Wing Commander tech

[Vympel]

I'm sorry, that's so incredibly hilarious, excuse me for a moment ... That's better.

Action Stations is the prequel novel to Wing Commander, taking place in 2634 before the start of the war. It covers the Battle of McAulliffe and cadet Tolwyn's early career. It also has all sort of fun tech stuff like shield-burster torpedo specifics and a 60KT fusion warhead downing the McAullife skyhook.

In it, a TCS Concordia is destroyed. Since it's established the Ranger is an ancient design (dating back to 2579 at least) it seems logical the Concordia is the next step in capital ship evolution.

It's a hypothesis - but it's a very, very good hypothesis. (That, and the originator does background work for whatever Wing Commander project comes up - he even has Aaron Allston's scetches for the nixed Privateer TV series, but that's another story).

Ah wait but hang on ... the TCS Lexington was Concordia-class. Established during the game in Wing Commander 4. The Ranger-class is not the same as Concordia-class. They indeed look the same, but the Concordia-class is a newer design- the TCS Lexington was brand new. You don't build such an old design brand new. It's unheard of.

Well, this might interest you ...

*SPITS DRINK*

WTF?!??! Where?!?!?! Link!!!

It's a fairly large subtext in the WCIV novel ... he goes on about how the Lexington is the same class as the Concordia and he has nightmares about Angel sleeping in her ready room ...

That'd have to be quite a refit. And the Concordia-class sucks ass compared to the Confederation-class. No Phase Transit Cannon. "Fire the main gun!"

They tried that with Super Wing Commander - remember? Not very productive ... (It might have been more so if they'd released it for the PC, but they probably thought it was too radical).

Super Wing Commander? Bleh that's console bullshit. I mean they should design a single, unitary engine, and remake WC1-4 with it. WC1-2 cutscenes could be updated with some CG graphics in the Starlancer sytle, but 3 and 4 could keep the actors (although they sucked).

Impossible dream ...

[Super-Gagme]

I think this is where he got it from
http://standoff.solsector.net/

Its a TC for WC: SO or Prophecy, not sure.

[Bob McDob]

Ah wait but hang on ... the TCS Lexington was Concordia-class. Established during the game in Wing Commander 4. The Ranger-class is not the same as Concordia-class. They indeed look the same, but the Concordia-class is a newer design- the TCS Lexington was brand new. You don't build such an old design brand new. It's unheard of.

The Lexington is many things, but she's not new - she's at least been in service since before the Battle of Terra, since she was gutted and almost totally annihilated there. It's a conversation between Blair and Eisen in the novel, I think, about Confed's sentimentality in salvaging and repairing a dead ship.

That'd have to be quite a refit. And the Concordia-class sucks ass compared to the Confederation-class. No Phase Transit Cannon. "Fire the main gun!"

The PTC shares a common main-gun defect in that it has an unpleasant tendancy to explode when fired - their use was officially forbidden shortly before WCII, but Tolwyn happily ignored such things whenever it suited him.

It's covered in the Kilrathi Saga manual - and in Special Operations 2 (the scene in my sig) where Angel begs Tolwyn not to fire the PTC.

Since the PTC was the only real advantage to the Confederation, presumably the shipyards went back into producing Concordias.

Super Wing Commander? Bleh that's console bullshit. I mean they should design a single, unitary engine, and remake WC1-4 with it. WC1-2 cutscenes could be updated with some CG graphics in the Starlancer sytle, but 3 and 4 could keep the actors (although they sucked).

Impossible dream ...

Yeah, considering EA doesn't even want to release some of the WC games they have.

(There's a Prophecy port to GBA in the works, though - if it pans out, the developer might be able to do some work on the GameCube. It's not perfect, but it's a start ...)

It'll be interesting to see if Roberts takes the SWC/WCM angle with his new television series and changes the flavor, or sticks firmly with established canon (which there isn't a great deal of).

Its a TC for WC: SO or Prophecy, not sure.

Yeah, it's one of the bigger projects in the works. No demo - yet - but it looks to be coming out pretty spiffy.

Eder, the project leader, is also helping out on a Homeworld http://nz.yaboo.dk/fleetaction/ mod, and doing work on a FreeSpace 2 http://www.scifi3d.de/wcsaga/ port. There's also a project called Wing Commander Universe, which seeks to provide a Privateer-like experience throughout the entire charted space, although the project description sounds uncomfortably like Battlecruiser 3000AD to my liking.

