Well, I have played this mod a lot over the weekend (dare not say how many times I replayed it) and it is quite interesting to say the least. Sometimes it can get very frustrating and the difficulty is a challenge. Here are some thoughts of mine:
- AA defense is a *****! I have not been this scared of beaning near capital ships since probably getting up close and personal with Serkr team in Blue Planet. Really makes you respect the huge bull-eyes. A perfect example is the sentry gun in stronghold (I hate that gun so much)
- Always keep on the move, If enemy fighters get a lock on you while your at zero thrust, your screwed cause you will not able to react quickly enough to save yourself.
- MOAR Catapults, If your going to make a squeal, please add them in again. Getting Launched into space and actually passing the mass driver weapons fire on your way to your destination in the mission "Forewarning" was awesome. Just makes me want scream "CAN WE DO AGAIN!"
- Loving the rapid fire primary weapons. Loving even more the auto-aim, helps us pilots that are more used to slower, less nimble targets.
- Just like Rodo, I had to hit F4 a lot to read the messages due to having to focus more in combat. I enjoyed the speed of the craft and didn't take to long to get a handle of the flight mechanics. (Gliding is so much fun!)
- Missiles, many different kinds of warheads to choose from and all are pretty effective. Expect for maybe the Virula, only really works on slow bombers and does not seem to work well on cap-ships. One of my favorite parts of fighter combat is when you and wing mates go head to head against a enemy squadron and everyone unloads their missiles at the same time, all the different coloured (that colored with a u cause I am Canadian) missile trails taking over the screen, combining and resulting in explosions. What can only be described as carpet bombing space puts a smile on my face. That reminds me, dual fire of Diamondbacks do a good job of that to.
- All fighters were enjoyable to fly, kind of wanted to be able to pick the Blizzard for more sorties. The Yukikaze Maze and Super Sylph are sexy machines, really want to fly them if their respected pilots will let you.
- Duke bombers, Pain in the ass! enough said.
- In the mission "The Defense" I had a hell of a time trying to save that Tempest Cruiser. Sometimes the darn thing gets wasted before I can even reach it. Had to restart the mission many times and try and get lucky.
- The Phoenix fighter, when should I be using which shield type? Cant wrap my head around the description in the Tech room.
- You sneaky bastard. Boy was I in for a surprise when I got a different version of chapter 2 with all new missions after I all ready beat the game several times before. (The new version where pirates steal your stuff) I am assuming you get this version if you ace the test at the beginning?
- Flying the Typhoon took a lot a trail and error, not being able to regenerate heath like the Altan Orde in Blue Planet makes you have to be mindful of what your plan of attack is. No charging in to only be ripped a part. Slowly but surely I was successful in commanding the ship, basically mashing the 4 Key for the megacrash.(awesome perk) Does putting more power to weapons increase the fire rate for all weapons or just the AA defenses?
- The Boss battle, OH MY GOD. It took forever for me to figure out what I suppose to do. It is not easy to maneuver a craft capable of over 200m/s in a area of about 500 meters in diameter with crazy ass weapons fire coming from every which direction. At one point I had the core down to 25% when the boss jumped out and this the first time I got that far, I was not happy to say the least.
Not satisfied with ended the mission with the boss getting away after losing count of how many times I died, I restarted the mission and got the SOB, VICTORY WILL BE MINE!
- On my latest play through, I was shocked to find that in the last mission, what was suppose to be my RE-LS Assault was replaced with a Vic Viper. I'm assuming this is because I took the HAF Phoenix instead of the GTF RE-LS when returning to Sol. Does this mean if I take the HAF Selkie next time I get another completely different super fighter?
- The music, I love it. It like the cherry on the top, flying at insane speeds, guns blazing, missiles everywhere and I truly mean everywhere with the music blaring blowin **** up! Its like a high your don't want to come down from. Favorite song is hard to choose but I will have go with the final mainhall, I can rock on with it all day and night! (I actually just converted all the songs from .ogg to .mp3 and put them on my IPod)
In the end, I die lots but kept coming back for more. Awesome mod, awesome FREDing, funny jokes in chapter 2 version B. Please make a sequel.
PS. may come back with more questions.