[AlekTrev006]

Hello everyone here !

I am a first-time poster to the forum, but a long-time Wing Commander fan.  I discovered your Saga project during some random internet searches on other WC topics some months back (might have been the beginning of 2006 ?).

Since then I've periodically checked back in, observed your ship models / screenshots - downloaded many of your excellent screen savers / wallpapers - and overall been quite impressed with the concept of bringing Wing Commander back "to life" in this fan-based manner you were trumpeting.

Just a week or two ago (right after you'd formally released the Prologue here) - one of my friends who is also a (to a lesser extent than me though) Wing fan who I'd told about the Saga project a while back, mentioned to me during a phone call that "those guys released a playable Prologue finally ..."

He was a bit non-chalant about it at first...but I immediately went home and downloaded the Prologue.  Gleefully I loaded it up ...and was simply amazed !   AMAZED !

You guys did a SENSATIONAL job at not just making the game look visually compelling and impressive, but you also took the Wing Commander universe and made it (in the span of just 5-6 missions) ...seem a TON more realistic and "accessible" to a casual (or even hardcore) fan than Origin was able to do in any of their games from the Wing universe (I suppose Wing IV was probably their best in terms of making a very compelling story, and having the acting, game-play, etc. work well within the plot - but even there you encountered a lot of the usual Wing Flaws).


By "Wing Flaws", what I'm referring to is the all-too-common tendency of most of the Origin games to have the player do ridiculous amounts of fighting / destroying of enemy units with what was TRULY a pathetically small force of friendly ships.

Everyone can remember the missions in Wing I, II, III, etc.  where you and your SINGLE Wingman (2 Terran Fighters in total) would "fly a four-point patrol" where you end up (by mission's end) encountering 23 enemy fighters of various classes...and where you would be EXPECTED to destroy most if not all of them !

Some Nav Points would be ...you and Wingman versus  2- Dralthi ... next wave ... 3 Salthis...  next wave 3 Jalkehi.     

Ooookay...so in the course of one "Nav Point" - the game required you to go 2 on 8 ...and you are EXPECTED to win... that's considered "reasonable" / "normal" for you to proceed in the game.


Another "Wing Flaw" is the tendency of many of the games in the series to have your 2-Fighters go out and lay waste to huge enemy capital ships with relative ease.

Remember Col. Halcyon's briefings sometimes ?   

  "First you and Knight will fly to Nav 1 ..there's a lot of activity there and Intel thinks it could be a squadron of Kilrathi fighters. Probably a mixed-bag of Dralthis and Grikaths.   Deal with them then proceed to Nav 2.    We're detecting a large energy signature that we think is a Kilrathi capital ship.  Probably a Ralari-class destroyer.  Elminate it and any fighter escort it may have.  Finish your sweep at Nav 3.  Intel isn't sure what is out there, but we believe it may be the Fralthi crusier that we detected a few days ago during that other patrol mission.  If you encounter the Fralthi, make sure you take her out.  We can't leave that kind of enemy firepower so close to the Tiger's Claw.   Understood ?  Good...dismissed, good luck and good hunting."


What ! ?   

This was so common in most of the games in the Wing series and it always annoyed me to no end because it portrayed Wing fighters as ABSURDLY strong...and Wing capital ships as absurdly weak (something that is 100% illogical, when you think about it and how these things are generally portrayed in most other established Sci-Fi's).

While I admit that Wing Fighters ARE absolutely THE most powerful in any Sci-Fi that I am aware of (well at least major Sci-Fi's like Trek, Star Wars, 40-K, Babylon-5, Galactica, etc.) . . . . . there's a difference between saying "we have strong fighters" and saying "take 2 of these fighters and go destroy 20 enemy fighters, plus 2-3 large enemy capital ships.  Don't worry, it's not impossible at all and in fact, it's expected in order for you to progress through the game !"


The final major "Wing Flaw" that I often noticed and disliked was the tendency to have missions become very ...predictable / non-changing.  The missions (so often) involved patrols...but the patrols themselves were generally UN-exciting because interesting things never happened during them.  Yes there might be an asteroid field here or there, and a mine-field tossed in for spice, but the basic premise was you and your ONE wingman would fly out, encounter 12-20 enemy fighters...and blow them all up before flying back and landing at your carrier.



