How to fly raptor in standoff sim ?

[Eder]

I suppose, in a way, it's nice that they at least tried to be consistent (i.e., rescaling the Wraith and the Jrathek)... but I can't help thinking it would have been better had they tried being consistent in the other direction, reducing the size of the Dralthi .

Moreover, I'd be more convinced that the Dralthi was an effort on Armada's part to be consistent with WC1's giant sizes if the WC1 Dralthi and Armada Dralthi were the same version... otherwise, that idea seems as likely to me if you were to say the WC2 Rapier was an effort to correct WC1's giant sizes by being smaller than the WC1 Rapier.

On a side note, if I believed the WC1 sizes needed any correcting, rescaling all WC1 ships based on the WC1-Rapier-to-WC2-Rapier factor always seemed to be the best solution to me, even if it'd be a rough approximation (since the Rapiers look different).

If someone were to factor in cockpit sizes (and other comparations they could make) to try to find out what the "correct" size for each ship is, they'd probably realize that WC1 is no more wrong than any of the other games - it's just not *consistent* with the other games' wrongness. That's one reason I don't like to mess with the scaling unless it's absolutely necessary, and it's the reason why I wouldn't adopt any of the "measure the cockpit" type of scaling systems.

 

[ChrisReid]

The problem is that Armada shouldn't technically be considered Canon, because it takes place nowhere in the actual Wc universe.

I hope that's a really sarcastic joke, because we've already given out the CIC Dumbest User Award for today.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

The problem is that Armada shouldn't technically be considered Canon, because it takes place nowhere in the actual Wc universe.

Heh, what?, indeed. The events of Armada are quite clearly referenced in the WC3+ timelines. "Following the attack on Earth, the Terran Intelligence Agency deploys a top-secret, tactical search party through a previously uncharted Kilrathi jump point. A heavy carrier..."

Armada is also an important flashpoint, in terms of ships. It's the game that introduces the first WC3/4 elements, the 'wide' Dralthi and the Arrow... and it also shows us a fleet that's still using the last, most advanced Wing Commander II designs -- the Wraith and the Jrathek.

It also has one of the most 'canon building' manuals of all time, creating a bazillion elements that would later be important (from the sad fate of the Conocrdia to inspiring half a dozen WC:CCG cards... Mr. Kat, Destroyer Bordrav, etc...) and showing the war from the Kilrathi perspective for the first time. It's also *the* Wing Commander game that meshes the novels to the games, adding End Run and Fleet Action to the timeline and attempting to deal with their reprecussions before the start of Wing Commander III and so forth. It also melts all kinds of novel elements into the games -- things like the Kilrathi clan setup.

Armada is the wonderful glue that holds two precarious and very different eras of Wing Commander storytelling together, not something that should be ignored.

Yeah, it does seem that way. I suppose, in a way, it's nice that they at least tried to be consistent (i.e., rescaling the Wraith and the Jrathek)... but I can't help thinking it would have been better had they tried being consistent in the other direction, reducing the size of the Dralthi .

It kind of makes me both wish that the 'super lengths' were the topic of internet (really: Compuserv and Origin BBS) discussion at the time and be glad that they weren't. The big 'continuity' discussions in 1993-4 were silly things about physics and, specifically, how X, Y and Z Wing Commander technology wouldn't work in 'real life'. Armada includes a very conscious screw you in it that arose directly out of these debates -- the Sonic Accelerator Gun.

(We've had a little thing going in #WingNut for a while that I think deserves to be mentioned elsewhere: no one ever bothers to learn the new Armada guns because the game has so many in total that it breaks. down. This is not in and of itself Armada's fault -- Academy almost doubles the 'gun canon' and Privateer adds at least as many as Armada does... but at both times the total ended up being reasonable. Armada seems to have been everyone's breaking point. Therefore, I think there's some value in forcing yourself to learn the five Armada-specific guns: Electron Gun, Flux Cannon, Mass Accelerator Gun, Phase Blaster and Sonic Accelerator Gun. The game becomes less weird... which, it seems, is something people like Fatcat could benefit from.)

That's certainly true, but there's more differences than similarities in terms of stats - the speed, the gun loadout, the armour, and so on.

Yeah... but there's something intrinsicly more special about continuity of missile slots versus those other things. Especially such a weird high number living on between the two games -- eight of the same missile in the pre-WC3 era is something you don't see every other ship.

Yeah, that kind of mission would be pretty cool... but wouldn't ships like the Broadsword be much more natural candidates for it?

Actually, I think from a realstic perspective you'd need an entirely new bomber (the Broadsword is certainly supposed to be a B-17 analogue in a bunch of respects... but it's still a carrier plane). I suppose it's just the Gladius' use as a 'ground based' fighter in Privateer combined with having once imagined how incredibly wide they'd have to be to exist that puts it in that role in my head. (I do keep thinking of the Armada gauntlet mission where you escort a pair of new Banshees to the Lexington -- the idea, also touched on in Prophecy several times, that the carrier has only a very few of any particular fighter has always delighted me... which, to turn the discussion back where it belongs, is something Standoff does a great job with!)

