Cob3: Faulcon de Lacy or Cowell & MgRath?

[JeffBTX]

Title says it. I have a reason for asking... in terms of the Oolite canon / time frame, IF a Cobra Mk III had some kind of data plate with a manufacturer's logo, trademark, etc... would it be Faulcon de Lacy or Cowell & MgRath? Or either? Or Both?

I read pages at the wiki... it wasn't PRECISELY clear.

- Thanks

[another_commander]

Interesting question. Reading the original Elite manual, Observer's Guide to Ships in Service section, states that the MkIII inservice date is 3100AD, rolled at the Cowell & MgRath Shipyards. The first page starts with
"Welcome aboard this Cobra Mk III trading and combat craft. The
ship has been supplied to you by Faulcon deLacy Spaceways, by
arrangement with the Galactic Co-operative of Worlds..."
Based on this two, I would say that the ship is Faulcon deLacy design, constructed by Cowel & MgRath. Several other ships are referred to as Faulcon deLacy designs and some of them are mentioned as produced at deLacy shipyards, others are produced elsewhere. Based on the above, I would say that the MkIII would be carrying both insignias, both for designer and manufacturer.

[JeffBTX]

another_commander;

Thanks for your reply.

If it were a car, though... with a manufacturers logo on the back... or on the hood... then it would probably be "Faulcon de Lacy"(?). As in "Buick" or "Rolls Royce" or "Mistubishi" or "Honda".

[Selezen]

The way I've always read it is that the ship is designed and produced by Faulcon DeLacy, but the particular ship you will be flying was built at the Cowell and MgRath shipyards on Lave.

Similar to the car industry, where (for example) Nissan cars are designed in Japan then the manufacturing equipment is sent to (to mention a single example) Derbyshire to manufacture and assemble the parts.

Faulcon DeLacy probably have contractors all over the 8 galaxies. Note that in Frontier Faulcon DeLacy are still a viable company so are probably selling to Feds and Imps even in Elite/Oolite's timeframe.

This is all from the background stuff to my fiction - one of my main characters works at the Cowell & MgRath facility on Lave...

[ADCK]

Faulcon de Lacy bought out Cowell and MgRath, one sec well get link.

http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Faulcon_de_Lacy

No source though, so may not be legit...

http://www.jades.org/whoswho.htm

Jades says the same thing, so i'm guessing it's true.

[Commander McLane]

Note that the wiki text is c&p'd wholesale from jades, so you actually only have one reference here.

[ADCK]

Hmm, also, slightly unrelated, but the wiki replaces the Viper Mark 2 part with the Viper Interceptor part, making it seem like there's 2 diff universes going on (one leg went Elite to Oolite, the other leg went Elite to Frontier to FFE) So perhaps in the Oolite ooniverse FdL didn't buy out C&MgR?

[Commander McLane]

... seem like there's 2 diff universes going on (one leg went Elite to Oolite, the other leg went Elite to Frontier to FFE)

That's actually a pretty good description (in the Elite universe it is called the multiverse-theory ).

What happened is this: In the beginning there was Elite. And B&B saw that it was good.

Then there came FE2 and later FFE, released as sequels, but set in a completely different-looking universe. And B saw that it was good. But the other B found it not so good, and many people with him. Thus many of them (including some of us) disregard them.

Then came Oolite, a remake, but set in a slightly different-looking universe. Therefore the semi-official approach is to see it as a sequel as well, obviously set in a less-distant future from Elite than FE2/FFE, for the changes are less radical (new ships and stations, but no new planets).

Now the question becomes: what is the relation between the different sequels? FE2/FFE on the one side, and Oolite on the other side? There are three main answers:

(1) the grand unified theory: courtesy of Selezen's excellent work of compiling a timeline between Elite, Oolite, and FE2 you can set them all in the same universe, if you like.

(2) the multiverse theory: in different universes there may be different sequels to Elite, therefore there is no reason that in the Ooniverse FE2 should ever happen. And in the FE2 universe Oolite didn't necessarily happen. Of course any combination thereof creates more parallel universes. People who disregard Frontier could be grouped to this theory.

(3) the what-the-heck theory: There are also people who just play Oolite, because it's fun to play, and don't care for the backstory, and whatever continuity issues it may bring up.

[JeffBTX]

I was mainly wanting to confirm the timeframe / Oolite canon.

Hmmm.

I think that all things considered, there will probably be a "mixture". Some of the (older?) Cobra Mk III's might still have a C & M stamp on them... but considering *the facts that are available*, one might assume that the Player's Cobra Mk III has an F & dL logo on the hood... so to speak.

Or maybe it depends on where the ship was originally purchased; if thats the case (Lave, unless it is a refurbished Cob3 from "somewhere else"), it might be C & M.

