ChrisReid,
Thanks
This isn't improving the graphics, it's changing things. You will never ever hear the end of this.
SWC had radically different graphics than WC-1. Regarding the Kilrathi designs featuring more aggressive edges isn't all that crazy -- by the way it was written in WC-3 in the manual, it seemed as if the designs of the Kilrathi were common practice. The Krant, Jalthi, and to an extent the Dralthi look pretty good. The capital ships would combine WC-1 and WC-3 traits yet looking simpler than WC-3 designs. In terms of changing the WC-2 ships around, not all of them would be changed -- the Gilgamesh largely looks good. The Waterloo looks a bit cartoonish, or like something you'd get in a McDonald's Happy Meal back in the eighties. In any case, there are other people who agree with me and are not particularly fond of some of WC-2's designs. So I simply propose retaining the essence of some of the designs and giving them some WC-1, WC-2 and WC-4 characteristics to make them seem more a part of the timeline -- they would still be made to look more advanced than the WC-1 era designs.
All the colors add character. It'd be a shame to lose that.
The silver and primary green never did it for me. The blue and gray looked so much more realistic.
Let's face it. Flak cannons exist for two reasons alone
-The flak effect is much to provide that WWII feel
-It takes up lots of computer resources back then to simulate the firing arcs of 20 something small guns, in addition to a couple of big ones.
The first explanation is taking the WWII thing to death -- WC is supposed to have an element of WW2 in space... but this is not to be interpreted too far. WC-Ships aren't propeller powered, they're fusion powered, Air to Air missiles are used which aren't in WWII. Forcefields didn't exist then either.
The second statement may have been correct in 1990 - 1992, and even 1994-1996... still, in WC-3 they did away with the idea of flak-turrets in WC-3 since they didn't look realistic. And modern day we have far greater computational capacity -- we can simulate dozens of turrets on loads of ships.
Point defense turrets are sort of "implied" to be on various capital ships. For example the Vesuvius had 14 AMG's, but it also had something like 40 smaller turrets as well which weren't in the game engine actually. The Bengal, while it was listed as having 8 lasers and 6 missile launchers, it also in other sources was listed as having 22 point defense cannons.
Additionally torpedo tubes are on a variety of capships, particularly destroyers, and even in novels they're mentioned firing them -- waves of them actually. Yet they are not represented on the game engine. The only exception I can think of is the Vesuvius which fired a torpedo in WC-4.
What's the point of this?
Well, it seems kind of absurd that you'd have a carrier with 24 cm of armor, then in the next game , your cruisers would have around 400, and in WC-3 you'd see fighters with shield ratings equivalent to that of armor levels of cruisers in WC-2. Even Bandit LOAF has discussed that there are various types of armor and their strength is a certain equivalent that of durasteel. Even if the literal armor rating is 24 cm, it could easily be far stronger with a good type of armor, so the Tiger's Claw could have a considerably stronger hull than the 24 centimeter listing as we're not sure what kind of armor it uses.
This isn't trying to match stuff to a WC game's style, it's just taking arbitrary things from today and changing the games to match what we have in 2007.
Actually, in WCP there is a roll-acceleration rate. It would be logical to assume every fighter before had one too... the game engine just didn't factor it in. Additionally, such ships would experience pitch and yaw acceleration rates too.
The acceleration curve thing was simply an idea for adding more realism to it. Especially if you have atmospheric effects, or in this case hydrogen flow over the hull... the initial acceleration would be good, then as the drag builds up the acceleration would take a tad longer to reach top speed.
Speed additionally gets bled off in turns as the angle of attack increases, drag increases causing a reduction in speed. It would add realism to the game.
Er... I misread what you were talking about... I'm still posting this anyway because it makes a good point...
But the ability to see without the cockpit and just the stats (speed, fuel-state, radar-data, ship damage) was common in WC-3 and WC-4. A remake of WC-1 or WC-2 should logically have such a thing. In WC-1, WC-2 and WC-3 you can also see the cockpit. Not all that odd.
The 3D cockpit idea makes for much better situational awareness. Quite simply a 3D image is far better than a 2D image of a 3D environment. The image could be on one of the screens as in WC-1 and WC-2 probably.
Regarding the throttle and stick placement, since the 1970's fighter planes have started, and now have become more and more commonly fitted with a HOTAS set up which features the control-stick on the right side, and the throttles on the left-side, including the brand new F-22. Considering WC-1, WC-2 and WC-3 take place hundreds of years in the future, it would be logical that such a set-up, which is actually easier to use, would be used on WC-fighters.
We're in space ships dashing around at thousands of meters/kilometers per second. If acceleration and gravity weren't already being heavily manipulated, the people inside would be smashed to paste.
Wing Commander fighters, and capships have Inertial-Dampers / Acceleration-Absorbers which nullify most of the acceleration sensation. There's still a tiny amount that manages to be felt by the pilot. Especially during the hardest of turns. An "Indicated-G" meter, which would show what the pilot is being subjected to would be kind of cool IMHO.
How did you pick that? Wouldn't it make sense to pick something with a remotely similar setting? Machinima would be an extremely blunt way to do this. You use way too many apostrophes.
Well, Crysis has a superb graphics engine. The terrain, the landscapes, the people look almost photo-realistic. When I first saw it I was almost in awe.
Well, if you take the game engine (Crysis), and use it to make the character move in the various ways a human would... record that into an AVI file... you could make a cut-scene out of it.
How does this mesh with what you were just saying about Crysis?
Well, I was under the impression that you could create your own characters. Considering in WC-1 and WC-2 your characters are basically cartoon drawings, replacing them with damn near photographic characters would be a dramatic improvement, and being that these 3D-rendered characters would be unlike an actor who's appearance you can only change so much, could be made to look like anyone, and as a result would be made to resemble the drawings of the characters in WC-1 but would be made to look real.
Regarding the Uniforms. It would be cool to have the characters in uniforms that would look like they belong to a professional military. WC-1 wasn't all that bad actually...
Victoria Kent
