[AlekTrev006]

Hello everyone !

I love talking Wing...as you probably can tell from my few posts here so far...and am glad to hear the various perspectives from people here...some new fans...some older fans familiar with the Wing Universe...and of course the input of the Tech Guys who have so kindly brought the SAGA experience to us all.

This thread is going to focus on the sizes of ships in Wing...mostly on the Capital Ships, because the Fighter-lengths are all well-documented and reasonably sensible when compared with each other fighter in the game, both Kilrathi and Terran.  Don't worry...the initial post here isn't going to be that long...I just want to lay some things out there that I've often thought about and wondered what the opinion of most other Wing fans was on them.

So...to begin:

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

Terran Heavy Carrier - Kennedy, etc.... - how did you guys (SAGA team) arrive at a length for this ship ?  I'm trying to remember if they ever published it in Wing-III manuals ?   I don't think they did....they MIGHT have done so in Wing-IV when writing up the Lexington's Manual-Entry...but I can't recall.... was it something like 800+ meters ?

In any event...how reasonable is it that the Ranger-Light Carrier is 720 Meters...but the Terran's heaviest and most powerful new fleet carriers are only 100 meters or so larger ?

Also...in terms of fighter-capacity, how does it make sense that 48 Fighters (appx 4-squadrons - Terran Squadrons are the same as ones today in the USA, etc. - 12-Fighters each, Kilrathi Squadrons are 8 ...because the Kilrathi are infatuated with the number 8 ...they have 8 digits (fingers-thumb) supposedly...and count things in terms of eights...the Fleet Action novel recounts Thrakkath drooling over the new Hakaga-Super Carriers by saying, "...they were bristling with heavy weaponry.  Four-eights of Neutron Guns, Four-eights of Mass Driver point-defense cannons, Four-eights of Laser Turrets" - etc.

Essentially he was saying that 4 x 8 = 32 Neutron Guns, 32 Mass-Drivers, 32 Laser Turrets was the weapon loadout for the Hakaga's (which were really more like battleships than mere carriers).

....(continued from above)....can be carried on a 720-m Ranger....but a slightly-larger Heavy Carrier can jump up to over 100+ fighters carried ??


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

Kilrathi Corvettes (Kamekh) -   Does the SAGA team have Kilrathi Corvettes in the game so far (I mean is it being planned ?) - if not...what is the reason ?  The Kamekh's seemed like excellent light-escorts for convoys where a Destroyer-sized ship could not be spared ?

They also boasted an impressive load of missiles and Torpedoes in both the Wing-II manual write-up of them....and even MORESO in the (presumably a newer-model of Kamekh) Privateer Games.  The Kamekh's there were CRAZY.  Just check out their Gun, Missile, Torpedo load-out listed in the Privateer manual.  It's staggering....much more variety and number of guns than seen in most other Cap-Ships in later games (Wing III, Wing IV, etc.)

So what happened to those powerful Kamekh's, and what would be the reason NOT to include them in the main-campaign , assuming that decision has been made (or not ?)   ?

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


Terran Destroyers -   (Wing III) - I think these ships have only 1-AMG turret mounted on the front "chin" of the ship... how does that allow them to be effective in cap-ship / vs.  cap-ship combat ?  Granted they have torpedo tubes (IIRC)...but beyond that...they lack any real anti-cap-ship defense / offense ?   Correct ?

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


TCS-Vesuvius -

This one has always fascinated and confused me .... anyone who played Wing-IV remembers the plot by Admiral Tolwyn to annihilate undesirables and forge a new genetic race of super-fighters for the Terran Confederation to fight off the threat he believed was coming (from the Alien Race seen in Prophecy, most people think).

Tolwyn's Flagship and a central piece of several missions - is the newly launched Terran Super-Carrier - TCS Vesuvius.

Now...this ship has a ton of AMG's, Tachyon Guns (just watch in-game missions where you attack the ship, the bolts it fires at you are almost exclusively NOT Laser Turrets - so it suggests  they outfitted it with almost all Tachyon's and AMG's - or at least a huge number of them - for maximum anti-fighter / anti-cap-ship combat potential)... missile tubes, etc.

However...if you view it "in mission" (when you are flying) , sure it's big...but it's not "OH MY GOD THAT'S RIDICULOUS !!!" - big.


BUT....there are several critically important Cut-Scenes / Movie-Scenes - where you can see the BWS-Light Carrier - Intrepid ... being pursued by the Vesuvius. 

In those scenes...the Vesuvius appears to be ENORMOUS.   Like perhaps 10,000 meters long....given the Durango-class Intrepid is about 400-450 meters long (IIRC)...and the scenes I am talking about...you can see the two front "prongs" coming off the front hanger-bay of the Vesuvius...and the PRONGS ALONE are larger / longer than the Intrepid itself.

If you scaled that out over the entire length of the ship...you are looking at a Super-Carrier of 5000-10,000 meters in total length.   This would actually make some sense given the carrier is supposed to carry a Flight Wing of over 400-Fighters / Bombers - !!!

If you used "Simple Math" - and accepted that a 720-m Carrier (Ranger-class) could carry 48 (Four-Squadrons) Fighters...the idea that a 5000, or 7000 meter long super carrier couldn't carry nearly 10-times that isn't all that hard to believe.


HOWEVER...here's my problem... when you get to the Wing-Prophecy game...they decided to one-up the old Vesuvius and create a MEGA-carrier... - the Midway

Mega sounds "better" than even Super...so naturally they wanted the Midway to be pretty much "da bomb" in regards to size, strength, etc. etc.


