Wing Commander 3: Silly Stuff

As for the shields/armor ratings in WC3 (I won't even talk about those in Armada), for my Fudge Commander RPG game using the Fudge system ( http://www.fudgerpg.com ) I simply decided to divide those values by 10. And to multiply wc1-2-privateer yaw/pitch/roll values by 10 (do you really believe a rapier turns only at 10 degrees per second?? not in my experience). That way, everything seems on the same scale, and newer ships ARE more powerful, without being off the scales.

I think the higher shields/armor ratings in wc3/4 were there just for marketing.. like.. "oooooh, look at that, ONE THOUSAND CENTIMETERS OF SHIELDS! NICE!!!!!!!!!! how could I have lived on the tiger's claw with 21cm???". The same happens everywhere. A movie has a few explosions, sequel has 100x more explosions and blood. ;) etc
 
Once again, the higher armor/shield values are a result of *Privateer*, which introduces armor which is many times as strong as what we see in the original Wing Commander. (1cm Plasteel = 10 cm Durasteel, 1 cm Tungsten = 20 cm Durasteel, 1 cm Isometal = 60 cm Durasteel...).
 
Bandit LOAF said:
Once again, the higher armor/shield values are a result of *Privateer*, which introduces armor which is many times as strong as what we see in the original Wing Commander. (1cm Plasteel = 10 cm Durasteel, 1 cm Tungsten = 20 cm Durasteel, 1 cm Isometal = 60 cm Durasteel...).
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... and I never disputed that :) I simply added the marketing perspective too, and mentioned that in my game I divided by 10 cause it made more sense *to me* :)
 
Personally, I'd never really cared "why." I just took it at face value. (they could have thrown some wc2 fighters in the "Battle of Earth," on wc3, but I didn't mind that they did not)
It is a game they are trying to sell, after all... while they could have thrown in some references, or glimpses, of older ships... it wasn't neccicary. The ships probably were still out there.

As to why ships were so drastically upgraded:
WC1-WC2: 10 years. duh.(The Rapier still exists, in one form at least)
WC2-WC3: Privateer shows the introduction of Isometal plating, which added a 60:1 rating.
WC3-WC4: No real difference, here. If anything, I would have thought BW craft would have less armor.
WC4-WCP: Here is a game done right for the universe. We see Excaliburs here and there, and the very existance of the newer fighters is explained in the manual.

Fighters: These little buggers get popped like soap bubbles all the time, and production lines only run so long for each model of ship, before the next model comes out. (take a look at Caddilacs and you'll see a lot can change, in 2 years... let alone 10 years)<I am aware it's a car, not a spaceship. I would think they would be working just as feverishly to get a better fighter on the field, though.
Take a glance to see:
Cadillac DeVille, 2000-2003

Capital Ships: These things don't get destroyed as often as you'd think, as crews will resort to just about anything to keep thier home alive. After all, the WC3 carrier(for some reason I can't remember the name right now, all that keeps coming to mind is Lexington, which I know is wrong) does claim to be one of the oldest carriers still active in the field. They do, however, get blown up. So you would see fewer of them around, the older the model is...
 
But if your "marketing perspective" was right, then WCP ships would have 100x times the armour of WC4 ships, which in turn would have 100x the armour of WC3 ships. Plus, it would be really, really, really lousy marketing... these stats are in the manual, so you don't see them until after you've bought the game :).
 
Well, between WC4 and WCP, there wasn't really an advancement in shielding or armor... There were some advancements in weaponry, and design philosophy(sp) though. WC1-4 ships were less specialized(Case in point, Sabres could be fitted for bombing or dogfighting, as could the excalibur, and everyone's favorite, the Thunderbolt), whereas WCP designs were very specialized:

-Wasps were meant to get out and dish out as much damage as possible with it's missile loadout before the bombers could reach the carrier

- Devistators, and to an extent thier "kid brother" Shrikes are terrible dogfighters, relying on ff missiles and turrets to keep the enemy off of them long enough to deliver thier payload. An exaggerated form of the Longbow/Broadsword/Crossbow.

-Pirhanas... ok, so they fit in with the Epee-Ferret-Hornet mindset, extremely swift scouts. Pity they didn't leave in cloaking for the fun of it...

-Tigersharks are the only true multipurpose fighter in the early game, taking it's que from the beloved Hellcat... jack of all trades, master of none.

-Panthers and Vampires I have no idea about, I suppose they're the top-end dogfighting ships, meant to down large amounts of bad guys with guns and (to a lesser extent) missiles. Much like Excaliburs, Bearcats, and Dragons.

WC3 and WC4 occurred fairly close together, and it was just at the end of the war(so there wasn't much demand for improvement, yet)
 
Quarto said:
But if your "marketing perspective" was right, then WCP ships would have 100x times the armour of WC4 ships, which in turn would have 100x the armour of WC3 ships. Plus, it would be really, really, really lousy marketing... these stats are in the manual, so you don't see them until after you've bought the game :).
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And if your perspective on my perspective was right, Terminator 3 would've been an endless sequence of explosions and absolutely nothing else ;)

Anyways.. I don't really feel like arguing about this anymore, or it'll just get silly...
 
patrix said:
And if your perspective on my perspective was right, Terminator 3 would've been an endless sequence of explosions and absolutely nothing else ;)

Anyways.. I don't really feel like arguing about this anymore, or it'll just get silly...
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Technology advances. Planes in the 1960s with jet engines flew far faster than their turboprop-driven WWII equivalents, as those did have longer range and better guns than their WWI equivalents some twenty years earlier. The introduction of the jet engine in the 1950s was a major technological leap forward for flight, allowing for faster jets which didn't need the same piston-driven engines of their turboprop antecedents.