Moreover, I'd be more convinced that the Dralthi was an effort on Armada's part to be consistent with WC1's giant sizes if the WC1 Dralthi and Armada Dralthi were the same version... otherwise, that idea seems as likely to me if you were to say the WC2 Rapier was an effort to correct WC1's giant sizes by being smaller than the WC1 Rapier.

Ah, but remember it's just Wing Commander fans who call the Armada Dralthi the 'Dralthi III'... which is based, really, on the fact that an even leter game as a 'Dralthi IV'. Within the confines of Armada, the ship is just the 'Dralthi', just like the version in the original Wing Commander.

 

[HammerHead]

A lot have been said about the raptor, for either side...
But:
You did updated the Hornet for a 2668 version, so why not do the same for the Raptor.
Something like moving the Mass Drivers closer to the Hull (as if in some point the company making the planes finaly decided that the guns position was hampering combat and moved them closer together), or even removing them all together and replacing them with additional missile pylons.

(and let's ignore for a minute for the fuct that you'll need to update it's model)

 

[Eder]

Because we do not think that the Raptor being utter crap is a problem.

The only reason I've updated the Hornet is because, in the campaign, it's used exclusively by the Landreich (and it's the Landreich's only fighter). So I could go wild and modify it to make it suck a bit less while still having a good excuse... both in terms of canon (ie: Landreich lunatics modifying their ships up the wazoo) and in terms of gameplay (in that I needed to give the Landreich ships that would drop like flies but be able to deal some damage).

 

[Bandit LOAF]

The only reason I've updated the Hornet is because, in the campaign, it's used exclusively by the Landreich (and it's the Landreich's only fighter). So I could go wild and modify it to make it suck a bit less while still having a good excuse... both in terms of canon (ie: Landreich lunatics modifying their ships up the wazoo) and in terms of gameplay (in that I needed to give the Landreich ships that would drop like flies but be able to deal some damage).

Heh, it was absolutely the right sentiment, but you went the wrong way with length -- of all the unexpected things for there to be in the universe, there's actually a scene in False Colors where the Landreich Hornets are measured and said to be 25 meters long.

 

[Eder]

Well, maybe those have corvette engines like the Ferret (was it?) from FA.

 

[Quarto]

Well, maybe those have corvette engines like the Ferret (was it?) from FA.

Yeah, fortunately the Landreich doesn't appear to be a big fan of standardisation.

The events of Armada are quite clearly referenced in the WC3+ timelines. "Following the attack on Earth, the Terran Intelligence Agency deploys a top-secret, tactical search party through a previously uncharted Kilrathi jump point. A heavy carrier..."

On that note, a funny thing occured to me the other day. I was looking at that GCM competition page in the KSaga manual, and then it hit me - the Gray Hornets from the TCS Lexington. The competition was held around 2669.203, while the Lexington left Goddard around 2669.011. The other Lexington, of course, was a burnt-out cinder at the start of 2669.

So what does this mean? Is it that the Armada Lexington actually returned from its mission, or was it that the old Lexington already returned to service at this point (perhaps also suggesting that the Armada Lexington was already presumed MIA, since the ships share the same name). Or is it simply that the Gray Hornets wing from the Lexington was able to take part in the competition precisely because their carrier was not in active duty?

(We've had a little thing going in #WingNut for a while that I think deserves to be mentioned elsewhere: no one ever bothers to learn the new Armada guns because the game has so many in total that it breaks. down. This is not in and of itself Armada's fault -- Academy almost doubles the 'gun canon' and Privateer adds at least as many as Armada does... but at both times the total ended up being reasonable. Armada seems to have been everyone's breaking point. Therefore, I think there's some value in forcing yourself to learn the five Armada-specific guns: Electron Gun, Flux Cannon, Mass Accelerator Gun, Phase Blaster and Sonic Accelerator Gun. The game becomes less weird... which, it seems, is something people like Fatcat could benefit from.)

Well, to be fair, a lot of these weapons were just differently-named Kilrathi variants (i.e., the Electron Gun has identical stats as the Tachyon), but yeah, it's still a lot of new weapons. I think what it comes down to is that Armada did to guns what Freelancer would later do to ships - people want more ships? We'll give them twenty ships, all identical! It's the same in Armada. When you have that many guns, the differences between them become almost unnoticeable.