I mention these various "Flaws" inherent in most of the Wing games because Wing Commander SAGA has totally reversed these trends and made Wing Commander REASONABLE once again !

You guys not only borrow on the fiction described in excellent books like End Run, Fleet Action, False Colors, etc. . . but you inject that realism, plus real-life common SENSE things into the gameplay.

Fighters are strong yes, but light or medium fighters almost CANNOT destroy enemy capital ships in your game - which is excellent and how it should be.   Now...ENOUGH of them, with their missiles, and focused full-gun attack runs COULD damage and possibly destroy a Cap-Ship, which is fine and sensible...but your game is not (from what I can see) going to have missions where the EXPECTATION is for you and your 1-Arrow Wingman to fly out and destroy a Kilrathi Destroyer, Cruiser, and Carrier all in the same mission (ridiculous ?  Remember that several Wing-III missions had you doing just that !!!  Yes ...Ridiculous !   )

Additionally, you actually have sensible tactical choices being played out in the missions.  Your goal is to destroy an enemy Destroyer at Nav-3 ?   Okay...let's launch 4 Fighters with 2-3 Bombers and have those 6-7 ships be the strike force against that 1-capital ship. 

Now not only does it make sense (Fighters hold off the enemy planes or give fire support / distraction - for the Bombers' attack runs) ... but it also feels much more like a realistic combat choice which would have been made in the "real-life Wing Universe" (by Real Life I mean reading books like End Run, etc. - which describe various engagements and make it seem realistic as opposed to - "go launch and destroy the enemy fleet with your Rapier...").



Also, your Saga game seems like it will feature a TON more Capital Ships than were seen in most of the other Wing games.  More importantly, because your Cap-Ships are finally strong enough to DO something in a battle, they become critical to a missions success as well as being able to defend themselves to a large degree.  Remember that in many of the older Wing games, Cap-Ships were just big targets for you to pick off at your leisure.  They were never REALLY threatening to your fighter if you were at all a decent player.   When you had to ESCORT your own Cap-Ships or go to the aid (Defend) of a friendly one...how many of those missions were terror-fests ?  Where you knew that your friendly ship would be turned into space-dust in a very short amount of time if you let a few enemy fighters fire their GUNS (let alone Missiles !) at it for more than a few seconds...hehe.

That was the old way.  That was the old portrayal.   No longer (thankfully !).

SAGA seems to realize that such portrayals were ridiculous, never matched the fiction (printed stories) or even Common Sense !   It appears you guys (more than any of the people at Origin) have gone out of your way to make realism a big part of this game...and that serves to make the Universe all the more compelling and the characters and missions you have created all the more interesting and engaging.   Thank you so much !


- - - - -

Now... to my Questions... (sorry to have written so much here - I am an English-major from my College days and have always retained the writing bug - especially on a topic I love and have loved for so long like Wing Commander). . .


1.)   While you have made Capital Ships very resilent in terms of the amount of damage they can take, regeneration power of their shields, etc. . . . I have often wondered why or how the concept of "Blowing off enemy turret guns" is ... realistic, given the way Wing Shields work and have always been described to work... OR why it is so (relatively) easy for Fighters to accomplish it...but Captial ships never try to themselves ?

What I mean is that...if Wing Shields are "Up" on a craft, even if they are a low-% (20% forward shields, let's say) ...how are you able to fire "through the shields" with your (relatively) weak Fighter-based energy guns to "hit" the Turret Gun / Missile Launcher ... etc. ?

Wing Turrets and so forth have never been suggested to sit ABOVE their own shields ...and to have them as such would be kind of dorky ...lol... most shields and shield "bubble's" (as seen in Star Trek or even with your own Wing Saga fighters when they are hit by fire in external-view mode) ... extend out AROUND a ship (regardless of its size) ...and things within are "protected" from enemy fire until the shields go down.

So how is it realistic to have standard starfighters "pick off" a 500+ meter Cap-Ships weaponry with it's guns...WHILE the target's shields are still up ?

If this is mostly put in for game-play effect and "fun for the player" - I can totally accept that as an answer, I was just curious how you explain it otherwise, if there is a way ?