[Vympel]

The Lexington is many things, but she's not new - she's at least been in service since before the Battle of Terra, since she was gutted and almost totally annihilated there. It's a conversation between Blair and Eisen in the novel, I think, about Confed's sentimentality in salvaging and repairing a dead ship.

Ah ok. Purely from the game I got the impression that she was a new ship.

The PTC shares a common main-gun defect in that it has an unpleasant tendancy to explode when fired - their use was officially forbidden shortly before WCII, but Tolwyn happily ignored such things whenever it suited him.

Tolwyn was many things, but I quite liked him. I played that mission, and it was damn cool. The Phase Transit Cannon rocked

[Bob McDob]

Super Wing Commander? Bleh that's console bullshit. I mean they should design a single, unitary engine, and remake WC1-4 with it. WC1-2 cutscenes could be updated with some CG graphics in the Starlancer sytle, but 3 and 4 could keep the actors (although they sucked).

Impossible dream ...

You know Heart of the Tiger
and The Price of Freedom
Prophecy and Academy
and Privateer and Armada
But do you recall
The most famous Wing Commander of all?
Super the Macintosh Wing Commander
Had a very full speech pack,
and if you ever heard it,
You might even call it great.
All of the other Wing Commanders
Used to laugh and steal its graphics
They never let poor Super
Play on any normal platforms.
Then one foggy release deadline
Roberts came to say,
"Super with your speech so full
Won't you make the Armada intro?"
Then all the Wing Commanders loved it
And they shounted out with glee
Super the Macintosh Wing Commander
You'll go down in history!




Away is the manager, who cancelled Wing 6,
The little Lord Sivar will have his revenge.
The stars in the sky look down where he lay,
The little Lord Sivar will taste blood today.
The Strakha are cloaking, the target awaits.
But little Lord Khasra no sight does he make.
I love thee, Lord Khasra, come down from the sky
And fire your missiles so as he might deep-fry.

Be near me, Lord Melek, I ask thee to stay
Close by me forever, and make them all pay
Bless all the dear furballs in thy tender care,
And take them to Pasqual, to live with thee there.

[TC]

Yay, a bunch of replies at once

The plunkett and almost all other of the WC ships are made to be used in conjuntion with a carrier most of the time.

Kinda like a battle group.

No, not really. Because making a carrier takes a number of years, and there are thousands of capital ships in the Confed fleet there are actually a rather low number of fleet carriers in service during the war era. While there were also a number of light carriers, strike carriers, and escort carriers around there were still very few available, I can't recall a time that we've seen in the war era when the number exceeded 10 (the best look we've had is in Fleet Action where the number of carriers is quoted and appears to include light carriers, and a couple of Waterloos and it's still small. I can look up the numbers if anyone cares enough) Cruisers, destroyers, frigates and corvettes were an extremely important part of the war effort because they allowed both sides to put forces where they didn't have the carrier coverage to properly wage war. While carriers are a formidable force, the other classes of ships aren't as easy to down in the material surrounding Wing Commander (books, TV show, etc) as in the games, which obviously needs to be fun to play.

[pointless digression: The Confederations are based very heavily on the Concordia-class carriers]

Part of this comes from the speed at which the Confederation went from the Kilrathi Sivar weapon to a completed Dreadnaught, the other comes from the similarities noted by Blair in the Wing Commander 4 novel... Since it takes a number of years to retool a shipyard for a new class of carrier and then actually get one out, it's assumed that they didn't start from scratch and started with the basics of a different class, even if it's just part of the spaceframe and some of the interior. This is, at the most, speculation. It's assumed that an under construction Concordia class ship was shifted part way through construction to make the first of the Confederation class.

The continuity is all fucked up. From WC1-2 we see clear continuity in the ship design- the Tiger's Claw and Concordia look like they would serve together. Then WC3 comes along and everything from the previous games is out the window. The Victory looks nothing like the previous vessels- in neither design nor color scheme. For example, and you never see a Waterloo/ Gilgamesh class vessel again, never mind another Confederation-class Dreadnought.

Both types of design co-exist throughout most of the war... you just don't see a bunch of them... Many of the capital ships and fighters of Wing Commander 3 and 4 have been seen earlier in the timeline, sometimes much earlier. Many of those from Wing Commander 1 and 2 have been seen later. It's just the fact that it's a big war and you don't always see everything that's there. The Confederation class was never heavily produced as far as we can tell, and those that were produced ended up being less useful than planned when it was discovered that using there phase transit canons had a tendancy to make the firing ship explode (see Kilrathi Saga Manual).