I think they listed it at 2500-meters long (or something like that) in the Manual...and wrote in that it was "the largest carrier ever produced by Confed".


Well this wouldn't make much sense, given the size that the Vesuvius is shown to have in all the cut-scenes it appears in.... but here's the catch....I think they realized this....so in the Prophecy Manual, you find the Super-Carrier listed as ...(IIRC) ... 1600 meters long.


Ummm....this is exceptionally UNDER-whelming compared to Kilrathi "Standard Carriers" like the Bhaktara being 920-Meters long...and considering that the previously-mentioned Intrepid was listed as 400+ Meters long....and they are saying in the Prophecy Manual that it is almost 25% the size of Vesuvius ???

Ummm, that makes no sense.

In NONE of the video's they show of Vesuvius and Intrepid interacting are you EVER given the impression that the Newest Terran Super-Carrier is ONLY 4-times the length of the Intrepid.


Is it possible that the Vesuvius and St. Helens , being the first ships of the class produced...were much larger versions ....and that the newer Super-Carriers produced are "only" 1600-meters long ?


What size for the Super-Carriers is SAGA leaning towards displaying and what is the basis for that decision ?

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


Kilrathi Dreadnought - (Prince Thrakkath's Flagship - the Hvar'Kann)


Well, I saved the best (most controversial) for last !    I love the sheer crazy assymetricality of all the Kilrathi ships in Wing-III, but the best (most crazy) is the massive Dreadnought flagships they use.

Now...throughout Wing-III you get to see a ton of cut-scenes with Thrakkath onboard his super-ship, talking to Melek, plotting, scheming, etc. etc.

In MOST of these scenes, you see fighters, etc. flitting about outside the command-ship...and yeah, it looks big.

HOWEVER...in a few critically useful scenes...you get to see CAPITAL SHIPS flying alongside this behemoth... and that's when it TRULY becomes mind-boggling in terms of its size.


The LISTED-size for the Kilrathi Dreadnought in the Wing-III manual is a staggering 22,000 !!! meters long ...      Yes...true.   Not 2200....but 22,000 !!!


Now, I don't know if SAGA-team members actually plan on using that size for in-game...but I would hope that they would.  I've heard of some debates on this suggest it was a typo...that the KIS Hvar'Kann and other ships of the class were REALLY only 2200-meters...which, while very big, would put them in-line with the other ships in the Wing-III manual...not so far out of comparison (at 22,000) that it would be mind-blowing for any Sci-Fi to stack up against (that length)...

But as I noted above...there are a few scenes where it seems 100% the game-designers intention that the Dreadnought REALLY IS 22,000 meters long.

The BEST scene I can point to is the very intro movie for Wing-III.   It's the part where we see Angel and the Captured Terran Spy-Team in the Grand Hall of Kilrah, where Thrakkath executes them all.

Before we see the "on Kilrah" scenes....we see a Jump-Point burst open and the monstrous Dreadnought comes sailing out...surrounded by its escorting Capital ships....(like it needs any help, hehe). 

As the ship sails from left to right across the screen and we start to see Kilrah come into view....if you watch alongside the right-side of the Dreadnought....you can see a ship flying in the 'shadow' of the Dreadnought....at first glance (and 2nd and 3rd) I never realized it for what it was.  I thought it was a Vaktoth or something.....maybe a Transport (100=some meters long)....but I was wrong.

Anyone who has Wing-III can verify this...if you play just that opening scene again....and watch really closely...you will see that the tiny ship flying alongside the Dreadnought is none other than a Kilrathi Light-Destroyer of 450-meters !!!


Yes....a 450-meters long Destroyer is MINISCULE next to the massive Dreadnought.  Going off that scaling, you can easily accept the 22,000 meter-long listed size for the ship.


---

One additional thing on the ship.... clearly it is not a UNIQUE ship either...the Kilrathi have at least 3-4.  I can say this because in the final cut-scenes you see of the Kilrathi Grand-Fleet assembling....Thrakkath is drooling again and telling the Emperor "a vast armada has been assembled....NEVER before has there been such a mighty fleet !" (appx).   And you see some outside views of the fleet - and you see TONS of capital ships moving around....more importantly you can see 2-3 other Dreadnoughts in the background !    (meaning that they have at least that many in service)

---

Lastly...on weaponry for this ship....I know the Wing Manual lists it as having (only) 38-Laser Turrets - I think ???

But let's be realistic.... if a ship is REALLY that monstrous...there is no way in heck that it is not bristling with well over 100-turrets...of various varieties (Tachyons, many Heavy-AMGs to blow Cap-ships to dust, etc.).

Remember that in Star Wars a standard 1600-meter long Star Destroyer has 60 Turbolaser Batteries and 60 Ion-Cannons.   


To say the largest ship ever seen in Wing Commander has barely half the weaponry of a ship many many many times smaller than it (even if its in another Sci-Fi) would be a joke.  Heck, even if you took an actual Wing ship like Midway from Prophecy...it would have nearly as many gun mounts / missile launchers - etc.  as the Wing-III Manual suggested the Dreadnought has.

I would hope that if the Dreadnought makes it into some SAGA missions (and I hope it does !!!) - that it would not only be represented to scale (22,000 meters !!! - what a sight that would be - lol) ...but also given weaponry in terms of sheer numbers of turrets, as well as actual firepower (don't have it with puny 3% damage Laser Turrets...lol) .....that match its staggering size and place in the history-books for Wing Commander Capships.


Well, that's it for now...plenty of great stuff to discuss so have at it forum-friends ! 



