Wing Commander 3 Gun Cheat Sheet!

[Bandit LOAF]

One thing I always disliked about Wing Commander III was that the visual cues for the guns were so slight; the bolts were (almost) all the same just with different colors. So, unlike the earlier games, I never really memorized them from gameplay... they all felt pretty much the same! While I was tooling around counting turrets I decided to make myself a quick cheat sheet.

The color is what it looks like in-game, Victory Streak is the weapon's name in Victory Streak and VDU is the name listed in your cockpit (so noted and categorized for a future 'cannons vs. guns' thesis.) Note that the Neutron Gun is not listed in (the PC version of) Victory Streak and the Mass Driver and Patricle Cannon only appear as rear turrets and so are not given names in the cockpit. Whew!

Finally, if there's a visual difference between the Ion Cannon (Hellcat, Arrow) and the Reaper Cannon (Excalibur) I can't make it out. Any ideas? (Similarly, I am not sure there's any visual difference between the Photon Cannon and the Anti-Matter Gun on some capital ships...)

Color - Victory Streak - VDU
Pink - Ion Cannon - "Ion Gun"
Red - Laser Cannon - "Laser"
Gray (Short) - Mass Driver Cannon - n/a
Green - Meson Blaster - "Meson Gun"
Light Blue - Particle Cannon - n/a
Yellow - Photon Cannon - "Photon Gun"
Turquoise - Plasma Gun - "Plasma Gun"
Pink - Reaper Cannon - "Reaper Gun"
Gray - Tachyon Gun - "Tachyon Gun"
Orange - n/a - "Neutron Gun"

 

[AD]

I knew a few of these, but never took the time to memorize any beyond the Lasers and Tachyons... I guess the Tachyon cannons were memorable for me since they were the ones on the Excalibur and they kicked serious butt with those autotracking guns. They always looked more white to me than gray though.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

It's a very light gray, I think - same color as the mass drivers, but a different bolt shape.

 

[Mancubus]

Well, For me Ion and Reaper looked more purple than pink. also, I think Reaper shots are slightly shorter and slightly wider than ion, but that might as well be autosugestion