Wing Commander Prophecy: Boom Boom recipe

[Earthworm]

What fighter does Confed employ that is better suited for long range patrol than a Piranha?

A heavy, or at least medium fighter, with enough space on it to pick up some artifacts (therefore requireing a tractor beam, or something else to pick them up). Furthermore, I don't recall that we're ever told the Piranha is the only recon fighter Confed has in 2680's.

I think it was Earthworm himself that said the Excalibur with a cloak is too expensive for regular use,

No, Earthworm said that the Excal was an expensive ship all together.

LR recon ships should be expendable, so why fix a valuable piece of hardware on something you're going to throw away?

They're not as expendable as you think. Those ships are ment to come back with their information, and sometimes it can be something very valuable.

If several fighters with cloaks had been lost with little armament, then why would a major take the same ship type with only a couple lasers if 6 attempts seem to indicate that the fighters couldn't withdraw because they were seen and could not fight their way back with a pair of lasers.

Because they needed recon, information. You could take an Excal that is probably the primary fighter of the 2nd LR recon squadron, or a Vampire that is a front line fighter, and more suited for fighitng that recon for several resons. As I mentioned above, those recon fighters had to pick up artifacts in case any were found, that was one of their objectives. An Excal without any missiles would have plenty of room for a tractor beam or a similar device, and a place to keep those artifacts. The Vampire is small, and very thin.

"And who here said that BL and pirates had that ability?"
I believe you did, here:
"If the small reminder of the black lance (of course, they are gone now), pirates, Kilrathi, and whatever else there is would be able to see through it without much problems, than it wouldn’t be used as often by the Prophecy time."

Can you read DH?

I said *If* they would be able to see through it.

[This message has been edited by Earthworm (edited May 18, 2000).]

 

[No Regret]

.

[This message has been edited by No Regret (edited May 18, 2000).]

 

[Quarto]

Furthermore, I don't recall that we're ever told the Piranha is the only recon fighter Confed has in 2680's.

You make a very good point. So what makes you think the Excal is the only Long Range Recon fighter?

Ah, but an Excal is larger. Major Washington’s Excal was armed only with lasers because they had to put so much equipment on it. The Vampire is slightly longer than one half of an Excal.

True. How about the Bearcat then? It's not that much smaller than the Excal, and it is a whole lot better all around.

 

[Earthworm]

You make a very good point. So what makes you think the Excal is the only Long Range Recon fighter?

Did I say anything like that?

The Excal just seems to be a fighter used for that in this particular situation.

True. How about the Bearcat then? It's not that much smaller than the Excal, and it is a whole lot better all around.

I heard somewhere that the Ion engines on the Bearcat are unstable or something. Though I don't know where it came from, it's neither in the official guide, game or novel. And though it seems to be a long range fighter, we don't know if it could make several jump like the Excal.... But if that's not a problem than yeah, it would make a better recon fighter.

 

[Death's Head]

"Can you read DH?"
Oh I can read alright, but that's not a topic for debate here.

"I said *If* they would be able to see through it."
Why would you say that if you didn't think that was the case.

I could have said *IF* Confed had a cloak on all its capitol ships, then they would easily track cloaked fighters. That notion is no different than yours and equally fallable.

 

[Earthworm]

"I said *If* they would be able to see through it."
Why would you say that if you didn't think that was the case.

Because it's one of the posibilities. And it's certainly possible that someone who already has cloack technology could have something that lets you see through cloack.

I could have said *IF* Confed had a cloak on all its capitol ships, then they would easily track cloaked fighters. That notion is no different than yours and equally fallable.

WTF are you talking about? How would having a cloack enable a capship to see cloacked fighters?



[This message has been edited by Earthworm (edited May 18, 2000).]

 

[Death's Head]

"I heard somewhere that the Ion engines on the Bearcat are unstable or something."
Say what? If you take what novels say seriously, you could derive that all ion engines are unstable.