Between WC1 and WC2, as noted, there have been ten years of technological advancement. By WC3, which takes place roughly at the same time as Privateer, it's shown that new materials have increased the amount of armor one can put on a fighter for a minimal or no increase in mass. Also look at how fast phase shield technologies and counter-technologies progress in the WC universe: in Action Stations, they thought only brute force could bring down a phase shield - this is why battleships were considered the primary strike weapon of a navy.

Then the torpedo changed everything.

WC1, some twenty years after the delivery of the first torpedoes shows us that gun targeting or general gun technology has improved enough to shoot past current generation phase shields. Ditto missiles. We're also introduced to a gun which can bypass phase shields entirely, on the keel of the Sivar.

WC2, ten years after the events of WC1, shows that phase shield technology has advanced enough to make current generation fighter weapons, outside of the reliable torpedoes (Mark II and III) useless against a properly equipped ship. While the phase-transit cannon of the Confederation-class starships can bypass shields, the flaws discovered in its use have kept fighters on anti-capship duties.

By WC3, which takes place roughly within the same timeframe as Privateer and two years after WC2, gun technology and missile tech has caught up with shielding tech - either the aiming programs, or new ECM has been added to missiles and fighters - though the process is still far slower than slamming a torpedo or two into the enemy (Mark IIIs and IVs). New armor materials and improvements in phase shielding have increased the protection on a given fighter, though equally lethal advancements in guns and missile warheads have brought them to a rough parity.

WC4, two years after the previous game, shows the same technology, though with improvements in key fields that have only now started to be fielded in some quantity. The cloak from WC2 and WC3 has returned, in an improved form for the Dragons, and some people have scratch-built their own devices as the theory of cloaking becomes more widely distributed. The Excalibur's technological descendant flies in the Dragon, which itself was under development during the same time as the rest of the Black Lance program - the bioweapons, the Flash Paks, and of course the GE soldiers who had been the first phase of the project some twenty years earlier. There are many of the same fighters from WC3 carried over as well.

WCP and SO, some fifteen years after the events of WC4, have brought new technology into play. Whatever advances the Dragon pioneered in high-maneuverability fighter craft have spread into other designs, along with an emphasis on multiple gun combinations which made that one craft so particularly lethal, on top of its cloak capability. Armor tech has improved marginally and been applied to later generations of earlier designs like the T-bolt and Excalibur, among others. Shielding technology has again improved, to the point where ships are nearly invulnerable unless you knock down the shield generators. Even then, it's a difficult battle as the rest of the ship's too heavily armored to do a WC1-4 style 'catastrophic ship kill'. This type of armoring may well be the result of the Vesuvius' pioneering efforts, which have made capships marginally less vulnerable than they were before to bombing runs, as specific targets have to be nailed in order to properly take out the enemy craft. The only problem is that the bugs are more advanced in the art of war than we are, though not impossibly so.

We already know what ratio to multiply various armor types by to get their cm durasteel equivalents. Tech advances, and so does the game.
 
Which of course leads to the question that I wondered about when playing WCP the first time...

Where are Confed's stealth fighters? Imagine how much easier taking out Nephilim capships would be in a cloaked Devastator...

-The Gneech :cool:
 
The_Gneech said:
Which of course leads to the question that I wondered about when playing WCP the first time...

Where are Confed's stealth fighters? Imagine how much easier taking out Nephilim capships would be in a cloaked Devastator...

-The Gneech :cool:
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I believe LOAF mentioned at one point that the WCP Confed ships still have the cloaking devices, but the Nephilim are able to counter/see through it.
 
There's an in-flight dialogue snipped that was cut from Prophecy which explains that the Nephilim could 'see through' Confed's standard issue cloaking device... removed, presumably because they didn't want to bother developing a cloaking effect for just that.

There's evidence from the WCP ICIS manual of cloaking being useless against the bugs, though: a series of cloaked Excaliburs trying to investigate the anomaly at Kilrah are shot down.
 
simple solution?

wc2 ships are newer than wc3 ships (i think that was stated) but in wc2, you fly from the concordia (fleet flagship) whereas in wc3 you fly from "tin can sally" a ship with a "very long career" the victory is aged, and not on the front lines, so it makes sense that it be equipped with older, less up to date weapons and ships (in fighter, and battlegroup terms) :)
 
Madman said:
simple solution?

wc2 ships are newer than wc3 ships (i think that was stated) but in wc2, you fly from the concordia (fleet flagship) whereas in wc3 you fly from "tin can sally" a ship with a "very long career" the victory is aged, and not on the front lines, so it makes sense that it be equipped with older, less up to date weapons and ships (in fighter, and battlegroup terms) :)
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WC3 novel states that the Victory is on the front lines, and that more scrapheap-bound ships like her were pulled from said yards and thrown onto the front after the losses from the Battle of Earth, plus those accumulated during the previous year. That's why, in Blair's opinion, the Kilrathi are winning.
 
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