What were the worst injustices in the Wing Commander Movie?

Originally posted by WildWeasel
If no attack were apparent, there would be no reason for the shields to be up.
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Its not like the ship has infinite power. If it did its shields would always be up (except for launching and landing ships and firing torps).
And how do the kilrathi fire their guns with the shields up? Wouldn't that damage their shields?
 
Originally posted by Chris Blair
And how do the kilrathi fire their guns with the shields up? Wouldn't that damage their shields?
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Maybe not if they modulate their weapons/guns in the same shield´s frequency
 
What I never understood is that ,the shields where too low fot the Skipper missle,but in the next scene the Kilrathi are firing at me :)p ) and the shields are OK.They had no problems with the Kilrathi lasers.


So,are the lasers so weak,or the Movie Skipper so powerfull (like a Torpedo) ?
 
Skipper Missiles are made to cripple or possibly destroy a ship from a very long range.
 
Originally posted by Aries
skippers are powerful (like torpedos)
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Probably more powerful, actually.
Torpedoes are designed to be carried by fighters, and many of the models include decrypting equipment to allow them to bypass the shields on warships, which probably reduces the size of the warhead even further. Skippers use the chassis of a Capital Ship Missile, which is much larger than a torpedo, and thus has space for a larger payload. The cloak undoubtedly takes a chunk of space away from the missile warhead, but the size difference more than makes up for it.
 
more powerfull?

it uses the same chassis as a capship missle, but when you put the cloaking device in it you need extra space. so i guess the when the cloaking device is placed the payload would be less.

or what i saw in the movie is that is decloakes, doesn't use his trusters, goes into cloak and trusts away. this technique could save fuel, and so space...
 
Erm...
Its being compared to a torpedo, not a cap ship missile. Torpedoes are MUCH smaller than cap ship missiles. Ergo, even with the cloak installed on the Skipper, there's still almost certainly more room for the warhead than there is on a torpedo.
 
or what i saw in the movie is that is decloakes, doesn't use his trusters, goes into cloak and trusts away. this technique could save fuel, and so space...
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Apparently, it does this to maintain a lock on the intended target, which would explain not using it's thrusters, since it would be trying to calculate information at the highest speed to get back into cloak, and accelerating would definitely make those calculations more complex. As well, it is a long range weapon, so fuel would still take up alot of space...
 
Originally posted by iCe
it uses the same chassis as a capship missle, but when you put the cloaking device in it you need extra space. so i guess the when the cloaking device is placed the payload would be less.
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the cats could just attach a bigger warhead when they put in the cloak. just cause it uses the same chassis doesn't mean they can't cut off the nose and stick a bigger one on. same thing goes with the fuel thing.
 
Well, within the game it appears that a Skipper missile is at least as powerful as two Torpedoes, since one of them is sufficient to kill the Victory.

As for the comment about guns being modulated to match the capship's phase shields, I believe that this is true. In order to fire its own weapons through its shields, a ship must synchronize the modulation (and polarization for energy weapons) of its weapons with the shields, or else they would impact against the inside of the shield and the capship would blow itself up. This is what leads to the Weapons/Shields arms race--first torpedoes and capship-mounted weaponry is designed to penetrate phase shields because only they can mount computers powerful enough to analyze and synchronize with the enemy shields, but then advances in computer technology allows fighter- and missile-mounted computers to do the same, which allows fighter weapons to damage capships as well. This then drives the need to install generators and computers on capships that are capable of modulating the phase shields at an even FASTER rate in order to defeat the enemy targeting computers, and the cycle begins anew.
 
Arguably, the Victory is older than the Tiger's Claw, so it's defense rating is probably worse.
 
Originally posted by Ijuin
...As for the comment about guns being modulated to match the capship's phase shields, I believe that this is true. In order to fire its own weapons through its shields, a ship must synchronize the modulation (and polarization for energy weapons) of its weapons with the shields, or else they would impact against the inside of the shield and the capship would blow itself up...
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That brings up an interesting point. Can we assume that the same scenario applies to how a fighter is able to land on a carrier, apparently right through the carriers' shields?...