"A heavy, or at least medium fighter, with enough space on it to pick up some artifacts"
There you go with aritifacts, there was no way of knowing there would be anything to collect at all other than sensor and visual data. Confed wanted to know what was going on, they weren't on a shopping spree there.

Actually, any ship with a jump drive would make a decent recon ship, why blow a half-dozen expensive fighters on something you know nothing about when you can fling a cheap, easily replacable craft?

Given a low power tractor beam and a single empty missile bay, any ship could pick up a chunk of debris, provided it's not capship debris, of course for obvious reasons. There also seems to be some kind of docking clamps on the new fighters, such a device would easily latch onto a small hull plate.
Furthermore, of all the ships mentioned in ICIS, Excalibur and Piranha were the only ships mentioned. The two ships are designed in different eras. Excalibur was designed to as a multirole heavy fighter, whereas the Piranha was designed for low intensity dogfighting and scouting duties. Since there is so much difference in design, there could be a dozen ships or more, at least in theory that are capable of doing high-risk/little chance of survival recon, provided they can jump. The only Confed fighter we know doesn't jump is the Wasp, whereas the others seem to have jump drive as standard.

 

[Death's Head]

"WTF are you talking about? How would having a cloack enable a capship to see cloacked fighters?"
Settle down, my how excitable you are. As you hastily attempted to reprimand me, you ignored my point. *IF* you thought about how I said, instead of isolating what I said, you might better understand things.

In any case, one can argue that every time you have a cloak you see other cloaked ships, whether you yourself are cloaked or not. That's the sort of arguement you made earlier, I had hoped not to repeat such a fallacy, but it seems the only way to get through given my apathetic view in this case. FFR, c-l-o-a-k.

 

[Quarto]

I heard somewhere that the Ion engines on the Bearcat are unstable or something. Though I don't know where it came from, it's neither in the official guide, game or novel. And though it seems to be a long range fighter, we don't know if it could make several jump like the Excal.... But if that's not a problem than yeah, it would make a better recon fighter.

Since you state that you had not seen this in a single legitimate source of info about WC4, it's fairly pointless to even bring it up

. As for jumps... if it has a jump drive (if it doesn't, it can be fitted with one for the scouting hop), then it can handle as many, if not more, jumps than the Excal.

I would, however, like to point out that this is a rather pointless debate. We've topic drifted onto the Bearcat, and the usual "Excalibur vs. The rest of the Fleet" debate, while the real issue was cloaking

.

Speaking of which, when DH mentions cloaked ships being able to see other cloaked ships, I believe he is referring to the Dragon phenomenon - where, in the Dragon, we could see the other cloaked ships. That, however, seems to me to be a rather precarious argument. Whether the Dragon saw the other Dragons because of the cloaking device, or because it had some advanced sensor package just for that purpose, is highly debatable.

 

[Death's Head]

You can see your own ship cloaked, whereas you couldn't see your Excalibur in wc3.
My point is that it IS a precarious arguement-emphasizing that which seems to reaccur, in almost any situation. You do see the point though about the IF statement about practically every space-worthy ship being able to penetrate what Eisen called truly inpenetrable? Ah forget that, what if this happened and what if that happened sounded like someone should have used the braincase more and I should have left it at that. I offer a full retraction.

What remains is that in the games you have to shoot weapons off blindly to locate cloaked ships unless you are in a Dragon, another reason it's a decent ship, which also indicates that only the novel FA does a ship track a stealth ship, which sounded tough for an ace veteran anyway from recallection. EW also cites the anticloak gun from the Armada addon. Well the existance of such a device seemed to me as a way of evening out odds, creating more intense competition rather than something used by Confed, or Kilrathi forces for that matter.

