unwitnessed kilrathi capships:

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chuck_starchaser
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

Here I found a list of guns and stats:
http://www.wcsaga.com/database/d_weappons.htm

They go from 18 to 67 cm durasteel penetration (from laser to plasma).
67/18 = 3.72, so let's say powers of 4...

So, if those are the "small size" guns, I'd have the next size size up being quadruple the durasteel penetration, half the firing rate, 1.5 times the range.

So two examples:

First small size:

Laser
18 du (penetration)
10 nJ (energy)
5000 (range)
0.25s (delay)

Plasma
67 du
44 nJ
3000
0.5s

Medium size (corvette size):

Laser
72 du
40 nJ
7500
0.5s

Plasma
268 du
176 nJ
4500
1s

Heavy size (cruiser size forward guns, not player-purchaseable)

Laser
288 du
160 nJ
11250
1s

Plasma
1072 du
704 nJ
6750
2s

A heavy plasma should take out a carrier of one shot, seems to me. But then again, why not? If a carrier commander is stupid enough to get near an enemy cruiser, he deserves it :D
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Post by BradMick »

http://www.wcnews.com/articles/gunchart.htm

all the guns from all the games and their varying stats.
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Post by Dilloh »

That's why Burrows, while working for the ES, must return to base after exploring each new system.
An easier explanation would be because transmitting new system data is too risky... ES does not have the encription codes of the feds and therefor needs to be cautios so that rivaling cooperations do not intercept the data.
But if a ship is tough and well defended, like the Cutter, then it merits the risk of putting the supercomputer in it.
I rather thought in a simpler way. I was a little boy when I played Privateer for the first time. I always had a sick feeling when jumping into an unpopulated system for the first time. What if they damaged my jump drive? Flying through several of those hazardous systems, I'd feel safer having a carrier for refuel and repairs in mind.
The first jump-capable smaller ships in WC appear in the 2660's
I'd count the Cutter to those "elder designs", as you agree with the visual relations to the Tarsus.
Or how about THE militia capship?
I hoped you would propose something like that - though I'll have to alter my Merchant/Militia campaign :cry:
(I'd like to jump to this opportunity, though, to insist that a Drayman doesn't have the room to carry AND launch more than 3 small fighters, like Talons. And the DraymanCVL should use a modified mesh that shows the launching/landing docks, by the way. I could come up with one if someone has the original mesh. Mesher can't seem to convert its .bfxm back to .obj, for some reason... Ehm, never mind; it's probably in the WCU shippack; I'll have a look tonight.)
I assume z30 took it from WCU, and I'd like to see a visual change to the CVL, and yes, I think the CVL should be a ship rather for civilian matters, for the open market.
But then comes the question of which militias
I think a big mistake is to regard the militia as a global organization. A militia is set up as a local force. You're not likely to find a canadian militia, you might find a Montreal militia though. Like with the pirates, you cannot say "the Militia", I agree. But still, they seem to share data (records), they get the same ships from obviously the same location, and they all seem to have access to old confed ships - why not the cutter, too? Btw, no paradigms are in militia hands in PR.
Could you set this campaign in Border Worlds?
Ehrm... Sure, but talking about PU matters, I'd need to expand the universe "a bit". PU, based on PR, only takes part in Gemini. Still, the pilgrim minority is most likely to have some buddies in Gemini, since Gemini has not been in human hands for too long (In the late 90's, I read that it was kilrathi, but never had a confirmation). I could write the story for WC0/Priv0, but concerning canonity, you might have better people at your side.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

Thank Pete for lunch-time...

