Random Q's from an annoying Newb

frostytheplebe

frostytheplebe

Seventh Part of the Seal
First off, I'd like to say that this game is genious. The graphics are better then Prophecy (no easy task), and the game play rocks. Everything looks pretty close to accurate and the storyline revolving around the Novels is pretty cool itself. I've always wanted to fly off a Wake class, so this was a dream come true. BRAVO, and keep up the awesome work.

On to my questions;

1. I noticed that one of the screen shots of the Rapier II's cockpit was that of a Shrike bomber, was that an early test run that you guys took a shot of?

2. Aside from the Crossbow, will there be any other new fighters that will be used during the missions?

3. Is "this is not over heretic, we'll be back!" an Idol threat, or will we see them again (I LOVE RETROS!!)

4. Are the rest of the add-ons going to see the Squadron flying off the Firekka, or will we see a transfer to the Wolfhound or the Leyte Gulf?

5. Will we be flying escort or defense for the Concordia at any given time? Are you planning on incorperating the part about how she takes a couple direct torpedo hits and is transfered to backwater duty?

6. How many torpedoes is it going to take to bring down a Hagaka?

7. Having Stingray make an appearance was awesome! You portrayed him really well, can we expect any other WC2 cast members to make an appearance?

8. Did the Concordia class carrier undergo some kind of major refit after the war? The bridge and forward flight deck look different from the Lexington in WC4.

9. When do we see the Lexington in Standoff, and is it the same one as in Wing Commander 4?

10. Some of the screen shots look a bit different then what I've played, like the sunset hue near a planet or nebula. Do I need some sort of patch to get those or are those in later mission.

11. Once Standoff is complete, what then? Do you intend to make more games like this? Whats next for the standoff team?

I apologize if any of these have been asked before and will understand if any can't be answered right now. Once again, great work on the game, YOU GUYS ROCK!
 
Great questions.

I'm not a team member, but I'll answer at least what I can for you.

4. The Firekka is our home.

5. One can only imagine how these guys are going to do one of the biggest battles of the war.

6. Put it this way, 4 Mk IV heavy torps didn't even scratch one. And no Hakaga was destroyed by torpedoes, all those that are damaged or destroyed are done so with anti-matter mines placed well inside the ship.

8. I have a feeling you aren't looking at a Concordia, but instead a Jutland maybe. Either that or the WC2 paint scheme might just be the cause.

11. I think the guys will take some time off. They've already done more than enough for us and I'm sure will all be very busy blasting each other out of the sky in Arena.
 
Hey there, glad you like what we've done so far. Stay tuned for more. :)

Here, have some answers. :p

1. Yes, that was an ealier screenshot. Standoff started out as a much less ambitious project, and there were no plans to replace some things. The very first screenshots on the site show a few more graphics that didn't make it to the final version, like some planets in the background and some gun effects.

2. Not during the campaign missions, those are limited to the Stiletto, Gladius, Rapier, Sabre and Crossbow. Unless we have a surprise planned.

3. There will be no Retros in the next episodes, we left them in Gemini where they belong. :p

4. You will fly off the Firekka until the end of Episode 5. The story is much more about Bradshaw and his first experiences as a Wing Commander than about the war itself, so changing carriers would be bad for the drama. :p

5. The next episodes will have more missions involving the Concordia depending on which path of the campaign you take. However its transfer to backwater duty is something that happens after the end of Standoff - Standoff ends where the Battle of Earth ends, and depending on your performance the Concordia won't even be in that bad a shape. :p

6. Many. The novel mentions that some of the Hakaga's components had armor that made them nearly impervious to torpedoes (hence the desperate Marine attacks). To give Standoff that same feeling, we've made it so that for a Hakaga to go down, you need something like a whole wing of Confed bombers landing all of their torpedo hits.

7. I don't even remember if we ever cancelled this or not, but we had a Doomsday cameo planned for Episode 5 (at that time, he was onboard the Tarawa, which will show up in Episode 5).

8. Not officially, no. Those models are just my way of saying I like the WC2 looks better than the WC3 looks. I tried to make sort of a bridge between both styles with the Concordia-class and the Wake-class (and Lynx's Jutland).

9. It will show up in the next Episodes. It's the same Lexington as in Fleet Action (I'm not sure if it has ever been stated that this is the same one as in WC4, specially since *another* Lexington shows up between those two events), but it will look like all the other Concordia-class carriers, and not like the WC4 version.

10. I'm not sure what you mean there - there are no patches that change or update any of the graphics, it just depends on your video card and in-game graphics settings mostly.

11. I can't speak for everybody, but I'm out. :p I intend to make a "shipset" out of Standoff, with at least some of the models available in an easy-to-use file format, so that future modders can benefit from it... and that's as far as my Wing Commander modding related plans go. I can also say that there won't be a "Standoff 2", since me and Quarto have nothing else planned for the characters we created.
 
9. It will show up in the next Episodes. It's the same Lexington as in Fleet Action (I'm not sure if it has ever been stated that this is the same one as in WC4, specially since *another* Lexington shows up between those two events), but it will look like all the other Concordia-class carriers, and not like the WC4 version.
Click to expand...

It is the same Lexington as WC4 (CV-44) -- the WC4 novel tells its story, being rebuilt from the burned hull after the Battle of Terra.
 
The Tarawa makes an appearance!? THAT ROCKS!!! But I have to ask... What can we expect from the Battle of Earth? Huge ship on ship combat that is seen throughout the Star Wars Universe? Or Nav points containing one or two ships per point. Cause honestly I know I'd like to see the Concordia, Tarawa, Lexington, Verdun (considering you've kept her alive), Firekka, plus some cruisers and destroyers against the full force of the Kilrathi fleet.
 