In it, a TCS Concordia is destroyed. Since it's established the Ranger is an ancient design (dating back to 2579 at least) it seems logical the Concordia is the next step in capital ship evolution.

It's not just logical... we see the nameship of the Concordia class in Action Stations and it's described to us. It's most certainly the Concordia class we see later in the series.

Since the PTC was the only real advantage to the Confederation, presumably the shipyards went back into producing Concordias.

I'll just point out that most of the shipyards that were producing Concordias continued to do so throughout the war-era, including the time that Confederation class ships were under construction in a couple of slips.

[Stormbringer]

What I want to know about Wing Commander is how they fit all the fighters and crew into a ship that isn't big enough to hold them all. And that doesn't even count weapons, drives and reactors.

[Bob McDob]

Beans. Magic beans.

[TC]

What I want to know about Wing Commander is how they fit all the fighters and crew into a ship that isn't big enough to hold them all. And that doesn't even count weapons, drives and reactors.

Which ship? I just took a look at the Vesuvius, which has the most fighters of any class we've seen, and the Tiger's Claw, which has quite a few fighters for her size, and both appear to have more than ample space...

[BenRG]

What I want to know about Wing Commander is how they fit all the fighters and crew into a ship that isn't big enough to hold them all. And that doesn't even count weapons, drives and reactors.

Which ship? I just took a look at the Vesuvius, which has the most fighters of any class we've seen, and the Tiger's Claw, which has quite a few fighters for her size, and both appear to have more than ample space...

TC is probably referring to the 'Ranger-class' TCS Victory in WC3. That ship was essentially a hollow box around the flight deck. There was no way to fit hangerage space, the power systems or the crew quarters into the ship as it was seen on-screen. I guess the game designers just didn't think about that when they were developing the ships...

[Stormbringer]

What I want to know about Wing Commander is how they fit all the fighters and crew into a ship that isn't big enough to hold them all. And that doesn't even count weapons, drives and reactors.

Which ship? I just took a look at the Vesuvius, which has the most fighters of any class we've seen, and the Tiger's Claw, which has quite a few fighters for her size, and both appear to have more than ample space...

They don't once you even begin to figure out their scale relative to all the things that are abosultely required to have. None of the Wing Commander ships could carry what they are supposed to. No class is exempt, it's all the ships!

[Vympel]

What I want to know about Wing Commander is how they fit all the fighters and crew into a ship that isn't big enough to hold them all. And that doesn't even count weapons, drives and reactors.

Which ship? I just took a look at the Vesuvius, which has the most fighters of any class we've seen, and the Tiger's Claw, which has quite a few fighters for her size, and both appear to have more than ample space...

They don't once you even begin to figure out their scale relative to all the things that are abosultely required to have. None of the Wing Commander ships could carry what they are supposed to. No class is exempt, it's all the ships!

Not to mention the utterly horrendous scaling. Even in Wing Commander Prohpecy your fighter was bigger than the entire bridge of the Midway.

[TC]

b]TC[/b] is probably referring to the 'Ranger-class' TCS Victory in WC3. That ship was essentially a hollow box around the flight deck. There was no way to fit hangerage space, the power systems or the crew quarters into the ship as it was seen on-screen. I guess the game designers just didn't think about that when they were developing the ships...

No I wasn't... I was talking about the ships I mentioned, which I checked and they have quite a large amount of volume left after one accounts for the fighters to take care of other things.

They don't once you even begin to figure out their scale relative to all the things that are abosultely required to have. None of the Wing Commander ships could carry what they are supposed to. No class is exempt, it's all the ships!

Then provide some examples... as I just said, those two classes, which I thought would cause the most problems, didn't.

Not to mention the utterly horrendous scaling. Even in Wing Commander Prohpecy your fighter was bigger than the entire bridge of the Midway.

Did you play the same version of Prophecy as everyone else? I just double checked to make sure, and a Vampire, which I happened to be flying, took up much less than a quarter of the volume of the bridge... I can scale the bridge to a specific size using the models I've extracted, if you don't believe me...

[Vympel]

Did you play the same version of Prophecy as everyone else? I just double checked to make sure, and a Vampire, which I happened to be flying, took up much less than a quarter of the volume of the bridge... I can scale the bridge to a specific size using the models I've extracted, if you don't believe me...

I DID play the game a long time ago- however I specifically recall the destructable bridge nodule being pathetically small. Provide screenies.

[TC]

The Vampire is 18 meters long... that's not a bad sized bridge. Both counting vampire lengths ingame and scaling to the given length of the midway with the extracted model gives something in the range of 150 meters for the length of the bridge module. [/img]