Great link Brad, thanks! Absolutely awsome list!!!
Dilloh wrote:An easier explanation would be because transmitting new system data is too risky... ES does not have the encription codes of the feds and therefor needs to be cautios so that rivaling cooperations do not intercept the data.
Hmm... We need to be cautious here; I think my explanation is pretty straightforward and consistent with the dialogues. Taryn does say "We've analyzed the data..." or similar uterances several times, so it seems that the computer is indeed at the base in Rygannon. We don't know what encryption codes the ES has access to and I see no evidence for or against your assumption. But most importantly, you are assuming that data can be transmitted across jump points... But according to stuff I've read, IIRC, data transmission across jump points requires relays at the jump points, which the original Privateer was missing, but spiritplumber put back in, in WCU; but the freshly explored systems off Rygannon don't have relays installed yet.
I'd count the Cutter to those "elder designs", as you agree with the visual relations to the Tarsus.
200% agreed; the Cutter is already an old ship design, and out of production, in 2634, the way I've thought of it; so by 2669 it's a museum piece.
I think a big mistake is to regard the militia as a global organization. A militia is set up as a local force. You're not likely to find a canadian militia, you might find a Montreal militia though. Like with the pirates, you cannot say "the Militia", I agree. But still, they seem to share data (records), they get the same ships from obviously the same location, and they all seem to have access to old confed ships - why not the cutter, too?
In Canada we do have Confed Militias too: The RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police), and they have a few horses, but usually drive; and they are a country-wide police.
Now, usually the RCMP are complementary to local police. BUT, in the Privateer Universe there seems to be a lot more corruption than in Canada, and that's a lot of it :) Confed militias are funded and armed by the Confeds, and the confeds don't all have the interest of the Confederation and its citizens at heart. That pirates get their talons illegally from Confed Decomissionings is a clear fact, given the Menesch story, etceteras. And what Confed Militias are usually doing is looking for contraband. If you carry an ounce of brilliance they call you "pirate", but are you? To me, a pirate and a smuggler are two different things, and the conf militias know it; but it's their way to ***pretend*** to be fighting pirates. Meanwhile, real pirates are attacking draymans at the next jump point, but the conf militias turn a blind eye. I think this is all so obvious as to almost make it likely that this was in Origin's minds when they made Privateer. If it wasn't, frankly it's neither here nor there. The logical conclusions are solid, at least in my mind. So, I doubt the conf militias would share their few Cutter's with local militias, but I may be wrong.
Ehrm... Sure, but talking about PU matters, I'd need to expand the universe "a bit". PU, based on PR, only takes part in Gemini. Still, the pilgrim minority is most likely to have some buddies in Gemini, since Gemini has not been in human hands for too long (In the late 90's, I read that it was kilrathi, but never had a confirmation). I could write the story for WC0/Priv0, but concerning canonity, you might have better people at your side.
Sure, just have the character mention he's from Border Worlds in the dialogues, then, if you don't mind.
Gemini can't have been taken from the kats; it was explored and settled long before the war started. Maybe some of the kitty-named systems North and East of Perry may have been wrestled off the kats before 2669?
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Post by Shissui »

chuck_starchaser wrote:A heavy plasma should take out a carrier of one shot, seems to me. But then again, why not? If a carrier commander is stupid enough to get near an enemy cruiser, he deserves it
*Reality Check*
I think that may be a bit excessive. There is little historical support for a ship-of-the-line to carry enough fire power to sink another comparably sized ship in one salvo.

Graff Spee was locked in fog, so they were at point blank range when they first saw the Hood. The German gunners were faster to change the level on their guns (aided by the greater roll of their smaller ship) & fired first. One shell glanced off the inside lip of the exhaust stack & straight down into the boiler, where the it detonated. The Hood sank too fast to even return fire.

The Lusitania was appreciably faster than any submarine of the day (even were it to pursue on the surface) & could never have been attacked at all if the captain had changed course away from U-20. U-20 *did* fire only one torpedo, which hit just below waterline & directly below the bridge. However, there were two explosions. It is the secondary (never explained) explosion in the bow that caused the ship to sink in 18 minutes. [Footnote: Lusitania was a passenger liner, not a warship, and had no torpedo armour.]

I discussed the Sheffield in (excessive) detail elsewhere. Many additional examples abound of single shot kills. However, they all have in common some unusual circumstance which allowed for the victor to cause much more than the expected damage with that single shot.

If there are guns in standard use that could kill a carrier in a single shot when it was built, then they would have built that carrier with more armour. Thus, while I think that your logic for determining the effectiveness of bigger guns is otherwise excellent, I think that you need to use a ratio smaller than "four" because of ot historical canon.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

LOL! I'd already forgotten where I'd read that detailed story on the Sheffield; it was in one of your posts! Sorry. Indeed, I agree that taking out a ship the size of a carrier of one shot seems excessive. However, a carrier, contrary to WC traditions, is NEVER, EVER supposed to operate alone. Carriers are very weak for their size, and have no defenses almost at all, if at all. Typically we see fleets of 25 or more "capships" surrounding and protecting a carrier.
And a cruiser, from naval tradition, is a big ship, often bigger than a carrier, with guns coming out of their ears, of every shape, size and sort, including guns big enough to hopefully engage an enemy cruiser and sink it.