We are also left with the only known use of cloak in Prophecy doing its job, concealing the ship so that Maj. Washington got back alive with sensor data and an artifact. We do not know the bugs "let him go", why would they do this? From all information we get from the game, and references, the bugs ruthlessly hunted down anyone they detected, with two possible exceptions. Twice, if the bugs were the Nephilim from Earth's past and the Kilrathi Star Gods did they willingly allow survivors, that was what...thousands of years ago? Cats and Apes were apparently deemed unworthy of further effort. Now letting yourself being detected with a "mere" recon force is ridicuously careless, if not stupid. If the bugs didn't expect Terrans to be worthy opposition, at least in Kilrathi space, then why would they remotely consider letting an advanced ship go? If I encountered a ship unlike anything I've seen piloted by an enemy/rival of mine, being the bugs I would withhold no effort to find out how advanced the ship is and what it has found out about me.

 

[Quarto]

In regards to the anti-cloak gun, I agree that it's ridiculous that Earthworm would even bring that up as an example of cloak-detecting technology. The Armada addon was designed for people to have fun on a network, not as canon. Indeed, I don't see anything canon about ships picking up guns in vacuumand using them

.

As for Maj. Washington, I think that he actually was overlooked. He seemed to sweep through totally empty space - apparently, the Nephilem forgot to secure the jump points. That's not at all right, considering their supposed efficiency, but what the heck - it was a plot device, simple as that. I'm afraid we'll never know if his cloak had saved him, or if there really were no Bug ships in the area he flew through. However, I would prefer to believe that his cloak did work against the Bugs, even if it wasn't needed.

 

[Death's Head]

Yes, but being EW he will argue for it anyway.

It is possible Washington was not in the scanning range, but ranges are long, as we see. The cloak seems to have conealing him at least in this zone anyway. Score points for Confed if they have some means of surprising the bugs with working cloaks.

 

[Earthworm]

Since you state that you had not seen this in a single legitimate source of info about WC4, it's fairly pointless to even bring it up

.

Ah, but there are other legitimate sources.

As for jumps... if it has a jump drive (if it doesn't, it can be fitted with one for the scouting hop), then it can handle as many, if not more, jumps than the Excal.

And how exactly do you know that?

Whether the Dragon saw the other Dragons because of the cloaking device, or because it had some advanced sensor package just for that purpose, is highly debatable.

Or, wheather we saw cloacked ships, while cloacked ourselves because the screen turns gray.

 

[Earthworm]

Settle down, my how excitable you are.

Who said I got excited DH?

In any case, one can argue that every time you have a cloak you see other cloaked ships, whether you yourself are cloaked or not.

You can always see cloacked ships in WC4, even without a cloack.

 

[Earthworm]

Say what? If you take what novels say seriously, you could derive that all ion engines are unstable.

Again, Earthworm has no idea what DH is talking about.

There you go with aritifacts, there was no way of knowing there would be anything to collect at all other than sensor and visual data. Confed wanted to know what was going on, they weren't on a shopping spree there.

Colecting anything that's unusual was one of their objectives....

Actually, any ship with a jump drive would make a decent recon ship

Not if that ships doesn't have enough fuel to make more than two jumps.

Given a low power tractor beam and a single empty missile bay, any ship could pick up a chunk of debris, provided it's not capship debris, of course for obvious reasons.

Hm, how small are the low power tractor beams.

There also seems to be some kind of docking clamps on the new fighters, such a device would easily latch onto a small hull plate.

Docking clamps? Where'd you get that? And, you can't seriously think that they would latch something onto a fighter and than risk loosing it in the jump.

Furthermore, of all the ships mentioned in ICIS, Excalibur and Piranha were the only ships mentioned.

Furthemore, I don't see a reason why the ICIS should mention all existing recon fighters.

The only Confed fighter we know doesn't jump is the Wasp, whereas the others seem to have jump drive as standard.

Just because we see a Piranha suposedly jump in the Prophecy intro doesn't mean it has a standard JD. Same goes for some of the other fighters.

You can see your own ship cloaked, whereas you couldn't see your Excalibur in wc3.

