[Lorric]

I have got through I believe 4 missions in both campaigns.

Mission 5 in the prologue campaign, this is the strategy I intend on using for my next attempt with some thoughts on how the level works.

Nav 1 - Hide inside Wellington. All ally fighters are invulnerable. Engaging just reduces my chances of success. Wellington IS vulnerable, but they can't scratch it.

Nav 2 - Play as normal.

Nav 3 - hide inside Wellington again and let allies clear fighters.

Nav 4 - participate in helping clear fighters. Hang around Wellington and shoot down capship missiles. Tried hiding and emerging to shoot missiles, but destroyer closes in point blank, so need to buy time.

Nav 5 - Thunderbolts become vulnerable, but your wing stays invulnerable. Hide inside Wellington until it starts being destroyed, then flee. I think at least two enemy fighters are scripted to chase me only, so don't stop fleeing (my undoing in my last attempt. Thought I was safe at about 120,000 away after removing my 2 pursuers, didn't notice the next two until they were on me.)

But this isn't gameplay. I've exploited the obvious invulnerability of teammates in the past too when straight play hasn't worked. My gameplay ability means nothing even at nav 5, as fighters just keep spawning, it makes more sense to flee than fight. It is illogical to fight in almost all parts of this mission. I was checking the names of the kilrathi fighters after my last death, and they were deep into the teens, there should be some reward for fighting and killing, instead of a reward for just hitting your burners and trying to stay alive or hiding inside the Wellington.

I've noticed Spoon about in this forum, and I've played his Wings of Dawn campaign. He too uses invulnerability on some of his characters, but there are very few places if any where you can use this as a crutch, once or twice I've exploited it against specific targets by ordering invulnerable people in to destroy or soften up certain targets, but overall, he's done a very good job of making it necessary and beneficial to fight on every stage. No eternal enemy spawns.

In this game, so far, every level who lives and who dies on your side has already been selected before the battle even begins. The only variable is your death and perhaps one objective that needs protecting.

My question is simple, are the early levels merely to set the tone, and will it open up to a more organic game where pilots that continue on in the story can die and eject and fights are "real", rather than "staged", or does this continue? Normal play is simply detrimental at all parts of this stage except Nav 2 and partially Nav 4. Engaging in combat simply decreases your chance of winning.

I don't want to just complain about a 10 year project, The game is a technical marvel, very easy on the eye, and the story is interesting enough for me to want to see what happens next despite this, and the Wing Commander feel has been captured beautifully, but the missions are so tightly scripted that it's really souring the experience for me. Wing Commander Prophecy and Wing Commander Standoff, two games with large battles, one official and one fanmade, both see all allies and enemies vulnerable. And sure, occasionally, this means your allies suck, leaving you to get swarmed and destroyed, but it doesn't ruin the gameplay. Will I get to see battles like those later?

Congratulations on the release.

EDIT: I mixed up my campaigns. Edited title and post accordingly. As this was the prologue, I guess I should expect less polish in that, but I've still seen the same kind of scripting at work in the main campaign so far, though nothing as drastic, so the question still stands.

[Alan Bolte]

I have to agree, ally invulnerability is so common that I come to rely on it, then find myself surprised when, for example, allied Sabres are killed while attacking what I thought was an easy target, and I'm left wondering if I was supposed to protect them or if that was just scripted that way. On the other hand, babysitting stupid AI wingmen can be immersion breaking too, and there's far less of that in Saga than in e.g. Blue Planet. I do have one AI complaint as well - I don't know if there's a variable to control this, but it seems like they do a very poor job of rationing their missiles. Two Javelins rapid-fired against a Darket is far too common a sight.

[Lorric]

I have to agree, ally invulnerability is so common that I come to rely on it, then find myself surprised when, for example, allied Sabres are killed while attacking what I thought was an easy target, and I'm left wondering if I was supposed to protect them or if that was just scripted that way. On the other hand, babysitting stupid AI wingmen can be immersion breaking too, and there's far less of that in Saga than in e.g. Blue Planet. I do have one AI complaint as well - I don't know if there's a variable to control this, but it seems like they do a very poor job of rationing their missiles. Two Javelins rapid-fired against a Darket is far too common a sight.

I wonder if they can even do anything about that when it's built on an engine where ships are used to just pumping missiles because they have banks with scores of them, and can even pick up more on the fly.