(and as for the Sonic Accelerator Gun, the ultimate irony is that this silly weapon didn't even appear in the game - it seems that in the balancing process, the Shok'lar's guns were changed to more traditional neutrons and lasers. I actually tried once to put these guns on the Shok'lar. It worked, but it made the ship suck, because the energy usage went way over what the Shok'lar could handle)

Yeah... but there's something intrinsicly more special about continuity of missile slots versus those other things. Especially such a weird high number living on between the two games -- eight of the same missile in the pre-WC3 era is something you don't see every other ship.

True. I wonder if it might have something to do with the Gladius' shape. I mean, prior to Priv, we always saw missiles mounted on external hardpoints - so it may be that when they transferred the Gladius from Priv to Armada, they figured that it has so many torpedoes because it has a lot of space for external hardpoints (of course, this would make no sense in the context of Priv, where missiles must be stored internally, since they're launched using dedicated launcher weapons, but that's a detail they may have simply forgotten about).

 

[Bandit LOAF]

Well, maybe those have corvette engines like the Ferret (was it?) from FA.

Heh, good enough for me.

(Purely cosmologically, I'll bet the 25m length is a hold-over from an earlier draft of False Colors that would have featured Scimitars instead of Hornets as the Landreich's primary fighters...)

On that note, a funny thing occured to me the other day. I was looking at that GCM competition page in the KSaga manual, and then it hit me - the Gray Hornets from the TCS Lexington. The competition was held around 2669.203, while the Lexington left Goddard around 2669.011. The other Lexington, of course, was a burnt-out cinder at the start of 2669.

So what does this mean? Is it that the Armada Lexington actually returned from its mission, or was it that the old Lexington already returned to service at this point (perhaps also suggesting that the Armada Lexington was already presumed MIA, since the ships share the same name). Or is it simply that the Gray Hornets wing from the Lexington was able to take part in the competition precisely because their carrier was not in active duty?

Well, my immediate thought would be that it's not the Armada Lexington because while her existence was apparently public knowledge, her name was explicitly not. The 'contemporary' Victory Streak timeline lists her as "name unknown for security purposes".

Your theory is an astute one, though, in that it correctly recognizes that there is no source specifically claiming that the Armada Lexington is MIA. There's certainly time for there to go from being "no known communication has been recieved from this special mission" (VS Timeline, 2669.098) to returning to the Confederation and taking part in the GCM Competition (on 2669.203).

On the other hand, there's the fact that the other Lexington retains the name when she's rebuilt -- which, more than naything, I think is what suggests to people that Armada Lexington is dead and buried (well, that and more vaugely the very nature of Voices of War -- it treats the fact that the mission is a suicide run as a given in the minds of her crew).

I would argue then that the most likely thing is that by 2669.203 the Lexington from Fleet Action/WC4 is back in service. We know that she was back in service by the last days of the war (Eisen says so in the novel: "We had a partial refit just after the armistice...", p.58)... and 2669.203 is pretty close to the last days of the war. (On the other hand, the theory that her detached squadron is in the contest because it has nothing to do is equally reasonable).

Aside: that same page I just cited claims the WC4 Lexington is the "eleventh ship to bear the honorable name". That's a fun reference that I never picked up on.

Well, to be fair, a lot of these weapons were just differently-named Kilrathi variants (i.e., the Electron Gun has identical stats as the Tachyon), but yeah, it's still a lot of new weapons. I think what it comes down to is that Armada did to guns what Freelancer would later do to ships - people want more ships? We'll give them twenty ships, all identical! It's the same in Armada. When you have that many guns, the differences between them become almost unnoticeable.

Well, my point on IRC was that it isn't as bad as everyone thinks -- Armada adds five guns... but Privateer added *six* the year before and we had no problem learning those. I think Armada pushed us over a 'too many total' rather than specifically having too many itself.

True. I wonder if it might have something to do with the Gladius' shape. I mean, prior to Priv, we always saw missiles mounted on external hardpoints - so it may be that when they transferred the Gladius from Priv to Armada, they figured that it has so many torpedoes because it has a lot of space for external hardpoints (of course, this would make no sense in the context of Priv, where missiles must be stored internally, since they're launched using dedicated launcher weapons, but that's a detail they may have simply forgotten about).

I don't know if that's actually true -- the 'civilian' ships have those amazing missile pods... but the Stiletto, at the very least, has missiles slung under its wings:

 

[Eder]

Even though, IIRC, only half of those missiles are simulated in Priv... right?

 

[Bandit LOAF]

Even though, IIRC, only half of those missiles are simulated in Priv... right?

Hehe, yeah, that's right -- the manual lists two Heat Seekers... and the actual game has two ImRecs.

 

[Quarto]

Well, my immediate thought would be that it's not the Armada Lexington because while her existence was apparently public knowledge, her name was explicitly not. The 'contemporary' Victory Streak timeline lists her as "name unknown for security purposes".

