[Stormy Fairweather]

Yeah... In FSport I am on "A failure to communicate," a hard mission made into a true nightmare if you go for the secondaries. After no less than twenty tries I actually managed to save all the escape pods (kinda tough since a stiff breeze takes them out) and after I FINALLY finished it... nothing. Yeah, nothing happened. Looked around here, and sure enough, a known, if rare, glitch.

So I really don't feel like going through that again, right after I had actually done it, I started looking for a way to 'recreate' the victory I had earned without being labelled a cheater, and the route I thought best was to make those escape pods actually take a couple hits. I found the ship template, and have an idea what I need to do, but all the data tables are wrapped up (I assume) in librabries or the .EXE, and I don't see anyway to directly modify its stats. Leastwise, not with my 'Turey' install.

So if someone could post a copy of the escape pod file used by the current FSport I can likely tweak it to do what I want, although I will certainly welcome an advice from those here with greater experience.

[The E]

In order to modify data, you have to extract it from the vp files first. There are several tools available for this, check this page for links.

You will also need to read up on ships.tbl, which is the place where all info about a ship class can be found.

However, that would not be the best way to fix this. Rather than editing the tbl, you should open the mission in FRED (after extracting it from the fsport vps), and make adjustments there.

[Macfie]

I've always been able to complete this.  The FreeSpace WIKI has a good walkthrough for most of these missions, you might want to look at that before you modify the mission.

http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/A_Failure_to_Communicate

[Stormy Fairweather]

Thanks Mac, but I had already completed it, it had simply taken me a great many tries to clear and then it glitched. And it wasn't just about clearing it, I had saved all the pods. I simply felt I had already earned my pass and did not want to redo it another 20 times. Thanks to E's post I was able to extract the ship data, give the escape pods 10x hp, finish the mission, again, and delete the modified ship data.

[General Battuta]

Wait until you hit Silent Threat Reborn's protect the pods sequence. 

[X3N0-Life-Form]

Wait until you hit Silent Threat Reborn's protect the pods sequence. 

The ones that (used to?) get insta-hornet-ed on insane difficulty ? 

[MatthTheGeek]

Happened on Medium already.

[IronBeer]

Wait until you hit Silent Threat Reborn's protect the pods sequence. 

Aaaaarrgh. And it's always like on the last wave of fighters, too! 

[Goober5000]

The ST:R mission is actually easier, because only one wing of fighters ever targets the pods.  In AFtC, three wings do, and one of them is a pair of Dragons.