2.)  Related to the above question ...if you can just "fire away" at a Cap-Ships weapon mounts with relative ease from a starfighter...why can't opposing Cap-Ships just "target those enemy turret guns !" and fire streams of accurate Laser, Tachyon, or Antimatter-Gun fire into those emplacements ?    If you are able to do it with your fighters targeting / sensors and actually deal damage with you fighter-scale guns...why in the world wouldn't a powerful Cruiser or Carrier be able to accomplish the same feat with its own much larger and "larger scale" weapon systems ?

Just curious . . .



3.)   I love the fact that you allow Cap-Ships to fire torpedo salvos and Cap-Ship missiles at one another...totally realistic, totally in keeping with the fiction ...etc. etc... so that's great.   My question...again... is why you allow the Player to target the missile / torpedo launchers of the enemy capital ships...and "blow them up" / disable them - etc. . . while the target vessel still has functional shields and other systems ?

I found in the Prologue missions that it was relatively easy to close in on a Kilrathi Cruiser in my Arrow....target the "Missile Launcher" up front while I approached... fire off 2-missiles and about 10-15 seconds of "Full Guns fire" ...and the Launcher would be reduced to 0% ... disabled.    You could cycle around again...target the other Launcher and within ... 1 minute, 30 seconds TOTAL...take out the entire ballistic-launch capability of a 500+ meter warship.

With your SINGLE Fighter craft accomplishing the feat ? ? ?

What is the reasoning behind allowing this to be possible ?   If you still want it to be do-able...is it possible to make it much harder to accomplish for realism's sake ?   In other words...I can see 2 or 3 Thunderbolts, firing full-guns and missiles ...all targeting the same area on the targeted ship being able to weaken the shields there JUST enough to cause a momentary lapse in them over that area...enough for a few energy bolts or missiles to sail through and hammer the launcher mechanism on the Cap-Ships hull itself... and having THAT type of thing disable it.

But it's hard to understand how a single Light Fighter, when piloted by the Player, can accomplish this with not TOO much difficulty...and without any other friendly fighter/cap ship fire /support ? ?



4.)   I enjoy the fact that Saga is using a lot more Friendly Fighters in various missions and battles...because it makes much more sense and is in-keeping with the entire "realism" concept of the Universe.  Is this trend something that we will see a lot more in the full Campaign when it is released ?

I am talking about a mission (for example) where your Carrier knows 1 Kilrathi Carrier and 1 Kilrathi Destroyer (with all the Fighters they normally have in their bays) is located at Nav-1 ... instead of sending 2-fighters as would be the case in MOST older (dumb) Wing missions.... I am hoping (thinking) you guys would be much more creative / daring in your strike-force selection ?

Could we see:

8 Arrows as escorts (you and your Wingman being one set of these fighters)

6 Thunderbolts (as heavy gun / light-torpedo support)

4 Longbow Bombers (as heavy torpedo / anti-capship support)


AND   2-Terran Destroyer escorts moving in to support that massed strike ?


That's the kind of "Epic Battles" I'm hoping we can see in Saga at certain points...it also makes a ton of sense too !


No more "Magnum Launch, all Fighters up !" - statements in the mission-briefings, only to find 4 TOTAL fighters actually flying around your Carrier in defense of it when the game-play mission starts.  I'm hoping to see a huge crazy battle of 40 (5 Squadrons of Kilrathi Fighters !!!) attackers versus maybe 30 Terran ships of various classes being launched out to TRULY defend their Carrier with an "all-hands-in-space" type of effort.


 8)




5.)  Antimatter-Guns / Torpedos / Phase-Shields -   Okay...I'm trying to figure out exactly how you guys are representing this ?   I know that AMG's are capable of dealing enormous energy damage to a target which makes them ideal for hammering enemy Cap-Ships with ...the same is true of the Torpedos ..which in Wing Commander are huge 10-meter long (size of a SCHOOL-BUS, think about that !!!) ... warheads of matter/antimatter ... consider that a Star Trek torpedo is about 2-meters long...so most Wing ones are 5-times as potent a blast (and actually considerably more when you think about it ...as 10-Photon Torpedoes in Star Trek will NOT destroy most Starships... but 2 Torpedo hits on the same area of a ship in Wing Commander can very often blow it apart...the destructive power is just that high !).