I'm not sure there ever was a historical instance of a carrier and a cruiser coming head to head, and it probably never happened; but it wouldn't surprise me one bit if the cruiser could sink a carrier with a single salvo.

The examples you give are right on, but on the other hand, it's the nature of war and conflict: There will always be weak points and golden bullets, and maybe this needs to be modelled a bit more for a game. (And no, I'm not talking about random numbers; I'm talking about modelling weak points and golden bullets :D.) But then again, I think that taking the sizes of ships into consideration, not just the cm durasteel figure, should be a first priority. That might solve the carrier sunk with a single shot problem in one shot...
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Post by Shissui »

chuck_starchaser wrote:LOL! I'd already forgotten where I'd read that detailed story on the Sheffield
I fully intend to cite that example again too. If i didn't plan to draw some useful lessons from it, I should have put it in "Off Topic".
I'm not sure there ever was a historical instance of a carrier and a cruiser coming head to head, and it probably never happened; but it wouldn't surprise me one bit if the cruiser could sink a carrier with a single salvo.
That is why I considered the Lusitania a relevant example. As one of the biggest passenger ships built in its day, it is relatively analogous to a carrier in size & vulnerability (had one existed then). However, any ship *intended* to enter a war zone would have had more armour than it did.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

True.
On the other hand, we could question what constitutes "taking out" a ship. Perhaps a salvo from a cruiser might not sink our carrier at once, but might put it out of comission. That brings us into another of my favorite topics: Damage representation. Naturally, the game needs to give the player some kind of visual feedback whether an attack on a ship was successful, or how successful it was; but usually all we get is a bit of smoke; blue sparks; or some other cryptic gimmick; and then suddenly all 10,000 tons or more of metal suddenly disappear. I think that if the visual representation of a ship "taken out" were to become more realistic, the taking out process would be more believable, including the single golden plasma bolt case :D
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Post by starlord »

Hi to all, it's been a while:

chuck: going back to the guns topic, keep in mind that WC0/priv0 is quite old so I'm sure sophisticated weapons like the plasma gun and the meson gun didn't exist: as far as I remember, anti matter (cap ships), cap lasers, flak, lasers, mass drivers and neutron guns (most recent) are the only guns existing during that period.

Also, keep in mind that the talon, for instance, was counsidered state of the art (for a small period, granted, but it was supposed to replace the aging scimtar), so we have to be careful about not letting it fall too quickly to the status of cheap surplus fighters.

otherwise, I think your reasoning on ship tactics is more than relevant...

P.S: I'm sending this message from a friend's comp: mine just went down the plug and it will be a certain time before I buy a new one. Yet I'll try to somehow pop up sometimes on the forums.

cheers to all.
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Post by Dilloh »

data transmission across jump points requires relays at the jump points
If you look at star trek, those guys are able to do subspace transmissions in no time. Of course, WC universe insists on relays, but I'd say this is only required for massive data, which seems to be a hint for massive encryptrion. Anyway, just a guess.
So, I doubt the conf militias would share their few Cutter's with local militias, but I may be wrong.
I rather wonder why confed militias don't fly stilettos, broadswords, etc. - you might say they are "reserved" to fight kilrathi, still they can be found all around gemini. What I'm trying to say is, I see no ship-related relation between militias and confeds.
Gemini can't have been taken from the kats; it was explored and settled long before the war started. Maybe some of the kitty-named systems North and East of Perry may have been wrestled off the kats before 2669?
It was from a german PC magazine - most likely, the guy who wrote "in 2669, mankind has managed to take away the vast Gemini sector from the Kilrathi" didn't care too much for canonity. I apologize.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

Dilloh wrote:I rather wonder why confed militias don't fly stilettos, broadswords, etc. - you might say they are "reserved" to fight kilrathi, still they can be found all around gemini. What I'm trying to say is, I see no ship-related relation between militias and confeds.
I'm not sure in PR/PU, or WCU for that matter; but I do remember from playing the original game that you see Broadswords, but not as often as you see kats, all over Gemini. The Broadsword is a bomber; a ship specifically designed to attack capships. What would the militias need them for? Not only that, but I think I've heard the Broadsword is the only ship that can carry the equipment that can spot cloaked jump points. Cloaking jump points was a kat tactic, and the Broadsword is definitely a ship designed to be part of a fleet fighting the kats; I'm not even sure why we see any around Gemini at all; they should only spawn around Perry, IMO.

