Which ship do you want to fly on UE2?

Which ship do you want to fly on UE2?

  • Rapier II

    Votes: 6 16.7%

  • Raptor

    Votes: 9 25.0%

  • Orion

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Centurion

    Votes: 2 5.6%

  • Wraith

    Votes: 3 8.3%

  • Gladius

    Votes: 1 2.8%

  • Tarsus

    Votes: 5 13.9%

  • Stilleto

    Votes: 3 8.3%

  • Talon

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Sabre

    Votes: 7 19.4%
  • Total voters
    36
  • Poll closed .
Originally posted by Eder
Agreed. The capships in UE probably still have a few good years left in them


Thunderbolts were used in SO, alright... but they were top-of-the-line bombers only 12 years before that, and since then there have been at least three other confed bombers... two of which have entered service just recently, in the last decade, presumably not having been produced into large enough quantities to replace the Thuds and Longbows just yet.
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Three? I know the Devestator and the Shrike, but what is the other new Confed bomber? Are you including the Dragon (which was probably never mass-produced since they cost over a billion creds each)?

As for the Longbow, it is at the lower end of functional for a WCP era bomber. It has as much speed as the Devestator with a bit less armor, and it sports sixteen missiles (probably 8 IR/8 FF). Its two drawbacks are that it has only a single turret in the rear compared to the turrets-on-all-sides of the Shrike and Devestator, and secondly that it doesn't carry mines (although this might be remedied by putting the mines in an external pod at a slight cost of speed). The Longbow is about equal in power to the WC4 Avenger by my reckoning, although inferior to the UE upgraded Avenger (which I rank as equal with the Shrike if you don't count that the Shrike has no guns that penetrate phase shields the way that the Viper Cannons do).

Scimitars, however, were retired from Confed service 25 years before that - before that, they had been used for over a century, and were already arguably one of the most controversial fighters around. Epees, of course, are only a tad older than Thunderbolts, and although also controversial, were the most modern light fighters around at the time, so IMO it's more likely that the BW have Epees in greater quantities than Scimitars, and it's also more likely that they plan on retiring the Scimitar before the Epee.
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Yeah, Iceman was complaining about how the Scimitars were ancient pieces of garbage that handled "like a Centaurian mud pig". I would prefer to see the Raptor or something similar replacing the Scimitar for UE2.
 
Sticking mines and a rocket pod in a Longbow is no stretch. Since the missiles are smaller.

Fact is, if you Tripple the armor on a Thud you have ship that'll nail a Shrike. Same with the Excalibur. The only draw back on the WC3 fighters is armor. Give them the modern alloy plating and they're only slightly below WCP standard.

The Epee is fragile, personally I think the massive engine upgrade was the wrong way to go. Better Armor would probably have been cheaper as well.

The Scim sucks. Its an attack ship, only it's not tough enough to make a strafing run. Its not fast enough, or menuverable enough to be a fighter.

It sucks. The other fighters were okay but the Scim sucked.
 
Originally posted by Unregistered
Three? I know the Devestator and the Shrike, but what is the other new Confed bomber? Are you including the Dragon (which was probably never mass-produced since they cost over a billion creds each)?
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Nope, like Aries pointed out I meant the Longbow. That's why I said two out of the three bombers had entered service only recently - the third one, the Longbow, has been around since the end of the war, same way as the Thud.

--Eder
 
Though a Razor would be interesting, any chance we could fly a small frieghter, ala The Diligent from WCM?
 
Originally posted by BattleDog
Sticking mines and a rocket pod in a Longbow is no stretch. Since the missiles are smaller.
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Yeah, give it 18 mines and 36 Dragonflies and it would be close to the Devestator in everything except guns/turrets--the Longbow would get something like 2 Ion/2 Particle guns--strong enough against fighters, but without the phase-shield-penetrating power of the Devestator's plasma cannon. The Longbow was and is still a pretty good bomber--it's just that the bar has been raised in terms of ordnance loadouts.

Fact is, if you Tripple the armor on a Thud you have ship that'll nail a Shrike. Same with the Excalibur. The only draw back on the WC3 fighters is armor. Give them the modern alloy plating and they're only slightly below WCP standard.
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Triple is a bit much. Maybe double. Take the bomber Thunderbolt from Secret Ops (loadout is 18 Mosquito, 3 IR, 3 FF, 3 Lt. Torp), and double its armor, and it would be quite serviceable as a light bomber. As for the Excalibur, its thin armor was always its problem--with double the armor it would be more than the equal of the Panther.

The Epee is fragile, personally I think the massive engine upgrade was the wrong way to go. Better Armor would probably have been cheaper as well.
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Maybe so, but the weak protection was what gave the Epee its feel. Still, I would have been more comfortable if the Epee's armor had been 140 fore and aft and 100 port and starboard instead of the half that which we saw in UE. I would keep everything else the same as went in UE1 about it though.

The Scim sucks. Its an attack ship, only it's not tough enough to make a strafing run. Its not fast enough, or menuverable enough to be a fighter.

It sucks. The other fighters were okay but the Scim sucked.
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Part of the idea in UE1 was that the ships were supposed to suck--they were meant to feel barely adequate in the face of the Nephilim invasion. The Epee was under-protected and the Scimitar was slightly under-shielded, lacked FF/IR missiles, and was the slowest fighter in the game. Even in WC1, taking place 25 years before, the Scimitar was considered obsolete. The situation in UE1 was so strained that the Banshee, which was the LIGHT fighter in WC4, was the best of the lot! (Incidentially I liked the Banshee but the lasers were too weak to damage anything by themselves--2 Laser/2 Ion is better because of the weird way that the engine handles multiple guns of the same type).

Anyway, I expect that the Rapier IV and the Vindicator will fare better in UE2 than the Scim did in UE1. I would like to see something replace the Epee though.
 
Originally posted by LeHah
Though a Razor would be interesting, any chance we could fly a small frieghter, ala The Diligent from WCM?
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Hmmm...a small freighter would likely handle like the Devestator--turrets on several sides, and more sluggish than most fighter craft. Might be interesting though.
 
I'd like to point out that it is reasonable to assume the BW Militia could have some of the same fighters as the "Militia" from Privateer.
 
Raptor! the one and only! and by a long shot!

On second place but quite far behind, I'm putting the Saber.
The Centurion on a close third.
And the Rapier II on an away forth.
 
And the Rapier.

I would like to see the Arrow pressed into service again. I think it would have a reasonable amount of success, once it has been slightly enhanced like the SO Thunderbolt and Excalibur. I enjoyed its focused lasers and ion guns, unlike the Piranha which has the two ion guns separated by a reasonable distance.
 
Considering how the Arrow was all around during WC4, it's reasonable to assume there are a lot of them around.
 
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