Kilrathi Carriers...

Dundradal

Dundradal

Frog Blast the Vent Core!
All these threads got me thinking...

We have spent large amounts of time talking about Confed carriers and bit less time on their Kilrathi counterparts. We don't even run into a "true" Kilrathi carrier in WC until SM2. In WC2, we don't encounter any fleet carriers. In WC3, we meet the Bhantkara. We see the Shirrak in Armada and of course the fan favorite/obsession Hakaga introduced in FA.

One thing that seems to tie all of these ships together is they are mostly introduced as being new when we encounter them.

So how do people feel about the examples we have of Kilrathi carriers? How do they compare to their Confed counterparts?

Is it a good argument to say that Snakiers were the Concordias for the Kilrathi? Or was it the Shirrak type?
 
Don't forget - FA also states that a new class of light escort carriers was supposed to be coming online to counter the Confederation escort class.

Also, correct me please if I'm wrong, but the WC3 carrier only shows up on the losing path, correct?
 
Yeah, but it isn't named, although the Dubav from the WC3 behind the scenes does fit the mark for it. But it's existence is limited to that behind the scenes.

You can encounter Bhantkara's on the winning path. IIRC there is one around the Dr. Sevrin rescue.
 
Seems to be the Kilrathi were originally concieved as employing escort carriers / crusiers with small flight decks versus the "fleet carrier" based Confed navy in order to justify all the small scale fighter combat.

I think that changed with the novels and WC3 were you see the cats building huge massive fleet carriers. Also WC2 with the phase shields I think make a lot of sense and suddendly the developers weren't afraid to throw in some cap ships.
 
Dundradal said:
You can encounter Bhantkara's on the winning path. IIRC there is one around the Dr. Sevrin rescue.
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Hmmm...that's interesting. I may be remembering wrong, but I actually remember (on two seperate play throughs of the game) two differant carriers showing up in the game.

The first showed up on what I thought was a scramble mission, it was a good 40 km or so away from the Victory and I had to afterburn my way out to it.

The second was a more traditional strike mission.

I'll have to look back through the game guides and see if I'm remembering wrong.
 
Bremmon said:
Seems to be the Kilrathi were originally concieved as employing escort carriers / crusiers with small flight decks versus the "fleet carrier" based Confed navy in order to justify all the small scale fighter combat.

I think that changed with the novels and WC3 were you see the cats building huge massive fleet carriers. Also WC2 with the phase shields I think make a lot of sense and suddendly the developers weren't afraid to throw in some cap ships.
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I wouldn't agree with this. We see fleet carriers in AS, they lead the assault on McAuliffe.

My point was that we know they are out there, but we don't encounter them very often (which fits into the fiction about how they are the rarity while smaller capships are fairly plentiful).
 
Space Point

Is it a good argument to say that Snakiers were the Concordias for the Kilrathi? Or was it the Shirrak type?
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I think the stongest 'Concordia' (which is to say 'standard carrier') equivalent for the Kilrathi were the Naukar-class ships from Wing Commander Academy TV.

Seems to be the Kilrathi were originally concieved as employing escort carriers / crusiers with small flight decks versus the "fleet carrier" based Confed navy in order to justify all the small scale fighter combat.
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I don't think it's quite this - Kilrathi carriers were frequently *spoken of* in the earlier games... we just didn't personally engage them. I think the idea was that they were supposed to be bigger targets than an individual pilot would destroy regularly.

Yeah, but it isn't named, although the Dubav from the WC3 behind the scenes does fit the mark for it. But it's existence is limited to that behind the scenes.
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The design is canonical (it's in the WC3 Official Guide), the name is not - it's standard fanon it-must-be-a-name-we've-seen-before! crud... (the Dubav was one of Ragark's carriers.)

Also, correct me please if I'm wrong, but the WC3 carrier only shows up on the losing path, correct?
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You're thinking of the dreadnaught - it only shows up in the losing 'Sol' series. If you play through the game on the winning path you should encounter four carriers - two at Ariel, one at Freya and one at Hyperion.
 
Bandit LOAF said:
The design is canonical (it's in the WC3 Official Guide), the name is not - it's standard fanon it-must-be-a-name-we've-seen-before! crud... (the Dubav was one of Ragark's carriers.)
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Ok, that makes sense.

And as for the WCA carriers, what else do we have to support that they maybe the "standard" Kilrathi carrier?
 
The first real Kilrathi carriers we see are very impressive: the Snakier. That thing drove fear into the hearts of everyone from that time period. I loved them.

Next in line we see the ones from Academy... I don't know, I wasn't all that impressed, they looked similar to the dreadnought (WC3), and were easily shot down by a few Mass driver shots.

The Hakagas... what can I say except that when I first saw these in Standoff, I near shat myself. It was also the thrill ride of a lifetime taking it down!

