WC's best fighter and bomber of all time

Let's see;

Best Fighter - Stilletto. In Standoff it was excellent and oh so pretty, failing that Ferret.

Best Bomber - I know it's not a bomber per se, but the WC1 Raptor. Nasty as hell that thing.
 
Personally I hated the WC1 Rapier. Those damn laser cannons just took all the fun out of it, I was much more effective with the Raptor.

That said

The Dragon is the best fighter or bomber ever, because it cloaks, it has torps, it has unlimited afterburners, and as good a cannon layout as you could possibly get. No other fighter comes close.
 
Personally I hated the WC1 Rapier. Those damn laser cannons just took all the fun out of it, I was much more effective with the Raptor.

That said

The Dragon is the best fighter or bomber ever, because it cloaks, it has torps, it has unlimited afterburners, and as good a cannon layout as you could possibly get. No other fighter comes close.

It depends on what you're looking for in a fighter, as different players/pilots have different preferences. Kind of like going back to one of the first conversations between Iceman and (if I remember correctly) Knight where Knight says he'd rather have more armor while Iceman would rather have more maneuverability.

That said, I'll bet that, in the hands of a good pilot, an Arrow, a Vampire or a Wasp would give a Dragon a good run for its money any day.
 
In the WC4 novel, Arrows in the hands of experienced veterans are swatted like flies.

And if I remember that novel correctly, just as in the opening for the game, there's not much of a chance when you're jumped by a bunch of cloaked ships. Surprise changes the landscape quite a bit, as does confusion, and noncoordination in your flying tactics while trying to recover from both of those is going to be prevalent. With a start like that, a lot of vets would be susceptible to going the way of Kaboom. Escorting a load of civilians during peacetime certainly doesn't help battle readiness either.

I'm talking about knowing what you're up against as the battle begins and being alert for an encounter.

I would love to see a Standoff-type of simulator that included the Dragon as flyable craft. I'd love a chance to go up against a Dragon in an Arrow.
 
Current favorites:

Fighter: Hands down the Excalibur. Fun to fly, autotracking, and taking it for a real spin when Flash didn't have any balls for blasting Kilrathi (I know, he was a test pilot afterall).

Bomber: Broadsword. Sure, no afterburner but you've certainly got lots of firepower. Not to mention many turrets that claimed several furballs in a single run.

Personally, I find the Dragon a bit of cheat when it comes to fighting, but that's given when it's a megafighter of doom (with cloaking for that extra spike of stealth).
 
And if I remember that novel correctly, just as in the opening for the game, there's not much of a chance when you're jumped by a bunch of cloaked ships. Surprise changes the landscape quite a bit, as does confusion, and noncoordination in your flying tactics while trying to recover from both of those is going to be prevalent. With a start like that, a lot of vets would be susceptible to going the way of Kaboom.

Some of the later Arrow variants were equipped with cloaks and technology to counter enemy cloaks.
 
I've been looking into the conditions in the Wing Commander Universe in 2639 and I think the Raptor must have been an extremely dominant fighter for that era. Even in Wing Commander I (2654), I wasn't sure I preferred the Rapier over the Raptor.. I might choose the Raptor even then given that choice. In the 2639 environment (that's the first year I know of where this fighter is referenced from books/games/manuals), it would seem this fighter was very dominant. Fast, maneuverable, a huge missile loadout, mining capabilities.. this ship allowed so many tactical possibilities: it arguably had the advantage over any ship in a dogfight, it was great for capship strikes, and it worked well for creating mine fields.
 
I've been looking into the conditions in the Wing Commander Universe in 2639 and I think the Raptor must have been an extremely dominant fighter for that era. Even in Wing Commander I (2654), I wasn't sure I preferred the Rapier over the Raptor.. I might choose the Raptor even then given that choice. In the 2639 environment (that's the first year I know of where this fighter is referenced from books/games/manuals), it would seem this fighter was very dominant. Fast, maneuverable, a huge missile loadout, mining capabilities.. this ship allowed so many tactical possibilities: it arguably had the advantage over any ship in a dogfight, it was great for capship strikes, and it worked well for creating mine fields.

