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Mon Calamari Frigate

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 Evillejedi
09-30-2006, 1:17 PM
#51
http://www.gamed.nl/messages/32022.jpg)

top center

unless the executor has a forced resize to make it out of perspective then the arc hammer is <1km it should be at least a few KM long http://www.theforce.net/swtc/Pix/cg/df/dark04.gif)

http://www.theforce.net/swtc/Pix/cg/df/dark05.gif)
(those are consecutive shots so the arc hammer is not closer to the camera in the one than the other, it is still on the port side of the Ex and is a substantial fraction of the Ex in the bow shot
 Darth Anarch
09-30-2006, 3:58 PM
#52
Ah, I see. I hadn't noticed that. In that case it does indeed look like the Arc Hammer has been scaled down. I'm only guessing, but it's probably so that the space maps won't get too crowded, especially if both it and the Executor happens to be present at the same time.
 Darth Ablett
09-30-2006, 10:07 PM
#53
Ah, I see. I hadn't noticed that. In that case it does indeed look like the Arc Hammer has been scaled down. I'm only guessing, but it's probably so that the space maps won't get too crowded, especially if both it and the Executor happens to be present at the same time.

One of the devs said in another thread that it is smaller then a kilometer, in between a victory and an ISD. That's a pretty big scaling difference for something that's supposed to be about 9 km long!

I don't really care though, it never needed to be that big. So long as it pumps out the good stuff...:dtrooper:
 Darth Anarch
10-01-2006, 10:21 AM
#54
Same here. It's not like I'll be using it as a combat unit. In fact, I plan on keeping it far behind Imperial lines where no one can get to it, cranking out DarkTroopers...
 ImpElite
10-01-2006, 1:46 PM
#55
Same here. It's not like I'll be using it as a combat unit. In fact, I plan on keeping it far behind Imperial lines where no one can get to it, cranking out DarkTroopers...

and I'll be fighting his army or DarkTroopers back again and again :smash::smash::smash::smash:
 Darth Anarch
10-01-2006, 5:04 PM
#56
*Blows up the planet ImpElite is on with the Death Star*

Feel the might of this fully armed and operational battle station, rebel scum. :D
 Valter
10-01-2006, 8:32 PM
#57
ImpElite = owned! LOL
 ImpElite
10-01-2006, 8:44 PM
#58
*Force Ghost of ImpElite talking to DarthAnarch* sorry but I cloned myself before you blew me up (LOL)
 Valter
10-01-2006, 11:50 PM
#59
...*blows up planet with ImpElite clone on it*

So much for your "back with a vengeance" ploy! ;b
 ImpElite
10-02-2006, 12:13 AM
#60
...*blows up planet with ImpElite clone on it*

So much for your "back with a vengeance" ploy! ;b

Oh sorry did I mention how many clones I have? guess not, I have enough to have two on each planet, so, happy hunting! muahahahaha!!!
 Valter
10-02-2006, 12:27 AM
#61
...*waves white flag*
 jedi jim 1989
10-02-2006, 4:33 AM
#62
the arc hammer is in between the size of a vic and imp star 1, its load out of weapons is the same as a victory, but it has an added concusion missile launcher. i wont be using it in battle, but atleast i know if they get through my lines that it can defend it self
 Admiral Sith
10-02-2006, 7:08 AM
#63
*kicks Petroglyph for murdering canon again*

Its not that small damnit!
 Darth Anarch
10-02-2006, 8:16 AM
#64
Meh, who cares. It's just a game. I've been a devoted Star Wars fan since I was eight, but my policy is to never consider anything presented in a game canon. Saves me a lot of aggravation. Canon is for the movies and the books; games are for fun.
 Darth Ablett
10-02-2006, 8:55 AM
#65
Meh, who cares. It's just a game. I've been a devoted Star Wars fan since I was eight, but my policy is to never consider anything presented in a game canon. Saves me a lot of aggravation. Canon is for the movies and the books; games are for fun.

I don't really care either, since the exact size was never written down. I do wonder why they did it though, they've been so careful not to go against anything already in the EU, (don't start the Lancer bollocks again :nut: ) and it's pretty easy to just make it a reasonable size.

It just seems a tad lazy IMO - if not arrogant.
 Valter
10-02-2006, 1:49 PM
#66
*kicks Petroglyph for murdering canon again*

Its not that small damnit!

