SCP version of FRED 2

[Unregistered]

That's incorrect. Flak was used to great effect in Wing Commander Armada (1994). Armada was also the source for the Lexington-class heavy carrier, which is the ship being discussed here.

Tolwyn just means in WC3,4 and Prophecy we didnt see any Flak

 

[ChrisReid]

Tolwyn just means in WC3,4 and Prophecy we didnt see any Flak

And LOAF's pointing out that the game that originated the ship in question here did feature flak.

About the topic that we only release dark screenshots where you can't see a thing...what about these?

They have been around in the screenshot thread for quite some time.

Two among dozens doesn't really change anything. And if those two have been around a long time, the fact that the dark ones are still so prevalent in promotional materials would be kind of odd.

Understandable if you haven't seen newest pictures.

http://web396.xps1.microserver.de/wcsaga/Starman/pics/launch01.jpg

Yeah, that's about the first new screenshot I've seen in six months. The last ones we had, coincidentally, were about the Saga engine adjusting brightness levels, and nothing since.

 

[Dragon1]

Isn't there an ambient light option mod already built into the SCP launcher (I can't remember what build though)?

I say this, because the Babylon Project is a bit dark until I adjust the Ambient Light to about 60, then it is fine.

 

[gevatter Lars]

To shorten things I would like to request that someone...preferable LOAF since he got the most WC knowledge...makes a list of the Lexington stats and a suggestion on how the stats would be when it was released in WC3 instead.

We will then take the stats and see what we can do with them gamewise (as already said we still have some limits).

I hope that would be a solution for everyone.
PS: If the stats have allready been posted I am sorry but since I don't know all the stats I could have overseen them.

 

[gevatter Lars]

Isn't there an ambient light option mod already built into the SCP launcher (I can't remember what build though)?

I say this, because the Babylon Project is a bit dark until I adjust the Ambient Light to about 60, then it is fine.

Yes it is but Chris just always forget its...alsheimer you know ^_^
For WC3 like lightning you should set Ambient light to about 90-110 I think it was.
I for myself prefere values between 75-85

 

[Bandit LOAF]

Tolwyn just means in WC3,4 and Prophecy we didnt see any Flak

That's not what he said, though. I corrected the clear error in his post, not the existence of flak in Wing Commander 3, 4 and Prophecy.

We do have alot of 'WC3', thats why I like having the Venture and a few WC2 vessels around to "stir the pot" a bit. Given fan projects want to finish in a reasonable amount of time though (hehehe, how many of those deadlines have come and gone guys? ), it seems that more "face time" is given to the ships from the era and the "tone" its set in.

It just seems very odd that you're taking the Venture, crippling it... and leaving out all the other classes of ships that should exist at this time (without acknowledging that the WC3 Cruisers/Destroyers/Carriers are supposed to be very old indeed).

Actually, I did mention that in the first response. He makes the comment after he's discounted that the ship by itself is too small for cargo, not that it has no space because of the fighters.

"No warship that small had enough cargo space to make a pirate raid profitable. Blair was willing to bet that whatever hold space the frigate did have was tied up in servicing fighters."

He makes that comment - but he still knows that the frigate is carrying fighters before any of this. Just close reading the individual passage shows him identifying the blister before he talks about the contents of the ship -- but outside of that, the fact that they're attacking the platform for a group of strike fighters is part of the mission. They know they're attacking something that carries fighters before they know it's a frigate -- it's knowledge he already had before he looked at his warbook.

Maybe its late but I don't follow. How is Blair then unable to dismiss the computers identification (nitpicking, the computer doesn't declare the ship too small, Blair does after turning to the warbook page and after getting closer for a visual inspection) of the ship's class as being too small if he knows its variable?
If Blair knows the class is variable so does his handy dandy warship book which would list the "sub-types" if you will, just as fighters would probably be (be good to know if you were up against a bomber Sabre or a heavy fighter one, etc). Whatever information that warbook has in it and whatever he saw in his visual inspection seemed to sway him whether or not it could carry enough cargo.
After refering to the warbook, the novel then makes the point (whether it was intended or not - I would guess not, but oh well) of saying that "the frigate killed the notion that the attack had been a botched raid for booty", not the fact that it was a Caernaven. I guess the wandering point I have is that its only after Blair goes to the warbook and makes a visual inspection that he deams it too small to carry cargo, not based on the fact that its a Caernaven alone.

I'm not at all sure what you're saying here. Blair identifies the ship (at "extreme visual range") as being a Caernaven-plus-blister by comparing it to the stock picture... if the unusual scenario you've concocted that involves special Caernaven's that are completely opposite Blair's analysis of the ships capabilities, this is exactly where that information would be relevant.

The meaning of the passage is really, really clear when you don't cut it up: he scans, finds the frigate and doesn't believe that's the target because it doesn't make sense. He double checks it and it *is* a frigate, and that's supposed to be a clue to the greater mystery because, as he specifically tells us, the class of frigate (whose name and capabilities have literally just now in the text been created!) won't make a good pirate raider.

For no good reason that I can see, you've decided that you should reverse the meaning of the scene by creating mini-frigates.

Very true. But that not to say either ship was outfitted with fighters in the first place, even if they have the ability. We are talking about an already depleted Confed sending two cruisers (and I'm guessing a bit more) to help the Landreich . We also join the battle pretty deep into it. The Dover's about to go up and it doesn't take much to finally take out the Juneau. The fighters could already have bought it (we are only talking about 10 light fighters if both ships were outfitted).
I don't see how the bays launching shuttles would have any bearing on fighters or no fighters, especially if the fighters had been destroyed. The fact that the bay was operating through the thick of everything might actually be seen as a shred of circumstantial evidence that there were fighters that were already destroyed (bay was already active). Why be so ready to launch shuttles? They aren't going to help you in the battle? Anyway, neither here nor there.