I've always assumed this to be the case. This is partially supported by the fact that the decks are "open", with techs/etc. sometimes walking around without spacesuits/helmets as the birds land: If the shields had to be "dropped" to allow a fighter in, then IIRC that any atmosphere would likely be sucked out. As such, said techs would, um..."experience some momentary discomfort"... :)D)

If this is in error, then what are you folks thinking of as the mechanism whereby you can land w/o dropping the shields?... Discuss.
 
I believe you are right, and IIRC the relationship between the fighters and the shields were revealed in one of the novels, AS I believe.
 
Originally posted by Preacher
This is partially supported by the fact that the decks are "open", with techs/etc. sometimes walking around without spacesuits/helmets as the birds land: If the shields had to be "dropped" to allow a fighter in, then IIRC that any atmosphere would likely be sucked out.
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You're confusing defensive sheilds and magnetic (or atmospheric) sheilds. One is used purely to take the brunt of the blast from opposing weaponry (and probably massive stellar fragments) and the other is used to ensure that the ship does not depreassurize from the deck doors being open.

I cannot say how a fighter gets through a defensive shield (I assume it's computer is fed the right frequency from the carrier to pass through unhindered) but the atmospheric shields can be seen very obviously in the Wing Commander movie, as the fighters pass out of the airlock.

(Why was there an atmospheric leak later on then? The deck doors were closed originally, so there was no need to ((or were unable)) keep those shields up)
 
Originally posted by LeHah
You're confusing defensive sheilds and magnetic (or atmospheric) sheilds. One is used purely to take the brunt of the blast from opposing weaponry (and probably massive stellar fragments) and the other is used to ensure that the ship does not depreassurize from the deck doors being open.
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Not necessarily "confusing" 'em...

Unless clearly explained in one of the novels There's no reason to think that the same shield couldn't serve both purposes. After all, "an open deck is an open target", so even if there are 2 kinds of shields, BOTH types would need to be deployed to cover the open ends of the flight deck....Which still leaves you with the "atmospheric leakage" dilemma.

Having a phase shield perform both functions is the only satisfacory solution that I can think of that answers that concern: After all, the landing fighter's shields essentially "merge with" (for x amount of seconds) the capships shields, allowing it to pass thru. Basically, that "forms an airtight seal" around the fighter, leaving no room (literally or figuratively) for leakage of atmospere.

Anyone else care to shed some light here (esp. if you've read AS)?...
 
Originally posted by LeHah
Arguably, the Victory is older than the Tiger's Claw, so it's defense rating is probably worse.
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Well, in WC3 it takes two torpedoes to take down the Victory (Don't tell me you never tried to shoot down the Victory just for the hell of it!). Since a single Skipper missile can also take down the Victory, then that implies that the Skipper is at least as powerful as the number of torpedoes that it would take to do the job (one and a half to two torpedoes).


As for the takeoff/landing through shields/with the bay pressurized, the novels claim that the bay is unpressurized and the shields are briefly lowered to launch fighters whereas the games imply that fighters are able to pass through the shields. For the shield-penetrating example, I would guess that the carrier's computers take over controlling the fighter's shield modulation to synchronize it with the carrier's shields to allow it to pass through--we see in the WC4 novel that Blair uses the Black Lance IFF codes to get inside the Vesuvius' launch bay in order to use the Flashpak, so that would imply that only friendly fighters would be able to enter.
 
Originally posted by Ijuin
Well, in WC3 it takes two torpedoes to take down the Victory
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We can´t compare ship stats based on how many torpedoes are necessary to take them down on different games. I haven´t tried taking out a Ranger in UE (there´s one in sim mission 9, I think), but I figured that it would take 3 heavy torpedoes for the engines and 1 for the bridge. Besides, the Rangers are old escort carriers and definitely weaker than the Bengal strike carriers.
 
Originally posted by Ijuin
As for the takeoff/landing through shields/with the bay pressurized, the novels claim that the bay is unpressurized and the shields are briefly lowered to launch fighters whereas the games imply that fighters are able to pass through the shields.
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I don't know which novels you're referring to, but if it's Action Stations by any chance... well, we know that the Kilrathi didn't have this sort of shielding technology in 2654 (see Freedom Flight - the Fralthi hangars have big metal doors because of this). It is thus quite conceivable that it was a new technology for Confed, too. Heck, the closeable flight deck on the movie Bengals could be a throwback to the days before magnetic shields were invented.

Starkey, there are no Rangers present in UE missions... the ship you see is a Concordia.
 
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