Favorite Fighter WC1 and 2

What is your favorite fighter

  • Hornet

    Votes: 1 2.3%
  • Raptor

    Votes: 14 31.8%
  • Rapier

    Votes: 11 25.0%
  • Scimitar

    Votes: 1 2.3%
  • Ferret

    Votes: 1 2.3%
  • Epee

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Sabre

    Votes: 2 4.5%
  • Broadsword

    Votes: 6 13.6%
  • Crossbow

    Votes: 3 6.8%
  • Morningstar

    Votes: 5 11.4%

  • Total voters
    44
Nope. I tried from several different ranges--sometimes at a closer range I'd get away unscathed; other times at longer ranges I'd take a hit. I just assumed that's the way it was and accepted it since it didn't keep me from progressing in the game.
 
Hmm. You sure it wasn't just the capship's flak? Also, sometimes you can get splash damage when the capship explodes.
 
I thought it was the flak also, but the timing was simply too coincedental -- the damage occurred the SECOND I released, and this would happen whether or not the capship exploded.

You can imagine my relief in WC3 when I realized that guns and missiles could *once again* be used on phase shields. It's intriguing how the battle between energy weapons/ordnance and shields fluctuates from game to game.
 
NapoleanAce said:
Where did you get those numbers from?

Those numbers are from the WC2 ships editor that you can download from the CIC's files section. Download the editor and choose to edit the various ships, and it will show you the numbers used for shields/armor, along with the weapon loadouts, etc.
 
I too had problem with torpedoes hitting me, but mine happened when I release the torpedo and either pull straight up too quickly and hit it with my butt, or turn the wrong way into the torp. Both resulted in my demise. I always though it could be the AMG's but they shouldn't have been able to do that much damage and it happened like boom-boom (torpedo away and the second after I pulled up or the wrong way sharply, kablooey)

C-ya
 
Yah, you had to kinda ease your way out of it.

As to phase shielding, my guess is that all shields, even shields on fighters, are "phase" shields. In Action Stations, they just explained that a fighters guns don't produce enough energy to drain the shield capacitors on larger ships. The whold thing could be explained as ships having stronger shields than a fighter could punch through . . kinda like the Vesuvius. By WC1, either capital ships shields weren't as strong, or guns had increased in output, or ships power generators were capable of putting out much more fire. By wc2, capship shields were stronger (or, perhaps, as strong as the ships in AS, due to an increase in budget?) By wing three, reversal again.
 
Eh, I heard somewhere most fighters are equipped with meson shields IIRC.
I used to look at the phase shield/fighter weapon seesaw like this. WC1 - large fighters (over 20m), can punch through phase shields. WC2 - smaller fighters, can't punch through phase shielding. WC3 - large fighters, can punch through phase shielding. WC4 - same as WC3, with the exception of the Vesuvius IIRC. WCP/SO - smaller fighters, can't punch through phase shields. Detect a trend? I had always guessed that the extra bulk of the era fighters that could punch through phase shields had a 'little something extra' in that space to allow energy weapons to kill capships. When the phase shield technology evolved beyond these fighters, large ships were only good if you could take out capships with them, so smaller ships were (re)introduced until weapons tech caught back up with shield tech. Great, though a large hole was shot in my theory when WCATV showed WC2/3 era ships in the WC1 era. Oh, well, back to the drawing board ;).

C-ya
 
The problem was that I could take down a destroyer in an arrow. I could take down a ralari in a hornet (I think I came across one in a hornet, somewhere), but you couldn't punch up a Ralatha in a Sabre, or a Broadsword. However the shields work, I think the issue wasn't type (phase or meson) but rather strength. Even in action stations, they said that, if enough fighters concentrated enough on one spot in a big ships shields, they would break it and get through to the hull. If it were just a matter that "Big ships guns are the only guns that can break through", then what made those big guns so special, aside from the amount of power they put out. However, in WC2, the shields on a Kamekh were weak enough that you could pound one with your guns. Same with a Dorkathi. But, then, in WCP, you couldn't do much to a big ship by using your guns, unless you used that mass-ass plasma gun. The guns on the smaller fighters, in theory, COULD punch through, but they just didn't deliver enough damage quickly enough. I think that's the whole dilema in a nutshell.
 
Punching through phase shields has nothing to do with ship mass.