But here's my question... in Wing II time, I think they had the best Cap-Ships because they made them pretty much immune to your Fighter-based guns and Missiles ...why ?   Because the Phase Shields they carried were just so advanced and powerful that your normal weapons couldn't get through them.   From what I understand from the fiction, Phase Shields in Wing operate much like the little "personal shields" that the Borg guys have in Star Trek... they fluctuate constantly ...with their "Phase" changing all the time....because of the (insert Technobabble) constant oscillating of the shields frequency, etc... normal weapons were never able to hurt (punch through) the new Phase Shields.

Torpedoes got around that by essentially "breaking through" the target's Phase Shielding.... the advanced guidance and targeting systems in the warhead would scan and "de-code" the exact shield-phasing of the target ship before the launch.  This is why it took so long for your Torpedoes to actually lock-on...relative to other weapons...the onboard computers were "breaking through" the target's shield-code during that extended time period.

When the Torpedo finally "acquired the phase-frequency" of the target ship...you would get your Tone and be able to fire... because the warhead had matched the target's shields and was able to match itself to the frequency being used...the Torpedo would NOT impact on the shields...but would instead penetrate THROUGH the shields and explode on the target vessels hull armor (this is one reason why Wing-II era cap-ships featured huge belts of armor, compared to the numbers stated in the Wing-I manuals.  It was NEEDED to give them any chance of taking even 1-torpedo hit...and even then, most would be destroyed by 2-Torpedo hits).

This "going through shields by matching their frequency" concept is best shown on-screen in a Sci-Fi during the fight between that Klingon Bird of Prey and the Enterprise near the end of the Star Trek Generations movie.  For those who forget, the scene involves the Klingon ship learning the shield-frequency of the Enterprise, and by matching their weapons to that "number" they are able to fire THROUGH the Federation ship's shields and have their shots impact directly on the hull armor.


SO... with all that said / laid out ... I'm curious if this is the model you are following in your SAGA game ?   If it is...then are you also saying that Anti-Matter guns are capable of going right through a Cap-Ships shields like a torpedo can ?

Also....if we are still using the Phase-Shields model (and I think you even use the word Phase-Shields from the Wellington comm-officer during the final Prologue mission) ... then how are your standard fighter-based guns able to do "diddly-squat" to those capital ships ? 

Also, how are you able to (going back to an earlier question) allow or explain Fighters blasting off enemy turret guns, missile launchers, etc. . . if the target-ship has its Phase Shields active ?  How are your gun-shots getting THROUGH the Phase Shields to actually impact on the turret housing, missile bay, etc ?




6.)   Last Question...I promise !               Speeds / Distances / Realism - VS - Gameplay

Okay...I think all big Wing fans realize there is a huge inconsistency shown between the numbers given in many of the game manuals ...and ..welll...reality.   

Consider that in some of the books, particularly the earlier ones, the game-designers would write in "ranges" for the various fighter or cap-ship energy guns...but they would (incredibly) be in METERS !!!   METERS !

I think one of the most absurd examples is the Neutron Gun from Wing-I ... it was given a listed range "in the book" of just 2500-meters.      Really ?   2.5 kilometers ?  That's it ?

Consider that in the MODERN world today we have the following weaponry:

The Caesar is a 52-caliber 155 mm howitzer installed on a 7-ton Daimler-Benz 6x6 truck. It has a range of 42 km—compared to 30 km for the Army’s current artillery guns—and is C-130 transportable. Originally developed for the French Army, the Caesar caught the attention of U.S. Army artillery officers, who continue to operate Cold War-era weapons and are longing for a fast howitzer platform that can keep up with the combat maneuver force.



Ummm...okay...so we have plenty of artillery guns today that can fire at ranges of 40+ KILOMETERS... and Wing Commander manuals are telling us that in the year 2500+ we are reduced to energy weapons that fire less than 3.0 Km in total range ?     



The problem is further complicated when we consider that most of the Wing manuals described the SPEEDS of the Fighter and Cap-Ships in terms of KILOMETERS-PER-SECOND (kps).  This is actually sensible given the vastness of space and is in keeping with other Sci-Fi's to some extent.  Keep in mind that in Star Trek you've got ships that can go "Full Impulse Power" and reach 75,000 kps ...types of speeds...something that, even if we are being really generous, Wing ships can't generally approach.

But at least they are using the correct "scale"  (Kilometers per second, not something nutty like Meters-per-second).

The reason this has always been weird to me is that if the ships are flying at KPS speeds...why are their guns only firing 2-5 km in total distance ?  It's kind of loopy.     

