about the aircrafts.

[DuKe2112]

Over the discussion about  TrashMan's Starchaser design I have taken a look at the interceptors and I noted some strange details about the Saracen. The other are quite fitting, but this one is in my eyes not suited to be an interceptor.

It is based on the Blackbird, which was mainly a spy plane. The high speed made it difficult to attack, by SAM for example. But the low maneuverability made it unsuited for dogfighting. it couldn't really follow the movement of the target. And the design of the Saracen looks even less maneuverable.

Am I getting that right? My knowledge about planes isn't that great.

I don't want to suggest removing done work, but maybe there should be another medium range plane at the beginning that semms better as a fighter, or is Dragon  available soon enough?
The Saracenb on the other hand could be used as a special plane, maybe like its predesessor as a mobile radar unit or something.

[TrashMan]

That's the only thing you noticed about the interceptors?

You didn't notice the too small wings in the Stilleto (they can't possibly produce enough lift)?
You didn't notice the totally wrong design of the Dragon (forward swept wings are good for low-speed agility, but the plane becomes totally unusable at speed of more than Mach 1 )?

Really...I mean, it's a game. I like realism and physics myself and always prefer more realism rather than less - but you don't need to go all the way either.

[BTAxis]

I tend to agree. I would rather have different looking, iconic shapes than highly realistic designs that all look similar.

[DuKe2112]

Wings on the stilleto? 0o I thought it was a heli with some stabilation fins.
And for the design of the Dragon, you probably need some knowledge, but the Saracen looks like a roket and rockets are not supposed to turn much.

Hell I miself think realism is mostly too much to bother, but it should at least look possible and that thing doen't look like its fit for air combat.

and for the uniqueness, whe don't have a plane that resempbles an ordinary fighter.

[TrashMan]

I see a lot of conflicting concepts thrown around..

It should be human, yet alien.
Unique, yet look like it belong in the Phalanx arsenal (do various Phalanx craft even have something in common?) I can only connect the Stilleto and Firebird.

[Zorlen]

I think Saracen's role is not to gain air superiority or to provide fighter escort to dropships, but to intercept UFOs at speeds unavailable to other conventional fighters. So it is not about dogfighting, but for closing in to interception range, firing misiles and returning to base. Something like SR-71 based YF-12A interceptor. Before more advanced fighters are researched, it is just the only interceptor that can chase up speedy UFO's, even if its maneurability sucks. Thats my point.

[Psawhn]

On the high-resolution version of the Saracen I've worked on I've put vectored thrust in, mainly to help it fulfill its STOL requirements from the UFOPedia. Of course, the vectored thrust would also greatly enhance its maneuverability. I think Zorlen's right, too, in that the Saracen was picked because it was a high-speed interceptor, not because it was a high-performance dogfighter - that's the Stiletto's job. I actually think the Saracen is the most realistic of the three Terran combat aircraft available to PHALANX. (Stiletto, Saracen, Hyperion.) (Of course it's even better if you take out the STOL abilities.)

My two problems with the Stiletto are:
1) Because of its shape, it shouldn't even break the sound barrier without using up incredible amounts of fuel, and it doesn't have that much space for fuel.
2) It's too small to carry weapons. The SHIVA ammo drum I designed is about the same size as one of its engines. Yet somehow it can carry three weapons and the Saracen, which has much more cargo space, can only carry two.
I've got dreams to take the basic design of the Stiletto and lengthen it into something that approaches the proportions of an attack helicopter, not the scout helo it is now. I think a version with an aggressive profile would look very cool.

I don't think that the forward-swept wings on the Dragon are much of a problem, actually. See the current Russian experimental plane, Su-47 Berkut. At high speeds, forward-swept wings are very unstable and undergo tremendous forces, which is why they were impossible to use until we had both computer control and composite materials. Alien materials would even make the design more feasible than it is today.
Actually, my biggest problem with the Dragon is its name. Every other interceptor in PHALANX' arsenal starts with an 'S' except the Dragon: Saracen, Stiletto, Starchaser, Stingray.
I hereby propose that the name be changed into something similar but with an 's.' (in the English translation, at least) A quick online thesaurus lookup yields a few reasonable alternatives: Savage, Scylla, Serpent, Siren, Spitfire.


I should add that I'm the kind of person who gets way too nitpicky and gets somewhat bothered by these kinds of things. Most of the time it's just better to relax and enjoy the pretties.

[Destructavator]

Are there any real-life experimental technologies not yet fully developed that could be incorporated, ones that people are working on for aircraft of the future?  I'm not an expert with aircraft, but the game takes place ~80 some years into the future, and a lot can happen in aircraft design during that time.

One possible technology, as an example, would be something based upon or a descendant of the "buckypaper" mentioned in another thread, perhaps under a different (made-up) name that in the background of the game was developed after it.  (I've heard that buckypaper is right around the corner for being used in all kinds of stuff, I'd imagine that in several more decades something else would come out.)

