[Alan Bolte]

Rework Mystery of the Trinity to be less dead space.  I haven't gone through with a stopwatch to figure out how much of that mission is following your wingman from waypoint to waypoint with no dialogue or combat, but it's a lot.  Also maybe unlock the ****ty armament you get stuck with.  **** Rockeyes.

As I recall, Mystery of the Trinity doesn't replay well, but I remember a very positive first impression many years ago. It feels lonely, in a somewhat tense and atmospheric way, and you're seeing the nebula for the first time.
*watches QuantumDelta's let's play*
There's a lot of sitting around while NPCs talk, but only 2 30-second stretches of complete dead air.

Rockeyes would be fine (as a weapon for just the first few missions) if two things were different:
1. If tempests weren't so amazing. Sure the Rockeye has better range and isn't a dumbfire rocket, but the DPS and cargo size can't be beat.
2. If later in the game you got a much better heat-seeker. The Rockeye is a little tricky to learn to use effectively, and there's just no payout for learning to use them, because you get much better weapons so soon.

I say fine, because in at least the first three missions it's perfectly alright to fight entirely with Subachs and just ignore missiles entirely. Learning to use heatseekers or dumbfire missiles is just a bonus. But then in mission 4 you get the intuitive and effective harpoons and it's like... why dogfight with anything else?

However, your specific point about Mystery of the Trinity is fair - you just got new weapons in the previous mission and now you can't use them? I figure they thought the Dragons weren't scary enough if you had harpoons, or something like that.

[PsychoLandlord]

Also you could beam free Psamtik in The Romans Blunder. It always seemsed silly to me that it take so long for her to finish NTC Glorious and NTC Impervious with just AAA Beams and turrets.

There's actually a reference to Hatties doing this exact thing in the Tech Room entry. So that's probably going to stay.

Their Finest Hour could use a bit of work though. While the Colossus definitely goes down in a better fashion than retail, that ships that are actually involved in the mission still just kinda wander around uselessly. I know the Sobek is supposed to be your TAG platform in that mission, but in my run it just turned around and burned in the opposite direction at mission start, meaning that's it's AAA beams were never in arc/out of range throughout most of the mission.  Also, the idea that none of these ships would fire anti-capital beams at an angry Lillith always kinda rubbed me the wrong way, and with them all just kinda flying in whichever direction they want, it results in one ship (in this case that Aeolus whose name I forget) getting speared in seconds because it's alone and nothing heavy puts fire on the Lillith. I suppose I could've tried to Stiletto the main gun off the thing before it fired, but sadly those TAGs that were never properly utilized were taking up that secondary slot.

Really though, that whole mission has always needed a rework, but I have no idea how in depth FS Blue is intended to get. 

[Riverstyx]

Was Shivan bomber AI changed for AOA?  Just curious, because I've noticed Nahemas going out of their way to get into dogfights with me a lot more often than I remember from older versions, especially in Universal Truth.

[General Battuta]

You can give orders to friendly warships in Finest Hour.

[PsychoLandlord]

You can give orders to friendly warships in Finest Hour.

Welp. So you can. That changes things a bit.

[Trivial Psychic]

However, your specific point about Mystery of the Trinity is fair - you just got new weapons in the previous mission and now you can't use them? I figure they thought the Dragons weren't scary enough if you had harpoons, or something like that.

I think that the Rockeyes should stay as the main seeking missile during that mission, considering that during "As Lightning Falls" you are recommended to use Rockeyes as opposed to aspect seekers because the nebular interference keeps playing hell with your systems and you can't keep anything targeted long enough to use aspect seekers.  As "Mystery Of The Trinity" is the first mission in the nebula, its only reasonable to assume that your fighter's systems haven't been adapted for use in the nebula, and not everybody knows how things will react.  Limiting seeker missiles to Rockeyes seems like a responsible precaution to unpredictable combat conditions.

[Phantom Hoover]

OK you seriously need to take the glide cap off the Ainsarii. There are a lot of places in Tenebra where you just need to cross large distances and pumping your afterburners to do so is obnoxious as hell. It was never even that overpowered, it's not like you did much dogfighting in the Ainsarii.

[General Battuta]

I'm torn. I agree with you on that. But I don't want to allow the degenerate dogfight kiting tactic.

[FrikgFeek]

Well, every other ship that needs to cross a large distance will end up pumping their burners in most cases. I guess you could rig afterburner acceleration and fuel values so that pumping your burners is less effective than just holding them down(like on the new Kulas). Some of the missions have been rebalanced to account for not being able to glide at full burner speed.

But I would agree that watching your screen shake every 2 seconds for a minute while you try to get somewhere is obnoxious as hell.

[Phantom Hoover]

I always switch to 3rd person when I have to look at shudder a lot, I find it very annoying. I really wish it hadn't been added to the UX.

[QuakeIV]

Maybe its just me, but it feels like the Kentauroi is a lot less durable now.