That is neither here nor there nor anywhere close -- the idea that claiming a military ship operating an ordinary military function during battle is proof of something so tangential is not so much an argument as it is a conscious attempt to pretend space isn't blue.

(... I mean, come on, not even you can take that seriously. Why be so ready to launch shuttles? Oh, maybe for the exact reason they were launched in the novel?)

Well, Blair comes on the Victory and lists the 40 fighters on the carrier. Two squads of Arrows, one of Bolts, one of Bows. Arrows are never referenced again as flying in Red Squadron and before we stop at any base to resupply in the book or in the game, the references to Red Squadron consists of Hellcats. I guess there could have been differently armed Arrows that were replaced by all Hellcats at some point (since Tolwyn says hell trade off the Bows for another squadron of Hellcats) but it seems as though its just another "mistake inside the novel", not worthy of making up someting to make both references right (just like we don't make up anything to make the Coventry a destroyer and a cruiser).

Now, the proviso is that this isn't an argument I've ever been especially interested in dealing with.

That said, I think the "error" is a bit more complex than a simple inversion - Keith describes Red Squadron as flying point defense Arrows and Blue Squadron as flying Arrow interceptors. Your solution would be to say that no, Red Squadron flies Hellcats, which is referenced later in the novel. The problem is that point defense (Red) is what the game assigns Arrows to do (in the scrambles), and space superiority (Blue) is what it defaults Hellcats to.

Now, I don't see the explanation as being any more complex than that we're talking aboux one (or both) of these being mixed squadrons. Mixed squadrons are nothing new in Wing Commander: Black Lion and Blue Devil squadrons flew Rapiers and Scimitars respectively... but each also had a pair (or more) of Broadswords. Nothing in the novel says that these squadrons can't have both Hellcats and Arrows (especially since Hellcats appear, sight unseen, later in the book).

Now here's the cherry: I'm not going to throw out the cruiser error. Instead, we'll use a real world analogy. The Flight IIA Arleigh Burke-class destroyers are improved in design in exactly the same way that the Coventry is compared to the Sheffield -- they feature a flight deck. This specific change in design has lead to serious debate that they should be considered cruisers rather than destroyers, and to claims that the line beween cruiser and destroyer may have been negated in modern warfare.

I don't see how it does not give the class for the Bainbridge. Eisen specifically tells Blair that Dunlevy ended up in cruisers, commanding a half squadron off the Bainbridge.

You are correct, the Bainbridge is a cruiser.

I know I always found scrambles one of the most dissappointing types of missions. You're right, the carriers were never in any real danger. Did that not suck away some of the fun and involvment knowing that you could stand back, do nothing and still win the mission because your carrier would still be there? I do agree that the first set is more reasonable, we might have another round of discussion about it, but I think the big downside that will keep coming up is shields weaker than a light carrier .

So, perhaps like how the Bhantkara-class heavy carrier also has weaker shields than a light carrier (2000 cm v. 3000 cm)? You're blaming the victim here -- the Armada ships aren't the problem... it's the human WC3 ships that have disproportionately heavy shields and armor in order to make it harder to kill them in the game.

To shorten things I would like to request that someone...preferable LOAF since he got the most WC knowledge...makes a list of the Lexington stats and a suggestion on how the stats would be when it was released in WC3 instead.

It's kind of you to ask, but it's pretty much what we've already discussed in this thread - I'd list the flak cannons from Armada, I'd fix the speed and length and I'd work out the shields in one of the manners described above.

 

[Dragon1]

I know I always found scrambles one of the most dissappointing types of missions. You're right, the carriers were never in any real danger. Did that not suck away some of the fun and involvment knowing that you could stand back, do nothing and still win the mission because your carrier would still be there?

Now, the Victory may have been relatively safe, but the Sheffield and the Coventry could be converted to a pile of trash by Vaktoths and Paktahns in seconds.

Now scramble missions in Prophecy could be rediculously hard. I remember trying to deal with torpedo attacks and merged-fighter plasma attacks on the bridge, engines and landing bays simultaneously. Trying to cross the 1800 meter carrier quickly enough to take out a torpedo headed to the engines was extremely difficult.

Find a balance. Harder than WC3 and less than Prophecy and Saga will be perfect!

 

[Sphynx]

Oh, believe me, there will be times when your homebase will be in great peril! We've worked a lot with balancing issues to make defending your carrier a challenge without making it totally impossible.

LOAF, thanks for the input. We will definately take your suggestions into serious consideration.

 

[Raptor leader]

FRED2 Tutorial

Is there any tutorials for FRED2 'cause i will probably be lost or will the saga team include one with the prolouge?

 

[Dragon1]

Check out Hard Light Productions @ http://www.3dactionplanet.com/hlp/

I am sure they will have something.

 

[gevatter Lars]

Their where some tutorials that where included with the original FS2 IIRC.
If people would like to have them we could make a seperate download for them I think. Still their are some Mod specific things that our FREDers do...don't know what exactly since I am no FREDer but I am quite sure that we could also add some notes from them for what is different or just some hints on how to do things.

Else the Hard Light Productions or short HLP are a quite good place to ask any kinds of questions regarding FS2.