This is COMPLETELY mind-boggling when you consider that SOME Wing-games like Privateer actually went nuts and gave SPEED stats to the projectile and energy weapons you could buy and use.  They would describe a Mass Driver as having a range of 3000 km (sometimes they'd go back to listing ranges in Kilometers in some of the games / manuals) ...but then they'd say "Velocity:  1100".  It was worse with things like Laser Cannons...being Lasers (Photons ... Light) ... shouldn't they be traveling AT or NEAR the Speed-of-Light ?  LoL... are the Wing weapon scientists actually PURPOSEFULLY slowing DOWN their own energy bolts for some bizarre reason ... ?

I realize a lot of this stuff is meant for ease-of-gameplay, as opposed to being "the Literal Truth of the Universe" - but I mention it here because I'm not sure what model you guys at the Saga team / project believe in ?



Lastly...with Speeds... in the Prologue you have the Autopilot allowing you to go from one Nav Point to another... in relatively short order.   I know you point out that some of it is "time compression".  HOWEVER...I was wondering...are you guys also following the concept of "Flank Speed" as described in End Run, Fleet Action.... etc. ?

This is the idea that Wing ships....both Fighters and Capital craft.... have "Ram Scoops" which they use to suck in various gases, etc. floating in the vaccuum of space and when they are operating in normal combat or maneuvering around nimbly...they have the "Scoops Open" - - - at these speeds they move around largely as described in the various manuals...Cap Ships can go 100 - 300 kps ... Fighters 350 - 550 (more with Afterburners) kps ...etc. etc.      That's all fine and good.   HOWEVER...when the vessels need to travel between various interstellar locations (such as on Nav Point patrol missions, or traveling from 1-planet to another within a Star System) ... the ships can "Close their Ram Scoops" and go to "Flank Speed" - in this mode of travel, the vessels could reach much, much, higher speeds which allowed them to cross massive space-distances within a much more reasonable time-frame than would ever be possible if you used the "200-kps" numbers listed for most of the Cap-Ships.

I think the author of those books, Forstchen ? (sp), describes Flank-Speed as allowing anywhere from 10,000 kps - 30,000+ kps ...  this is MUCH better because you could actually travel across even our Solar System in a much more sensible time period than would be possible if you didn't use Flank Speed or believe it was part of Wing Technology or their universe.

As a real-life example... consider that the distance between Earth and Mars (at the closest possible orbit for Mars) is appx. 56 MILLION Kilometers.     If we took a Terran Cap-Ship like a Destroyer, and even assuming we gave it a "top speed" of 300 kps as described in most Origin manuals for the games....it would take that ship  51 HOURS !!!  to move from Earth's orbit to Mars' orbit.    Now...that's over 2-days of travel.  Clearly pretty ridiculous if it takes you that long to travel from your home planet to one of your other major planets within your own system. 

If you accept the Flank-Speed concept however, and presume the Destroyer can reach a top-speed of 30,000 kps ... that same trip takes only 31-minutes.... STILL a pretty decent amount of time (it's not instantaneous like Warp Speed or something) ... but not so ridiculously long that any ships which might have come under attack would be long destroyed before relief units got to them.   


Anyways...what is the Saga teams (or other forum members here) thoughts on Flank-Speed... wing speeds / ranges / etc. in general, and how does the Saga game attempt to represent all of that ?

-----------------------------------------

   Okay...I'm done.   That was probably the longest post I've ever made to ANY forum before.  I apologize slightly for the length, but had a ton of info and questions I wanted to cram into the posting.  Hopefully you guys can chime in with your various opinions / answers and the thread can be interesting and thought-provoking to everyone here.

Once again....GREAT job Saga people !   You truly have exceeded all my expectations and really restored Wing Commander to us all !

[Tolwyn]

Eh, wow,. I hope you do not mind if I split my answer into two or three replies. I can't think straigth with all the text I have to keep in my head

1/3. Turrets are not protected by phase shielding (e.g. otherwise they wouldn't be able to fire through the shield as it works both ways). We did the same for torpedo launcher. There is no hard evidence, or I can not remember one saying that the missile launchers were not protected by the shields, but I do remember a statement in "Action Stations" by the Kilrathi prince saying that if the new weapon (torpedo) would have been mounted on a capital ship, they would have to lower phase shielding in order to fire it, making the ship vulnerable. It was also a gameplay decision on our side.