EAW was not created to retell the story of Episod IV, it was made to give us Star Wars fans a chance to change Star Wars history. I call EAW a "what if" game. What if the death star DID destroy Yavin, what if the Mon Calamari had built more than 15 cruisers for the Rebellion, or what if the Empire had won. The point is don't take video games so seriously.

Besides canon is a very flimsy foundation to begin with. Star Wars is fiction, not a telling of historical events of past wars. Because Star Wars is fiction game creators and novelists can change canon to whatever they want it to be. Besides, canon often contradicts itself anyway, take for example General Grievous and Emperor Palpatine.
General Grievous gets his chest crushed in by Mace Windu in the Clone Wars cartoon. In the novel Labyrinth of Evil he fights Mace in a lightsaber duel atop a moving hover train and nearly wins before being force pushed off the hover train they are fighting on.
The fact that Emperor Palpatine makes a clone of himself is against canon as well. In the movies Emperor Palpatine dies, end of story. But second-rate comic book writers try to extend the life of a dead villian with a cheesy "he's not dead, he made a clone of himself" storyline, how original. I apologize if I offended any hardcore fans of Dark Empire.

I for one love the fact that Petroglyph is thinking out of the box and making a contribution to Star Wars canon with an awesome new array of villians and vehicles. I'm glad they put in the extra effort to make a new villian instead of using Black Sun or Jabba the Hutt as the main character.
Again, I apologize if I offended anyone but I just had to get that off my chest.

*Prepares for massive flaming*
 Darth_Torpid-PG
10-02-2006, 2:01 PM
#67
One of the reasons for the apparent size disagreement is that Lucas has never given an official size for the thing. The sizes that are listed at Wookieepedia and other places are all fan approximations based on a few screen shots from Dark Forces, in which the perspective is suspect. Since there's no knowing where the camera originates in those shots, its very difficult to tell the elevation and angle of the ships shown, which means that the Arc Hammer could be very much smaller than the current estimates, or even bigger - this is the hazard of trying to find a size in 3D space from a 2D shot.

Bottom line is, since there is no official length, and the length as stated harmed gameplay in some spots, we chose to go smaller. Also, logic would dictate that a ship meant primarily as a factory and research facility wouldn't need to be super huge like an ISD or a SSD. So there you are :) If you really don't like the size, it is quite easy to scale in XML.
 ImpElite
10-02-2006, 8:08 PM
#68
EAW was not created to retell the story of Episod IV, it was made to give us Star Wars fans a chance to change Star Wars history. I call EAW a "what if" game. What if the death star DID destroy Yavin, what if the Mon Calamari had built more than 15 cruisers for the Rebellion, or what if the Empire had won. The point is don't take video games so seriously.

Besides canon is a very flimsy foundation to begin with. Star Wars is fiction, not a telling of historical events of past wars. Because Star Wars is fiction game creators and novelists can change canon to whatever they want it to be. Besides, canon often contradicts itself anyway, take for example General Grievous and Emperor Palpatine.
General Grievous gets his chest crushed in by Mace Windu in the Clone Wars cartoon. In the novel Labyrinth of Evil he fights Mace in a lightsaber duel atop a moving hover train and nearly wins before being force pushed off the hover train they are fighting on.
The fact that Emperor Palpatine makes a clone of himself is against canon as well. In the movies Emperor Palpatine dies, end of story. But second-rate comic book writers try to extend the life of a dead villian with a cheesy "he's not dead, he made a clone of himself" storyline, how original. I apologize if I offended any hardcore fans of Dark Empire.

I for one love the fact that Petroglyph is thinking out of the box and making a contribution to Star Wars canon with an awesome new array of villians and vehicles. I'm glad they put in the extra effort to make a new villian instead of using Black Sun or Jabba the Hutt as the main character.
Again, I apologize if I offended anyone but I just had to get that off my chest.

*Prepares for massive flaming*

Amen to that!
 Darth Ablett
10-02-2006, 8:48 PM
#69
One of the reasons for the apparent size disagreement is that Lucas has never given an official size for the thing. The sizes that are listed at Wookieepedia and other places are all fan approximations based on a few screen shots from Dark Forces, in which the perspective is suspect. Since there's no knowing where the camera originates in those shots, its very difficult to tell the elevation and angle of the ships shown, which means that the Arc Hammer could be very much smaller than the current estimates, or even bigger - this is the hazard of trying to find a size in 3D space from a 2D shot.