 

[Viper61]

It just seems very odd that you're taking the Venture, crippling it... and leaving out all the other classes of ships that should exist at this time (without acknowledging that the WC3 Cruisers/Destroyers/Carriers are supposed to be very old indeed).

Well for one, we aren't crippling the Venture (at least in the patrol version, which the original Venture has the most in common). It has slightly weaker armor than it should and it lost its forward laser cannons, but it has stronger shields and the ingame ability to actually kill any capship with its torpedoes. I'd say thats pretty damn empowering over its previous incarnation.
If we had infinite time and infinite resources, I'm sure you would see many more WC1 and 2 ships throughout Saga, but since the concentration is on a WC3 feel, and since WC3 gives us all that we need for fleet actions (carriers, cruisers, desteroyers, corvettes, bombers, etc etc), WC3 ships predominate with a few exceptions.
I also fail to see how we don't acknowledge all the WC3 hardware is really old. I'm pretty sure I made it a point to tell fans just how old all the ships are in their write-ups (it will also be addressed in the fiction, but you can't see that right now ). How else can we be expected to show how old the ships are? Just playing WC3, the only ship you'd know was old is the Victory herself, and thats just because Blair makes a joke about how "experienced" it is. It takes the WC3 novel and subsequent books to actually give the WCU this information.

He makes that comment - but he still knows that the frigate is carrying fighters before any of this. Just close reading the individual passage shows him identifying the blister before he talks about the contents of the ship -- but outside of that, the fact that they're attacking the platform for a group of strike fighters is part of the mission. They know they're attacking something that carries fighters before they know it's a frigate -- it's knowledge he already had before he looked at his warbook.

I'm not at all sure what you're saying here. Blair identifies the ship (at "extreme visual range") as being a Caernaven-plus-blister by comparing it to the stock picture... if the unusual scenario you've concocted that involves special Caernaven's that are completely opposite Blair's analysis of the ships capabilities, this is exactly where that information would be relevant.

The meaning of the passage is really, really clear when you don't cut it up: he scans, finds the frigate and doesn't believe that's the target because it doesn't make sense. He double checks it and it *is* a frigate, and that's supposed to be a clue to the greater mystery because, as he specifically tells us, the class of frigate (whose name and capabilities have literally just now in the text been created!) won't make a good pirate raider.

For no good reason that I can see, you've decided that you should reverse the meaning of the scene by creating mini-frigates.

I can definitely understand that breaking a passage down too far can result in it losing its overall meaning. Also granted, he knows about the blister and he knows he's looking for something that carries fighters, but those two sentences illustrate that his assessment of the frigate's cargo carrying capability is independent of anything doing with supporting fighters.
"No warship that small had enough cargo space to make a pirate raid profitable". That seems to me to be an all encompassing statement that a ship of this size can't carry that much cargo, without taking into account the fighter load. "Blair was willing to bet that whatever hold space the frigate did have was tied up in servicing the fighters."Blair then explains that the small cargo space this ship has would be taken up with the operation of the fighters he's been tracking. Even taken in the context of the rest of the passage, it still says the same thing.

If you want to go through the full scene, Blair and Catscratch stumble upon the target. From the capital ship's size, Blair suggests that it might be a fast transport, light Kilrathi destroyer or a frigate. We've never seen a fast transport, but no transport we've seen is over 200 meters long and none over a few thousand tons. The only Kilrathi light destroyer we've seen is less than 500 meters long and displaces less than 20,000 tons. Now, throw in the only frigate we know of, the one identified in the Victory streak at 620 meters and displacing 28,000 tons for a nice contrast. Blair needs to identify the ship and moves in closer, getting a "decent" profile of the ship and his targetting computer recognizes it as a Caernaven. Blair flips through his warbook to the Caernaven page and finds the class has been retired from Confed. He then goes in closer so he can visually identify the ship. He sees the hanger, makes his deductions that it will support half a dozen fighters. The ship kills the notion that this was a pirate raid for cargo. Blair then pulls out to the "extreme visual range" you site to follow the ship while waiting for the strike team. I can see how the "to confirm the computer's ident" could be read as Blair not liking the original ID, I've just always taken it as Blair being thorough since his first "step" was to get a computer ident (meaning there is a second step).

This is the passage that identifies the Caernaven, but we assign the original WC3 Frigate statistics to it. I'm guessing there's a source I don't have that identifies the frigates in WC4 as the Caernaven (I only have the novel, the game and one official strategy guide). Otherwise, the overall feel of this passage (if we didn't have a set of stats for the ship) is that this frigate is not a large ship(the two major attributers to this is that its size initially suggesting its a Kilrathi light destroyer or fast transport and the frigate is not large enough to make cargo hauling/piracy profitable).

Anyway, arguing the opposite side of this issue (than what I'm normally on anyway ) has given me alot to think about. We'll see what happens when we broach the topic again (though I would like to know what source attributes the WC3 frigate to the Caernaven we see in WC4 since I don't think I've ever nailed that down).

That is neither here nor there nor anywhere close -- the idea that claiming a military ship operating an ordinary military function during battle is proof of something so tangential is not so much an argument as it is a conscious attempt to pretend space isn't blue.

(... I mean, come on, not even you can take that seriously. Why be so ready to launch shuttles? Oh, maybe for the exact reason they were launched in the novel?)