2. that is what they actually do. See Sim02 and the battle between the Tallahassee and the Fralthi II. They will target turrets in the first place

4. Yes

5. Well, the theory is that a torpedo would go through the shield, unleash huge energies, that will knock out the phase shielding for a brief moment and, of course, inflict heavy damage on the hull armor. There are two ways to do this: it is possible to add "shield_pierce" tag to torpedoes. We decided to simply magnify shield damage, so the torpedo would knock out the phase shielding and then unleash its energy on the hull. Same effect, though in reverse

[Starman01]

Hm, Tolwyn was faster then me with the welcoming  (Also congrats for the longest post evar )

Glad you liked the game, it's always a good feeling to see that we where able to satisfy even the WC-Fans of the old school. I try to answer your questions, when I missed something, just yell.

The issue you mentioned that in the old game two confed fighters destroy half of the enemy armada also always disturbed me in a sense of reality, but making so many enemy is simply a gameplay issue.

Gameplay is one of the major factors, we tried to keep up with this game. While the WC story and universe is big, it has a lot of inconsistences as well. We tried to build the game along with the canon where ever it's possible, but when the canon had a conflict with the gameplay, we always decided for the gameplay (since this game should be fun for everyone, and not only the old wing commander fans )

1) As for the shielded turrets, I not sure which game you both play, but in my version of the prologue the turrets are protected by the shields. This might be not correct with the story (obviously there it isn't possible to shield them), but I also find this much more logic. What stupid protection would it be when the turrets aren't protected as well. Since it's fiction, just make it the Perry Rhodan way, there the shields have different polarities, you can penetrate from the inside, but not from the outside.

2) Like Tolwyn said, that's exactly what the game AI is doing

3) See issue 1, in my version the shields are up and you have to bring them down first when you want to attack the weapons. Maybe you didn't noticed because the allied cruiser already brought the enemy shields down

4) We are aiming exactly for this sort of gameplay in the main game, maybe not in this magnitude you mentioned (after all, the PC need to be able to handle all the ships participating in a battle), but it will certainly be no "take your arrow and kill the two enemy carriers"

6) Regarding to this, that's just the Science vs fiction vs gameplay issue.  The reality you mention is the Science, that's how things will work, and would also work if we would be able to bring our wars into space (though I hope mankind grows up on this before we reach the deep space).

The strange measuring units is the fiction part, which isn't very logic in most parts. But while the origin creators didn't thought that much on it, they thought enough to make it a little according to the gameplay, where you need to see the enemy and get close to him and fire (and what fun would a game be when you can simply fire and forget your weapons on just an empty target bracket).

Which brings us to the last, the gameplay. We also needed to copy it for exactly this matter, and need to see the story physics with two closed eyes

One last thing I want to mention is your autopilot question. Autopilot doesn't have anything to do with the time compression (we have no Sinza-Like engine in the WC universe like the X-Universe has). Autopilot is an automatic travelling between navpoints, which took several hours in the "real" (game) world.

Original games bypassed that with the flyby animation, and we used time compression until something better is possible

I hope this answer your questions

Starman

[AlekTrev006]

Good comments back from both of you - thanks much !   Yes...I humbly accept the Longest-Post-Ever Award   

To reply a bit ...

- Starman is right... the Turrets are protected by the Capships energy shields .... you do have to knock the shield out on the quadrant you are firing at before you start seeing a reduction in the Turret / Missile Launcher / etc. - armor %

And yes...in Wing Commander as with most Sci-Fi's, your OWN energy and projectile weapons are set to the same shield frequency (techno-babble) as your shields so that you can fire THROUGH your own defense screen without damaging it or having to shut off your shields... which would be stupid.   No respectable Sci-Fi which uses Shield Technology ever has it so that it cannot fire its OWN weapons out from the cover of the shields without shutting them off...lol.

I guess the reason I wondered about it was because it seems you can knock out Cap-Ship shields relatively easily in the Prologue...that's what made me think you weren't actually hitting shields and were instead going right through to damaging the Gun Turrets or other sub-systems. . . ?