If the invulnerability continues into the game though, I don't like the sound of that. It takes away so many elements of real space combat. No point in teamwork and looking out for your wingmen if they're invulnerable.

[Tolwyn]

Your actions do matter. Mayhap you forgot, that the Prologue is nothing more but a tutorial, intended to introduce you to the game mechanics.

You should also keep in mind that every Wing Commander game used cut scenes to drive the story forward. We are (if we do not take 9 cutscenes into account) limited to in-game dialogue and scripted sequences to perform that function. You are more than welcome to come forward and suggest another way to flesh out characters' relationships and motivations, all while expanding the overall narrative.

[IceFire]

Most games are heavily scripted. The most obvious ones are the Call of Duty franchise but certainly Wing Commander has it's share of scripting as well. WC4 never had you worry about your wingmen. In WC3/4 your wingmen would "eject" and then magically appear... unless they were no longer important to the arc and didn't appear in any cutscenes at which point they were allowed to die. The WC Saga team did a fair bit to reprogram the FreeSpace engine to make it work in a Wing Commander like way... but programming a whole wingman management system running in behind was a little out of scope. FreeSpace had nameless recruits that lived or died and the rare NPC with a name was always invulnerable.

Ultimately you are playing through a story (I think an engaging one) so you're going to have to deal with events being scripted so that they work. Having a more fluid system is very difficult to achieve... see how much flak the Mass Effect 3 guys are getting for their branching story not being diverse enough. Saga isn't really out to duplicate or compete with that.

[Dragon]

On the other hand, "magic" ejections work just fine. I remember in-mission wingman management was much different from FS, though the AI was somewhat better (for instance, better colision avoidance). Also, m!m make a script to simulate ejections which most likely would have worked in WCS (in fact, I'm going to try modding it in once SDK comes out). So, it's not like wingmen can't eject. You can't tractor them in, sure (a feature I hoped to see in WCS), but in most cases, there's time for them to be picked up, except a couple of missions, in which case invulnerability would have been more acceptable. In WC2, we see SAR team as made up of two Sabres. In WC3 they'd most likely be either Longbows or Tbolts, but the idea is the same. Another thing I hoped to see (and which can be FREDed) are ejections for the player.

[Lorric]

Your actions do matter. Mayhap you forgot, that the Prologue is nothing more but a tutorial, intended to introduce you to the game mechanics.

You should also keep in mind that every Wing Commander game used cut scenes to drive the story forward. We are (if we do not take 9 cutscenes into account) limited to in-game dialogue and scripted sequences to perform that function. You are more than welcome to come forward and suggest another way to flesh out characters' relationships and motivations, all while expanding the overall narrative.

I probably need to get further into the main campaign to see how I feel, since this specific mission was a prologue mission, and it's still early, but I was asking if it continued like this.

I did however begin to ponder things like this. How it could be done, and forgive me if any or all of these concepts are actually used, or for some reason wouldn't work, remember I'm only onto the 5th mission I believe in the main campaign (mission 5 both campaigns.) So ideas...

1. Talking from ejector pods. This would mean you could remove invulnerability at the last nav in any battles where the Kilrathi wouldn't be on hand to scoop up/shoot up the pods when it was over.

2. Remove invulnerability on those who have spoken their last line of the mission.

3. Have people who need to talk already be engaged at a later nav. So you could potentially show up all alone, yet still get your dialogue, and they'd be healthy enough to say it without a need for invulnerability. Or they could enjoy temporary invulnerability. People could also be talking from different parts of space that aren't even involved in your battle, I've seen this one before.

4. I think the easiest way though is how Spoon did it, since I mentioned him. He might have a couple people invulnerable on a level, but they'd be part of a much larger force, so you'd have to do your job to achieve victory anyway keeping the many vulnerable alive by performing well.

5. The speakers are the mission objective. This means the player isn't going to pass the level without hearing the dialogue. Of course this would be of limited use. You wouldn't feel very positive about the main characters if you had to keep them alive every mission!



Anyway, I think I'm just afraid of flying around with a bunch of people who are all/nearly all invulnerable. 1 or 2 guys among say 8-12 is perfectly fine. But not the whole force, or most of it.

