[Mars]

Just because something is explained doesn't make it believable. I have to agree on both points actually. Watching one of your wingmen tear straight through the sentry field and corvette screen in Her Finest Hour with the AWACs/Auroras active looks absolutely ridiculous. I was able to say "well, ok, it's just a game", but suspension of disbelief failed for a moment there.

The Custos is slightly more believable because it basically handled like a fighter, or, well, like a Uriel with turrets. But then you go up against a destroyer, two gunships, and several squadrons of fighters and wreck them without really being threatened, and on a time limit. I suppose others had more difficulty than I did on this mission though. If soloing that kind of threat while outgunned isn't Alpha One syndrome, I don't know what is.

The gunships were transports with armor strapped on them, the destroyer was if anything supposed to be weaker than a FS1 era Orion. The squadrons of fighters were actually two wings, and they were civilian issue.

[General Battuta]

Just because something is explained doesn't make it believable. I have to agree on both points actually. Watching one of your wingmen tear straight through the sentry field and corvette screen in Her Finest Hour with the AWACs/Auroras active looks absolutely ridiculous. I was able to say "well, ok, it's just a game", but suspension of disbelief failed for a moment there.

Here are a few fun alternatives, though:

1) Your wingmen aren't guardianed, you lose the mission every time they die
2) Your wingmen get protected when their weapons subsystems are disabled; enemies magically stop shooting them
3) Your wingmen jump out when they're badly damaged; every line of wingman dialogue in the mission from then on needs to be treed, and the player can be forced into mission states where they have few available tools left

The Custos is slightly more believable because it basically handled like a fighter, or, well, like a Uriel with turrets. But then you go up against a destroyer, two gunships, and several squadrons of fighters and wreck them without really being threatened, and on a time limit. I suppose others had more difficulty than I did on this mission though. If soloing that kind of threat while outgunned isn't Alpha One syndrome, I don't know what is.

If taking on a fringe society's several-decade-old converted transport and light, obsolete fighter support in a top-of-the-line littoral combatant purpose-built for the mission feels like Alpha One Syndrome rather than Doing Your Job then I don't know what Alpha One Syndrome means any more.

[Aesaar]

Apparently, it's not plausible that a state-of-the-art black ops cruiser could kill a small group of antiquated civilian ships that have been refitted for combat by a faction that really isn't known for its combat capabilities.

Seriously, some of the most dangerous ships you face in that mission are Medusas, bombers which were getting on in years 50 years ago!

It's like complaining that an Independence-class LCS shouldn't be able to kick the crap out of old WW2 cargo ships and a few Fairey Swordfish.

[yomi]

well, to his defense, that destroyer could win 1v1 against karuna (fred-wise)
those missiles are really nasty

[Luis Dias]

Here are a few fun alternatives, though:

1) Your wingmen aren't guardianed, you lose the mission every time they die
2) Your wingmen get protected when their weapons subsystems are disabled; enemies magically stop shooting them
3) Your wingmen jump out when they're badly damaged; every line of wingman dialogue in the mission from then on needs to be treed, and the player can be forced into mission states where they have few available tools left

Yes, that is the honest way to put it. Halting the suspension of disbelief in HFH couldn't be avoided due to reaching the limits of the level's complexity. The only reason that it bothers somewhat is that most of the whole rest is pitch perfect, incredibly immersive. And so what in other campaigns would be taken as a given (yeah invulnerable wingmates ftw) here it appears as the limit of an incredible effort, as if to say "Ahh yeah they are invulnerable. So what? We are not FRED gods you know?"

[TheDemon]

Well, yeah. I'm ok with what was done for HFH. But when you play it, the end result is there is a large mechanical discrepancy between the your capabilities and the capabilities of your equally elite wingmen flying the exact same ships. For some people I'm sure that's jarring. Probably unavoidably so, but just because nothing could be done doesn't make it any less jarring.

I'll concede the point on the Custos, and add that soloing a mission in the style of Alpha One necessarily isn't a bad thing. We all enjoyed the FS and FS2 campaigns, didn't we?

[General Battuta]

For the design objectives set out in BP2 I think that it is definitely a bad thing.