Last monday I was coming from work and I saw a fighter plane coming for a landing at the Montreal airport. I was startled. I've worked for 15 --make that 20-- years near the airport and had never seen a military plane coming or going.

It should be like that. To see a Broadsword other than at Perry should be a startling surprise to the player.

That's what I was trying to convince Spiritplumber of: Keep some ships for the rare occasions. It doesn't do anything for a game to have 100 ship types if you're going to see them all the first day of playing. A game needs to tease the players, not just bare it all. Some ships should be very hard to spot. And that's partly why I was suggesting there should be 1 or 2 Cutters in all of Gemini, and be seldom used. As much as I'd like to see my baby in game; I'd hate to see it behind every tree.
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Post by snow_Cat »

chuck_starchaser wrote:Last monday I was coming from work and I saw a fighter plane coming for a landing at the Montreal airport. I was startled. I've worked for 15 --make that 20-- years near the airport and had never seen a military plane coming or going.
^ -.-^ lol!

^- - ^ Like the WreckedExoctics:tanks that frequent our cities, you never really see them.


^ - -^ I do agree that you see heavier Confed craft too frequently in Privateer, what with [/i]the 6th Confederation fleet [] lost around Midgard[/i], bartenders noting that Our boys are spread too thin to protect the outlying colonies, that Bronte Corporation could [have] Palan blockaded, The Exploratory Service [... losing] a number of ships through jump points, stepping up protection of mining bases to keep raw material out of Kilrathi hands, the TCS Valiant [] just...disappeared. [...] the second carrier the Confederation has lost along the border , re stepping up fighter production[...] Because of attrition on the front,, [...]if the bombings get much worse, the only profit'll be had by Russo Incorporated, maker of fine red ink everywhere!, there's a crater on the asteroid where Outpost 57 used to be, etc., etc...
^ - -^ Doesn't really paint a portrait of Confed Strength.

^- - ^ Further, it is possible that the 'frontier' is an area where Confed and Kilrathi colonies have passed each other via different jump paths- this would explain how the cats turn up in Hind's Variable N. and other isolated nooks far from Confed checkpoints.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

Actually, Shissui and I were casually brainstorming at the Asteroids thread, in the Privateer forum, that perhaps the reason we have, on the one hand, a few kats too many getting into Gemini, yet never any kat fleets (unless you count Khal riding a lowly Khamek), is the asteroids. Carriers, destroyers, cruisers and frigates would probably never get through the heavy roid fields around the Eatstern Gemini fronteer. That might also explain why we never see any Confed carrier fleets in Gemini: They are not needed, for the same reason, whereas they are badly needed "at the front" --i.e.: Vega.

And indeed, that's another reason we should hardly ever see a Broadsword in Privateer: There'd be none in Gemini, given how badly they are needed in Vega.
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Post by snow_Cat »

These videos may be relevant reference data.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

LOL. Good videos. We'd better not have spaceships losing wings, though; --might make the players think about it ... ;-)
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Post by targ collective »

Wings make perfect sense if the craft concerned do double-duty planetside. And what craft don't land on planets? There is a case for retractable wings, but I daresay Origin found it prettier to leave them extended.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

That's a topic of active discussion. My personal opinion is:

Small ships, including most fighters, are atmo flight capable, indeed. Landing them in Privateer is proof enough, but also we see Hellcats landing on an airstrip on Nephele, and fighting ground defenses in Border Worlds, in WC4, as well as flying close to the ground in Kilrah in WC3. So, no argument there.

As for larger ships being atmo capable, I'm not aware of any references.
In Privateer (I mean the original game, where you couldn't buy Draymans), you'd see Draymans approach planets and disappear. To me that doesn't constitute proof that they actually land on the planet, as opposed to dock with a space elevator. But now, what evidence is there for there being space elevators?
Only one reference, that I'm aware of, but that's enough for me: Action Stations (which I haven't read yet) supposedly mentions one of the Confed carriers being destroyed by a glancing hit by a "falling sky-hook".
So, IMO, there *are* space elevators in WC, even if we don't see them, and the larger ships dock with them for cargo loadin/unloading, rather than land on the planet.

