[Lepanto]

OK, started playing retail on Insane just 'cause. Usually play on Medium, made a brief sojourn into Hard before giving up.

Now, it really gives you the sense of danger and tactics that's missing from retail FS on Medium, and that's awesome.

But the early missions are thrashing me (no surprise there.) Survived Place of Chariots on 1% hull, killed by the Glorious and Impervious's fighter escort on The Romans Blunder after having my hull and wingmates torn apart by the last wave of transports.

Once you get in an enemy's gunsight, they're hard to shake, and you lose large chunks of health to their shots before/if you break away. Even blob turrets can be a threat now. "Target enemy fighter, shoot until dead, repeat" does not work anymore. Actually having to dogfight is hard. I try and approach attacking enemy fighters in a spiral pattern rather than make suicidal head-on passes, but still take damage before I can get in and dogfight. I try and keep ETS power to shields when possible, but I'm still really fragile. I have no clue how to dogfight zippy fighters (say, Lokis) in less agile fighters (say, Myrmidon.)

So, in sum, how does a perennial Medium player get good at Insane? Of course it won't be easy, but I'd like to know what the basics are and where to start.

[General Battuta]

Don't go head to head — make your merge on a spiral or oblique (like you're doing). The Rockeye is actually useful for forcing opponents to break off in a head-to-head.

Have an easy way to transfer gun power straight to shields. Have 'target my attacker' mapped (I think it's R by default). Mash Q during dogfights to keep your shields even.

Pack Tempests so you can make the most of close-range snapshots. You'll score your kills in very quick windows, so you need to be able to put out spikes of damage.

Always put defending ahead of attacking. If you're defending against two or three, you need to evade continuously, and if you get a chance to take a shot, jump on it and take it — but break defensive again within a couple seconds.

You can dodge basically any missile with a sharp turn and an afterburner pulse at the last second.

Don't go anywhere near antifighter beams without a plan to handle them. They will absolutely **** you up. Drag enemy fighters to friendly warships to absolutely **** them up.

Whenever you have wingmen, C-3-1 constantly. Just gang up all your wingmen on a single target at a time.

Remember that FreeSpace has a weird flight model in which corner velocity is (I'm pretty sure?) at speed 0 — that is, you corner best when moving slowly or not at all. Dogfights are a tradeoff between the protection of speed and the aggression of turning. I could be wrong about this, since it's all in muscle memory.

Another weird quirk: I'm mostly sure the AI evades more often when it's targeted. Against targets like Dragons, you can get more kills by chasing them without targeting them.

Post more pro skills if I remember them

[Klaustrophobia]

Does AI get better at dodging missiles with increased level?  I don't play insane, but if I did, I'd stick to sniping with missile boats whenever possible.  I've found it's the quickest way to rack up kills on the lower levels (since I got REALLY ****ty at dogfighting since my younger years with a different joystick and before that weird input change), and as long as it stays as effective it would seem to be the safest way to go about things.  Of course not all missions will let you do this.

[General Battuta]

It does, yeah. Seeking missiles are still effective but primaries/Tempests are probably the most reliable.

[niffiwan]

The 1st set of missions are the hardest missions on insane. The Romans Blunder is probably the hardest of the lot, due to the large profile Myrmidon taking on multiple agile Loki's.

The Rockeye has a longer range than AAA beams; use it to snipe them off from a safe distance.

Don't bother with setting ETS to shields, it'll recharge too slowly to help you in a dogfight, instead keep your speed up to help you evade.

Don't attempt to rack up a large kill count as a matter of pride, where appropriate let your wingmen & friendly warships do the killing for you.

[Fury]

How to get better? Play WiH on at least medium, preferably higher. After that, you can complete retail on Insane eyes closed.

[potterman28wxcv]

There was a really good guide on this forum, about how to dogfight very effectively in Freespace. The guide was even explaining you very technical terms and stuff. It's bookmarked on my other computer, when i come home I will link you to it.. I can't find it again

EDIT : here it is, thanks Google
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=63714.0

About the C-3-1 thing, I keep thinking that C-3-7 + C-3-9 can be more appropriated if you manage to time it right. That's at least what I'm doing in missions like The Romans Blunder : C-3-6 everything that is not a fighter, then C-3-7, closing up, and then C-3-9 when you're in around 2000 meters. Once the fighters are all destroyed, C-3-1 to each transport.

When you have the annoying AAA, just C-3-7 all the way until you have dragged the fighters out of firing range. Then turn, and C-3-9 once your team mates are all faced towards the enemy wave.

[Lepanto]

Thanks guys.

