WTF is the point of Escort Carriers?

The product of Rebel stupidity or just Matt Burch looking to make a quick ship to add to the game?

Rebel Destroyer: 2.8M
Rebel Escort Carrier: 5M
Rebel Cruiser: 14M

Am I the only one to believe these were just a half-assed addition to the game?
Hell, they're not even red! They're poor ships with only two photon turrets, they're easy to take down, and cost almost as much as two Destroyers.

They add some extra fighters to the battle, but all the missions seem to put these "ESCORT" Carriers by themselves....

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Live free or die.

(This message has been edited by Soviet mikee (edited 01-05-2003).)

Yeah, those Rebel escort carriers are all screwed up, man...

-Kevin

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(This message has been edited by Capt. Editor (edited 01-05-2003).)

Quote

Originally posted by Capt. Editor:
Yeah, those Rebel escort carriers are all screwed up, man...

Not mine 😛

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Well it's a prototype ship.

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Quote

Originally posted by Blackdog:
**Well it's a prototype ship.

**

In one mission only. There are other Escort Carriers.

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Live free or die.

Then again, the Rebel Destroyer should cost about 6M credits.

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(This Message has been edited by a garden troll)

The colouring indeed sucks. I remember doctoring the sprites so the lines on the ship were red.

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yer I have to admit it was a pointless addition to the game. Maybe Matt Burch did it becuase there wasn't a rival for the gun boat? I havn't got a clue. Does Matt Burch ever post on these boards? Maybe he can answer? Thats a good idea with editing the sprites, think I'll do that aswell.

Sharky

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(This message has been edited by Sharky.G (edited 01-05-2003).)

Quote

Originally posted by Soviet mikee:
**The product of Rebel stupidity or just Matt Burch looking to make a quick ship to add to the game?
**

A little of both.

If they were red, just cost 2.5 mil, and had some better shields and armor they would be fine.

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Looking at the data, it was the last ship added, and the last pers are mostly Escort Carriers. Even the last missions are about the Escort Carrier, so it seems like a last minute addition.

I always wondered why this wasn't improved upon in later additions. It wouldn't have been that hard to change the color.

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Live free or die.

Color change: (url="http://"http://www.evula.com/shipyard/cheap/rebel.html")http://www.evula.com...heap/rebel.html(/url)

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10/31/96

Quote

Originally posted by forge:
**Color change:http://www.evula.com...heap/rebel.html
**

Posted Image

Yep, that looks right...

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There is a plugin called (url="http://"http://www.evula.com/plugins/escort_carrier.html")Escort Carrier(/url) that, oddly enough, changes the color of the ship to red.

However, given the ship's location in the EV Tuner plugin (I think) instead of the regular data files, I do believe that the ship was just a last-thought addition. It does indeed suck most horribly.

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Quote

Originally posted by EVula:
**
However, given the ship's location in the EV Tuner plugin (I think)
**

...in pre-1.0.5

Quote

Originally posted by Soviet mikee:
**
In one mission only. There are other Escort Carriers.**

Ah, okay. Haven't done that string in a while.

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Quote

Originally posted by Soviet mikee:
Looking at the data, it was the last ship added, and the last pers are mostly Escort Carriers. Even the last missions are about the Escort Carrier, so it seems like a last minute addition.

From to the version history, it appears to have been added in the 1.0.1 update:

Quote

Version 1.0.1 -- released 5/29/96
...
-- Added a new Rebel ship and a few missions dealing with it

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To add the red stripes will mean adding an extra set of sprites for the animation. This would take up one expansion unit sprite slots right? It would end up conflicting with other expansion and TC plug-ins. I suppose that had this addition been done earlier, then alot of TCs and expansion plug-ins would of turned out a little different off by one sprite slot .

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Quote

Originally posted by Coraxus:
To add the red stripes will mean adding an extra set of sprites for the animation. This would take up one expansion unit sprite slots right? It would end up conflicting with other expansion and TC plug-ins. I suppose that had this addition been done earlier, then alot of TCs and expansion plug-ins would of turned out a little different off by one sprite slot .

Not really. To make the Escort Carrier red, one would only need a single sprite (no mask, just use the bulk freighter's mask), and as long as you follow the number convention for ships, it wouldn't interfere with any plugins.

As for it conflicting with TCs: well, TC stands for "total conversion", which usually means that all of the resources are rewritten anyway. 🙂

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Think about it this way, would you rather not have escort carriers?

Granted that they should have had red stripes, but it adds just a little bit more depth. And anyways, they're fun to kill 🙂

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Quote

Originally posted by EVula:
... as long as you follow the number convention for ships, it wouldn't interfere with any plugins.

And since the Escort Carrier was added in the same version as plug-ins themselves, that wouldn't be a problem anyway.

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Quote

Originally posted by Zax:
**And anyways, they're fun to kill
**

I want to make a correction: Fun to kill, and easy to kill :).

Lit Nerd

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(This message has been edited by Lit Nerd (edited 01-24-2003).)