[Goober5000]

I've been turning this over in my mind for a while, but was reminded recently while playing through the Port.  (In Evangelist, I had forgotten that there were no beams in FS1, and was surprised for a moment that nothing zapped me while I made my bombing run on the Eva.  The mission seemed ridiculously easy compared to what I had gotten used to.)  What's your opinion on the difficulty of Freespace missions in general - good, bad, easy, hard?

I thought the missions in FS1 were just the right level of difficulty, with an occasional good challenge here and there, but the missions in FS2 were generally harder than average.  The first time through the main FS2 campaign, I remember being incredibly frustrated at Slaying Ravana in particular, although now I can usually beat it the first time through.  (FYI: I got FS2 last year and FS1 the year before that.)  Exodus was another difficult one - there are so many things to keep track of at once.

But the mission that really gets my blood boiling is Proving Grounds - I think that's the absolute hardest mission Volition's put out.  First there's the virtually impossible task of protecting the Oberon, then you've got to protect the Aquitaine from bombers coming from all directions, and finally there's this nasty corvette that doesn't show up on sensors firing at everything.  And all this takes place in a nebula!

It's interesting to note that you get the OOG medal if you keep the Aquitaine above 50% (a feat in and of itself) but the game yells at you if the Tiamat isn't destroyed.  (As an aside, that bit about providing sensor support for the Aquitaine doesn't seem to make much sense.)

What is everybody's opinion on mission difficulty?  I know there are some people who really like a challenging mission, but to me playing through a mission 50 times just to beat it once is rather tedious.  (I prefer to hone my skills over time. )  I like a campaign with a good story that provides reasonably challenging missions (with perhaps a good challenge every now and then) rather than something like Aeos Affair.  I think FS1 succeeded just about perfectly in its difficulty balance.

And just because I'm curious: Is there anyone who's ever managed to complete everything in Proving Grounds (Oberon protected, Aquitaine above 50%, Tiamat destroyed) at Medium or above, without cheating?

[diamondgeezer]

I get the Order of Galatea, on medium, about 75% of the time. 'Tis easy to let it slip, though

[Knight Templar]

I'm not that great of a pilot ( I have to fly with a Sidewinder pad ) but I've gotton the Oberon, and the medal and the Tia a few times on medium, although I remember on hard, the Tia seems to stay alive, and of course you can't touch it.

I prefer challenging missions that you need to get good to play through as long as they ain't riduculously hard. By that I mean like Bearbaiting on Insane or something like that as a riduculous example.

[SKYNET-011]

And just because I'm curious: Is there anyone who's ever managed to complete everything in Proving Grounds (Oberon protected, Aquitaine above 50%, Tiamat destroyed) at Medium or above, without cheating?

I had the Tiamat under 7%...

Something that frustrated me was in the mission with the Demon destroyer, I had it down to 1% and it jumped out!

[Darkage]

I only destroyed the Tiamat once.

But the FS1 missions are too easy compared to the FS2 missions.

[Stunaep]

I agree with darkage.

as for Proving Grounds, I got the Oberon survived, Aquitaine above 50, but never got the Tiamat.

As for the hardest, Argonautica was the mission I was stuck on for weeks on my first time through. The bombers weren't as hard as was staying alive.

[Exarch]

Indeed, no fighter beams or flak really does make capships a lot less scary. Only ones that still command some respect in FS1 after having played the sequal are the ones that pack a good amount of shivan clusters for their size, like the Lilith... those are still deadly on harder difficulties.

Hardest mission for me is probably Bearbating. No fail, every time I play it my wingmen are dead in 30 seconds, leaving all the shivan fighters to concentrate on me while I'm trying to concentrate on taking out beams and flak. On harder difficulties I always miss one or two beams because I have to break off and kill a few fighters just to stay alive. And it's not like I could deal with fighters myself and let the other bombers take out the beams, cause it'd probably take a computer pilot 10 minutes and 8 helios's to kill each beam

[Darkage]

The mission Lions Den, was prety hard, when Snipes screamed *DIVE DIVE DIVE HIT YOUR BURNERS PILOT!* I followed that and engaged my burnes only to see that i ramed the sathanas and got laucnhed to oblivion:D When he started screaming i also jumped from my chair:D

[Exarch]

Lion's Den gets my vote as most scary, but not most difficult. First time after narrowly evading the Sathanas I had to pause the game and take 5 minutes to calm down (late night, lotsa caffeine, I nearly hit the ceiling), and the destroyer nearly ramming me in the node didn't help either

[CP5670]

But the FS1 missions are too easy compared to the FS2 missions.

