Part 77: Tamayo System, Vega Sector, Mission 2 (Gameplay)

13th August 2669, Tamayo System, Vega Sector
TCS Victory

The Victory puts up an alpha strike against Kilrathi ground forces moving to attack the Terran colony on Tamayo II.

Cutscene videos/thread vote:
There was an overwhelming response in favour of taking Rachel up on her offer and thereby TWOCing the Excalibur for this mission.

Here's the video for the pre-mission conversations:
Pre-Mission Conversations (Youtube)

Mission Briefing & Loadout:
Eisen and Blair plan an encirclement. The Kilrathi transports are not, apparently, to be allowed to escape:

Briefing Video (Youtube)


Mission Video (Youtube)
(missile volleys are good for producing dramatic preview images)

For now this approach seems to be fairly OK, see what you think about the audio. It's basically had Audacity noise reduction run over almost the entire game audio track (except the voices. It does horrible things to the voices). This makes the guns sound a bit different to previous videos, but I actually prefer it. Oh, and since I had to load the game audio into Audacity anyway, I decided I may as well start autoducking. Let me know if I should stop.

Kills this mission: 11, all from the 12 fighters. Meet the Excalibur, the first prototype Terran superfighter that's worthy of the name. And then say goodbye to it, because we'll not be getting to fly it again for quite some time. Wing Commander III just lets you know that there is a superfighter out there and then doesn't let you actually use it for a long time. In some ways the Excalibur's incredible performance makes Flash an even bigger jerk, because what the hell Major you could have taken out half that cat assault force by yourself.

Ship of the day:
Excalibur

Class: Heavy Fighter
Length: 32 m
Mass: 18 tonnes
Max Velocity: 500 kps
Afterburner Velocity: 1300 kps
Maximum Yaw/Pitch/Roll: 70/75/70 degrees\second
Weapons: 2x Reaper Cannon, 4x Tachyon Guns, 12x Missile Hardpoints (four triple hardpoints; default loadout is 6x Friend or Foe 6x Image Recognition)
Shields: 25 cm durasteel equivalent all sides
Armour: Front: 11 cm durasteel Left: 11 cm Right: 11 cm Rear: 11 cm
Missile Decoys: 30
Other: Shelton Slide capable, Jump capable, Autotracking guns

Official Strategy Guide: This is the Confederation dream machine. It combines the offensive punch of the largest bombers with a speed and maneuverability that can almost match the tiny Arrow. Its gun combination is overwhelming, particularly its twin reaper cannons. The missile load-out is enormous, and its shields and armor are rock-solid. Then there are those little extras that mean so much the fastest acceleration in the game (giving the fighter its afterburner "super slide" for quick maneuvering), the most missile decoys and jump capacity. LARGE SPOILER. The only weak point on this fighter is its beefy silhouette, but with its armor, who cares. Because of the way the Excalibur's gun energy is allocated, it requires a somewhat unique firing strategy for maximum effectiveness. The Excalibur has a high pool of gun energy, but its recharge rate is only slightly greater than normal. This means that it's possible to fire an Excalibur's full guns 30 or 40 times (assuming default energy settings and 4 to 5 trigger pulls per second) before gun energy is depleted. Once energy is depleted, it takes about six seconds to recharge, as opposed to the two seconds or so most other fighters take. This is no big deal when, for example, you're strafing a cap ship or stationary target. You can go ahead and fire up all the rounds you have time for, then recharge as you afterburn away from the enemy. In a dogfight, however, you’re probably well advised to use four or five round bursts, with a pause of at least a half second or so between bursts, to avoid running short of gun energy at a crucial moment.

I say: OK, so the Excalibur is very slightly slower and less manuverable than the Arrow - certainly it outdoes the Hellcat in both of those categories handily. In return, it's got more firepower than a Thunderbolt and equivalent shielding. Actually, it's got vastly more firepower than a Thunderbolt, because the autotracking guns miss much less often than those on any other fighter, since your aim no longer needs to be so precise (they won't do all the aiming for you, but if you're pointing reasonably close to the fighter you've got targeted it'll hit. It's the best fighter in the game and nothing on either side comes particularly close - there's no mission it can't do (though with no torpedoes, you'll be sat there for a while waiting for the guns to destroy a heavy capital ship). It excels at head-to-head passes since you can aim off (thereby dodging the incoming fire) and still hit. And it can Shelton Slide. A fighter as advanced (and expensive) as the Excalibur only exists because of a brief Confed panic after Christopher Blair ran into Thrakhath's Bloodfang in 2667. Believing that the fighter would soon enter mass production, a design document was put out for a fighter that could match it, resulting in the F-103 Excalibur. By the time that it became apparent that the Bloodfang was a one-off for Thrakhath, the Excalibur program had presumably already bought enough Senators made enough progress to be worth seeing the development through. It certainly had good enough PR:

CUT CONTENT: TNC Newsbriefs
The news report that Blair reads on the shuttle taking him to the Victory was not originally intended to be the only one in the game. Several others were filmed but cut from the PC version due to space constraints (I believe they did feature in the 3DO version). I'll be scattering a few of these through the game at arguably appropriate moments, such as the one about the roll-out of the Excalibur now.


TNC Video (Youtube)

Total kills (Wing Commander III): 6 missions / 38 kills
Total kills (this thread): 33 missions / 405 kills
Total kills (including previous thread): 144 missions / 1331 kills

Next time on Let's Play Wing Commander:
Arrows at dawn...