And let me add, the "wings" we see in larger ships, IMO, aren't really wings, and don't even look like wings. Take the case of the Bengal carrier (Tiger's Claw): It has flat fronts like 50 meters high, and they house half of the 12 launch tubes (3 on each "wing"). The "wings" on the Ranger and Concordia carriers actually house the engines, and are also flat-fronted, not even hinted at being "aerodynamic".
Last edited by chuck_starchaser on Mon May 21, 2007 3:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by targ collective »

Either way it makes absolutely no difference in game, and neatly explains why capships don't have wings - which was probably the original intention of the reference.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

Hahaha, I was just editing my post... Capships do have "wings", if you want to see them as such, in many cases. Look at the Gilgamesh. Looks like a Concord. But I believe they aren't wings.

But I agree the fact is mostly irrelevant, though, I would rather introduce space elevators than allow the player to land on planets with a capship... ;-)
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Post by Dilloh »

If you do look out for a way why capships could land, just think of the following:

In Wing Commander, artificial gravitation is possible. People can stand in a starship on the floor, without wearing magnetic boots or some other strange stuff.

From today's knowledge, artificial gravitation is either produced by rotation / centrifugal force or antigravitation effects (gravitation produced by a fast rotating electro magnet, also see www.americanantigravity.com). Since capships usually don't rotate, we can most likely think of a mechanical produced gravity. Martin Tajmar already produced antigravity, follow the article link (german) or directly go to his homepage.

http://www.pm-magazin.de/de/heftartikel ... id1780.htm

http://www.ilsb.tuwien.ac.at/~tajmar

or just google for Tajmar to find english articles.

We can assume that within 662 years this technology has advanced far enough to create larger antigrav effects, e.g. to move a large spacecraft like a helicopter.

This surely is no evidence, but a theory based on todays knowledge.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

In my youth I got involved with antigravity research. I ordered tons of books and kits. I got an invitation to an antigravity and free energy simposium in Atlanta, Georgia; and without a second thought I bought a plane ticket and went there; 3 days at the Holiday Inn. In the end, my conclusion was that it was just a bunch of charlatans. They keep going on with the same pitches, to this day, and no demo. The Brown field doesn't exist, before you ask; it's just electron emission. And the flying devices use high voltage to produce downward wind by ionization. No antigravity there whatsoever. And the rotating magnets is a classic... Show me a machine levitating with rotating magnets or electromagnets. Finally, it can be demonstrated by a thought experiment that anigravity makes no sense as a static field. If you could neutralize gravity in one spot, then you could put a heavy wheel such that one side of it is inside the no gravity zone, and the other half outside, and it would turn and possibly produce electricity, which contradicts theromodynamics and symmetries, unless its doing so consumes equal or greater power from the antigravity generator.
And the giveaway with these antigravity groups is that there's never solid theory behind their stuff. Even those few that take the time to mix in some math equations to sweeten their pitches, at some point in the theory comes the crunch: "and then, we're not sure why", or basically that a myracle happens; such that all the math is for the birds if it doesn't add up because of some unknown detail somewhere. At the symposium I mentioned, someone brought in a rotating electromagnet machine to demo. I though "Oh, yeah, finally!"; but the machine failed, and they expressed regret and apollogized... Right, like it's their own machine but they wouldn't know how to fix the problem?

But back to WC, the (Confederation class) Concordia crashed on Vespus (start of WC4) after having its engines hit by a torpedo. There's no reference to its having lost its gravitational field generators; which implies, if your theory were true, that it should have been able to soft-land by neutralizing gravity.
And generally speaking, there's no reference, that I know of, of a capship landing on a planet, ever in WC. In fact, when carriers or other capships have business on some planet they send shuttles down.
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Post by Dilloh »