As an example / test from the Prologue...I just took a run through the Bombing Run mission (quite a fun one, I should mention !) on the Simulator... and aimed my Longbow (With Full-Guns set) towards the front of the Sheffield Destroyer flying alongside the Kennedy after you launch.

I was appx. 545 Meters/Kilometers (lol, however one wants to state it) ... and commenced firing my energy weapons at 1:35 of mission time.  I timed it....and by 1:41 of mission time I had shredded the forward shields of the Destroyer and reduced the Hull Armor from 100% to 99% (This was my way of knowing I had gotten through the shields already because I had seen a reduction in hull armor percentile).

That's what I meant.

It just seems that a fighter, even a decently strong one like a Longbow, should not be able to punch through a Capital Ship sized target's shielding in 6 seconds of firing (35 - 41 of mission time, as noted above).

Going by the Wing-III manual ...the Sheffield Destroyer has something like 2000 cm/equivalent of Shields and 1000 cm's of Hull Armor ... so how does your Longbow knock through the forward shielding in less than 10-seconds of fire from its energy guns alone ... I didn't even use Missiles / Torpedoes ! ? ! ?



Additional thing I noticed in my testing that maybe you might edit before the final game release is that all Capital ships seem NOT to use their main-guns (Tachyon Turrets or AMG-Turrets) against your starfighters...  This seems odd because if I was under attack...I would order ALL my guns to engage enemy targets...not just my Laser Turrets.   Granted the Laser Turrets are BEST at hitting fighters because of fast refire and good targeting...but who cares if the other guns are SLIGHTLY less effective...if they HIT a fighter-scale target...they are going to do HUGE damage...so why the heck do they NOT fire at us ?

I noticed this in the Bomber-Sim run at Nav-2 where the Destroyer engages the Kilrathi DD  ... we blew up the Kilrah ship, but I guess I delayed long enough for it to get in several torpedo hits on the TCS-Nova, because the Terran ship was down to 15% Hull Integrity when I finally nuked the enemy ship with 2-Torpedoes up its rear engines....hehe.

Anyways...I turned and observed the Nova.... to my surprise...it ONLY engaged the remaining 2-3 Kilrathi Fighters flying around it with its Laser Turrets....NOT the larger turret up front (An Anti-Matter Gun I think) ...that big gun just sat there...it never turned...it never fired those Yellow Bolts of energy which it had been firing at the enemy cap-ship just a short while earlier).

This seems odd.

It is REALLY bad / noticeable when you just fool around and turn traitor and try to attack the Kennedy Battle Group at the start of the Bombing Run - Sim Mission.   If you fly out and attack the Terran Cruiser there...after it "turns Red" and recognizes you as a Traitor ... it will start firing at you with its Laser Turrets.

But there is the funny part.... if you are above it and to the front a bit...so it can bring most of its guns to bear on you....you can watch as the 3-4 Laser Turrets (the smaller ones) on the top-side all aim in and start to hit you...but crazy enough ...the 3 BIG Gun Turrets (Antimatter Guns I believe) on the top-side of the ship just SIT THERE !   They do nothing ! 

You can blow off all the other Laser Turrets (small ones) ...and fly around the Cruiser and it will not fire at you with anything else...even though it has 3-4 Fully functional "Big Turrets" still on it.

It's as if you currently have the game coded so that Cap Ships will NEVER fire their heavier energy weaponry at your fighter craft ?   


Am I right about this discovery / observation and if so...can you explain why it is like this and if you might consider changing it in the future for realism's sake ?


----------

One final thought - I think that such a change might make some of the Capital Ships a bit more threatening.....the Laser Turrets just by themselves don't seem to do that much damage to your ships, even when they are hitting you repeatedly from more than one Turret.  I can take the Longbow...do one adjustment upwards for its Shields Stat (reduce Engine Power by 1-notch to raise Shield Power by 1-notch) ...and take repeated shots from 2-3 Turrets on the Kennedy, etc... and my shields are getting hit...but they are regenerating so fast that the Laser Turrets never really get through to start damaging my Hull Armor.

In a sense, I am invincible to Turret Fire...this doesn't seem quite right.  Capital ships...though slower and less agile in a fight...should not only take a lot of firepower to kill (which your game does accurately reflect thankfully !!!) but ALSO should be capable of laying waste to lesser ships with their far-more-powerful energy weaponry.   Remember that a Laser Turret (think of when you go inside the Turret to talk to Eisen, and other characters at times during the Wing-III game cutscenes) ...is a HUGE structure...it's basically 10-15 meters across (a school bus at least !) ...and the Turret Barrels themselves likely extend for another 8-10 meters out from the structure of the Turret.