Finally... the Bhantkara... from what I read about these, they seemed more like CVEs then anything, and thier primary role was as a fighter ferry, which "it performed very well."
But when I first saw it, I was like, this is a joke right? Asthetically, they looked awkward, and I do not envy the Dralthi pilot who has to take off from the angled bay at the front of the ship!
 
...which is why you enter the hangar from the rear and shoot it down from the inside, so that the thing no longer offends your sense of aesthetics.
 
And as for the WCA carriers, what else do we have to support that they maybe the "standard" Kilrathi carrier?
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Just the fact that we only ever see them referred to as 'carriers' - and they're the most likely ship to represent the various Action Stations-era carriers (since the Snakeir, Bhantkara, etc. were all new.)
 
frostytheplebe said:
Finally... the Bhantkara... from what I read about these, they seemed more like CVEs then anything, and thier primary role was as a fighter ferry, which "it performed very well."
But when I first saw it, I was like, this is a joke right? Asthetically, they looked awkward, and I do not envy the Dralthi pilot who has to take off from the angled bay at the front of the ship!
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Not at all. Bhantkaras are produced around the time of the Hakagas, or at least it seems that way from FC. False Colors has a bit about them being smaller than Hakagas (only 2 hangars opposed to 6), but they are still considered heavy fleet carriers.

It actually fits well into the Kilrathi concept of making their weapons look like weapons (sharp edges, blade like shapes).

Also, where did you "read" about them that made you think they were CVEs? They are large ships (they dwarf Wake class CVEs), so I'm not sure where you would have picked this up.



Bandit LOAF said:
Just the fact that we only ever see them referred to as 'carriers' - and they're the most likely ship to represent the various Action Stations-era carriers (since the Snakeir, Bhantkara, etc. were all new.)
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Alright, I gotcha. They are an interesting design. They could be the base of a great fan art if someone wanted to do a representation of the Home Fleet around Kilrah or something cool. Say, fan art guys, why don't you give that a shot? :D
 
I think fighters were quite important for the Kilrathi - the WCM dreadnoughts sure carried lots of them and the entry about the Ralari in the TCHB seems to imply that the Kilrathi emphasize fighter carrying capacity.

I found the Snakeir from SM 2 to be very impressive and the WCATV carriers looked cool. I wasn't very impressed with the Bhantkara in WC 3 but keeping the FC description in mind, they seem to have been very good ships.

So I think Kilrathi carriers were really capable ships. I found it always funny how most Kilrathi capships rivaled or even surpassed their Terran counterparts but their fighters mostly sucked.
 
Yes, False Colors certainly aggrandizes the Bhantkara. :) The original intention (in WC3) was just that they be ordinary Kilrathi carriers... but False Colors turns them into heavy carriers which are built like rocks and have a great fighter complement. It's really interesting, seeing all the insight about how Kilrathi construction differs from our own...

You're also right about fighters - the Kilrathi were dedicated to having *lots* of lesser quality fighters, and built many platforms capable of putting fighter swarms into space.
 
Mekt-Hakkikt said:
I think fighters were quite important for the Kilrathi - the WCM dreadnoughts sure carried lots of them and the entry about the Ralari in the TCHB seems to imply that the Kilrathi emphasize fighter carrying capacity.
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That's probably a cultural imperative, stemming from their history as predators and the 'honor' one accumulated by taking down a foe (or prey) by one's own skills; that's why Jukaga was so eager to fly a fighter back in Action Stations, as were the other nobles... which made it all the more galling to be stuck on Admiral Nargth's battleship as an aide-de-camp.

And as False Colors suggests, the Kilrathi didn't really believe in spending too much to make a superfighter capable of all things, or at least nobody besides Thrakath seemed to; they preferred specialized designs which were cheaper than the Confederation equivalents, and somewhat less tough due to differences in design philosophy (most of their tech spending seems to have gone into weapons development and more exotic technologies than Confed's, which focused on survivability and versatility of design). Look at how they had unarmed Sartha frames with cloaks for scouting with Darkets and Salthi for interceptor and general patrol roles, whereas Confed would've had a Ferret, Arrow or Hornet take the same role as a jack-of-all-trades.

We only see a real change on Confed's side during the WC4-WCP period, where per-unit costs are becoming a greater consideration; look at the Bearcat as an example of a dedicated space-superiority unit which is far less versatile than its Thunderbolt or Raptor predecessors, but which is more in line with the Vampires and Panthers of the next game.
 
Look at how they had unarmed Sartha frames with cloaks for scouting with Darkets and Salthi for interceptor and general patrol roles, whereas Confed would've had a Ferret, Arrow or Hornet take the same role as a jack-of-all-trades.
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The Hrakthi was a Salthi frame, not a Sartha.
 
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