And that doesn't mean anything.

What remains is that in the games you have to shoot weapons off blindly to locate cloaked ships unless you are in a Dragon, another reason it's a decent ship,

Um, you can see all cloacked ships in WC4 no matter what fighter you're in.

which also indicates that only the novel FA does a ship track a stealth ship, which sounded tough for an ace veteran anyway from recallection.

I can't understand even a small part of that sentence.

EW also cites the anticloak gun from the Armada addon. Well the existance of such a device seemed to me as a way of evening out odds, creating more intense competition rather than something used by Confed, or Kilrathi forces for that matter.

Nevertheless, it's present in the game, therefore it does exist.

We do not know the bugs "let him go", why would they do this?

I said that was just one posibility. And it's as much valid as saying the other fighters didn't have cloack because they were destroyed.

In regards to the anti-cloak gun, I agree that it's ridiculous that Earthworm would even bring that up as an example of cloak-detecting technology. The Armada addon was designed for people to have fun on a network, not as canon. Indeed, I don't see anything canon about ships picking up guns in vacuumand using them

That's your problem then. A weapon like that does exist, and it was even suposed to be in Prophecy.

Yes, but being EW he will argue for it anyway.

And DH will continue making lame comments.

 

[TC]

Who said I got excited DH?

I'm sure I've said it at some point... so let's just say me.

TC

------------------
CAG of the Blacklance HQ
"Canadian and proud of it"-TC

 

[Quarto]

You can always see cloacked ships in WC4, even without a cloack.

Just a quick note. Usually, I don't correct spelling errors, but this is really getting ridiculous. Repeat after me, Earthworm. C-L-O-A-K. C-L-O-A-K. No C in there anywhere.

And no, you cannot always see cloaked ships in WC4. Unless you're in the Dragon, you see nothing. That much I still remember

.

Ah, but there are other legitimate sources.

It seems as though you've named all the ones that deal with WC4

. What else is there?

And how exactly do you know that?

'Tis simple

. For one thing, they all use the same jump drive

. Secondly, the Bearcat's fuel tanks seem to be a comparable size to the Excal's. And thirdly, we had to refuel after every jump in WC3. Thus, it can be assumed that it is NOT standard for an Excal to do more than one jump. Of course, here we're talking about a scout variant, so that's different.

Or, wheather we saw cloacked ships, while cloacked ourselves because the screen turns gray.

Nothing to do with it. In the Dragon, you see the enemy ship wireframe even when you're not cloaked yourself. I know that, because it's very useful when you're hunting Dragons

.

Death's Head says:
It is possible Washington was not in the scanning range, but ranges are long, as we see. The cloak seems to have conealing him at least in this zone anyway. Score points for Confed if they have some means of surprising the bugs with working cloaks.

Indeed. I would be very surprised if the bugs had no long range scanners. Hmm... I wonder what they thought when they saw a blip appear and disappear on the radar? Do they have alcoholic drinks that they could blame for that odd phenomenon?

 

[Quarto]

Hm, how small are the low power tractor beams.

Well, they generally fit in a gun slot

. Or haven't you noticed that the Excal has no rear turret, which is where these things are normally placed?

Docking clamps? Where'd you get that? And, you can't seriously think that they would latch something onto a fighter and than risk loosing it in the jump.

What's wrong with docking clamps? And what's the risk? Do the docking clams have a mind of their own, to let things go of their own volition? No. Therefore, docking clamps would be just as safe as an internal storage bay.

Just because we see a Piranha suposedly jump in the Prophecy intro doesn't mean it has a standard JD. Same goes for some of the other fighters.

What exactly do you mean? Since when are there different variants of the jump drive? Last I checked, the only such variant was the faulty Morningstar jumpdrive, which... well... failed.

Nevertheless, it's present in the game, therefore it does exist.