 

[Tolwyn]

sizes in wing commander do not make sence:

Longbow is certainly not 38m long but smaller, Ranger is listed as 720 m long, but fighters couldn't fit in the hangar. I could go on and on

Anyway, we scaled all fighters down (more or less) and kept cap ships sizes.

Lastly: the Kilrathi DN - 22 km long. It does not make sence: ingame it was only 2.2 km long.

[AlekTrev006]

I disagree...it does make sense (the Dreadnought) ....look at the Video scenes I mentioned.

It absolutely has CAP SHIPS floating next to it and they are tiny.    You can't really refute that.  It makes sense if you consider it is the largest ship the Cats ever built. 

You can't quote Wing-Bible to me with that laughable 2200 ....and also say that the Longbow is NOT 38-meters long.... or that the Arrow is not 20-meters long...etc. etc.

What logic would you use to suggest that a 38-meter long, Longbow cannot "fit in the hangar" of a 720-meter long Ranger Carrier ? 

Ummm.... 38 ..... and 720.... I don't see your point ?


Even if you want to go height-based....the height of the Longbow is considerably less than its length.   So if it's 38-long...it is probably only 1/4 or 2/5 of that "tall".

I have no problem believing the HEIGHT of the Ranger's Hangar-Bay is 10-15 Meters TALL.

And since NO fighter in the game has a "Height" of 15+ meters ....there's no reason why the Longbow could not be in the Ranger's bay.


Also no reason why the D-Nought cannot be the 22,000 that it clearly is in every video-scene it's shown in in Wing-III.  (don't take In-Game and quote that as fact because we all admit readily that IN-GAME  HAS to show things that are not "the Real Universe" - examples of this include 2-Fighters blowing away 20 in Wing-I or destroying 3 Capital Ships with guns alone in the same game...or even in Wing-III .... simply put, it would have been too hard to scale a 22,000 meter ship for the 1-mission in-game (Proxima, if memory serves) that the Kilrathi Dreadnought is actually playable against in Wing-III) 

It's the same reason why, In-Game ...the Vesuvius was relatively small ....but the actual "real" "video" - scenes of the Vesuvius / Intrepid - etc. - show it to be MUCH larger than the pathetic 1600-meters it's given in the Prophecy Manual.

So...again...I find it quite inconsistent if the SAGA-team "Cherry-Picked" sizes they wanted, and sizes they didn't ...and used that as their in-game basis... ? 

Example:   Wing Manual Says - Concordia is 986.7 meters  ....   okay ? 

Wing Manual says Ranger is 720-meters.... okay.

Wing Manual says Longbow is 38-meters....NO !  Not okay !

Wing Manual says Dreadnought is 22,000 meters (Wing-III Manual) -  NO !   Not okay !

Vesuvius shown to be much bigger than listed-length in Wing-IV scenes - NO !   Not okay !

Vesuvius 1600-meters in Wing Bible - oh, that's okay....

Wing Bible says 2200-meters for Dreadnought...oh, THIS one we'll accept, even though we rejected the one from the Wing-III manual.... 

[Tolwyn]

Look, I am saying this one time. We do our best to stick to the manuals. But: there is sometimes a situation when it's a physical hinderance, like the Longbow cannot even fit into the hangar. Believe it or not, we tried - so please, spare me with the argument that the manual says otherwise. For the greater good of gameplay, we're forced to make a small modification.

Let's go over to the Kilrathi DN - how are we supposed to make it 22 km long? Have you ever considered how many turrets we would need and how much we can add due to engine limitations? The current limit is around 100 I believe. Ranger is less than 1 km long, it is a carrier, and still it is armed with over 10 turrets. Where is the difference if it is 10, 15 or 22 km long? You wouldn't see a difference.

This is my final word on this. I am not going to argue over this any longer.

[KeldorKatarn]

This is more a general Wing Commander discussion anyway that something about Saga. People working on games always have to think about what is possible in the engine. I mean, look at the tiger's claw in WC1. It is probably 4 times larger than a fighter, if it even is that much.
But about the "In-Universe" values:

Terran Heavy Carrier - Kennedy, etc.... - how did you guys (SAGA team) arrive at a length for this ship ?  I'm trying to remember if they ever published it in Wing-III manuals ?   I don't think they did....they MIGHT have done so in Wing-IV when writing up the Lexington's Manual-Entry...but I can't recall.... was it something like 800+ meters ? In any event...how reasonable is it that the Ranger-Light Carrier is 720 Meters...but the Terran's heaviest and most powerful new fleet carriers are only 100 meters or so larger ?

The Lexington is a ship from WC Armada, not from WC3. The length given in the manual is 725 meters.

I don't think size does really matter THAT much when refering to a carrier. All it has to be able to is being big enough to carry the fighters and enough armor and some firepower on its own. For that you don't need 500 meters more in length. Also consider the other two axis. The lexington is somewhat higher than the ranger so it has more decks, that means probably more hangar decks which are below the flight deck and have the fighter's in it.
It's biggest advantage is also the 3 flight decks, while the ranger only has the one.

Those carriers are still huge. as we can see from the cutscenes in WC2 and WC3 most of the fighters are somewhat around the size of nowadays fighters. The number of planes is also somewhat similar. If you compare the size of the space carriers with even the huge US-supercarriers they are still huge.

The US-Nimiz class supercarrier is only 317 meters long (333m overall). So a WC carrier is still more than double that size.

And comparing modern carriers you also see that supercarriers don't have to be THAT much bigger than normal ones. For example a standard french carrier, the Charles de Gaulle is 261.5 m overall. Thats 70 meters difference to the supercarrier.

