Author Topic: RELEASE - The Procyon Insurgency  (Read 289666 times)

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Offline Mikes

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Re: RELEASE - The Procyon Insurgency
I did beat that campaign 2 years ago and it deserves a sequel (I hope it has one someday), but I think someone should go back and balance the difficulty of those 2 Saturn missions. It would make a world of difference and boost the fun factor of the campaign even more. Actually, since I can use common sense to balance some things and did so with FoW, I could always save some changes in the missions and make it easier for me if all else fails when I play it again in the future, but I don't want to make it too easy either.

Mh... i'm not sure i'd agree.

Procyon Insurgency definitely had a few missions that were a tough nut to crack, but i have to say that i quite enjoyed cracking them.

If it gets too frustrating, one can always switch to "very easy" as a last resort, but i would really feel that making these missions easier as a default, would make this campaign less unique and hurt it's mood and atmosphere in the process. There's nothing wrong with the occasional "tough as nails" campaign. If anything, then variety in campaign concepts is a good thing in my eyes and certainly not all campaigns need to be built around blasting through every mission on first or at least 2nd try.

 

Offline General Battuta

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Re: RELEASE - The Procyon Insurgency
Mm...I'm in partial agreement with Mikes. I did feel that the Saturn missions got a bit tedious.

And I just don't like the mechanic of disarming capital ships from long range. It makes these enormous, romantic warships seem so toothless and helpless. They should be summoning friendly fighters from elsewhere in the system.

 

Offline Snail

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Re: RELEASE - The Procyon Insurgency
For me, the Saturn missions were fun.

What I did find tedious were the stealth missions.

 

Offline Sushi

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Re: RELEASE - The Procyon Insurgency
It's amazing the difference using those akhetons makes. :) Using them made the mission much more manageable (and, dare I say, lots of fun!).  I was actually able to keep my big slow bomber alive long enough to make it into the trench... and once in the trench, it's just a matter of having enough time to unload sufficient helioses to bring the Saturn down.

The second half was, as others have already reported, insanely easy in comparison. I just parked behind the engine and unloaded bombs for 10 minutes.

 

Offline eliex

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Re: RELEASE - The Procyon Insurgency
After the intensity stealth missions, the Saturn missions were quite dull in comparison IMO.

 

Offline Mikes

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Re: RELEASE - The Procyon Insurgency
After the intensity stealth missions, the Saturn missions were quite dull in comparison IMO.


It's the mix of stealth and storytelling that i found very well done, but i was certainly sweating more (and dying much more) during the bombing runs on the Saturn LOL ;)

 

Offline CP5670

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Re: RELEASE - The Procyon Insurgency
Quote
Procyon Insurgency definitely had a few missions that were a tough nut to crack, but i have to say that i quite enjoyed cracking them.

If it gets too frustrating, one can always switch to "very easy" as a last resort, but i would really feel that making these missions easier as a default, would make this campaign less unique and hurt it's mood and atmosphere in the process. There's nothing wrong with the occasional "tough as nails" campaign. If anything, then variety in campaign concepts is a good thing in my eyes and certainly not all campaigns need to be built around blasting through every mission on first or at least 2nd try.

Yes, this is something that I think gives PI a bit of a unique flavor. I haven't gotten around to playing some of the recent releases, but many other campaigns I played in the past were too easy to the point that they essentially became interactive stories, and you could pass most missions on one try without having to think much about how to approach them. The whole gameplay and tactical planning aspect of FS2 is something that I think was only well developed in the multiplayer missions, and I wanted to bring some of that into a singleplayer campaign.

As far as mission 15 goes, at least the base objective of 15 turrets is not too hard. There are various long range weapons you can use that let you sit outside most of the Saturn turrets' range (Akheton, Maxim, Trebuchets and Stilettos all work), so it's only the fighters that pose a threat.

Quote
And I just don't like the mechanic of disarming capital ships from long range. It makes these enormous, romantic warships seem so toothless and helpless. They should be summoning friendly fighters from elsewhere in the system.

I agree with this to some extent, and in that mission I tried to give the impression that you were creating chinks in its defenses without dealing any sort of crippling blow, as the ship was too big and powerful for that. Getting too close to the ship means a quick death, the main beams cannot be affected and you don't realistically have time to get more than 25 (out of 66) turrets before it leaves. In a sense, the relatively high difficulty also suits the situation.

 

Offline General Battuta

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Re: RELEASE - The Procyon Insurgency
I will say that the Saturn did have pretty decent fighter cover, but I can't help but think they would have been shooting some Trebs back at you.

 

Offline CP5670

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Re: RELEASE - The Procyon Insurgency
Back then, I couldn't figure out how to make the AI ships fire those. :p They don't use them at all by default, which was an issue that came up in several missions during development. Apparently removing the bomber+ flag fixes it, but I learned about that after the campaign's release and didn't want to mess up the mission balance at that stage.

 

Offline General Battuta

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Re: RELEASE - The Procyon Insurgency
Yeah, or you can use the good-secondary-time SEXP.

 

Offline Mongoose

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Re: RELEASE - The Procyon Insurgency
If those accursed fighters had started flinging Trebuchets at me as well, I would have given up on the whole damn thing. :p

 

Offline General Battuta

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Re: RELEASE - The Procyon Insurgency
They are really hard to dodge. People make fun of the AI for not dodging them, but, honestly, I'm not much more successful.

 

Offline CP5670

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Re: RELEASE - The Procyon Insurgency
If those accursed fighters had started flinging Trebuchets at me as well, I would have given up on the whole damn thing. :p

I would have liked to have them in a few of the earlier missions, not necessarily that one. (although your wingmen would do the same thing, which would have made them more useful against turrets)

They turn slowly and are quite easy to dodge in online TvT games, as long as you see them coming. The lock indicator beeps slowly for them and is sometimes not noticeable in a big fight.

 

Offline eliex

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Re: RELEASE - The Procyon Insurgency
It'd be nasty if the computer bots started to use the Trebs they're equipped with properly.  :nervous:

 

Offline Dilmah G

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Re: RELEASE - The Procyon Insurgency
Yeah, the real issue is the bomb flag they're given in the weapons tables, means they're only used against capships and the like. I've actually hardly seen them used against bombers. I'm not sure what the good-secondary-time sexp would do with it though.

 

Offline Goober5000

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Re: RELEASE - The Procyon Insurgency
Yeah, or you can use the good-secondary-time SEXP.
Or the AI profile flag.  (Does good-secondary-time actually work with Trebs?)

 

Offline Dilmah G

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Re: RELEASE - The Procyon Insurgency
Against transports and freighters, yes. I FRED-ed a mission a while back where a wing of Ares fighters assault a Shivan supply convoy, by default they didn't use their Trebs, but when given the sexp they poured them on. However with bombers I don't recall it being useful, but I'm probably wrong.

 

Offline General Battuta

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Re: RELEASE - The Procyon Insurgency
Well, you can select 'Trebuchet' under the good-secondary-time SEXP, and it certainly makes them fire their Trebuchets, but since I'm FREDding in the context of a mod, the Treb may have been altered.

I'll try it out with vanilla FS2.

 

Offline Dilmah G

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Re: RELEASE - The Procyon Insurgency
Yeah it fires for sure under the sexp, it's against bombers though that I'm not sure, too lazy atm to try it.

 

Offline blowfish

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Re: RELEASE - The Procyon Insurgency
good-secondary-time will allow them to be fired against any target specified by the SEXP.