Part 146: Kilrah System, Kilrah Sector, Mission 3 without wingmen (featuring Jade Star as guest commentator) and Winning Ending (Gameplay)
Well it would have been at the weekend if I hadn't been ill then. Aanyway. Here goes:24th September 2669, Kilrah System (Mission 3), Kilrah Sector
Covert Ops Theta Class II Refuelling Depot
Lancelot Flight launches the Temblor bomb strike on Kilrah.
There are no pre-mission cutscenes.
Briefing Video (Youtube) Polsy (Youtube)
Mission Video (Youtube) (Polsy)
Final cutscene without commentary (Youtube)(Polsy)
Kills this mission: 32, if you count Kilrah. 31 otherwise. But I think Kilrah counts. Probably somewhere around 10-15 billion if you count each individual Kilrathi who lived on Kilrah. No being in WC3 history has killed as many people as Christopher Blair (considering that for a bit makes his actions between now and WC4 seem entirely reasonable, for those of you who know what those are).
I don't really know what to say about this other than further discussion on how much of an anticlimax it is. The space part is fairly tricky, in part because the enemy fighters seem to have all been kicked up a couple of notches in aggression, and the duel with Thrakhath is thematically appropriate if a little too easy for my liking (as in, Hobbes shouldn't be the harder of the two to kill). Maybe it'd be good to be able to use the cloaking device tactically, though I accept it would remove the last vestiges of challenge WC3 can throw at you given it's a foolproof way to dodge missiles. Maybe if the game could start throwing waves of 8+ fighters at you, but 6 seems to be an engine limitation. But then you get to the ground mission, and...well, ugh. What were Origin thinking that made this an appropriate closer for the game? (Probably "Man, we are way overbudget and we've already missed Christmas. Gotta get this out the door now.") I know what they were aiming for. I know this because I've seen the Kilrah ground attack cinematic that the console versions of the game had:
Cutscene Video (Youtube) (Polsy)
So basically what they were going for was actual obstacle course-style flying; you could either stay low and dodge the terrain, or go high and dodge the Ekapshis. The actual implementation had three problems with that. Problem one is that your airspeed in the ground section is way too low, so terrain dodging is no challenge at all and you have to spend forever doing it and get very bored. Problem two is that the Ekapshi can't actually catch an Excalibur at afterburner, and because you've got velocity lock on the Excalibur you can burn the entire way to the target. Problem three, of course, is that you can cloak on Kilrah's surface which means the Ekapshi can't find you anyway. I was going to excuse being crap at this since the PC didn't really get a proper barnstorming arcade flight sim until Crimson Skies in 2000, but realistically given that Pilotwings came out four years before WC3 I don't think that flies (
). Ship of the day:
Bloodfang
Class: Heavy Fighter
Length: 30 m
Mass: 16 tonnes
Max Velocity: 560 kps
Afterburner Velocity: 1400 kps
Maximum Yaw/Pitch/Roll: 70/90/90 degrees\second
Weapons: 2x Tachyon gun, 2x Plasma cannon, 9x missile hardpoints (default loadout is 3xHS, 3xFF, 3xIRs)
Decoys: 12
Shields: 25 cm durasteel equivalent all sides
Armour: 10 cm durasteel equivalent all sides
Other: Jump capable
Official Strategy Guide: The Bloodfang is the best ship in the Kilrathi fleet, flown by Prince Thrakhath, the deadliest pilot in the Kilrathi fleet. His exclusive toy is designed to be the ultimate dogfighter. It’s fast
enough and tough enough, and Thrakhath is smart enough, to go head-to-head with an Excalibur. Your best bet is to let go with a salvo of many missiles from close range, but of course Thrakhath will do the same to you, if he gets the chance. There are no tricks or shortcuts against the Bloodfang. To beat it, you have to be smarter, sneakier or just plain better than the Empire’s best pilot.
I say: Compared to the Excalibur, it's faster, slightly more maneuverable, and has equivalent shields. But its armour is weaker (and the Excalibur's armour is pretty thin already), it's got much less firepower (the Excalibur's Reaper Cannon is hilariously overpowered once you remember it has a shorter range than the Tachyon guns), it can't slide and the guns don't auto-track. All of which means that, despite what the strategy guide says, the Bloodfang can't and shouldn't attempt to go head-to-head with the Excalibur; fortunately, Thrakhath is bull-headed enough that he'll do so anyway. Since the thing is about as hard to hit as a Darket most of the rest of the time, that's probably just as well. I have killed Thrakhath in the Arrow (in the unwinnable Behemoth mission) before now, but it takes absolutely ages and you basically have to just stay alive at the start and wait for him to run out of burner fuel.
Total kills (Wing Commander III): 36 missions / 453 kills
Total kills (this thread): 62 missions / 819 kills
Total kills (including previous thread): 170 missions / 1726 kills
Next time on Let's Play Wing Commander:
I'll do a wrap-up post for the Kilrathi Saga and there's one more video which people who know the series should be able to guess at, but we're basically done.