[Drayd]

Well, i agree with the idea about it not looking like a combat aircraft, but i also don't want to throw away good work that's been done, in the original XCOM : UFO, there were several aircraft that could be used, how about changing it's purpose?
I don't know if there's some other reason but so far i've noticed that you normally only have a maximum of 8 human units on the field. I've recently just played the original in which the first dropship can hold 14 units, whilst the later 'ultimate ship' can carry 35 or so human units? so how about making it an upgrade of the human transport, say having the alien propulsion, alien navigation, alien transport, and a couple of others as pre-requisites? I am not saying have it carry 35 units, as i think that this ruined some of the immediateness of the original, but something like 14 - 16 is a fairly good number and it would provide a strategical edge to getting it, of course you'd also need to match this with a fair number of enemies as i've noticed there's never that many of them either, gave me a shock when i went back to the original and 14 popped up...
(I am not sure if there is some other reason why 8 has so far been the maximum limit to units allowed to be used, if there is please let me know.)

[BTAxis]

The maximum of 8 is a hardcoded limitation which will eventually be removed. Especially aliens should be out in greater force as the game gets going.
As it stands, the largest squad the player can field will be 12 soldiers plus 3 UGVs. That's using the Herakles transport with two UGV pod add-ons.

[DuKe2112]

That's been changed? wiki states two ugvs in the main pod and one external pod for the herakles.

Isn't buckypaper closely related to naocomposide? So in that case we actually have it.

One thing I found is conductive plastic, it's used for paper thin monitors and could make a decend cloaking device.

Airship wise there are closed or joined wings quite popular at the moment.
This usualy means the aircraft has one set of forward and one set of backward sweept wings, joined at the tip.
Unfortunatelly in most cases that would just combines the disadvantages of both wing types. But if you place the wings just right you can actually combine the advantages.

[BTAxis]

Oh yes, sorry, I remembered wrong. The wiki is right.

[Talon112]

Actually, my biggest problem with the Dragon is its name. Every other interceptor in PHALANX' arsenal starts with an 'S' except the Dragon: Saracen, Stiletto, Starchaser, Stingray.
I hereby propose that the name be changed into something similar but with an 's.' (in the English translation, at least) A quick online thesaurus lookup yields a few reasonable alternatives: Savage, Scylla, Serpent, Siren, Spitfire.

I agree with Psawhn.

I even have my own suggestion for a new name: Salamander.

[TrashMan]

I don't think that the forward-swept wings on the Dragon are much of a problem, actually. See the current Russian experimental plane, Su-47 Berkut. At high speeds, forward-swept wings are very unstable and undergo tremendous forces, which is why they were impossible to use until we had both computer control and composite materials. Alien materials would even make the design more feasible than it is today.

you can use any material you want, but it doesn't change the fact that it's a wrong, innefective shape.

If I make a cube-shaped ship with alien materials, will that make it good ship? No.

So why bother with a wing shape that is difficult to implement, makes the plane unstable and simply doesn't work, when you have a dozen other shapes that would work far better. Not to mention that the dragon has a a really strange design front, that looks like it would create as much wind resistance as a house.

[Psawhn]

you can use any material you want, but it doesn't change the fact that it's a wrong, innefective shape.

If I make a cube-shaped ship with alien materials, will that make it good ship? No.

So why bother with a wing shape that is difficult to implement, makes the plane unstable and simply doesn't work, when you have a dozen other shapes that would work far better. Not to mention that the dragon has a a really strange design front, that looks like it would create as much wind resistance as a house.

If I try to make a car out of tin foil, does that mean all cars are a bad design?

A forward-swept wing is a very effective shape, allowing for much higher maneuverability at all speeds, from high-alpha at near-stall, or transonic speeds. The inherent instability is a good characteristic in a fighter plane - it allows for greater agility. As long as you have a computer between the control surfaces and the pilot, it becomes a machine that will almost do whatever he thinks of.

It's not an inherently bad design, just a different one. It's a case of F1 racer versus NASCAR, not cube vs. airfoil.

Its primary disadvantage is its advantage: at high speeds it creates forces that want to twist the wing right off. This is why today's composite materials make a forward-swept wing merely impractical, not just impossible. Furthermore, fighter combat today is centered around the missile, not the cannon, so speed, altitude, and stealth are the primary components with the aim of getting a missile kill without being killed by a missile. A forward-swept wing doesn't degrade any of those components, but it adds an engineering challenge that could be done without. That's what things like the X-29 and the Su-47 have shown engineers: "It works, but for what we want it's too much trouble."

But for a close-in knife fight, in the successor of the Stiletto, a forward-swept wing is a very strong design. Alien materials would mitigate the engineering problem of a forward wing, and radar stealth is not as strong a consideration. I actually believe that if modern air combat were centered on gunfights, not missiles, we'd see a lot more forward-wing fighter planes.

I will agree with you, though, that the fuselage is not an ideal aerodynamic design. Using three prongs is likely to yield poorer performance than 'filling' them in.


On the topic of names: I thought of a few more, named after blades: Sabre, Sai, Shiv (being the first hybrid aircraft), Scimitar, Saif, Sappara, and Shamshir. Looking at the Shamshir, I like how the shamshir has an unconventional shape, reminding me a lot of the Dragon.