Yeah, and in the very same game, you get to pick up guns in flight. Is that canon? Oh, and in the very same game, you get to destroy both Terra and Kilrah. Is THAT canon?

That's your problem then. A weapon like that does exist, and it was even suposed to be in Prophecy.

No. That's your problem

. BTW, as I recall, the weapon in Prophecy was a cloak gun, not an anti-cloak gun. There's a major difference there

(note that WC cloaks have always been placed in gun slots). And had there been an anti-cloak gun, then it would have only been available in multiplayer, and thus also not canon. At any rate, there was neither cloak gun, nor anti-cloak gun in WCP, just as there was no MP. Ergo, your argument is null and void.

 

[Earthworm]

And no, you cannot always see cloaked ships in WC4. Unless you're in the Dragon, you see nothing. That much I still remember

.

Than you don't remember that much about it than. You can see cloacked ships no matter what ship you're flying.

Ah, but there are other legitimate sources.
It seems as though you've named all the ones that deal with WC4

. What else is there?

There's the WC4 authorized strategy guide, though I don't have it, and there's the Secrets Of the WC Universe, which I belive does cover WC4.

'Tis simple

. For one thing, they all use the same jump drive

. Secondly, the Bearcat's fuel tanks seem to be a comparable size to the Excal's.

Why exactly is that? We only see the AB fuel that's being used. And the Excal does have the matter-antimatter powerplant which gives it a longer range.

And thirdly, we had to refuel after every jump in WC3. Thus, it can be assumed that it is NOT standard for an Excal to do more than one jump.

We only jump once in WC3, and never refuel....

Nothing to do with it. In the Dragon, you see the enemy ship wireframe even when you're not cloaked yourself. I know that, because it's very useful when you're hunting Dragons

.

You always see the wireframe cloaked ships. Always. Put donw your copy of SC and replay WC4 damn it.

Well, they generally fit in a gun slot . Or haven't you noticed that the Excal has no rear turret, which is where these things are normally placed?

I don't think so.... That Excal had only lasers, it had to be fitted with a jump drive, and a cloack, so it could be fitted with a tractor beam underneath. The black Hellcats in WC4 had tractor beams under their wings, and they replaced a whole 3-hardpoint slot.

What's wrong with docking clamps?

Just that I don't know where he came up with Prophecy ships having some special docking clamps.

And what's the risk? Do the docking clams have a mind of their own, to let things go of their own volition? No. Therefore, docking clamps would be just as safe as an internal storage bay.

Hm, you can have an artifact inside the fighter, where you can only loose it if you loose the fighter, or you can have it outside your fighter, where it can fell off as a result of a jump shock or something similar.

What exactly do you mean? Since when are there different variants of the jump drive? Last I checked, the only such variant was the faulty Morningstar jumpdrive, which... well... failed.

Where have I sad anything about different variants of a JD?

Yeah, and in the very same game, you get to pick up guns in flight. Is that canon?

That could be posible.....And yes, it is canon.

Oh, and in the very same game, you get to destroy both Terra and Kilrah. Is THAT canon?

Now that's a stupid point.

No. That's your problem . BTW, as I recall, the weapon in Prophecy was a cloak gun, not an anti-cloak gun. There's a major difference there

Ah, so that gun would make the ship you shot at cloak?

(note that WC cloaks have always been placed in gun slots).

??????

And had there been an anti-cloak gun, then it would have only been available in multiplayer, and thus also not canon.

Again, ??????. Since when is a weapon that is available only in MP not considered canon?

At any rate, there was neither cloak gun, nor anti-cloak gun in WCP, just as there was no MP.

The point is, that they did make that gun, and at one point were planing to use it. It got droped, but at least we know that it wasn't just a one time thing used to enhance only one game.

 

[Death's Head]

"And it's certainly possible that someone who already has cloack technology could have something that lets you see through cloack."
And it's possible that someone has doughnut gun to shoot at Confed patrol ships.

Get back to me when you have a better story to tell.