It is the ability of the supercarrier to do different things, the size of the flight deck and the arrangement of decks and other things that make a heavier carrier heavier, not just its length. If one would want any physical thing to define a supercarrier by it would more likely be the total mass.

Also...in terms of fighter-capacity, how does it make sense that 48 Fighters (appx 4-squadrons - Terran Squadrons are the same as ones today in the USA, etc. - 12-Fighters each, Kilrathi Squadrons are 8 ...because the Kilrathi are infatuated with the number 8 ...they have 8 digits (fingers-thumb) supposedly...and count things in terms of eights...the Fleet Action novel recounts Thrakkath drooling over the new Hakaga-Super Carriers by saying, "...they were bristling with heavy weaponry.  Four-eights of Neutron Guns, Four-eights of Mass Driver point-defense cannons, Four-eights of Laser Turrets" - etc.
Essentially he was saying that 4 x 8 = 32 Neutron Guns, 32 Mass-Drivers, 32 Laser Turrets was the weapon loadout for the Hakaga's (which were really more like battleships than mere carriers).

Well the latter thing you must ask the Kilrathi. They probably tried to build something like the Confederation tried later with the Midway: a ship class that can do everything on its own.

....(continued from above)....can be carried on a 720-m Ranger....but a slightly-larger Heavy Carrier can jump up to over 100+ fighters carried ??

As I said, length has not necessarily anything to do with the ability to store fighter craft. The Ranger is a very old pre-war ship class. It may simply not have enough hangar deck room below the flight deck to store all those fighters.
One must also consider if such a carrier NEEDS more. Even if there is room. The Rangers are not meant to be on the most forwards lines and fighters are expensive. So if 40+ fighters are enough to do the job, why give them more? One has to think of ressources.

Kilrathi Corvettes (Kamekh) -   Does the SAGA team have Kilrathi Corvettes in the game so far (I mean is it being planned ?) - if not...what is the reason ?  The Kamekh's seemed like excellent light-escorts for convoys where a Destroyer-sized ship could not be spared ?

The Saga told many times that the final release will feature a lot more ships than seen in the Prologue. It is a prologue after all. I'm sure there will be some sort of corvette as well. The storyline of the prologue missions simply didn't ask for such a ship to be included already. Also... there must be some cool stuff left for the release right?

Terran Destroyers -   (Wing III) - I think these ships have only 1-AMG turret mounted on the front "chin" of the ship... how does that allow them to be effective in cap-ship / vs.  cap-ship combat ?  Granted they have torpedo tubes (IIRC)...but beyond that...they lack any real anti-cap-ship defense / offense ?   Correct ?

These are all things from the manual, you can't ask the Saga staff things that were design decisions by Origin's Maverick team. They simply don't know. All they do is try to stick to the games as best as possible and change a few things where needed to make the game fun and well balanced.

TCS-Vesuvius......

Again... the size in the game doesn't always matter since there are always engine limitations. The ships in the game will be large enough to "look good" and for the player to enter the hangar deck for the missions. That's it. As long as that is achieved it is kept as small as possible so the framerates will not drop to a ridiculously small level.
About the manual sizes.. well, you better forget them. There were several great flukes in there which are confirmed by Origin employees. Stuff like they originally printed the sizes in feet, then they decided people would probably be using the metric system in the future so they swiched to meters, without actually changing the numbers themselves. So if it was 30 feet before, they made it 30 meters. That explains why most of the WC1 fighters are way too huge in the manual. In WC2 they changed that as you will notice the wc2 fighters are sometimes less than half the size of their Wc1 counterparts if you only check the sizes given in the manuals. In WC3 again ths decided to somehow match the numbers of WC1 so they used way too big sizes again. There was never any real consideration on real physics and appearance. They just put some numbers in which looked somewhat alright in comparison to the WC1 manual.

Additionally, as I already said.. the length of a ship doesn't say anything about its capability to have fighters.  I mean, look at the size of the Behemoth. And that thing has 0 fighters. Of course you could put some inside that space, but you have to build the hangars for them to do so. If you don't have enough hangar space you simply can't do it.
The Midway for example has to have room for 5000 marines and their landing craft, it has 6 launch tubes and 2 landing decks which take room, a huge engine room with the biggest jump drive available and all such stuff. So there probably isn't more room.
And as I said before, one also has to consider how many fighters are really needed. the midway has 3 full carrier wings. That's HUGE. You won't ever need more in a space battle. You also have to consider the military pont of view: someone has to coordinate all that. There's only so much command capability on such a ship. You can't coordinate 50 fighter wings if you don't have the communications, organisation, refueling and whatever abilities to do so.
Size is really the last thing that really matters in real military.
Reallife supercarriers are just as large so they can store enough fighters to fulfill their mission. It is actually not really an advantage for those carriers that they are so big. That makes them huge targets, and there's more than one discussion going on if those huge monsters are still the way to go and if the that is still needed as it is incredibly expensive.

Kilrathi Dreadnought....

Yes, it is big. How big really nobody has decided to check yet. The manual isn't really helping as I already said those numbers are mostly just stuff they wrote down without thinking.
I may be 5 - 30 kilometers long, who knows.

The Saga team however simply has to consider what's possible in the engine and what works.
I am sure they will make the hige ships appear huge, but 22km is out of the question for the reasons Tolwyn already told you about.
It will probably still be bigger than in the WC3 engine and there it was already huge.

Remember that in Star Wars a standard 1600-meter long Star Destroyer has 60 Turbolaser Batteries and 60 Ion-Cannons.