Hehehe, good point but how ready would you be to give your all in battle if the battlecry was "All hands to battle stations! Shields to full! Hanger deck, use resources that would otherwise be devoted to winning this conflict to prep shuttles, who's use would require personnel to leave their critical stations and duties in the middle of the coming battle, in case this all goes bad!" The exact reason they were able to use the shuttles was that they had the time to reason they had no other course of action (because they had no weapons to fight with), no engines to run with, and a opposing capship slowly barreling down on them who didn't have the weapons available to finish the job quickly. I don't know about you, but I'm not sure how often this plays out in the WCU . Seriously, I can see having an evac plan in place, but I'm also having a hard time thinking that they would use resources in every battle to actively prepare to abandon ship in a way that would require personnel to make it to the hanger bay from all areas of the ship in the middle of a firefight.

Now here's the cherry: I'm not going to throw out the cruiser error. Instead, we'll use a real world analogy. The Flight IIA Arleigh Burke-class destroyers are improved in design in exactly the same way that the Coventry is compared to the Sheffield -- they feature a flight deck. This specific change in design has lead to serious debate that they should be considered cruisers rather than destroyers, and to claims that the line beween cruiser and destroyer may have been negated in modern warfare.

Well, debate is all well and good but theres a difference between it and a ship's designation. I'm not up on the debate, but I assume the Arleigh Burkes are still designated as destroyers. If the debate yields something and it becomes a cruiser, then it will be designated a cruiser. The point is, its not called or refered to as an Arleigh Burke cruiser yet (to my knowledge, if its been redesignated a cruiser, I'm sure its referred to as a cruiser ). The Victory streak refers to the type of ship Coventry/Sheffeild is as a destroyer, as does WC3 and WC4 ingame. Bear, who commanded the Coventry, refers to it being the flagship of his destroyer squadron. Basically, if a ship is desgnated a cruiser, it would be referred to as a cruiser. If a ship is designated a destroyer, it will be refered to as a destroyer. I find saying because there is debate now that a destroyer could be redesignated a cruiser, is a reason that trained military personnel would refer to a single type of ship as both a destroyer and a cruiser a bit of a stretch (though alot of what we are talking about here is a stretch ).

So, perhaps like how the Bhantkara-class heavy carrier also has weaker shields than a light carrier (2000 cm v. 3000 cm)? You're blaming the victim here -- the Armada ships aren't the problem... it's the human WC3 ships that have disproportionately heavy shields and armor in order to make it harder to kill them in the game.

So, we have to not consider the "disproportionate" stats of the only ships we have that are operating in this time period? They may be beefed up to make them harder to kill, but they are our only examples for WC3. Since WC3 happens to be the era we're trying to emulate, using their statistics and flexing those of ships being "introduced" into this time seems like the way to go.
Plus, comparing the Kilrathi ships to Confed ones is not really fair. A Kilrathi heavy carrier's stats compare to the Confed light carriers because of whats in the game and the associated canon materials. I guess I don't see the same discontinuity you do here. We keep ships we "upgrade" to WC3 in some logical proportion to their own contemporaries. Our Kilrathi light carrier has lighter shields and armor than the Kat heavy carrier, and the Kat light cruiser is situated somewhere between the Kat heavy cruiser and destroyer in its stats. The Confed light cruiser takes into account the Confed heavy cruiser and the Confed Destroyer. It doesn't seem to make sense to compare Confed ships with Kilrathi ones for purposes of balancing.

BTW, excellent update to the ship list. That'll definitely help alot of people.

C-ya

 

[Dragon1]

We've never seen a fast transport, but no transport we've seen is over 200 meters long and none over a few thousand tons

Except for of course the 'heavy transports' that were converted into Wake/Crete type CVEs. These are surely over 200 meters and would probably be at least 5,000 tonnes in mass.

 

[Quarto]

Anyway, arguing the opposite side of this issue (than what I'm normally on anyway ) has given me alot to think about. We'll see what happens when we broach the topic again (though I would like to know what source attributes the WC3 frigate to the Caernaven we see in WC4 since I don't think I've ever nailed that down).

Hehe, that's funny, because you've just spent five or six posts analysing the source in question . The WC4 novel is the only source that identifies the WC4 frigates as Caernaven class - and this identification only occurs in the sense that both the game and the novel feature the exact same chase-after-a-frigate mission, with one of them visualising this frigate, and the other calling it a Caernaven.

BTW, here's an interesting question (and this is a question for both you and LOAF) - as I understand it, WC3 never actually shows a Confed frigate model - it uses a destroyer model instead. WC4, meanwhile, does not come with a manual that would provide ship stats (...unless the WC4 guide has something to say in this regard?). So... how do we know that the WC4 Caernaven-class frigate is the same class of ship as the 620-metre frigate from WC3?

Now, I'm not asking this in order to suggest that the Caernavens in WC4 might be 320 metres. I don't want that. I'm not a fan of the "frigates are smaller than destroyers" idea. I like the fact that WC3 didn't simply take present-day ship classification and clone it, but instead (perhaps unconsciously) reverted back to the traditional pre-WWII concept of frigates.

...However, the 620/320 metres thing aside, it would be a good idea not to fuse together the WC3 and WC4 frigates into one class, unless we have any kind of proof that they are indeed meant to be the same class.

Hehehe, good point but how ready would you be to give your all in battle if the battlecry was "All hands to battle stations! Shields to full! Hanger deck, use resources that would otherwise be devoted to winning this conflict to prep shuttles, who's use would require personnel to leave their critical stations and duties in the middle of the coming battle, in case this all goes bad!"

You've gotten yourself into a circular argument. The only circumstance in which the hangar deck resources could be used to win the battle (as opposed to being used to keep the shuttles ready) would be if the cruisers had fighters onboard... and it just so happens that this is what you're trying to prove. In other words, what you're saying is "Assuming they had fighters onboard, it made no sense for them to be prepping shuttles instead... and this proves they had fighters onboard!"