No big deal. I had grand ideas for a hud design, but I am struggling with transparency. Complicated by the fact that I have a 1680x1050 LCD monitor (and I'm playing at that resolution). I've been up all night trying to get the hud images to work properly. Paint Shop Pro (5.03) CAN do it, but it is cumbersome... I probably just don't understand it yet. Masks. Layers. Alpha channels. I will get it to ALMOST work, but I can't reproduce my results because I can't remember what I did. The PSP manual doesn't explain it very well. Maybe there are tutorials on the 'net.

The instrument panel would look "SWEET", because it is designed and rendered with a RayTracer. Very photorealistic. I was going to put a logo somewhere on the corner of the dashboard.... I downloaded some cobra logos (google / image / search), the best ones are glinty metal ones from the Ford Motor Company.

I can imagemap that metal cobra into a logo... and use custom fonts.. so the hud image would have a circular logo... glinty silver and black metal cobra in the middle, silvery lettering around the edges at the top "Faulcon de Lacy" and at the bottom "Cobra Mk III".

EDIT: Nevermind, I just had a breakthrough. The Paint Shop Pro manual was making it out to be harder than it really is. I have it mastered now, it's simple.

[Lucidor]

Is there any Faulcon de Lacy logo?

If not, here are some suggestions:

[JeffBTX]

Well, what I had in mind is to put a little (not so little that you can't read it) circular logo on the instrument panel; maybe in the lower right corner. Sort of like a medallion. A black - and - chrome cobra would be in the middle... the interior of the circle / background is a kind of krinkled black metalflake, and then a shiny chrome-ish raised ring around that. The letters would curve around the ring (something that the raytracer can do). It would read Faulcon de Lacy along the edge of the top half, and Cobra Mk III along the bottom half.

I intend for the whole instrument panel to look like that... black metalflake, with chrome and copper molding and highlights. The displays and readout screens will be trimmed in dull chrome.

It will have a radar screen that is as large as it can be without obscuring text... this panel will be completely opaque. An "oversized" compass display. I've put quite a bit of thought into the layout.

[Lucidor]

Yes, that would be a good design for the cobra model logo, but I was thinking of the company logo.

[BlackKnight]

Mebbe the RealLife analog of Boing buying out Hughes, erm McDonnell Douglas Helicopters (or Brutish Waste-O'-Space asset-stripping sorry acquiring practically every other Britsh aircraft manufacturer) and then selling all their products as Boing "designs" (or BAe in the case of us here in Blighty)...

So I'd taken it as C&M designed the Cobby but then the Management and the Beancounters got their sticky fingers in the pie and managed to FUBAR the whole company (much like McDD), which left a bit of a mess for (Boing/FdL) to buy up cheap...

(Happens in other industries too, but I've personal experience in these two... )

(Boing/McDDH/Hughes Helis and Vickers/Hawker/BAe that is, not Fdl/C&M...)

[DaddyHoggy]

Mebbe the RealLife analog of Boing buying out Hughes, erm McDonnell Douglas Helicopters (or Brutish Waste-O'-Space asset-stripping sorry acquiring practically every other Britsh aircraft manufacturer) and then selling all their products as Boing "designs" (or BAe in the case of us here in Blighty)...

So I'd taken it as C&M designed the Cobby but then the Management and the Beancounters got their sticky fingers in the pie and managed to FUBAR the whole company (much like McDD), which left a bit of a mess for (Boing/FdL) to buy up cheap...

(Happens in other industries too, but I've personal experience in these two... )

(Boing/McDDH/Hughes Helis and Vickers/Hawker/BAe that is, not Fdl/C&M...)

It's far more complicated than that with BAE (they're no longer called BAe - the lower case e to indicate Aerospace rather than just Airways!), since many of the sub companies BAE has bought into i.e. Matra BAE Dynamics, BAE SYSTEMS, Airbus (now sold/selling), Royal Ordnance (so they could get the SA-80 order and then H&K when they got the order to fix the SA-80 that RO bodged under BAE cost cutting) - anyway because BAE's deal with it's European partners meant it was allowed to maintain the same percentage of ownership of the overall company, so if Matra bought another French company then BAE could buy one to keep the precentage the same, problem is, some of these sub-companies were already spin offs and part owned by some of these companies already owned by Matra and BAE either wholly or in part, it's really, really horrible and messy and while I worked for the MOD sometimes we had three different bits of BAE at the same meeting, vying for the same pot of money because each bit of the company must grow or bit cut off to whither and die. So whatever back story people what to create for FdL and C&M it won't be half as crazy as real life!!

[Cmd. Cheyd]

Actually, I always interpretted it as FdL being more of a high-end / specialty manufacturer that didn't have the necessary production facilities to do the job themselves. Or that they were using something that C&M produced and were heavily modifying it, kind of like Fischer does with Lotus. Either of these approaches would also explain why the Cobra Mk III is such a great all-around vessel of the originals.