I wouldn't start comparing different sci-fi universes with eachother since the creators of those had very different things in mind.
Star Wars is mainly meant to be a fairy tale and George Lucas openly admits that he doesn't really worry about stuff like reallife physics when writing his
stories. He just wants something to look massive so he makes it massive. He doesn't really care how big it really is or if that is possible to build or stuff like that.
Even if he did, he uses a totally different approach than say Star Trek, Wing Commander, Galactica or whatever else is out there.


About everything else, remember this forum is mainly about the MOD, not about the universe itself.
And while some discussions may be interesting, remember that most of that stuff is not really relevant for the MOD since the guys have to have priorities, and those are not reallife physics or WC manuals but the questions "What looks good" and "What is fun to play"

[AlekTrev006]

Quite an interesting reply, Keldor.

I think you realized right away that my whole point in this thread was a talk about the Real-Wing-Universe and the size of the ships IN THERE....not necessarily in the SAGA game.   I have no real issues with any of the sizes, etc. in the SAGA game - things  look fine on-screen in that regards.

I was merely asking Questions to the other Wing Fans here about their thoughts on the ACTUAL sizes of the ships in "Real Life" (real-Wing-life).


Nothing I put in was a criticism of the SAGA product....and I think if you review my comments in this thread, you can't really find any criticisms.  The one thing I asked was "given that the Dreadnought is shown as being 22,000 meters (or certainly more than 2200 meters) in pretty much every In-Game-Video scene you see in Wing-III, including the opening video, would the SAGA team go off that length in their Tech Database write-up, in-game talking, etc.....OR would they have everything written up as 2200 meters ?"

That's pretty much the only thing I asked of the SAGA guys directly (So I think Tolwyn mistook my questions as some sort of me yelling at them ???    - I love SAGA - I've played it about 30 times since downloading it last week...I love it ! - I'm asking a mix of "Wing-Universe Questions" - along with a FEW suggestion / questions - regarding Cap-Ships Anti-Matter Guns firing at fighters or bombers if no cap-ships are there for them to bother with....that's pretty much the extent of my posts, so far.... so I think reacting as if I am upset with the game or something is waaaaay overboard and a complete misunderstanding).


I KNOW for IN-GAME-FLIGHT you have to have lots of things represented a certain way - ship sizes, etc.

I think Tolwyn and the other Programmer-Type people who are making the game have to be constrained by Frame-Rates and Pixels and so forth...and that's fine.

I'm not saying "The Longbow must be 38-meters IN-GAME" or it's wrong.   I'm not saying that at all.

I AM saying.... in the Textual Parts - Database - In-Mission-Dialogue ..which is the "real Universe" to most fans....not necessarily the flying parts.... would they reflect actual stated facts, lengths, combat capacities, etc. ?


Example.... if the in-game-SAGA Technical Database entry for the Kilrathi Dreadnought said -

Length:  22,000 meters -
Mass: 126,983,000 metric tons -
Weapons:  38 Heavy-Antimatter Guns - numerous other supporting weapon systems - Torpedo Tubes - Capital Ship Missile Launchers -
Fighter Capacity - Unknown (Estimated at over 500 given size of vessel and potential hangar space).

- The Dreadnought is the pinnacle of Kilrathi starship-design technology.  Utilizing all of their latest sub-light propulsion system engineering and reactor designs, the Kilrathi were able to craft the power system for this enormous vessel.  Designed to serve as flagships for the Kilrathi's top fleet commanders, these ships, including the Hvar'Kann, personal vessel of Crown Prince Thrakkath, are capable of coordinating an entire battle fleet from their massive depths and can serve as almost an entire invasion force on their own.  The most powerful phase-shield generators the Kilrathi have ever produced are mounted on the Dreadnoughts and layers of compressed Durasteel-alloy coat its hull in a nearly impregnable shell.  The number of heavy weapon systems these vessels carry enable them to engage a whole fleet of lesser capital ships, or fend off attacks from numerous squadrons of enemy fighter craft or bombers.  It can also be turned to a planetary bombardment role, savaging the surface of a world from high-orbit with volleys of missile or torpedo fire, supported by its devastating main anti-matter gun batteries.

Fortunately for the Condederation, only 4 of these craft are known to be in service, and the Kilrathi generally employ them only in major fleet actions where they are supported by many other capital-ship escorts and hundreds of starfighters.  They know that even with its enormous size, defensive systems, and heavy weaponry, the Dreadnought is slow-moving, essentially incapable of turning to evade fire from other starships, and potentially vulnerable to massive fighter attacks.  During the second World-War of Earth's distant past, the Japanese super-battleship Yamato when it sortied out of port with almost no escort vessels on a suicide-end run, and was sunk by a massive fighter-assault by over 400 total planes.  The Kilrathi recognize that a similiar strike from Terran fighter craft, despite the Dreadnoughts' capabilities, would likely spell the same fate for their precious flagships.

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

If that were the Tech-Database write-up ....but IN-GAME ...the D-nought only "appeared to be" 2200 meters....would I care ?   No !  Not really, because I realize what the programmers have to work with.  I'm merely saying that the "Universe" of the game and what the SAGA team displays as the "Real Universe" (ie the Tech writeups, etc.) would hopefully be in-keeping with the stuff we have seen represented in the actual vid-scenes, etc. of the past Wing-games.

[Tolwyn]

You should have formulated your question more precisely: everyone here understood your question as directed to the Saga team in regards of the ingame values.

[AlekTrev006]

Well, I humbly ask your forgiveness Admiral   

I thought that throughout my comments - it would have been mostly clear that I was looking to "talk Wing" with people - in regards to size, speeds, - etc. - in other words, what their feelings of those things were in the "Real Wing Universe".