On the other hand, if you try to look at this objectively, you will realise that the fact that there are shuttles prepped and ready to fly on the flight deck would, if anything, suggest that the flight deck is not being used by anything else. Of course, even this is questionable - the fact of the matter is, nobody in their right mind goes into a naval battle without having lifeboats readied for use at a moment's notice. I would suggest that these shuttles would be ready to fly even if the cruisers had fighters, because it is in general far more important to ready yourself for the worst-case scenario than for the best-case. So, all in all, the shuttles prove absolutely nothing.

 

[Viper61]

Except for of course the 'heavy transports' that were converted into Wake/Crete type CVEs. These are surely over 200 meters and would probably be at least 5,000 tonnes in mass.

That is true, but there are quite a few unknowns associated with them (two of which you bring up). We have no idea how long they are, we have no idea how massive they are, and we have no idea how much the carrier conversion addeed to either of these numbers. I guess I should have phrased that "No transport we have concrete stats for . . . "

Hehe, that's funny, because you've just spent five or six posts analysing the source in question . The WC4 novel is the only source that identifies the WC4 frigates as Caernaven class - and this identification only occurs in the sense that both the game and the novel feature the exact same chase-after-a-frigate mission, with one of them visualising this frigate, and the other calling it a Caernaven.

BTW, here's an interesting question (and this is a question for both you and LOAF) - as I understand it, WC3 never actually shows a Confed frigate model - it uses a destroyer model instead. WC4, meanwhile, does not come with a manual that would provide ship stats (...unless the WC4 guide has something to say in this regard?). So... how do we know that the WC4 Caernaven-class frigate is the same class of ship as the 620-metre frigate from WC3?

Now, I'm not asking this in order to suggest that the Caernavens in WC4 might be 320 metres. I don't want that. I'm not a fan of the "frigates are smaller than destroyers" idea. I like the fact that WC3 didn't simply take present-day ship classification and clone it, but instead (perhaps unconsciously) reverted back to the traditional pre-WWII concept of frigates.

...However, the 620/320 metres thing aside, it would be a good idea not to fuse together the WC3 and WC4 frigates into one class, unless we have any kind of proof that they are indeed meant to be the same class.

I'm pretty sure I just went over all that and asked the same question, just not as elegantly and giving the original classification the benefit of the doubt

This is the passage that identifies the Caernaven, but we assign the original WC3 Frigate statistics to it. I'm guessing there's a source I don't have that identifies the frigates in WC4 as the Caernaven (I only have the novel, the game and one official strategy guide). Otherwise, the overall feel of this passage (if we didn't have a set of stats for the ship) is that this frigate is not a large ship(the two major attributers to this is that its size initially suggesting its a Kilrathi light destroyer or fast transport and the frigate is not large enough to make cargo hauling/piracy profitable). . . (though I would like to know what source attributes the WC3 frigate to the Caernaven we see in WC4 since I don't think I've ever nailed that down).

Hehehe, just noticed that I did put a 4 when I meant to refer to 3. It should be . .. "identifies the frigate in WC3 as the Caernaven . . . ". My bad, thanks for pointing out my idiocy there Quarto .

You've gotten yourself into a circular argument. The only circumstance in which the hangar . . .

That's assuming I'm still arguing that the fact that the hanger bay operating is proof that there are fighters. It aqppears I sort of switched focuses without too much of an outward signal that I had (one of my wifes pet peeves ) It really wasn't even proof before (I think i refered to it as a "shred of circumstantial evidence"). We can't really prove anything (since no one knows the absolute procedure of a warship under attack), the past couple fo posts has been just me throwing out little tidbits that in my mind lean toward FC not completely dismissing the cruisers ability to carry fighters (and maybe little ones that might hint that they do) and LOAF trying (and succeeding for the most part) in shooting them down with his own deductions. The little "battlecry" that I jokingly put out there was not intended to continue the now (very evidently) circular argument that the flight deck in operation proves/disproves Tally's carrying fighters (I'm pretty sure I didn't mention cruiser fighters in that whole reply), it was to put both the "for and against" issues as to shuttles operating throughout the battle at all on display. It was evident in my head where I was going with it, I guess I just didn't make it too clear when I typed it. My apologies.
Though it is a moot point. I re-read the excerpt last night and the shuttles/hanger bay is not even mentioned until they are ready to abandon ship and there doesn't seem to be a passage after that that implies that the hanger was in operation all through the battle. I latched onto LOAF's reply "Juneau's bay clearly continued operating through the end of the fighting", took it as meaning the bay operated throughout the battle and ran with it instead of looking it up for myself.
I also replied that I can see them having an evac plan in place, I just couldn't see them actively putting it into effect in every battle a cruiser gets in (where the shuttles are concerned). The fact that they had the time to launch shuttles and pick up the lifepods seems like the exception of how capital ship engagements end rather than the rule from the dialogue between the captain and the first officer (heavy on the "seems", again we just don't know).

 

[Bandit LOAF]

Sorry, I didn’t realize this thread was still going on.

Well for one, we aren't crippling the Venture (at least in the patrol version, which the original Venture has the most in common). It has slightly weaker armor than it should and it lost its forward laser cannons, but it has stronger shields and the ingame ability to actually kill any capship with its torpedoes. I'd say thats pretty damn empowering over its previous incarnation.

