Confed fighter
F-44 Rapier II
The fighter on the 1990 box is the Rapier family, and the one you actually fly in that campaign is the F-44 Rapier II. Origin Aerospace, introduced 2654. An older CF-117 Rapier from 2536 is a different ship. A WCPedia length of 9 for that older frame conflicts with the other fighters, so I do not use it.
| Fact | Reading | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Size | 24 m, 13.5 t | 1 source (WCPedia) |
| Speed | 450 kps, afterburner 1300 kps | 1 source (WCPedia) |
| Guns | 2 MK.25 laser cannons, 2 MK.40F neutron guns | 1 source (WCPedia) |
| Missiles | 2 Dart DF, 2 Pilum FF, 1 Spiculum IR | 1 source (WCPedia) |
| Shields / armour | 8.0/7.5 fore/aft shields; 6.0/5.5 armour (early-game units, not cm-equivalent) | 1 source (WCPedia) |
| Blueprint | One of four 1990 box overlays used as copy protection | 1 source (WCPedia note) |
Why the shield number looks like a typo
8.0 fore and 7.5 aft is what the Rapier II infobox prints. The Longbow infobox prints 500 and calls it centimetres equivalent. I refuse to "fix" 8.0 into 80 or 800. The ship table keeps the raw figure and says so in the caption. Crew is one. The games are the 1990 original and Wing Commander II. Later Confed mediums (Hellcat, Thunderbolt) are different hulls with their own rows.
The copy-protection sheet
The original box shipped four fighter blueprints so the game could ask you a question the manual answered. The Scimitar master overlay is the one described as surviving in the archive note. The Rapier sheet belongs to that same set of four. I am not scanning it and I am not claiming a public-domain drawing. If you bought the 35th Anniversary Edition, the store extras include ship blueprints as digital references. That bundle is the legal place to look, not a random image search.
Questions people ask
Is the Rapier the ship on the box?
The box art is the Rapier family. The flyable 1990 type is the F-44 Rapier II, not the 2536 CF-117.
Where do I get the blueprint?
It was copy protection in the 1990 box. The 2026 edition lists blueprint extras. This page does not host a scan.
Sources
- WCPedia: F-44 Rapier II — checked 2026-11-08
- Steam app 1996640 — checked 2026-11-08