Poll

Stealth missions, yes or no?

They're awesome in general
3 (15.8%)
They're only good if they innovate from the usual dodge-patrols model
9 (47.4%)
Kill them with fire
2 (10.5%)
Some nuanced combination of the above
5 (26.3%)

Total Members Voted: 19

Author Topic: Your Opinion on Stealth Missions?  (Read 8983 times)

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Re: Your Opinion on Stealth Missions?
Caught in a landslide,
No escape from reality.

Most, if not all stealth missions I recall were to sneak around, scan something, and nothing else...

What about being an artillery spotter and tagging ships while staying away from enemy patrols (and if they locate your stealth ship the mission ain't failed- it's only tagging along while being chased by over 9000 enemies), or some other mix of staying quiet while watching fireworks?

P.S. Just watched the drunk Rhapsody guy...

Physical violence is the least of my priorities.

Yeah, another common theme of ****ty stealth missions is that they make avoiding detection the primary challenge for the player, generally by requiring that the player move between some arbitrary thicket of patrols and putting you in a failstate when detected. I think that's why Nexus' stealth component was so reviled, despite it having a pretty decent set of mechanics for it.
The good Christian should beware of mathematicians, and all those who make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that the mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and to confine man in the bonds of Hell.

 

Offline Mongoose

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Re: Your Opinion on Stealth Missions?
The last stealth mission I played was (I think) from the Aeos Affair, and it involved flying several thousand meters out of my way to avoid most of the main mission area, and then getting extremely lucky while trying to dart between gaps in patrols.  Needless to say, it was an exercise in frustration.  Like a few people said earlier, I think any stealth mission that follows the retail model has a basic flaw in that FS's gameplay doesn't give you any tools to maintain stealth, other than flying away in a random direction from whatever gets near you.  And if you are discovered, it's usually either an instant mission fail, or else you have enough enemies descending on you that you'll probably wind up getting killed anyway.  (Oddly enough, though, I never had any trouble with "Playing Judas" itself: you can basically fly in a straight line and then sit still, and nothing comes very close to you.)  I think it's notable that FS2 chose to turn the concept on its head with "Proving Ground," instead of having you do the stealth thing yourself.  It is possible to make an interesting stealth mission, and a few campaigns have done them, but they usually involve thinking outside the box a bit in terms of design.

 

Offline Rheyah

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Re: Your Opinion on Stealth Missions?
I always thought about an asteroid type mission where you aren't in a stealth fighter but when you get within the distance of certain asteroids you automatically become stealthed.  You would obviously have the patrols, but the main restricting factor in stealth is that you have to have a stealth fighter which are invariably either incredibly overpowered or a pile or ****.

I liked how BP approached it where the stealth was the secondary element to the killing stuff.  However they suffered from having their stealth fighters be incredibly overpowered.  I'll be putting a stealth mission of sorts in my campaign so I'm keeping an eye on the ideas in this thread.  Was thinking something along the lines of being an artillery spotter for an incoming capital ship or cruiser to enable a piracy operation.
« Last Edit: July 30, 2013, 12:03:52 pm by Rheyah »

 
Re: Your Opinion on Stealth Missions?
I dislike stealth missions, but I love stealth fighters.

The problem is that it's easy to miss even one factor that causes enemy forces to be all like "excuse me wtf r u doin" and then kill you in the span of two seconds, because the "stealth" in "stealth fighter" clearly means "cannot withstand attack from space mosquitoes."

 

Offline Luis Dias

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Re: Your Opinion on Stealth Missions?
I think WiH act 3 did a damned good job at them.