Keep in mind you're thinking of the Raptor as you knew it in 2654. Earlier Raptor variants may have had different gun loadouts, missiles, speed and maneuverability ratings. They were probably similar, if not the same, but fighters can change quite a bit over the years.
 
Keep in mind you're thinking of the Raptor as you knew it in 2654. Earlier Raptor variants may have had different gun loadouts, missiles, speed and maneuverability ratings. They were probably similar, if not the same, but fighters can change quite a bit over the years.

In the Wing Commander games, the Rapier shows us this.

But on topic, my opinion of the best vessels from various games:

WC1 - Raptor
WC2 - Ferret
WC3 - Excalibur
WC4 - Dragon
WCP - Vampire

Overall, the Dragon.

Cheers,

Red Coat
 
Well the only WC game I have played is WC1, so.. The Raptor is my favorite fighter. The Rapier is extremely close. I liked the fact that the Rapier is almost as fast as the Hornet, but the only fighter I truly felt safe in was the Raptor. Rapier had strong shields, but weak armor, Raptor had both strong shields and armor. So when I fly into a wing of Kilrathi with the intention of killing all of them I prefer the Raptor.
 
The best fighter : Centurion from Privateer, with It's quad fussion cannons,two more on the rear turret, twenty FoF missiles, excellent speed and turn rate, infinite afterburners, jump capability and all the upgrades avaible in Righteous Fire. What could possibly beat that ? :D

As for confed craft :
Fighter : Vampire (WCP) imo the most durable in long-lasting combat.
Bomber : Vindicator (I always liked those Stormfire cannons ;) )

EDIT : well, I've forgotten about the Steltek drone. That was really something! :D too bad It was impossible to fly that thing :(

~~~, the pros all fitted their Centurions with Tachyons + 1 powered Steltek gun, and 20 ImRecs.

Tachyons had the best dmg/sec and dmg/energy ratings.
 
The Thunderbolt is probably my all-around favorite fighter. Its guns do so much damage, it offsets the low missile payload. Add to that the fact you can drop a small to medium capship with the single torpedo and you have one hell of a fighting force.

Ditto the Banshee from Armada. I never really bothered making other fighters in the campaign mode.
 
The Dragon aside which is the most powerful all-around fighter, I think as far as anti-capship fighter are concerned I definately favour the Morningstar and Vindicator. Good dogfight capability and enough ordonance to kill any capship.
Dedicated bombers I never liked, I guess the best in terms of perfomance is the Devastator though the Broadsword (WC2) wins with its flavour.
For fighters, it's the Rapier II from WC2: fast, manoeuverable and hard-hitting. The Vampire and the Black Wasp are certainly more powerful but lack the flavour of the Rapier II.

Edfilho said:
~~~, the pros all fitted their Centurions with Tachyons + 1 powered Steltek gun, and 20 ImRecs.
Tachyons had the best dmg/sec and dmg/energy ratings.

That's true for the basic Privateer but I think I switched to Fusion guns in RF as well.

LeHah said:
Ditto the Banshee from Armada. I never really bothered making other fighters in the campaign mode.

Not the Gladius? Since only one torpedo was needed, I thought the Gladius' speed and smaller price outweighed the the better armament of the Banshee.
 
Not the Gladius? Since only one torpedo was needed, I thought the Gladius' speed and smaller price outweighed the the better armament of the Banshee.

The Gladius was alright but I really favored the Banshee. It felt way too fast for a bomber of that armament and took a good pounding.

As for the price, I use to play the game where I'd mine every single planet I could manage (one time, mining every planet save the three held by the Kilrathi fleet), and that allowed me to build a fortress on every fifth world or so. Once you have the two arrows up, I'd send a Banshee to the base in case I had to defend it later.

(However, I could never master the stragegy game on its hardest setting. Id barely have anything moving within the 3 turns the cats would show up in!)
 
I always felt like I ended the game quickly by having a few heavy fighters and they would eventually run into the Shiraak and it would be game over. Forgot on what settings I was playing on, but otherwise it was usually the kats sending mostly medium and the occasional heavy fighter.
 
The differences between the versions are primarily in their armament. In all of the WC1 variants, the Hornet's top cruise speed is 420, compared to 450 for the Rapier.

There are some issues with it, but the CIC ships database can be helpful to refresh memories or fill in information gaps.
 
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