Originally posted by FrostyCOS1
Sorry Everyone, but my favorite fighter would have to be the Dragon. My reasons being:
Anyone who says it's guns are underpowered would be insane. I played WC4 through on Nightmare (after beating it on Ace, so I can't take full credit, save dogfighting), and I had no trouble hitting with fissions. When under fire (common on Nightmare when outnumbered), placing one powerful shot is more important than staying on tail and pounding away.
But again, in the time it takes to charge up that one powerfull shot, aim it, and fire, the Vampire's six main guns would have shredded any target. And in the time you're evading while you wait for that one powerfull shot, you give your opponents more time to attack you, your wingmates, and what you're defending.
Manueverability is above average, and with autoslide you can perform manuevers far beyond anything the computer musters.
But the Vampire can out-turn it on all three axes (pitch, yaw, and roll) and two of these axes has near twice the agility of the Dragon. Plus it can autoslide as well.
Most judgements I have seen are based on firepower. I am a fan of agility.
Which is why it seems strange that you would consider the Dragon better, seeing as the Vampire can out-turn, out-run and out-accelerate the dragon.
The goal in dogfighting is not to kill your opponent first...simply stay alive longer than he does. Even if this means forsaking a kill to allow your wingman an easy shot on your tailer.
True, but seriously, in how many missions have th your wingmen achieved the mission for you? And one of the best defences around is a good offence. If your enemy is dead, he can't kill you. Spend a lot of time flying defensively, OTH, and you give them time to pound you *and* whatever you're defending.
As I said with "Stay alive longer than he does" Endurence is key. U/L afterburn makes this much easier. It is easier to evade fire under afterburn than normal thrust.
And I've yet to be in any mission, where with a smart use of afterburn and autoslide, where I have run out of afterburner fuel in a Vampire. And it's a lot easier to evade fire at 1500 KPS than at 1200 KPS, especially with the Vampire's superior agility.
The cloaking device I never really used, save for first-strike opprotunity...then move to traditional dogfight strategems. Still the first hit could doom your opponent.
Only if he can't see through your cloak, a technology with Confed had as early as WC4, and which the Nephilim seem to have mastered completely in WC4.
I believe a Dragon and Vampire to be an even match. Combat Conditions and Pilot familiarity with his craft would make the difference.
Guns are even....except the dragon's fission
Which can't be used at the same time as the main guns, and is a slower kill than the main guns. The Vampire has signifcantly more firepower in its six main guns, especially in the Black Ops variant, than the Dragon.
missiles can be decoyed...SOMEONE here played nightmare???
Quite often, actually.
And it's kind of hard to decoy 32 warheads (16 normal missiles, and 16 Tracker missile heads) with the 24 decoys on a Dragon. On the other hand, decoying the 10 missiles on the Dragon with the 48 missiles on the Vampire would be much easier.
Having torps would make dragon better multi-role, whereas mines would toast a dragon on it's tail.
Except the Strike Vampire carries torps too, and the vampire has quite a few more slots to carry mines in than the Dragon does.
manueverabilty...vampire has nacelles which boost pitch, but Dragon has autoslide which used properly, i mean short stints (i use them a lot) gives such an edge as to make the thing VERY hard to hit. A vampire making a minimum-radius loop can never beat a dragon using autoslide 180. The dragon would have the vamp in it's sights before it finised turning. On the other hand, the vampie could perform a very tight corkscrew 180 (raise your hand if you've used this please)
Of course, a Vampire can make the same autoslide manuevers that a Dragon can. And given the Vampire's better turning rates, lower mass (hence m uch less inertia) and better speed, it can do those manuevers faster than the Dragon can.
Speed...Vamp is faster and has good endurance, but not more endurance than the somewhat slower dragon. And endurance always tips the scales of the dogfight.
Always assuming the fight lasts that long. Against a fighter that can out-gun, out-run, out-turn and out-accelerate it, that's a dubious proposition.
Cloak...oops vamp has no cloak...looks like Dragon gets to fire it's fissions first.
We can see through cloak in WC
. Double oops.
That's all I have to say there. Feel free to rip apart my statement as I'm sure you all will.
You bet. As for Starlancer, the bulk of people on there are absolute rookies. If you want a real challenge, look for the people with SLE before their names.
Best, Raptor