Throughout the WC games there has been a technology race between fighter-mounted weapons and shields. In WC1 the race was virtually neck and neck, so capship shields could withstand a great deal of punishment but could be taken down with a finite number of gun/missile salvos, regardless of ship mass.

By WC2, phase shields were ahead of weaponry; thus no ship, regardless of mass, could punch through without torpedoes (and it happens that the only ships capable of mounting torpedoes are those with the largest mass.) The extensive time required to lock a torpedo is due to the fact that the weapon has to figure out the targeting algorithm necessary to bypass the phase shields completely and attack the armor and hull directly. So Action Stations' hypothetical concept of concentrated fire by a large number of ships wouldn't work here since it's indirectly established that phase shields cannot be targeting by any weapon in the game (including anti-matter guns, which also ignore shields and attack armor directly.)

In WC3 & 4, weaponry had caught up with shielding, so again we were back to capships vulnerable to attack from any ships, though those with torpedoes were still the greatest threat.

By WCP, shields went ahead again significantly, and if you didn't have the Devastator's plasma weapon or torpedoes, you couldn't put a scratch on any capship vital sections (bridge, engine, launcher, etc.)
 
The trouble with this theory is that WC3 fighters are older than WC2 ships. :)

Viper61 said:
I too had problem with torpedoes hitting me, but mine happened when I release the torpedo and either pull straight up too quickly and hit it with my butt, or turn the wrong way into the torp. Both resulted in my demise.
I've torpedoed a wingman before. :)
 
Whenever I launch torpedoes, I immediately do a full stop and then do a immelman to reverse direction to avoid hitting the torp.
 
Wedge009 said:
The trouble with this theory is that WC3 fighters are older than WC2 ships. :)

I've never seen that reference before, though I do know the Victory is old as dirt. But even still, to my knowledge, the weaponry in WC3 was newer than WC2 (reaper and tachyon cannons, for example.) Perhaps all of the energy guns got a revision, thus, even on older fighters, the enhanced versions were mounted.


Wedge009 said:
I've torpedoed a wingman before. :)

I've been torpedoed by a wingman before, in SO1 :D
 
Hmm, you're probably right about upgrading guns on the fighters. It's certainly cheaper than making new fighters altogether!
 
Wedge009 said:
The trouble with this theory is that WC3 fighters are older than WC2 ships. :)

Eh, its a hodgepodge. We know that Arrows, Hellcats and Longbows were around during WC1, but we're unsure of the Thud and we know that the Excal is new. As for the WC2 fighters, I know the Sabre and the Broadsword are pre-WC1 and maybe the Epee (if you want to stretch and call what you see in WCATV an Epee). Since the Ferret has been relegated to InSys duty, we can probably assume the its an older design (unless InSys gets top of the line patrol craft). The only WC2 designs that are 'new' are the Rapier IIG (which I have no idea when it was introduced), the Morningstar, and the Crossbow. Even the WC1 craft aren't new, I think the Rapier is the only one thats new there. So my theory still holds a little water, the main designs used during a time period where phase sheilds are suseptible to energy weapons are the large ones. When phase shields outpace energy weapons, smaller fighters are more popular. Anyway, its just an idea :).

C-ya
 
I always assumed the Epee was a newer fighter; I read something about that in either the WC2 manual or Joan's Fighting Spacecraft regarding ITTS on the newest ships.
 
NapoleanAce said:
I always assumed the Epee was a newer fighter; I read something about that in either the WC2 manual or Joan's Fighting Spacecraft regarding ITTS on the newest ships.
The Epee could be new, theres just a ship that bears a striking resemblance in WCATV (though it is much boxier than the Epee). But to respond to both you and Sylvester, the Sabre and all the WC3 fighters have the ITTS, but are all pre-WC1 (with the exceptions I mentioned above). I think the Ferret just can't upgrade its systems enough to include the ITTS. BTW, heres a link to a thread with some pics of later WC craft in WC1 era WCATV.

C-ya
 
Viper61 said:
...but we're unsure of the Thud...
IIRC, the Thunderbold is one of the newer fighters in WC3. They're still in use in 2681, anyway.

Viper61 said:
As for the WC2 fighters, I know the Sabre and the Broadsword are pre-WC1...
As already mentioned, I'm sure the ITTS was new technology only installed in the newer fighters (Sabre, Epee, Broadsword), but I suppose it's a simple matter of upgrading targeting software. But if that was the case, why didn't they upgrade all fighters?
 
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