I guess what I’m trying to express is that in its original, though rarely seen, incarnation there was something unusual and unique about the Venture - it wasn’t so much a tiny capital ship as it was an unusually large fighter. The idea that it’s losing it’s weird fixed-forward armament and fighter-style missile racks in exchange for all the trappings of a destroyer-writ-small seems a shame to me. I would be far more interested in seeing someone figure out how the Ventures original role was supposed to work than I would be to see someone use it as a token design.

If we had infinite time and infinite resources, I'm sure you would see many more WC1 and 2 ships throughout Saga, but since the concentration is on a WC3 feel, and since WC3 gives us all that we need for fleet actions (carriers, cruisers, desteroyers, corvettes, bombers, etc etc), WC3 ships predominate with a few exceptions.
I also fail to see how we don't acknowledge all the WC3 hardware is really old. I'm pretty sure I made it a point to tell fans just how old all the ships are in their write-ups (it will also be addressed in the fiction, but you can't see that right now ). How else can we be expected to show how old the ships are? Just playing WC3, the only ship you'd know was old is the Victory herself, and thats just because Blair makes a joke about how "experienced" it is. It takes the WC3 novel and subsequent books to actually give the WCU this information.

I guess it's just disappointing is all. I'm sure it's *possible* to come up with an excuse for why only the older ships from Wing Commander III will be scene... but it's not much fun. A fan project is an opportunity to make the game that Origin couldn't -- and extra missions that look like Wing Commander III seems like a shame compared to what should be possible.

I can definitely understand that breaking a passage down too far can result in it losing its overall meaning. Also granted, he knows about the blister and he knows he's looking for something that carries fighters, but those two sentences illustrate that his assessment of the frigate's cargo carrying capability is independent of anything doing with supporting fighters.
"No warship that small had enough cargo space to make a pirate raid profitable". That seems to me to be an all encompassing statement that a ship of this size can't carry that much cargo, without taking into account the fighter load. "Blair was willing to bet that whatever hold space the frigate did have was tied up in servicing the fighters."Blair then explains that the small cargo space this ship has would be taken up with the operation of the fighters he's been tracking. Even taken in the context of the rest of the passage, it still says the same thing.

Yes, it says the same thing it did in the first post: warship.

I wouldn't say "No Volkswagen this size can carry a piano!" and mean that no thing this size can carry a piano.

Perhaps a Ford or a Chevy or, I don't know, a transport cart designed for moving pianos could do it with the same amount of space.

The use of the word warship clearly distinguishes whatever Blair is looking at from a transport, which is not a warship.

(Although on a purely theoretical level, who knows: maybe a transport that size - whatever that size is - can't make a pirate raid profitable. I defy any of us to figure out exactly what Blair thinks it takes to make a pirate raid profitable.)

If you want to go through the full scene, Blair and Catscratch stumble upon the target. From the capital ship's size, Blair suggests that it might be a fast transport, light Kilrathi destroyer or a frigate. We've never seen a fast transport, but no transport we've seen is over 200 meters long and none over a few thousand tons. The only Kilrathi light destroyer we've seen is less than 500 meters long and displaces less than 20,000 tons. Now, throw in the only frigate we know of, the one identified in the Victory streak at 620 meters and displacing 28,000 tons for a nice contrast.

So, basically there's an unidentified target that could be anything from a 68 meter/58 tonne Lumbari to a 620 meter/28,000 tonne frigate? That doesn't sound overly specific.

Blair needs to identify the ship and moves in closer, getting a "decent" profile of the ship and his targetting computer recognizes it as a Caernaven. Blair flips through his warbook to the Caernaven page and finds the class has been retired from Confed. He then goes in closer so he can visually identify the ship. He sees the hanger, makes his deductions that it will support half a dozen fighters. The ship kills the notion that this was a pirate raid for cargo. Blair then pulls out to the "extreme visual range" you site to follow the ship while waiting for the strike team. I can see how the "to confirm the computer's ident" could be read as Blair not liking the original ID, I've just always taken it as Blair being thorough since his first "step" was to get a computer ident (meaning there is a second step).

I would take it as Blair just being thorough - but I don't see how any of this matters... because his statement doesn't prevent a transport the same size as the frigate from being 'profitable'. It's his identification that the ship is a frigate, from the original set of choices, that tells him it's not capable of transporting loot - not the size of the ship as an absolute.

This is the passage that identifies the Caernaven, but we assign the original WC3 Frigate statistics to it. I'm guessing there's a source I don't have that identifies the frigates in WC4 as the Caernaven (I only have the novel, the game and one official strategy guide). Otherwise, the overall feel of this passage (if we didn't have a set of stats for the ship) is that this frigate is not a large ship(the two major attributers to this is that its size initially suggesting its a Kilrathi light destroyer or fast transport and the frigate is not large enough to make cargo hauling/piracy profitable).

Anyway, arguing the opposite side of this issue (than what I'm normally on anyway ) has given me alot to think about. We'll see what happens when we broach the topic again (though I would like to know what source attributes the WC3 frigate to the Caernaven we see in WC4 since I don't think I've ever nailed that down).

I don't think there's a source for this, other than that the model was originally designed to be the WC3 frigate.

I don't think it really impacts this discussion -- no matter what size the Caernaven is, it's not a magic bendy straw frigate... and Blair's initial identification of the ship as possibly being a frigate means that the 620 meter WC3 frigate is still the known upper bound.