I don't know in which year you visited the symposium, but Tajmar has repeated his experiment about 250 times to make sure that there were no environment influences, plus he gave the plans for the machine to several scientists to prove his relusts. It surely might turn out to be a gooner, but I wouldn't say it will never work just because several other tries caused it to fail.
But back to WC, the (Confederation class) Concordia crashed on Vespus (start of WC4) after having its engines hit by a torpedo. There's no reference to its having lost its gravitational field generators; which implies, if your theory were true, that it should have been able to soft-land by neutralizing gravity.
Okay then, but why actually did it crash? Was it shot out of orbit? Was the captain forced to land because the oxygen was running low? Why do spaceships crash on planets when they seem to float gently in space?
And generally speaking, there's no reference, that I know of, of a capship landing on a planet, ever in WC. In fact, when carriers or other capships have business on some planet they send shuttles down.
As I said, I wasn't too sure if you were looking for a reason why capships may land, or must not land. Overall, it was strange if large spaceship could land on a planet and yes, I also favor shuttles.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

Sorry, that was at the start of WC3, not 4. Here's the video:
http://files.filefront.com/TCS+Concordi ... einfo.html
It was engaged in battle over the Vespus sea; presumably at low orbit, presumably at suborbital speed, and the battle was going well, but then a torpedo hit the engines. I can't remember where I read it; I pulled out Heart of the Tiger and paged through the first chapter, thinking the details were there but they weren't. But it was something along the lines that it wasn't in a circular, stable orbit when it lost its engines, and couldn't avoid atmospheric entry.
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Post by starlord »

keep in mind that in WC3 for instance, only some fighter craft are capable of atmos flight: if I recall well there are 2: the hellcat and excalibur. It has been canonised several times that some fighter craft are only space operatives.

In WC4, more of these craft appear: the vindicator and (I'm not sure on this one) perhaps the banshee.

regarding the concordia falling on vespus, perhaps the planet's gravity attracted it (they might have been thrown off course because of that torpedo blow and on an elliptic orbit, finally crashing down).

on the other hand, keep in mind that if ships do possess some kind of anty grav drives, they might be crudely referred to as "engine" in pilot jargon (since, in a sort of way, it makes the ship move). which will bring us to the following topic: are there different kind of engines in WC? (for examples, star wars relies on 3 "engine" types: repulsors (which ressamble much our discussed anti grav drives), sub-luminal engines (for common space flight, and hyperdrives for jumps. One thing I'm quite curious on in the WC4 intro: although the hellcats are atmos fighters, I never remembered them as VTOLs :? I rather expected something like a take off on some sort of tarmac, and I didn't see any downward pointing engine trails...

I maybe wrong, though. But perhaps some capships do have the possibility to anti grav on the surface of a planet, but the energy cost is so big that many will employ shuttles.
chuck_starchaser
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

starlord wrote:keep in mind that in WC3 for instance, only some fighter craft are capable of atmos flight: if I recall well there are 2: the hellcat and excalibur. It has been canonised several times that some fighter craft are only space operatives.
I thought so, but wasn't sure.
regarding the concordia falling on vespus, perhaps the planet's gravity attracted it (they might have been thrown off course because of that torpedo blow and on an elliptic orbit, finally crashing down).
I don't think a torpedo could send a carrier off course; it probably was already on an elliptic orbit that would cross the atmo. That's not unthinkable at all in a battle situation, but with its engines intact would have made the necessary corrections after the end of the battle, methinks.

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on the other hand, keep in mind that if ships do possess some kind of anty grav drives, they might be crudely referred to as "engine" in pilot jargon (since, in a sort of way, it makes the ship move). which will bring us to the following topic: are there different kind of engines in WC? (for examples, star wars relies on 3 "engine" types: repulsors (which ressamble much our discussed anti grav drives), sub-luminal engines (for common space flight, and hyperdrives for jumps.
According to the WC Manual, there's only two types of engines: Jump drives, and Ion thrusters for in-system flight. No mention anywhere of antigravity; --only of artificial gravity used within ships.
One thing I'm quite curious on in the WC4 intro: although the hellcats are atmos fighters, I never remembered them as VTOLs :? I rather expected something like a take off on some sort of tarmac, and I didn't see any downward pointing engine trails...
No, exactly; no VTOL: when Maniac lands his Hellcat on Nephele, you see the Hellcat sitting on a long airstrip.
Or was it in Alcor?

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I maybe wrong, though. But perhaps some capships do have the possibility to anti grav on the surface of a planet, but the energy cost is so big that many will employ shuttles.
I've never heard of it in WC, though; and shipyards are always orbital stations. Except some shipyards on the Moon, I think; which is understandable, the moon having such low gravity, the thrust of the engines would be enough to overcome it. But there's no mention of *anti-gravity* in WC, that I've ever heard.
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