Pliers Swears By It

BWS Intrepid veterans may recall that the carrier's eccentric mechanic sometimes comments on their weapon loadouts and ship selections. Unfortunately, when you go to look up the history of the Stormfire, it's not in the Wing Commander IV script!

To fix that omission, I've gone through the game in order to make Pliers talk. There's lots of interesting information, quite a bit of foul language... and plenty of great trivia as to exactly what he's done to the carrier's arsenal. The next time someone asks you why the tractor beams in Wing Commander IV are so great, you can say with certainty: they've got double the axial frequency and some added inertial retractors!

Introductions-
Intro: Bring me back a ship as clean as you did last time and I'll show you what old Pliers can do.
Intro: Good luck, kid. Eisen handed out a tough one today.
Intro: Don't screw this one up, kid. Looks like a cake walk.

Ships-
Avenger: Avengers are good for rescues. They've got staying power. Kind of slow, though. Banshees are the quick guys.
Vindicator: The Vindicator won't get you through long battles with that light armor, but it's the only one you can use for atmospheric missions.
Banshee: Banshees are great all around fighters. You can't go wrong unless you're trying to take out a cap ship.
Lance: The Dragons are amazing. Just think about those infinite afterburners. The speed comes directly out of your powerplant, though, so just keep an eye on your energy readouts.

Guns-
Tachyon: The Tachyon cannon is one of my favorites. It packs a real wallop, rarely fails and it's one sleek design.
Leech: If you wanna disable a ship, use Leech Cannons. The Confed's like the missiles, and sure we've got some of them... but they're a little rougher on the merchandise, if you know what I mean. If you get in close, go with the cannons.
Mass Driver: The mass driver is a great gun for scaring the crap out of your enemies. It has a gut-wrenching sound and leaves a lot of visual damage.
Laser: Laser cannons don't do much damage, but they sure fire fast.
Ion Cannon: The Ion Cannon was the first weapon I ever worked on, and it hasn't changed much since. They're rugged and cheap to build, so we got a lot of 'em.
Photon Cannon: No idea why so many people like the Photon Cannon. I always thought the heat to divergence ratio was lame.
Plasma Cannon: The Plasma Cannon definitely wreaks major havoc on your enemy, but don't get caught leaning on the trigger. It'll drain you dry in no time. It'll suck you dry faster than a... okay, you get the point.
Fission Cannon: These Black Lance ship got some crazy type of ass kicking Fission Cannon. Just hold down the trigger to charge and release to let 'em rip. Only problem is waiting for your wings to lock so the vicious kickback doesn't tear 'em off.
Stormfire: I was able to pull a Stormfire off a junk pirate fighter we just hauled in. Boy, old technology but damn effective. Fires a shitload of small, low density projectiles at extremely high velocity. Just paint your target and let her rip. If the range wasn't so damn short they'd still be around today. Try it out and see how you like it.
Scatter Gun: I was tinkering with one of our Ion Cannons and came up with this Scatter Cannon. Okay, so the name sucks. It shoots five bolts instead of one, for just a 17% bigger hit on your energy. The prototype's going on your next ship. See what you think.
Tractor Beam: I've pushed the limits of those old Confed tractor beams you probably learned on at the Academy. I doubled the axial frequency, added inertial retractors and pretty much tweaked the hell out of 'em. You'll be impressed your next salvage op.

Missiles-
Dumb Fire: Dumb Fires. Pack a big punch, but only good for slow moving space pigs and cap ships.
Heat-Seeker: Euh, Heat Seekers, whatever. Best you can do on this Border Worlds budget, I guess.
Friend or Foe: The Pilum FF basically kicks ass. You fire it and let it do its job, no questions asked.
Image Recognition: Image Recs? Euh. Confed has shit loads of these. The locking gizmo takes its time, but it tracks real good.
Mine: If you've got mines on your ship, I recommend using them. I've seen more than one bogie bite it because he didn't watch out for these creepers. They track, you know?
Starburst #1: We scored some prototype ordinance which I'm anxious to see field tested. One of them is code-named Starburst and it appears to be some kind of charged-particle burst bomb with an engine attached. When you launch it, keep the trigger down until you want it to blow. Then hopefully the safety will keep it from going off in your face.
Starburst #2: Starbursts. Good for hitting big and something a long way off... but I think it'll need some old Pliers magic before it'll be more useful.
Coneburst: Boy does that Starburst bomb suck. Guess that's why it was still in testing. Well, I've been tinkering with it, made it more useful. Instead of bursting all over the place it all blows forward in a cone shape. Like some big shotgun. Someone's gonna shit.
Torpedo: You want to kill a cap-ship? Use torpedoes. 'Nuff said.
Mace: We got some ass kicking loot from that weapons depot. Try out the Mace missile sometime. This sucker's got a proto-nuclear warhead on it that'll take out more than its fair share. Just launch and hold the trigger till the safety clicks off. Then release to explode. Boom!
Flashpak #1: Give 'em hell, kid. Can't wait to hear about that flashpak.
Flaskpak #2: The Flashpak is guided, it's mean and we only got one. I don't know any more and I don't think I'd want to. This thing scares me.