[Gray113]

the end result is there is a large mechanical discrepancy between the your capabilities and the capabilities of your equally elite wingmen flying the exact same ships

3 pilots who have been working together for years and know their birds inside out. Naomi wasn't paired with 3 pilots who were equal to her abilities - I felt that these pilots were superior to her, hand picked by the Fedayeen to ensure that she succeeded in her mission.

[Aesaar]

One Future is no more an Alpha 1 mission than TBI is.

[Qent]

Eh, I thought my wing and I divided the work well in HFH. Sure, I ordered them into situations where I would expect an AI to get killed under normal circumstances, but I also wasn't expecting them to have the brains to snipe from out of range.

3 pilots who have been working together for years and know their birds inside out. Naomi wasn't paired with 3 pilots who were equal to her abilities - I felt that these pilots were superior to her, hand picked by the Fedayeen to ensure that she succeeded in her mission.

I thought the Dreamscape was supposed to let them share exactly that kind of experience with her.

[Gray113]

I thought the Dreamscape was supposed to let them share exactly that kind of experience with her

But could the dreamscape successfully transfer that all experience to a novice? Maybe the ability to properly share knowledge is something that take time to properly learn - something that the Federation does not have. Remember that there were secrets about the wingmen that Naomi did not learn until they were specifically told to her.

[Luis Dias]

Sure about that sharing business? Didn't notice it. Seems a lot Matrixey.

For the design objectives set out in BP2 I think that it is definitely a bad thing.

Don't take it so hard. It's obviously one mission for the HLP history books. As they say in teh internetz, an "instant classic". It can receive a punch here and there.

[Apollo]

well, to his defense, that destroyer could win 1v1 against karuna (fred-wise)
those missiles are really nasty

Yep. Despite being an unpredictable wreck, the Morena actually has a very heavy armament (by the standards of the UEF). If it wasn't for that reactor vulnerability fighting it would have been extremely difficult.

One Future is no more an Alpha 1 mission than TBI is.

It depends on your perspective. Logically, everything that happens in One Future makes sense, but it still feels like an Alpha 1 mission. TBI never felt like that.

[redsniper]

I died so much in One Future it never felt like Alpha 1 syndrome. I earned that victory.

Your welcome Kostadin, I totally could have just vaporized your asses.

[Apollo]

It felt like an Alpha 1 mission to me because I was able to save the world (and by extension the UEF) by taking down a well-armed destroyer, two gunships, and a pile of fighters, all without any allies aside from that transport that in no way provides any useful fire support.

Of course, the Custos-X's crew does not solely consist of Noemi and the transport ultimately ends up saving the day (unless you blow up the habitat), so it really isn't an Alpha 1 mission. But it still feels like one.

[Aesaar]

The Morena is by no means a well armed destroyer, the gunships will lose to a single Cretheus, and the fighters are so bad Sergei looks good flying a Ulysses (50 years old, remember).

[Klaustrophobia]

the macduff's mass drivers are nothing to cough at.  and if the gunships manage to get in relatively close while you're focused on something else, they will lay a hurtin' on you too.

[Qent]

Gray, Noemi isn't exactly a novice; she's new to the Fedayeen, but still one of the best pilots in the UEF. Maybe there are still secrets in the dreamscape because it would be useless to share them, or because someone doesn't want to share them.

Sure about that sharing business? Didn't notice it. Seems a lot Matrixey.

I think so:

I don't know how it works. I know what it's for. We share our skills, our fears, our suspicions - the things you can't speak. Gives our analysts data, gives the operators a chance to come home alive.

Welcome to the dreamscape, Laporte. Subconscious affiliation and resource pooling, courtesy of CASSANDRA.

The dreamscape is feeding skills, cognitive schema and personal understanding to every connected Fedayeen. We use it to share our most basic talents, things you can't teach.

[qwadtep]

the macduff's mass drivers are nothing to cough at.  and if the gunships manage to get in relatively close while you're focused on something else, they will lay a hurtin' on you too.

I assumed that the gunships hurt so much precisely because of their age: the Macduff's weapons are meant for fighting other, unshielded capital ships, but the cruisers are still using Great War-era blob turrets designed precisely to breach shields.

[Mars]

Could it be that the plot arc has Laporte gaining in her abilities and power (apex of the protagonist in the story) and so it could be mistaken as Alpha 1 syndrome?