On that note, I actually rather like the idea that the Armada Lexington's real name was different, and that she was called the Lexington merely to confuse the enemy. This, of course, is not what the makers of Armada intended, but I think it's a good (if unprovable) way of interpreting this situation. I mean, it is implied that the Armada Lexington was modified for its current assignment, not built from scratch - which makes it seem pretty likely that the ship was in service before the WC4 Lexington went down at the battle of Earth. As far as I know, it's very rare to actually rename a military ship when refitting it... and additionally, to re-name the Armada Lex after the WC4 Lex is kinda morbid, in the sense that the WC4 Lex is at the time either already being repaired, or at least being evaluated for possibility of repair. So, unless they actually intended to rename the WC4 Lex after putting her back in service, renaming the Armada ship to Lexington would be almost like saying that she has to die in time for the WC4 Lex to get back in service.

On the other hand, there's the fact that the other Lexington retains the name when she's rebuilt -- which, more than naything, I think is what suggests to people that Armada Lexington is dead and buried (well, that and more vaugely the very nature of Voices of War -- it treats the fact that the mission is a suicide run as a given in the minds of her crew).

Yep, in that aspect it's better IMO to assume that the GCM wing is from the WC4 Lexington... the Armada mission is supposed to be a suicide run, so let's give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they succeeded in that regard .

Heh, just realised how far off topic this has gone. Eder probably doesn't mind people talking about other WC stuff in the Standoff forum, but I suppose it might actually be better if this part of the discussion is moved to the general chatzone.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

On that note, I actually rather like the idea that the Armada Lexington's real name was different, and that she was called the Lexington merely to confuse the enemy. This, of course, is not what the makers of Armada intended, but I think it's a good (if unprovable) way of interpreting this situation. I mean, it is implied that the Armada Lexington was modified for its current assignment, not built from scratch - which makes it seem pretty likely that the ship was in service before the WC4 Lexington went down at the battle of Earth. As far as I know, it's very rare to actually rename a military ship when refitting it... and additionally, to re-name the Armada Lex after the WC4 Lex is kinda morbid, in the sense that the WC4 Lex is at the time either already being repaired, or at least being evaluated for possibility of repair. So, unless they actually intended to rename the WC4 Lex after putting her back in service, renaming the Armada ship to Lexington would be almost like saying that she has to die in time for the WC4 Lex to get back in service.

I think she is supposed to be a new ship.

Voices of War says: "Sworn to secrecy, I'm whisked off to Concourse 4, a tightly guarded isolation level. Equip crews work around the clcok to ready a new ship for flight, complete with self-sufficient oxygen planetariums, water-producing modules and greenhosue gardens."

I can't say that there's *another* name for the ship, but I certainly think there's room to claim that the name is specifically to confuse the Kilrathi... after all, given the Victory Streak reference, there's certainly something odd going on with specifically the name at the 'what's classified' level.

Heh, just realised how far off topic this has gone. Eder probably doesn't mind people talking about other WC stuff in the Standoff forum, but I suppose it might actually be better if this part of the discussion is moved to the general chatzone.

Up to you! Seems to be going well here, but I trust the regular Chat Zone to treat it well too.

 

[Quarto]

Voices of War says: "Sworn to secrecy, I'm whisked off to Concourse 4, a tightly guarded isolation level. Equip crews work around the clcok to ready a new ship for flight, complete with self-sufficient oxygen planetariums, water-producing modules and greenhosue gardens."

Hmm, somehow I remembered something about it being "modified". Actually, it seems the VS/KSaga does say something to that effect... but certainly nothing anywhere near concrete enough to contradict this Voices of War quote.

I can't say that there's *another* name for the ship, but I certainly think there's room to claim that the name is specifically to confuse the Kilrathi... after all, given the Victory Streak reference, there's certainly something odd going on with specifically the name at the 'what's classified' level.

Yeah, I find it kinda odd how they're willing to mention that there was such a mission, and even willing to mention where and when it left Confed space... but are not willing to mention the ship's name. Anyway, I guess there could be all sorts of reasons why they'd want to use the name "Lexington" - perhaps because the Kilrathi also know that Confed doesn't usually have two ships with the same name, so having a new carrier named Lexington flying about is a good way to conceal the fact that the old Lex wasn't actually destroyed and is going to come back on-line in a few months.

Up to you! Seems to be going well here, but I trust the regular Chat Zone to treat it well too.

Hehe, well, come to think of it, I'm too lazy to perform such a move, especially since, unless I was to cut up some of these posts, it would be really disjointed, with some stuff relevant to this thread being moved elsewhere (or some stuff related to this particular topic staying in this thread while the rest of the topic goes elsewhere).

 

[u4eake]

indeed quite a discussion my little innocent question started up
Amazing how a spark can light a forest fire

 

[Quarto]

Hehe, if we weren't interested in using any excuse to talk about WC, we wouldn't be visiting this forum .