Hehehe, good point but how ready would you be to give your all in battle if the battlecry was "All hands to battle stations! Shields to full! Hanger deck, use resources that would otherwise be devoted to winning this conflict to prep shuttles, who's use would require personnel to leave their critical stations and duties in the middle of the coming battle, in case this all goes bad!" The exact reason they were able to use the shuttles was that they had the time to reason they had no other course of action (because they had no weapons to fight with), no engines to run with, and a opposing capship slowly barreling down on them who didn't have the weapons available to finish the job quickly. I don't know about you, but I'm not sure how often this plays out in the WCU . Seriously, I can see having an evac plan in place, but I'm also having a hard time thinking that they would use resources in every battle to actively prepare to abandon ship in a way that would require personnel to make it to the hanger bay from all areas of the ship in the middle of a firefight.

... because there's people on a ship whose job it is to fly the shuttles, and there will be no more important time for them to be at their posts?

You're conceiving a nonsensical scenario just to try and win an argument, and that helps no one. It will be the shuttle pilots job to be ready to fly their shuttles at action stations.

What kind of Navy are you imagining here? We're under attack! Should we go to our posts? Maybe not, it might be bad for morale -- we wouldn't want to imply to anyone that the ship might be destroyed... in the violent, generation-spanning war that's killed trillions.

Also, don't make sure the medical staff are ready to recieve casualties - you wouldn't want to imply to the crew that people might be hurt!

Now we're bearing down on the enemy, okay... well, don't get the rear gunners to *their* positions, either, we wouldn't want to suggest to anyone that the ship might have to turn around and run away.

To that end, don't even activate the rear shields. Or any shields, really, as they'd just let the poor deprived crew know that we're going to be taking fire from an enemy ship. I just don't think they could handle that.

You know, don't have the engineering crews don any sort of protective clothing, it might imply that there'd be an antimatter breach, or that the ship could be exposed to space!

(... and have the radar officer stand down, he might find out that the enemy outnumbers us.)

Well, debate is all well and good but theres a difference between it and a ship's designation. I'm not up on the debate, but I assume the Arleigh Burkes are still designated as destroyers. If the debate yields something and it becomes a cruiser, then it will be designated a cruiser. The point is, its not called or refered to as an Arleigh Burke cruiser yet (to my knowledge, if its been redesignated a cruiser, I'm sure its referred to as a cruiser ). The Victory streak refers to the type of ship Coventry/Sheffeild is as a destroyer, as does WC3 and WC4 ingame. Bear, who commanded the Coventry, refers to it being the flagship of his destroyer squadron. Basically, if a ship is desgnated a cruiser, it would be referred to as a cruiser. If a ship is designated a destroyer, it will be refered to as a destroyer. I find saying because there is debate now that a destroyer could be redesignated a cruiser, is a reason that trained military personnel would refer to a single type of ship as both a destroyer and a cruiser a bit of a stretch (though alot of what we are talking about here is a stretch ).

I don't think it'd be the first specific Wing Commander ship referred to as multiple things. The one that comes to mind immediately is the Ras Nik'hra, which is called both a destroyer (in Wing Commander Academy) and a cruiser (in Freedom Flight). The ships list, which I believe I need to update with that notation, has other examples.

(Heck, googling for "Arleigh Burke cruiser" comes up with a result or two... including Northrop Grummans webpage about building radar systems for them. Naval classifications aren't so clear cut.)

That is true, but there are quite a few unknowns associated with them (two of which you bring up). We have no idea how long they are, we have no idea how massive they are, and we have no idea how much the carrier conversion addeed to either of these numbers. I guess I should have phrased that "No transport we have concrete stats for . . . "

While you are correct that we don't know how much length might have been added on to the class of medium transports that became the Crete-type CVEs... we do know that there is a class of heavy transports that is 'almost as big as the Tarawa' (from Fleet Action). It's not a concrete size, but it is evidence that there are large transports out there.

 

[Viper61]

I don't think there's a source for this, other than that the model was originally designed to be the WC3 frigate.


I don't think it really impacts this discussion -- no matter what size the Caernaven is, it's not a magic bendy straw frigate... and Blair's initial identification of the ship as possibly being a frigate means that the 620 meter WC3 frigate is still the known upper bound.

Well, I would say it imparts quite a bit on the discussion, since the original point addressed was the "configurable up to 620m" which was explained to be an effort to keep this description of the Caernaven intact and keep the WC3 frigate statistics. If we aren't talking about the same ship, its a whole new ballgame .

... because there's people on a ship whose job it is to fly the shuttles, and there will be no more important time for them to be at their posts?

You're conceiving a nonsensical scenario . . . .

This whole "doing their job" speil would be great if we actually had a pilot flying the shuttles seen coming from the Juneau (or if there was a mention of a seperate pilot at all). Graham, our engineer hero, is the one at the controls. Someone who had the time to abandon his critical post to take over the shuttle, not someone doing his normal "battlestations" duty.

... (Heck, googling for "Arleigh Burke cruiser" comes up with a result or two... including Northrop Grummans webpage about building radar systems for them. Naval classifications aren't so clear cut.)

I'll have to have a word with PR on that one, since it is the only "reputable/quotable" source from that google search out there that has it "wrong" .

C-ya

 

[Bandit LOAF]

Well, I would say it imparts quite a bit on the discussion, since the original point addressed was the "configurable up to 620m" which was explained to be an effort to keep this description of the Caernaven intact and keep the WC3 frigate statistics. If we aren't talking about the same ship, its a whole new ballgame .

I'm still pretty sure we're talking about the same ship, for the reason I specified. It's just not the sort of thing I can reasonably credit in the ships list. You, too, clearly feel this way, as you've attached a bastardized version of the specifications to your mod.