Bottom line is, since there is no official length, and the length as stated harmed gameplay in some spots, we chose to go smaller. Also, logic would dictate that a ship meant primarily as a factory and research facility wouldn't need to be super huge like an ISD or a SSD. So there you are :) If you really don't like the size, it is quite easy to scale in XML.

That's fair enough I suppose, and I agree with you that it never needed to be that big. Still, this will upset a few people.

Funny story relating to that - kinda OT - a good mate of mine who loves Star Wars asked me about FoC, and whether or not Thrawn is in it. He loves that blue dude! :thrawn2: After confirming his hopes, I told him he'll probably have a run-in with Tyber, and possibly get outfoxed.

He got fairly angry. Petro, just letting you know that if Thrawn gets played like a chump, I'm going to be personally blamed. :smash: Can't wait to see the results!
 Admiral Sith
10-02-2006, 8:56 PM
#70
I know that, but factories of any size take up quite a bit of space, and something that small would NEVER be able to hold one.
 wedge2211
10-02-2006, 11:06 PM
#71
"That small?" Of course, a ship a mere kilometer long couldn't possibly have a factory aboard...I mean, most factories today are at least twenty kilometers by fifty kilometers... :rolleyes:
 Valter
10-03-2006, 1:35 AM
#72
I know that, but factories of any size take up quite a bit of space, and something that small would NEVER be able to hold one.

The Arc Hammer has more than enough space to accommodate a factory. It only looks small because it's adjacent to the Executor and even the mighty Imperial Star Destroyers are dwarfted by the Executor. By game-scale I would say the Arc Hammer looks about as long as a Victory Destroyer. That's more than large enough to support an onboard factory.
 Darth Ablett
10-03-2006, 2:04 AM
#73
The Arc Hammer has more than enough space to accommodate a factory. It only looks small because it's adjacent to the Executor and even the mighty Imperial Star Destroyers are dwarfted by the Executor. By game-scale I would say the Arc Hammer looks about as long as a Victory Destroyer. That's more than large enough to support an onboard factory.

I don't think anyone's arguing that a smaller ship could still be a worthwhile factory, I think the point is that it has been shown as an ambiguous size up until now, bigger than an ISD but far smaller than the Executor.

Check this out (this was posted before, btw): http://theforce.net/swtc/Pix/cg/df/dark05.gif)

It doesn't give the exact size, but it's a fairly massive ship.

Of course the scaling in EaW is based on gameplay>realism, and the Executor and Eclipse are manageable sizes rather than ships that span a whole map. The Arc Hammer is certainly bigger than an ISD though. IMO 5% longer than an ISD would have been ok.

Bear in mind this was a pretty big project, and when the Imperials went big, they went BIG.
 Valter
10-03-2006, 11:15 AM
#74
Actually, my post was directly specifically to Admiral Sith. He was concerned that the Arc Hammer looked too small to be a factory and I was explaining the reasons why it could support a factory.

By the way the screenshot you posted is misleading. Those Star Destroyers look far off in the background and therefore makes the Arc Hammer's size difficult to specify.

I do agree however that the Arc Hammer does look scaled down a bit.
 ImpElite
10-03-2006, 11:23 AM
#75
Ahhhh..... what they said. :ears1:
 Darth Ablett
10-03-2006, 9:27 PM
#76
Actually, my post was directly specifically to Admiral Sith. He was concerned that the Arc Hammer looked too small to be a factory and I was explaining the reasons why it could support a factory.

By the way the screenshot you posted is misleading. Those Star Destroyers look far off in the background and therefore makes the Arc Hammer's size difficult to specify.

I do agree however that the Arc Hammer does look scaled down a bit.

I think you and I are on the same page, really. I don't really care if they made it too small, I just find it strange since they've been fairly careful with other bits of the EU so far.

I really don't think it needs to be HUGE, just a tad longer than an ISD. The idea of heaps of ships comparable with the Executor is fairly silly IMO. However, in that screen (pretty damn flimsy evidence I know) it does shape up well compared with the Executor, and from what we've seen it looks pretty puny.