What sorcery is this? The Romans Blunder is the hardest mission in the game, and the ROCKEYE is really useful?

Insane will surely be a trial, but I'll take another crack at it.

P.S. FREDding-wise, how much do players want their campaigns balanced for Insane? I know the Insane elite (quite a few of the most active HLPers) would get a lot out of it, but it's undoubtedly a ton of extra work, if the FREDder can even test on Insane.

[General Battuta]

It's valuable to test on Insane (and Very Easy) because some damage variables change sharply between the difficulties. You can always make yourself invincible in order to test how everything else in the mission works on Insane.

[Phantom Hoover]

c-3-1 is a mug's game. shift+a-3 is the way I've learnt to do it.

How to get better? Play WiH on at least medium, preferably higher. After that, you can complete retail on Insane eyes closed.

Disagree, I got through WiH on Insane but quickly gave up on doing the same with retail.

Remember that FreeSpace has a weird flight model in which corner velocity is (I'm pretty sure?) at speed 0 — that is, you corner best when moving slowly or not at all. Dogfights are a tradeoff between the protection of speed and the aggression of turning. I could be wrong about this, since it's all in muscle memory.

I think you turn at the same rate regardless of speed, but the slower you're going the tighter your turning circle.

[Fury]

It's valuable to test on Insane (and Very Easy) because some damage variables change sharply between the difficulties. You can always make yourself invincible in order to test how everything else in the mission works on Insane.

I've long held the opinion that the only variables that should affect mission difficulty are those that directly affect the player, such as weapon and shield regen and damage taken. AI variables should stay static.

[General Battuta]

Yeah, that'd be ideal. Fury AI moves a long way in that direction!

[FrikgFeek]

The difference between WiH insane and retail insane is that in WiH if you screw up you're most likely dead but you can afford to lose most of your shields because there'll be a lot of chat before the next fighter wave.

In retail you're sometimes swarmed with huge masses of badly flown shivan fighters and you have to prioritize defence a lot simply because they'll slowly grind you down with numbers.

Also barrel rolls are OP and the AI will never hit you while you barrel roll if you have a decent roll rate. Just push roll and yaw in the same direction and the constantly changing velocity(the vector) will make the AI completely unable to hit you.

[Meneldil]

The annoying thing about Insane is that you can't really go and do things while people are shooting at you and survive, which means you should always know how many fighters are attacking you. In particular the difference between 1 and 2 is huge. Do what you can to keep this as low as possible: for example when moving in to engage a wing of fighters, ease off a bit on the afterburner key. Chances are you're better at using it than your wingmen are, but if you arrive first everybody is going to target you. When you don't have control over this, ie. a new enemy wing warps in is when you can get most screwed over by luck.

As for WiH, I think I also found it easier than retail on insane.* It's hard, but unlike retail you're always given appropriate tools for the job (eg. ships that aren't hercs), and support ship repairs can also help a lot by decoupling different parts of the mission.

* not that I managed either on every mission I don't think, but one day I too will have my aristeia

[Mongoose]

All of this makes me glad that I generally stay on Easy like a boss/sniveling coward.

[FrikgFeek]

*derogatory snark about how difficulties lower than insane are basically cheating*

[niffiwan]

*snarky rejoinder that games are about having fun*

[AdmiralRalwood]

Have an easy way to transfer gun power straight to shields.

Not sure if it's easier or harder than just mashing "Home" for anyone, but I feel like it's probably worth noting that voice recognition has a command for pumping maximum energy directly to a specific ETS system (e.g. "max shields").

Personally, I'm a perennial Medium player myself (also keyboard4lyfe). I've been thinking that maybe I should start giving Insane a try, but usually I'm only launching FSO to test something code-related, so Medium I will probably stay for the foreseeable future. Then again, threads like this kind of make me want to do an Insane playthrough!

[Fury]

* not that I managed either on every mission I don't think, but one day I too will have my aristeia

Aristeia will forever be a legend in my books. It was so much fun to play even in its earlier stages of development and the fun never stopped once it was finished. I'd say it was better than Delenda Est in terms of exhilarating combat.

What? You didn't expect me to judge missions by how many lines of fiction viewer, briefing, and dialogue it has, did you?

[X3N0-Life-Form]

How to get better? Play WiH on at least medium, preferably higher. After that, you can complete retail on Insane eyes closed.

Disagree, I got through WiH on Insane but quickly gave up on doing the same with retail.

Yeah, it's obvious that higher difficulty levels were taken into account when FREDing WiH, the same can't be said for retail. The Roman Blunder, Slaying Ravana, A Game of TAG and a few others get a huge difficulty spike when played on Insane.