This whole "doing their job" speil would be great if we actually had a pilot flying the shuttles seen coming from the Juneau (or if there was a mention of a seperate pilot at all). Graham, our engineer hero, is the one at the controls. Someone who had the time to abandon his critical post to take over the shuttle, not someone doing his normal "battlestations" duty.

So... they just keep a contingent of shuttles around and hope someone will know how to fly them? Or perhaps Graham is flying the shuttle because he's taken command and is now leading all three shuttles...? These shuttles don't per chance have two sets in front, do they, that might allow both a pilot and a passenger to operate the vehicle? Have we seen that somewhere, maybe?

I'll have to have a word with PR on that one, since it is the only "reputable/quotable" source from that google search out there that has it "wrong" .

Yeah, you do that.

No offense, but this has been a very poor response to my rather thorough and absolutely inoffensive reply -- you ignored large pieces of it to focus on what you probably thought were snappy one liners... where's the Ras Nik'hra point? Where's the attempt to define a transport as a warship? Where's the point about the soul of the Venture? You just cut out a lot of important arguments.

 

[Viper61]

So... they just keep a contingent of shuttles around and hope someone will know how to fly them? Or perhaps Graham is flying the shuttle because he's taken command and is now leading all three shuttles...? These shuttles don't per chance have two sets in front, do they, that might allow both a pilot and a passenger to operate the vehicle? Have we seen that somewhere, maybe?

That is all true, though its guesswork. Almost everything to do with this situation is guesswork, so saying the shuttles are all prepped at all times is a likely situation and saying that they are prepped only during battlestations probably isn't a bad guess either. I'm sure there are people there who know how to operate a shuttle (Graham included), and you can assign someone specifically to do it, though in the end, how this whole operation goes down is up in the air. I for one don't think that on a ship of limited size and limited personnel you have anyone who just sits and twiddles their thumbs for 95% of the time until personnel and/or supplies need to be transferred or escape pods need to be picked up .

Yeah, you do that.

No offense, but this has been a very poor response to my rather thorough and absolutely inoffensive reply -- you ignored large pieces of it to focus on what you probably thought were snappy one liners... where's the Ras Nik'hra point? Where's the attempt to define a transport as a warship? Where's the point about the soul of the Venture? You just cut out a lot of important arguments.

Actually, I do plan to do that. I figured that NG reference in particular was because you remembered from our "offline" conversations why we live in Baltimore now. I guess I was wrong. I walk by a few people's desks at least twice a week who would like to know if something on a NG website might be wrong.

I don't mean to be curt, but I don't have alot of time today (also, you didn't know this conversation was still going on earlier because I hadn't been able to back to it in several days ). You can pretty well assume that if I drop a point, its either because you've given a good point (the Ra'Nikra) and I don't feel any comment I have is worth posting or we've come to a place that is an impass and its not really productive to delve further (you believe we've somehow taken the "soul" out of the Venture when I feel we've done a pretty good job of getting it up to snuff in the WC3 timeline and making it a useful ship while giving people a link to the "gaming past" that WC3 wasn't able to do). You expressed what you feel you needed to and I did the same, I'm not sure where else you want to go with it.

C-ya

 

[Bandit LOAF]

That is all true, though its guesswork. Almost everything to do with this situation is guesswork, so saying the shuttles are all prepped at all times is a likely situation and saying that they are prepped only during battlestations probably isn't a bad guess either. I'm sure there are people there who know how to operate a shuttle (Graham included), and you can assign someone specifically to do it, though in the end, how this whole operation goes down is up in the air. I for one don't think that on a ship of limited size and limited personnel you have anyone who just sits and twiddles their thumbs for 95% of the time until personnel and/or supplies need to be transferred or escape pods need to be picked up .

I'm going to admit that I'm lost here. Wasn't the original claim that because we see the shuttles being used but not fighters, it's a suggestion that these specific cruisers had no fighters? How did we get here from there?

Actually, I do plan to do that. I figured that NG reference in particular was because you remembered from our "offline" conversations why we live in Baltimore now. I guess I was wrong. I walk by a few people's desks at least twice a week who would like to know if something on a NG website might be wrong.

No, it just happened to be the first search result for "Arleigh Burke cruiser". If I'd gone with "Arleigh Burke class cruiser" I'd have said something about the Canadian Department of Defense.

It certainly doesn't have anything to do with where you work -- and I honestly do not remember where that is. I replied thinking you were pulling a silly faux self importance sort of a response that is common on the internet - if you actually work for Grumman or some related company, I apologize for my tone.

I don't mean to be curt, but I don't have alot of time (you didn't know this conversation was still going on because I hadn't been able to back to it in several days). You can pretty well assume that if I drop a point, its either because you've given a good point (the Ra'Nikra) and I don't feel any comment I have is worth posting or we've come to a place that is an impass and its not really productive to delve further (you believe we've somehow taken the "soul" out of the Venture when I feel we've done a pretty good job of getting it up to snuff in the WC3 timeline and making it a useful ship while giving people a link to the "gaming past" that WC3 wasn't able to do). You expressed what you feel you needed to and I did the same, I'm not sure where else you want to go with it.

Well, there's exactly the problem -- I can't know if you're agreeing with me or just deciding there's no point in arguing. Some sort of "Good point, lets move on" or "I think we need to agree to disagree" would clear that up pretty easily. (Though, frankly, I thought the Venture concept merited some thought -- it's really an idea no one has thought much about, exactly what they do with those lasers. I mean, to Saga's defense, even End Run leaves them out when writing about the Venture -- but it's still a really good question, I think.)