What is everyone's favourite fighter

Originally posted by Antix
Now I know there's a chance that someone might say, "But hey! Don't we like attach laser guided bombs to our fighters nowadays?" Yeah sure we do but in my opinion that just undercuts the defined role of a fighter. As nice as it is to expand somethings capabilities, I'm one for consistency. A place for everything, and everything in its place, ya know? That's why I figure if you were going to make an air superiority fighter, you let it stick to its role...

I'm going to add another point. Nodern fighters carry bombs and are used as bombers cause it costs less to maintain in a peacetime situation. If you notice, during war-time conflicts bombers are actually used.
 
Originally posted by Antix
(...)
(...) The role of the Wasp was singular as opposed to the usual dual and multipurpose roles you saw fighters like the Thunderbolt most clearly, and its arguable descendant, the Dragon (I evolve that reasoning from noticing that both were equipped with a singular torpedo slot). The Wasp was intended solely as an interceptor, which was quite clear. (...)
The real punch that the Wasp packed was in its missle loadout, not its guns. Obviously, the cannons on the Wasp did a load of damage when they made contact, but they were slow to recharge, and obviously not the most practical for dogfighting purposes. (...)
You get in there, fire off your missles, and head back home once everything is cleaned up.
(...)

I beg your pardon but there are a few points in your post which I have problems with:

First:The Dragon the descendant of the Thunderbolt? Don't you mean the descendant of the Excalibur which would be much more correct. And the Dragon carries two torpedoes IIRC.

To the Wasp: I found her guns to be very effective in a dogfight. Hard-hitting and due to the large gun pool and excellent recharge rate to be rather fast firing. Only their range was a bit short but since the Wasp is fast, that poses no problem.
And the "Black" Wasp from SOPS, well, I don't think that you would dare to say that her guns are not good for dogfighting. ;)

Finally I agree with you and Wedge: I found it funny how the WCP manual explicitly states that now, in times of peace, the fighters all have specific roles and no mixing except the Tigershark, and then in SOPS you fly a Strike Vampire rather often. But it didn't bother me, since I like a Vampire with torps much more than a Shrike. ;)
And not to forget: The Vampire does carry considerably less torpedoes than the Shrike.
 
also note the guide states *peace-time*. Perhaps they like to mix it up a bit when fighting a war with an enemy as powerful as the bugs.
 
The bugs powerful?? Hmm, I never looked at them this way. :) But you're probably right that in a war peace time procedures are changed rather quickly.
As hard as it might be for me to realize, according to the official story the bugs did take a large toll from the confederation thus must be considered a powerful enemy in the universe.
 
Originally posted by Mekt-Hakkikt
The Dragon the descendant of the Thunderbolt? Don't you mean the descendant of the Excalibur which would be much more correct. And the Dragon carries two torpedoes IIRC.

No I don't mean that. Look to their roles. The Thunderbolt was the original embodiment of a fighter intended to take on another wing of fighters while being able to do damage to a limited number of capital ships. What can the Dragon do? The exact same thing. I had a more detailed outline of why I believed this but the damned thing got erased when I hit the button on the side of my optical mouse. My point is that even though the Excalibur and Dragon may share similar guns (i.e. the tachyon) and have similar loadouts, the Thunderbolt came BEFORE the Excalibur and was the first example of a fighter fit to that role.

As for the Wasp, I'll never be impressed with its gun loadout because the quickly recharging gun (forget its name) does nearly no damage and only serves to suck the juice out of the slowly recharging tachyon that can make a severe whole in a bug if you aim it right, but that doesn't always happen...
 
Ahh, now I see what you meant. I don't agree but that doesn't matter, at least I understand now. :)

I mean look at the Sabre from WC2: It can mount torpedoes as well, thus is capable of posing a threat to capships and lots of fighters and it came way before the Excalibur. And you can take the Raptor from WC1 as well: Excellent at taking out fighters and capships. And just to make it clear I know you didn't want to say that but: IIRC, in the WC4 novel it is clearly stated that the Dragon is the descendant of the Excalibur. I mean look at the TBolt; It makes sacrifices to achieve its heavy payload and protection: Its speed and maneuverability are "only" adeqaute whereas the Excalibur and Dragon have virtually no drawback, they're superfighters unlike the TBolt which is just a very good heavy fighter.

Furtheron, I am sorry but I can't agree on your statements on the Wasp too.
The Mass Drivers doing no damage? Combined they do as much damage as a Tachyon thus presenting one thrid of the Wasp's overall firepower. And their energy drain is very very low (12 per) and given the Wasp's large gun pool this is absolutely no problem. But if you don't like the Wasp's weapons that's fine by me, everyone is entitled to his own preferences. :)
 
Heavy fighters carrying torps is nothing new. The WC2 Sabre carried torps, not to mention the Morningstar which carried two torps AND a tactical nuke.

The Wasps gun loadout is actually stronger than the Panther (more damage, larger energy pool, but recharges slightly slower). Just use full guns and aim your shots to make sure the Tachyons hit. That goes for all the fighters.
 
Originally posted by Mekt-Hakkikt
The bugs powerful?? Hmm, I never looked at them this way. :) But you're probably right that in a war peace time procedures are changed rather quickly.
As hard as it might be for me to realize, according to the official story the bugs did take a large toll from the confederation thus must be considered a powerful enemy in the universe.

individually the bugs are week (not them, their space-fighting ability), but coming at Confed in the huge clusters it does makes them *almost* unstoppable to the everyday average pilot.
 
Originally posted by Mekt-Hakkikt
IIRC, in the WC4 novel it is clearly stated that the Dragon is the descendant of the Excalibur.

Hmm? Novel? I'm confused. I read through the entirety of the MANUAL at least for WC4, and if it didn't come with the game, it's a lie! A LIE!!! Hehe... no seriously who wrote that? And if it wasn't Chris Roberts, then WHO THE HELL DO THEY THINK THEY ARE HUH?! Lol, just kidding...
 
There was a Wing Commander 4 novelization by William R Forstchen and Ben Ohlander that was released through Baen Books. It's canon and I suggest reading it.
 
Indeed the prolouge and chapter one are in the book that came with some PC WC4(maybe all pc WC4 i'm not sure) this was however not in the psx version, of course half the games not in the psx version.
 
The novel has a lot of differences than the game. Trying to compare the two is very uneven.
 
Just a small point:
Originally posted by Antix
The Vampire was a designated "air" (yeah I know, out of context) superiority fighter.
I prefer to use the term "aerospace", that way it makes more sense, especially for acronyms like CAP (Combat Air/Aerospace Patrol).
 
Originally posted by Antix


Hmm? Novel? I'm confused. I read through the entirety of the MANUAL at least for WC4, and if it didn't come with the game, it's a lie! A LIE!!! Hehe... no seriously who wrote that? And if it wasn't Chris Roberts, then WHO THE HELL DO THEY THINK THEY ARE HUH?! Lol, just kidding...


Chris Roberts is a game developer, not a script writer or a novelist. He didn't write the scripts for the games, and he didn't write any of the novels <G>

This is all a reletively useless distinction in this case, though -- the source for the Excalibur-as-Lance-precursor comes straight from the WCIV script... which is available for download in our files section.
 
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