[Lorric]

On the other hand, "magic" ejections work just fine. I remember in-mission wingman management was much different from FS, though the AI was somewhat better (for instance, better colision avoidance). Also, m!m make a script to simulate ejections which most likely would have worked in WCS (in fact, I'm going to try modding it in once SDK comes out). So, it's not like wingmen can't eject. You can't tractor them in, sure (a feature I hoped to see in WCS), but in most cases, there's time for them to be picked up, except a couple of missions, in which case invulnerability would have been more acceptable. In WC2, we see SAR team as made up of two Sabres. In WC3 they'd most likely be either Longbows or Tbolts, but the idea is the same. Another thing I hoped to see (and which can be FREDed) are ejections for the player.

Yes, maybe you could just pretend they ejected, doesn't matter if there isn't a pod floating around.

Maybe it could also be accepted practice that all ejected pods are scooped up before moving onto the next nav, so downed pilots could even be moved to a new nav and still talk because they'd still be around in their pods.

[Dragon]

The problem with 4 are the numbers Wing Commander operates on. 4 fighters are the normal amount, anything more is a special occasion.
As for the pods, they're not terribly hard to make. Just make them a part of the debris, or use m!m's script. Every Wing Commander since WC2 had ejection pods.

[Lorric]

The problem with 4 are the numbers Wing Commander operates on. 4 fighters are the normal amount, anything more is a special occasion.
As for the pods, they're not terribly hard to make. Just make them a part of the debris, or use m!m's script. Every Wing Commander since WC2 had ejection pods.

If you mean my fourth point, won't the battles be larger in this game though, and any subsequent fan projects? Wing Commander games up to WC4 were limited by the technology. When Wing Commander prophecy came along, boom, bigger forces. And the fanmade Standoff set also in the kilrathi time period had larger battles. Sure, you can still have your classic patrol missions and skirmishes, but I would have thought the biggest draw to making Saga would have been being able to stage larger conflicts.

I don't know if you played Spoon's Wings of Dawn, but we were only talking like 8 or 12 fighters or less on a lot of levels, it was unusual for larger battles to occur, though they were there too, and I understand saga has some of those if the trailer is anything to go by.

[Dragon]

Well, you should have figured out that I've played WoD, considering I have it's badge under my nickname. As a beta tester, I've played it since it had 7 missions and half the ship list it has now.
Sure, WCS has a couple of huge, awesome battles. As many as 24 fighters on your side, the entire Kilrathi CBG on the other. And of course, you're bombing the "C" in CBG. But that's only a few missions. Most of the missions you'll be flying will be patrols, where there are 4 or even 2 fighters on your side, and the enemy numbers are twice that, at most. Plus an occasional corvette. WCP had bigger numbers, though mostly on the enemy side (due to how Nephilim worked), yours were still about 4 during patrols.

[Lorric]

Well, you should have figured out that I've played WoD, considering I have it's badge under my nickname. As a beta tester, I've played it since it had 7 missions and half the ship list it has now.
Sure, WCS has a couple of huge, awesome battles. As many as 24 fighters on your side, the entire Kilrathi CBG on the other. And of course, you're bombing the "C" in CBG. But that's only a few missions. Most of the missions you'll be flying will be patrols, where there are 4 or even 2 fighters on your side, and the enemy numbers are twice that, at most. Plus an occasional corvette. WCP had bigger numbers, though mostly on the enemy side (due to how Nephilim worked), yours were still about 4 during patrols.

Are the ones on your side usually invulnerable?

Do those badges just mean you've played the game/approve of the game, or something more?

I wonder why Wings of Dawn is the only badge I can't press?

[Dragon]

Badges indicate team membership. It means one has an access to internal forum. A person with the project's badge is at least a tester for the mod, but usually a dev. You can't press the WoD badge, because WoD has no website (it could use one though). It's strange that you haven't figured that out.

In large battles, about 50% of the figters are invulnerable, due to them belonging to named characters. By the aforementioned mission, you've flown with more than a quarter of the Hermes' (surviving) fighter wing.

[Lorric]

Badges indicate team membership. It means one has an access to internal forum. A person with the project's badge is at least a tester for the mod, but usually a dev. You can't press the WoD badge, because WoD has no website (it could use one though). It's strange that you haven't figured that out.

In large battles, about 50% of the figters are invulnerable, due to them belonging to named characters. By the aforementioned mission, you've flown with more than a quarter of the Hermes' (surviving) fighter wing.

I've paid little attention to the badges and haven't been around very long.

Ehhh, I guess it just won't feel right, all these guys that are invulnerable...