Naturally everyone knows that there are programming constraints and most people would be fine with that (for example - if you had the D-nought as 22,000 - and the Wellington as its correct 700-ish meters .... you would have to make the D-nought "appear on-screen" as more than TWENTY TIMES as long as the Wellington already does.   Obviously that would be too much for most systems to handle and I realize that...I was never arguing for TOTALLY Accurate In-Game displaying - while you are actually flying around, etc.).


My question was more like - what did the SAGA people (not just the programmers but everyone here) - think were the CORRECT values for many of the things I was talking about - like ship sizes, etc.   Would Baws, while flying a mission with Sandman and encountering a Dreadnought say through his Comm-Link: "There's a Kilrathi Dreadnought Sandman....those things are 2,200 meters long...be careful !"

Or would he say the "22,000 meters long" figure stated in the manual and supported by numerous in-game Video scenes from Wing-III (including the Ramming of the Victory into the side of the Hvar'Kann at the end of the Proxima (Losing Path) Mission) - when she rams you can see how monstrously bigger the Dreadnought is - the Heavy AMG-turrets on the D-nought are probably 100+ meters in size, just given their scale to Victory as she flies into the flagship...


That's the type of stuff I was asking / wanting to discuss.  The ONLY thing I've said which is strictly a programming request is for the Cap Ships to either fire their AMG's at Fighters when there are no other Capital Targets around....OR simply have the Laser turrets do more than 3% damage per hit to a Gothri bomber... that was basically the only "request" - type thing I've had so far.  Everything else has been mostly friendly talk / debate / discussion about things from the Wing Universe, not the "programming universe"   
 
 

[KeldorKatarn]

I already tried to explain two essential things:

- One, the manuals don't always have values that make any sense. The feet to meters conversion in WC1 was a major mistake and that is somewhat continued throughout the series to at least keep consistency. Most of any numeric values are simply crap. So it's pretty much up to anyones imagination what the real values would be and what one should base these on, cutscenes, manuals, ingame-graphics, whatever.

- Two, this forum is basically meant for discussion of the Saga MOD, and although it is true that there are mostly WC fans here, this is not 100% the best place to discuss general WC Universe stuff that has basically nothing to do with what's going on in the Saga game. So you won't find many answers here.

Concerning ingame data representation, I guess most people of the staff will try to keep these number's as "canon" as possible and they are putting a lot effort in keeping everything as canon as possible. Possible here simply means what makes sense and what is reasonable.
How they are going to do that is probably not yet decided 100%, so I guess best is you wait for the campaign to surprise you =) Most of the stuff will be kept a secret anyway to not spoil things.

So when Saga is concerned, sit back and wait for them to surprise you and be assured that they will try to stay as close to the "canon" stuff as possible while still making it fun to play.

And when the general Universe is concerned you might consider finding a different place to discuss that.
Don't missunderstand this though, that's not meant as a "Go away!" statement. It's just that I personally think that most people coming here are more interested in the actual MOD, their problems with it or their experience with it than discussion of any non-Saga related WC stuff, as this is after all a forum just about the MOD. So there are probably places where you'd get a lot more feedback and more of a lively discussion going than here.

[IceFire]

Remember that game manuals tend to be written by people who have very little to do with the games themselves and the stuff that all of the hardcore fans take as sacred are generally made up or guesstimated and they usually end up making no sense whatsoever.  Its the way of things but if you take anything too literally or without any sense of humor then you get into trouble.

[AlekTrev006]

Keldor - I see your point about the MOD-aspect of the Forum...I would only question to what EXTENT it's "soley Mod-Techie-Dedicated" ?

Many of the people who are passionate about the Universe and the idea of making a game for it ...cannot all be "Tech-Heads" or "Programmer"-types who know the in's and out of making the Freespace-2 Engine work with Wing Commander-III ... I would think.

So I would think that MANY (don't know what % exactly) of the people here are probably fans just like me (well, maybe not with as much knowledge of the Wing background / Universe-stuff, but fans in the general sense of the word) .... they don't necessarily all have to be Techie-Peoples do they ?

------

Secondly...can you point me to some article or write-up which suggests that the Wing-I numbers were given and meant to be in feet ?

I would find that laughably problematic if true....why ?    Because the values given for most Wing-I ships made perfect sense.  They were not out of the realm of realism in any way whatsoever !

Consider that the Hornet Light Fighter of Wing-I fame was listed as being 20-Meters long. . . .

This is hardly "impossible to imagine".

Why ?  Because TODAY , in our modern-U.S. Navy ... we have the FA-18 E - Super Hornet ... wonder what it's lengths is right ?   Well....it's 18.5 Meters Long !!! (60.3 Feet)   


So TODAY ...in 2007 ...we have planes that are almost 19-Meters long....and you are telling me you think they could not have Star Fighters in the 2600's ...that are only 1-meter or so larger ?

Come on Keldor !


It's also sounds crazy to suggest that these lengths were REALLY supposed to be in "Feet" ...because if so, you would be telling us that the Hornet Star Fighter was SUPPOSED to be merely 20-FEET long...  or 6.1 Meters ?


6.1 Meters would be barely larger than a Hummer car of our modern time.

It would be smaller than a modern School Bus (10-meters).

And it would be tremendously smaller than a modern Hornet Fighter Jet !

 


I can't see where anyone would find the Meter-lengths given to be problematic at all.    The one thing that WAS silly in the manuals was the Yaw-Pitch-Roll numbers listed in both the Wing-I and Wing-II books.  The manual writers finally got in touch with their brains and gave updated "REAL" numbers for the planes and ships in Wing-III and thereafter (60-Yaw, 55-Pitch, 50-Roll  - for example).