Anyway, this isn't really argument-worthy IMO, especially in the Mon Calamari Frigate thread! So...erm, how about that cluster special ability? :D
 Valter
10-04-2006, 1:17 AM
#77
Changing the size of the Arc Hammer should be pretty easy. I'm sure some modders will come out with a "realistic scale" mod soon after the expansion's release anyway.

So yeah...the cluster ability...is there a screenshot of it coming anytime soon?(I'm sure we will see it during the demo though)
 Darth Ablett
10-04-2006, 6:08 AM
#78
So yeah...the cluster ability...is there a screenshot of it coming anytime soon?(I'm sure we will see it during the demo though)

Maybe a dev could shed some light on this? I really have no idea what to make of this ability, maybe like a instant 'barrage' type thing, where it hits hard at a small area on bigger ships?

As to the demo, I never played the EaW demo (:Open2: the shame!), how full-featured was that? Can we expect to use some of the new units that aren't part of the Consortium?
 Crezzer Fett
10-04-2006, 6:12 AM
#79
In the EAW demo you could only be the Rebels, and play a space battle consisting of tech level 2 ships etc, and a small ground battle. I can see the demo for FOC being similar, it will prob only let you go the Consortium. But you may be able to see a few new rebel/imperial units controlled by the A.I.
 ImpElite
10-04-2006, 10:44 AM
#80
and they let you do the tutorials also.
 ghost665_uk
10-04-2006, 11:26 AM
#81
you know one thing i find odd about mon cal ships is the fact that they are basically converted passenger ships, how can they stand up against a war ship?, you see examples of converted civilian ships during ww1 and ww2 yet they are no way able to stand up against a war ship of that period.

stirkes me that the rebellion should be hit and run, not able to go up head on with the empire, yet mon cal vessels seem to be equals of there imperial counterparts, just seems odd to me.
 Darth Anarch
10-04-2006, 12:03 PM
#82
Not quite. If you look at the roleplaying statistics for both Mon Cal cruisers and Star Destroyers you'd see that while the Mon Cal cruisers were more manoeuvreable and had more shields, the Star Destroyer beat it hands-down in the areas of hull armour and weapons.

Now, while this is perfectly OK in the movies and such, it would suck to play the Rebels in a computer game if the biggest and best of your ships could be squashed like bugs by the Empire. So therefore the Mon Cal cruisers (and the other Rebel ships) were beefed up to make battles more interesting. In any conflict between gameplay and realism you have to let gameplay win, otherwise it won't be much fun.
 ghost665_uk
10-04-2006, 12:45 PM
#83
yeah guess so, this is the problem with EaW its an empire building game so can't really repressent the rebels as rebels but just another faction bulding an empire, if you get what i mean. Though i hold high hopes for EaW2 if petro decide to do one.
 HerbieZ
10-04-2006, 1:03 PM
#84
I think the fact that they were originally passenger ships has been ignored over time, since apparntly, the majority of the blisters on a Mon Cal ship are cluster bombs and turret placements....
 ghost665_uk
10-04-2006, 1:35 PM
#85
after the fall of the empire, did mon cals become passenger liners again?, i mean as primary purpose, were new mon cals built for civilian market, or did they just build warships?

just curious really.
 Valter
10-04-2006, 1:40 PM
#86
Though i hold high hopes for EaW2 if petro decide to do one.

I can't say for sure but I think this is the last update to EAW. I don't think they will release a sequel because they have already covered all of the Galactic Civil War timeline (excluding the Thrawn conflict). If they do release a sequel it certainly won't have anything to do with the Yuuzhan Vaughn War because only the most hardcore of fans even know what the Yuuzhan Vaughn are. If there was a sequel it would probably cover the Clone Wars simply because so many fans are whining about it.

This is the second time things have drifted off-topic.
 ghost665_uk
10-04-2006, 1:45 PM
#87
think of all the command and conquers, majority are the same just upgraded graphics and new abilities, EaW2 could be the same, or they may even try and do something slightly larger in scale with more depth diplomacy etc...

well even if EaW2 never happens i don't think we have seen the last of ground/space combat rts/strategy games
 jedi jim 1989
10-04-2006, 2:35 PM
#88
well im reading the eu books, at the moment im readin dark saber which is 8 and a half years after ep 6, and they are still trying to rebuild the new republic, the mon calamarians are still making war ships for them, and the new republic (the rebels took over couruscant etc) are trying to hold off the remanents of the empire ad well as other people/organisations
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