/Lance - and the first two ships are workhorse ships for all of Confed, not just the Project.

 

[Quarto]

Well, given that you don't see just another special ops ship every day, I'd say it qualifies for extraordinary quite well .

 

[LeHah]

Well, given that you don't see just another special ops ship every day, I'd say it qualifies for extraordinary quite well .

Wilford on the other hand - being the rank he was and having the time in service that he did - most likely did see these things on a regular basis.

I think the fact that we've never seen this transport before or after this game is being confused with the need to put in new ships into every new Wing Commander game. (Thats just me though - I could be wrong)

However, this thread no longer resembles what it was originally intended for. We can either start a seperate thread to continue this discussion or let it drop - but we shouldn't be veering this far off course, in any case.

 

[Delance]

In fact, it would fly in the face of reason. With the exception of the Dragon/Lances (which can cloak anyway) all the ships used by the Project are common Confed ships.

That's just not true, the Project use Pirate Craft, Mercenary Craft, and even Border Worlds militia Craft, most of which are not common Confed ships. Seether himself piloted an avanger in the very first mission of the game. It follows the same design used on the Axius starbase, and we only see it once, there's nothing common about it. The game makers went to the effort to building a special model for Black Lance fighter transport and used it on a single, key mission. They had common transport models if they wanted one. But, no, they used a special one. And described it as "extraordinary" in the game. I don't see any reason to "construct" a different meaning to that.

Now I agree that this is very much OT, but I'd happy discuss the nature and speciality of Black Lance ships on another thread.

 

[Mancubus]

Well, it could also launch fighters - it did it in 'escape from axius' mission. So it was definetly an extraordinary ship, and perhaps it was why they used it to trasport the dragons.

 

[Iceblade]

Wilford on the other hand - being the rank he was and having the time in service that he did - most likely did see these things on a regular basis.

Wasn't Wilford an Admiral in the Border Worlds navy? I mean he did get a "demotion" down to captain in WCP where he apparently returned to Confed's military. I don't think BW admirals would see much special ops type stuff and he probably wasn't an admiral before joining the BWs.

 

[LeHah]

Wasn't Wilford an Admiral in the Border Worlds navy?

He was an Admiral for the UBW - but started his career in ConFleet, before retiring as a Captain. He was then recruited by UBW due to his experience in the military. After the Border Worlds incident, ConFleet took him back at his original rank. (Thanks to LOAF for making sure I had this straight)

(Also: Considering the UBW is it's own faction, I'm sure it has it's own special ops units.)

 

[Quarto]

I think the fact that we've never seen this transport before or after this game is being confused with the need to put in new ships into every new Wing Commander game. (Thats just me though - I could be wrong)

Eh, I think you're simply going too far with the "just because we've never seen it before doesn't mean it's new" thing. You're right, there is no hard evidence that this is a new ship, or that it's special in any way. The game, however, very clearly implies that it is. I mean, they actually designed a new model that gets used literally in just one mission, when they could just as easily have used the same old transport as always - and they made this new transport look more like some kind of fast warship than a transport. Given the nature of the plot (after all, we are talking about Secret Weapons of the Luft... err Confederation), there's just no need to be conservative on this one. It looks new, it smells new, and it seems perfectly reasonable for it to be new - so most likely, it really is new.

However, this thread no longer resembles what it was originally intended for. We can either start a seperate thread to continue this discussion or let it drop - but we shouldn't be veering this far off course, in any case.

Hehe, I wouldn't worry about that - I'm quite sure the thread will get back on course the moment czacen posts more screenshots to bring people's attention back to his mod .

 

[LeHah]

I mean, they actually designed a new model that gets used literally in just one mission, when they could just as easily have used the same old transport as always - and they made this new transport look more like some kind of fast warship than a transport.

Wing Commander is many things but never subtle about a single one. I'm glad they put in a new model where they did - in fact, I totally forgot what it looked like so it looks new to me. But they do that in a lot of other WC material - there are early model Arrows in WCATV and Rapier Bs in the movie. It's traditional to have lots of new things to look at (or read about or what have you).

The rest of your points are well seen though. Well played.

 

[Mjr. Whoopass]

Back on topic (or at least ONE of the topics): I hope we can come up with a good title, I think it's very important in a game. I'm also not sure we've come up with a real winner yet.

I don't think the titles I'm going to post are winners, but perhaps something can come from this line of thinking. I saw the story on the wcnews homepage and it said "Big Battles await" or something like that. That's another unique thing about this mod is that the battles can be larger than usual (as well as you being in command of a fleet as opposed to a fighter jet).

WC4: Big Battles

WC4: Juggernauts

...something along those lines? I got the idea for the second title when someone on these forums (I think the Halo 3 thread?) wrote something about Halo 3 being a 'Juggernaut title'.