[Scooby_Doo]

Ships scaling in the wing commander gaems is different for cap ships than fighters.  For example, if you took a thunderbolt and tried to launch it from Midway... good luck 

Also ships from different games are scaled differently:
Wc1 - big
wc2 - small
wc3 - big
wc4 - big
wc5 -small

[IceFire]

Except that the Thunderbolt in WC: SO was so much smaller...so was the Excalibur.  They just looked less substantial.

[KeldorKatarn]

Keldor - I see your point about the MOD-aspect of the Forum...I would only question to what EXTENT it's "soley Mod-Techie-Dedicated" ?
Many of the people who are passionate about the Universe and the idea of making a game for it ...cannot all be "Tech-Heads" or "Programmer"-types who know the in's and out of making the Freespace-2 Engine work with Wing Commander-III ... I would think.

I didn't say such people aren't here. I said this isn't the place. Such posts are totally off-topic here. This is a Wing Commander Saga Forum, not a General WC chat forum. There are enough such forums around if you're looking for a casual chat with WC fans.

Secondly...can you point me to some article or write-up which suggests that the Wing-I numbers were given and meant to be in feet ?

No, I just know, and yes, I think the lengths are ridiculous, because some fighters would have a 10 meter cockpit.

So TODAY ...in 2007 ...we have planes that are almost 19-Meters long....and you are telling me you think they could not have Star Fighters in the 2600's ...that are only 1-meter or so larger ?

Why does "in the future" mean automatically "bigger and badder" to you? If a fighter does his job being as large as it is, why should it be 36 meters long??
Have you seen Luke Skywalker fly around in a 50 meter X-Wing?

I can't see where anyone would find the Meter-lengths given to be problematic at all.    The one thing that WAS silly in the manuals was the Yaw-Pitch-Roll numbers listed in both the Wing-I and Wing-II books.  The manual writers finally got in touch with their brains and gave updated "REAL" numbers for the planes and ships in Wing-III and thereafter (60-Yaw, 55-Pitch, 50-Roll  - for example).

So you're basically saying you accept the length and mass values without even questioning them but the YPR values MUST be wrong because they don't fit your idea of what's real?
Sorry for putting it like that but...
I told you those values are totally given at random. Sometimes they are wrong by a scale of 10, sometimes they make no sense at all, sometimes its feet instead of meters. Even the speed is bull. Why do I need more than a splitsecond to fly along a 700m carrier at 250 kilometers per second.
Guess why they started calling it "klicks" instead of km laters.
It's a game for god's sake. And those who created the story had absolutely nothing to do with the manuals. Someone filles in some numbers and that was it.
A discussion about them is pointless because there's no way to "get facts" or "find out". It's a game and as such its up to your imagination. So if you want the fighter to be 25 meters long, fine. if you say it's 25cm long, also fine.

And again as I said, this is incredibly off-topic here I think. So, not wanting to dissapoint you, but I don't really think there's many people here who give more than a Pepsi about how long the wings of a WC1 raptor were exactly. There is not Raptor. It's a game. It's supposed to look cool.
Take a look at some Star Wars Episode 1 making of. And listen what they tell about Watto, that flying guy who's owning Anakin and his Mother:
"We knew his wings were not big enoug to allow him to fly, but hey.. it looks good" Same about Episode 2 and Dooku's Solar Sailer:
"We knew these sails were way too tiny to give any kind of thrust, but hey.. it looks cool, and this is Star Wars physics"

[Mancubus]

1: i didn't read most of the posts, they are just too long
2: about manual data:
 Victory Streak: Hellcat armament - 2 lasers 2 ions
  in game WC3 - 2neutrons   2 ions
  Arrow: VS: carries 4 DF missiles, 4 FF missiles
WC3 in game can carry only HS and IR missiles 
and i think tdhis can end the discussion...
there are even differences between Victory Streak and the included warbird poster...

[AlekTrev006]

I find it so amusing that some people actually openly say "I didn't read most of the posts, they are just too long" - .....     Most of these posts are like a few paragraphs long, at most... it's not  like it requires more than ... 2-3 minutes ? ...to scan through them.   You could read the entire thread in less than 10-minutes, I would imagine. 

Oh well...anyways....


To Mancubus- Re: Manual Data -  yes you can find some instances where the stated armaments etc. are off from the in-game.   Obviously where In-Game shows something different (at least in terms of Exact Types of weapons, missiles, etc.) you would go with the In-game stats.   

Example being - a Hellcat DOES have 2-Neutron Guns and 2-Ion Cannons.    If a typo was made elsewhere, this is contradicted by the in-game, the Tech-Data on the fighter in-game, etc. etc.


My debate with Keldor was not based around Weapon Loadouts necessarily but, rather, on the issue of ship sizes.   He tried to suggest that the original Wing-I lengths for ships were SUPPOSED to be in "Feet" - not Meters.   I pointed out that this would be laughable because it would mean the Hornet Light Fighter was "Really" only 6.5 (appx) meters long ! 

I noted that this would be kind of silly considering we have MODERN (2007) Hornet Jet Fighters that are nearly 17-18 meters long themselves.   Thus the idea that the futuristic Hornet could not be a mere 20-meters (just because it seems too big) is refuted because we have many fighters in the modern world that are near the 20-meter figure.  Thus there is precedent for such sizes in the modern world - so in 2600's it's hardly far-fetched to think they could have similiar (if slightly larger) lengths.