So when you have guns that big ...firing at a Fighter-scale target... why is the effect so puny ?

I know we don't want TIE-Fighter type things where ONE shot from ANYTHING blows you apart...    but I don't think it's very challenging / threatening to the player either when his ship can take unlimited turret fire without taking any real damage is it ?

I would think a Light Fighter should be able to withstand maybe 5-6 Laser Turret bolt hits before blowing apart...

A Medium Fighter should maybe take 6-8 hits before going down.

Heavy Fighter...perhaps 10 bolts from a Laser Turret.

Bomber like the Longbow ... ?   Maybe 15 hits ....    but surely not the "unlimited amount" that I am able to endure currently...right ?


And obviously, if any of the big ships engaged us with their main-guns...they should cause huge damage...maybe make them slower refire...and slower to turn and target the fighter-craft...but a hit from an AMG-bolt should do HUGE damage....like blow an Arrow's shields out completely, and reduce it from 100% hull integrity to 20%...probably with just one hit. 


Anyways...just random thinkings / questionings again.  Thanks for taking the time to talk with me.  I enjoy this kind of debating about the game / effects / realism / thinking that you have put into it.

 

[aipz]

The more threatening capships would be welcome - I support Alek here! 

[IceFire]

One thing about the original Wing Commander game...remember that they were doing all of this on a 386SX computer running at 25mhz and if you were lucky a Soundblaster or Adlib card that could do the music, sound and speech if you had the pack installed.  Thus having two ships against 4 or 8 fighters or a capital ship was about all it could handle.

WC: Saga has a huge leg up...they can do

[Turey]

*Giant Post Number 2*

What difficulty are you playing on?

I have a hard time believing that you can sit in front of three turrets and not get hurt.

[AlekTrev006]

I believe I was doing the tests on Easy Difficulty...but I can try again on Medium (which I assume is meant to be the "real thing" / default)  to see if I can duplicate the feat.

I would think though (I was assuming) that the difference between Skill Levels is NOT the amount of damage things take or can inflict per shot...but rather...the SKILL level of the enemies.... ie Fighter-Craft fly more agilely, use better flight-tactics, are more accurate with their shots, missiles, and missile-decoys...etc.

That was usually the change when you upped Difficulties in previous Wing Commander games...which is what I has presumed was the case with Saga.

If you think that things take MORE damage on higher-difficulties...well...I'm not sure that's the case.


As an example (of my suspicion that this is not the case)....consider that at Easy Difficulty.... 2 Torpedoes blows apart a Kilrathi Destroyer, if they both hit it ....  on Insane Difficulty...I was able to get off the same 2-Torpedoes at a Destroyer target and it still blew apart (if memory serves me).  Thus, one would think that defense stats and damage numbers aren't really increasing as Skill Level is going up ?

The one thing I DID notice is that the Laser Turret gunners are MUCH more accurate with their fire and do smarter things like create fields-of-fire with their bolts that make it nearly impossible for a Fighter-Craft to fly through them without being hit.   I did not notice that I was taking MORE damage per hit though...merely that I was getting hit more often on the attack run (from Easy compared to Insane).

[KeldorKatarn]

Let's just say I think that medium level is very well balanced and that hard level is already giving you headaches. I don't think you'll complaing about having a too easy time shoting things down on those levels. No matter what the weapon strength might be.

[gevatter Lars]

Mh some are allready complaining about the difficulty...maybe we should add a special insane tbl for those who want to feel real pain ^_^

[AlekTrev006]

That's pretty crazy if people are complaining about the INSANE-level being "not hard enough" !    Insane is quite tough...challenging ... etc. . .

[KeldorKatarn]

I can't really believe anyone has "mastered" Insane level. I must admit I am somewhat rusty but I've got problems enough with hard level. I can see myself win that level often enough to be fun with a little training, but playing on Insane without too much of a problem? Those must be power-gamers who don't do anything else all day and engage in E-Sports turnaments maybe, but normal players - I don't think so.

[gevatter Lars]

Mh Saga tournaments could be fun when the MP part is finished.