That's what I thought as well. FS2 missions were generally a bit harder than FS1 missions, but the FS1 missions were a bit too easy, and I generally thought that the FS2 difficulty was more to my liking. There were some in FS2 that were kind of frustrating more than challenging (e.g. Bearbaiting, by far the hardest FS2 mission, which would have been so much easier if the AI's actually did anything), but one eventually got used to it.

[Darkage]

I noticed they where to easy when i replayed the campaign, no real chalange. All you need to do is hold the fire button and maby stear around but most of the time enemy fighters die just by thinking of them.

Yes beerbeating:p was a annoying mission i needed to do that 2/3 times before i made it to the next mission. But the most fun in FS2 is that you actualy need to pay attention at what you are doing if you are going after fighters instead of the bombers your screwed. But then again the fighters can also be a threat to a convoy or just a cruiser/crovette.

[pyro-manic]

Bearbaiting is nasty. I usually just knock off two beams right at the start, then leave the Sath alone and go after fighters. That way, you've still got some wingmen left to cover you while you vape the Demon.  You just disable that with a pair of bombs, then the mission's easy. Knock off it's LReds, and it just sits there and gets a pasting from the Sobek. Job done.

Proving Grounds: I save the Oberon most of the time, actually. Just find a Pegasus and follow it. Keep shooting it, and it'll never get a shot off.
As soon as the Tiamat appears, take out it's big beams, and the Aquitaine will sort it out pretty quick. Also, disabling it helps! Then just keep killing Nahemas 'til the Aquitaine jumps.

I think the FS1 missions are slightly too easy, to be honest. I have to play it on Hard or its too simple. FS2 is better for mission difficulty and variety, but has perhaps too many escort missions (I really hate those ). FS1 has a better end mission, though - the last FS2 mission is just a massacre, followed by a mad dash to the node before you die. Kind of a let-down, really, but I suppose it's the only sort of mission you could have, given the storyline.

[TopAce]

Originally posted by Darkage
I only destroyed the Tiamat once.

But the FS1 missions are too easy compared to the FS2 missions.

FS1 missions do not have flaks, and AAAs. These two weapons make FS2 hard.

[Stunaep]

I just started to play FS2 again, but with the fs2_open (the 3.5.1 runs fine with me, no loadout errors, no funny crashes. Yes I know it's weird.) and I really feel that beams should pierce shields. It's just wayyy too damn easy!

[Knight Templar]

Actually, I played into the Lions Den with the non Piercing shields... hella wierd. it'd seemed like it made it harder though, because before, You made more effort to avoid them, and they only hurt your hull while the shields deflected flak and lasers. Now your shields get stripped too fast and flak eats you alive.

[diamondgeezer]

Hard missions, eh? Just you wait until you play "The Angriest Angel"

[karajorma]

Originally posted by diamondgeezer
Hard missions, eh? Just you wait until you play "The Angriest Angel"

Somehow I knew that was coming

[hobnob1978]

Originally posted by pyro-manic
Bearbaiting is nasty. I usually just knock off two beams right at the start, then leave the Sath alone and go after fighters. That way, you've still got some wingmen left to cover you while you vape the Demon.  You just disable that with a pair of bombs, then the mission's easy. Knock off it's LReds, and it just sits there and gets a pasting from the Sobek. Job done.

At the beginning of bearbaiting (how good a pilot are you eh) try the following to get the fighters off your back and your wingmen alive.

1/full speed
2/Communication (order all wings to engage enemy then right after, target sathanas, order all wings to ignore target!)
3/Fire one dual treb at beam one selected. change to helios dual fire under arm slightly or they imact on surface and do not do enough damage.
4/afterburn to flakcannons at front of ship firing dual trebs and akheton gun. three trebs each and Ak fire will take both out.
5/afterburn towards next big beam arm and call in support.
nuke 2,3,4 as your wingmates "should" keep the enemy bust now that they are not suicdally attacking the Sathanas.

This way IS time critical. I think I ge about five seconds to spare before the " get out of the way message" but it works most of the time and leaves enough fighters to deal witht the demon easily.

Most scary moment?
"we are detecting a massive shockwave coming from the capella star. You must get to the node and activate your jumpdrives NOW!"


"ahhh Bolloks I`m dead!"

[Bobboau]

I thought FS1 missions were much harder than FS2, I remember when FS2 came out and I started, wow my weapons do damage, and in FS1 aiming is much more of a priority, this is just how it felt to me, maybe I had the dificulty settings diferent

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Bobboau
I thought FS1 missions were much harder than FS2, I remember when FS2 came out and I started, wow my weapons do damage, and in FS1 aiming is much more of a priority, this is just how it felt to me, maybe I had the dificulty settings diferent

I was beginning to feel that I was the only one who felt that way