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

Secondly - to Keldor -   the point I made about Yaw - Pitch - Roll  - is simply FACT.   It's not that they don't fit my "idea of what's real" - it's that the writers of THOSE figures clearly didn't even turn the game on and play it...because the instant you are in a Hornet on the first mission, you can do a Full-Stop ...then point your ship at the Tiger's Claw....now spin (Yaw) in a circle while sitting still and count...in about 4-seconds or so, you come back around and the Claw is in your front view-screen again !   Thus the Hornet has around 90-DPS for Yaw.

Some of the figures they gave in the first (and even the 2nd Wing-Game) were crazy because they would have taken the Fighters (if you believed the numbers given) - a ridiculous amount of time to turn around in a simple circle.   The Hornet was given a "listed" Yaw of 8 Degrees-Per-Second !!!  EIGHT !       This is so silly it's laughable.   At 8-dps, to do a full 360-degree spin around would take a Hornet 45-Seconds !!!    

Clearly anyone who ever played Wing-I (or II) - was not taking nearly a minute to spin their fighter around - not even close.    And the Cap-Ship figures were even more ridiculous, with almost every Cap-Ship given maneuverability numbers of 1-Yaw, 1-Pitch, 1-Roll..... suggesting it would have taken the Tiger's Claw literally 360-Seconds to turn in a full-circle.   Merely to turn AROUND (From front to back) would have taken 180-Seconds at those listed ridiculous numbers...3-full Minutes to do a simple turn-round ?   Clearly as ridiculous as the listed Fighter figures on Y-P-R.


I humbly suggest though that there is a difference between these kind of clearly flawed numbers and other  numbers like ship lengths which are well in keeping with reality (a 20-meter long fighter is hardly impossible to imagine - same for a 300-meter long Destroyer - considering we have Aircraft Carriers about this size currently in 2007).


That's all.  Some numbers I admit were wrong in SOME of the manuals....but MOST of them (at least where lengths of the ships were concerned) are quite reasonable and there's not much reason to question them automatically.  (remember that in Wing-II they went SO precise that they gave ship-lengths in the 00.000 meters - in other words very very accurate figures were given such as Ralatha Destroyer: 394.2 Meters)

It's hard to suggest (with any real supporting facts) that such precise measurements are actually wrong, or that we are to assume they are in Feet when clearly they are in Meters (as is pretty much every other measurement throughout all the games in the Wing-Series)


That's my take though.  As always, I welcome further discussion.  I love talking to you guys about the game and the larger universe it is inseperably linked to.   

[IceFire]

I find it so amusing that some people actually openly say "I didn't read most of the posts, they are just too long" - .....     Most of these posts are like a few paragraphs long, at most... it's not  like it requires more than ... 2-3 minutes ? ...to scan through them.   You could read the entire thread in less than 10-minutes, I would imagine. 

They are too long for the average forum post. The internet as a medium and text on a screen is considered harder to read by the human eye than on paper and the general rule of thumb for web publishers/designers/etc is to keep things short, bulleted whenever possible, and 50% shorter than written out.  Try the web style guide: http://webstyleguide.com

I do compliment you on the use of paragraphs however...that definitely helps in the reading process.

[Scooby_Doo]

I.E.  Clift notes version please 


But honestly.... I think they they chose those values for WC1 out of a ballpark. They never realized that there was going to be sequels to the game.  Probably a one time game and continue on with other games.

[Mancubus]

First of all - I did scan the posts.i didn't read them caerfully though.

As for the weapons example - the only reason i brought them is to show that the manuals data is somewhat different from the actual game stuff. This allows enyone to question the manual data, if it seems to differ from actuall ingame data. As for today's fighters that are around 20 meters long - one of them is an F-22 Raptor, 18 meters long. it's a good example 'cause it's cockpit is designed for one person and it's almost exactly the same size   as that of na arrow as we see it in WC3 movies. Now if you compare the fighters...




you can see that arrow, wich is due to the manuals 2 meters longer, is in fact at least 20% shorter than the F-22

[AlekTrev006]

Nice pics - my only question would be "how can you make that claim" ?  20% shorter ?    I can see both of them being lined up ...and the Arrow's Cockpit area simply being LARGER (by a few meters maybe ?) than the one the modern Fighter Jet has ?

Also...I think when you go THIS far into trying to over-analyze lengths by picture comparison - etc. - you run into issues.  Unless there is a real REASON to disbelieve some stated figure (like the idea that the Wing-I Hornet only had a Yaw-ability of 8-DPS - which would have taken it 45-seconds to spin in a circle  ) - I tend to think you should believe the printed material.

Example is with the Kilrathi Dreadnought command-ships - that I mentioned earlier - they are listed as 22,000 meters....monstrous....one of the biggest ships in all of Sci-Fi (even bigger than the Imperial "Super-Star Destroyers" - seen in Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi).    BUT....supported totally by in-game video ...which is the most "canon" type thing we have to go by...because it's not simply a case of "oh, maybe it was a typo in a book" - it's ACTUALLY what they wanted you to see ...what "really happened" - etc.    So when you see a Light Destroyer floating alongside it in the opening video of the game (Wing-III) you really CAN believe that it is 22,000 meters.   It's ENORMOUS compared to the 450-meter Destroyer.   To suggest it's "really" only 2200-meters is silly, in light of that direct visual in-game-video evidence (and in-game-video / cut-scenes - even trumps in-game Flight Parts - because as we all have mentioned here, the Programmers are limited IN-FLIGHT with how many pixels they can make something, how many ships they can have on-screen at one time, etc. etc.).