[Dragon]

You don't notice it, really. A fair amount of friendly fighters is shot down in that mission, and the fighting is really, really intense. You'll get to that mission and you'll see.

[Lorric]

You don't notice it, really. A fair amount of friendly fighters is shot down in that mission, and the fighting is really, really intense. You'll get to that mission and you'll see.

Well, I meant the game as a whole. Especially if I end up flying around with small packs of invulnerable wingmen. Go on a patrol and the only person who can die is me...

[Dragon]

On patrols, they rarely end up badly shot up. So do you, for that matter, if you're any good that is. Usually, approaching capships and defending things are the main problems. Dogfights are easy, until you start running into Sorthaks, Strakhas and packs of Vaktoths. Then they become somewhat more challenging, but not too much if you're good with shield management and know how to tackle those. Wingmen are actually pretty good at both surviving and stealing your kills. Just don't focus too much on the fact you know they can't die, and you'll be fine.

[Lorric]

On patrols, they rarely end up badly shot up. So do you, for that matter, if you're any good that is. Usually, approaching capships and defending things are the main problems. Dogfights are easy, until you start running into Sorthaks, Strakhas and packs of Vaktoths. Then they become somewhat more challenging, but not too much if you're good with shield management and know how to tackle those. Wingmen are actually pretty good at both surviving and stealing your kills. Just don't focus too much on the fact you know they can't die, and you'll be fine.

I'd rather they survive because they're good. I also noticed, in the mission I talk about in the OP, none of the invulnerable ones drop to the red, I think to give an illusion of competance, and vulnerability. It's pretty see-through though when you see one with all 4 shield quadrants out and getting pounded and taking no damage. So you may be seeing this illusion on other levels too. Though I didn't need that to question it when I was playing normally, lighting up the sky with exploding ships before being finally taken down by the endless spawns, and my wingmen hardly have a scratch while they're flying around near the cruisers getting shot up.

I would not be surprised to see this high % limit in play in other missions. I've never cared about kills in games like this, something which seems pretty rare. I'd be more inclined to go save an AI ally and break off chasing a low health enemy than try to get the kill first. I'd enjoy making the save more than the kill. I'm quite happy to win a level with 0 kills. If anything, I quite like it if my AI allies are notching up the kills, though I certainly have just as much fun ripping enemies apart as the next person.

Maybe I've inadvertantly stumbled across a big reason for my dislike of this invulnerability thing. There's no accomplishment in bringing home a wing of invulnerable allies.

EDIT: I can think of a drastic way to possibly allow story flow and complete vulnerability, but it would have an immersion breaking effect. Full health restored to all allies between navs. Even if someone's ship was taken out. Not sure whether this would be applied to the player or not. Obviously not if the player's ship went boom. Like i said, it would kind of ruin the effect, but gameplay would get a boost. It would facilitate taking on these groups of Kilrathi at the navs, without needing to carry your wingmen through the battle with invulnerability for them to keep up. They could die at all the navs and still make it to the end of a mission. And you'd need to try and keep them alive despite all that at the navs, or you'd lose without the previously invulnerable wingmen.

[General Battuta]

Hey Lorric as someone who has experimented with having ejected wingmen and branching dialogue based on how many wingmen are in ships vs. in pods, let me tell you it's a huge pain in the ass and would've had the WCS guys FREDding for another five years.

e: And since this seems to be the only thing you care about, Spoon thinks my missions are great and that I'm not a ****ty FREDder

[Lorric]

Hey Lorric as someone who has experimented with having ejected wingmen and branching dialogue based on how many wingmen are in ships vs. in pods, let me tell you it's a huge pain in the ass and would've had the WCS guys FREDding for another five years.

e: And since this seems to be the only thing you care about, Spoon thinks my missions are great and that I'm not a ****ty FREDder

Oh don't worry, I can fully imagine it. I wouldn't want them to have to put all those triggers in to silence the dialogue of people who are out of the action. So I was looking for a workaround. More for my own amusement really wondering how I'd try to get around it than wanting the Saga team to change it. If they did, they'd have to rebalance the entire game. Not going to happen.

Obviously, the jumping to navs presents a problem, but is an integral part of Wing Commander gameplay. At least if the combat took place all in one place, people could carry on talking from in their pod.

I never expected the thread to mushroom like this, I just asked a simple question in the beginning.

And I never said anyone was bad at FRED either. I imagine these missions were very difficult to craft and painstaking too with all that dialogue.