Yep, Doomsday is still planned to appear - though since it's just a cameo appearance, you really shouldn't expect much from him. Like with Stingray, it's entirely possible to play the game without actually noticing him.

And yeah, I currently have no plans after Standoff either. Never say never, though - except for the bit about there never being Standoff 2, because that much you can indeed be sure of. Standoff is a one-off story, and I really would hate to spoil it with a sequel.
 
frostytheplebe said:
The Tarawa makes an appearance!? THAT ROCKS!!! But I have to ask... What can we expect from the Battle of Earth? Huge ship on ship combat that is seen throughout the Star Wars Universe? Or Nav points containing one or two ships per point. Cause honestly I know I'd like to see the Concordia, Tarawa, Lexington, Verdun (considering you've kept her alive), Firekka, plus some cruisers and destroyers against the full force of the Kilrathi fleet.
Click to expand...

Are you that shocked by the appearance of the Tarawa? It's actually its arrival along with the rest of the Free Corps that save the Earth from the final radioactive destruction (Yes, Jukaga also plays a part, but a bunch of torps slamming into your ship also helps) that the Emperor had planned for it. It misses the main battle of Terra and arrives only in time to destroy the destroyers launching AM missiles.

If you look at FA, for the most part the carrier groups stay at long range while, some capship squadrons do engage the kats, much more of the action was done with fighters I would expect to see more nav points containing a lot more than 1 or 2, but that way nonetheless. I'm sure you'll see plenty of fleet actions, but I'd expect to see more massive strikes flying in.
 
Also, the Standoff Tarawa even has "First to Kilrah" written somewhere on its hull. I think. I don't remember, we've had that model since forever and we haven't actually touched it yet, since it only shows up in the last two or three missions of the Ep 5 losing path, I believe.

As for the fleet battles, we won't have a hundred capships in the same navpoint, because we can't... but we'll do our best! You can definitely expect to see some of the largest battles the WCP engine has ever been dragged through. :p
 
Eder said:
Also, the Standoff Tarawa even has "First to Kilrah" written somewhere on its hull. I think. I don't remember, we've had that model since forever and we haven't actually touched it yet, since it only shows up in the last two or three missions of the Ep 5 losing path, I believe.

As for the fleet battles, we won't have a hundred capships in the same navpoint, because we can't... but we'll do our best! You can definitely expect to see some of the largest battles the WCP engine has ever been dragged through. :p
Click to expand...

I think I remember when you guys finish the Tarawa model and released it for all of us to see. The "FIRST TO KILRAH" sure looked nice below her bridge.

As much as I hate taking the "losing" path I can't wait to see the Tarawa come in and save the day by smashing Jukaga's destroyers.
 
Well, you don't have to take the losing path on your first play through, but all our losing paths will certainly be worth taking a look at. Same goes for the losing ending. :p
 
Eder said:
Well, you don't have to take the losing path on your first play through, but all our losing paths will certainly be worth taking a look at. Same goes for the losing ending. :p
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Will be hard let things go badly, but I guess have to see the world burn at least once. I know you'll make it worth it to us to witness.
 
Yeah, making the losing stuff worthwhile has always been something we paid attention to. It's something of a long-standing WC tradition, after all - even in WC1, some of the most unique missions were placed on the losing path. I mean, you have to make the losing path interesting to explore, otherwise you might as well not have it at all.
 
One of my favorite losing path series is Delius in WC3 with the Asteroid base. I thought that was worth it to take because you could still come back to win.
 
Yeah, making the losing stuff worthwhile has always been something we paid attention to. It's something of a long-standing WC tradition, after all - even in WC1, some of the most unique missions were placed on the losing path. I mean, you have to make the losing path interesting to explore, otherwise you might as well not have it at all.
Click to expand...

I'm still early in the game, but I have to ask: is there a capsule description of each mission up, so that we can look at the might-haves and the almost-weres, and such? Or is it just a matter of rolling up our sleeves and playing and playing?

(Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying it enough -- but I'd also like an idea, once I've played it through, of what triggers what missions, here and there...)
 
At the moment, it's a matter of rolling up your sleeves and playing. You can always ask here at the forum, too.
 
Oh yeah, one other thing i failed to mention earlier... there seems to be a rather large design flaw on the Concordia, being one of my favorite ships... I noticed it on her... for one thing, the forward-most section of this ship is supposed to be green (not gray) with two red lights on the front, and one on either side of the forward section...

Secondly, where there should be a communications array, there is instead a laser turret. right behind the # 65.

Third, from what i saw in the images from Wing Commander 2, the keel of the ship is all green lined with red lights, its a dark gray in standoff.

Fourth, the gun placements don't match wing commander 2.

Please don't take offense to any of my criticisms. I would just like clarification on your thinking on this one... I love the game and most of the other ships seem close to almost perfect accuracy, so i was just wondering why the Concordia is so off. Especially if the WC 2 design is the favorite.
 
The WC2 Concordia is a Confederation class dreadnought... The Concordia class is the WC3 carrier, If that's what you're confused about. I think their Confederation model is quite accurate.
 
No, I don't think he confused the Concordias - otherwise, he wouldn't mention the #65.

The reason turrets are out of place is simple - WC2 ships had almost no turrets at all, originally, and we had to add a whole bunch of them. I mean, if we wanted the gun placement to match, then we'd have to have no guns at all :).

As for the communications array and the textures... I don't know why they're different. In the case of the communications array, Eder probably simply didn't want to waste polys on such stuff, so instead he placed a turret there. And textures... most likely, he just felt like doing them that way :p.
 
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