Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: Mongoose on January 30, 2005, 12:19:13 am
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I know how cool the concept of single-handedly taking out a Sathanas's main beam cannons is, but to me, "Bearbaiting" is single-handedly the most frustrating mission of the FS2 main campaign. (Second would definitely be the first SOC mission, where you have to defend the Iceni and that science ship, and third would be the infamous Proving Grounds, featuring the Tiamat, everyone's favorite Moloch.) Let me just put it this way: I've just replayed that mission about 25 times in a row, and every time, either myself or my wingmen, or just the game's physics engine in general, has managed to completely **** up.
All right, so you have two wings of bombers and one wing of fighters at your disposal, plus a wing of reinforcements. That all seems well and good, until you realize that not a single one of these ships will do anything useful. Case in point: I ordered every single one of those ships to cover me and to ignore the Sathanas, and about 30 seconds later, I had two Basilisks bearing down on me. I have absolutely no idea where my wingmen were, but I know they weren't covering me. I've ordered all of them to destroy the two main flak guns that represent the secondary objective and prove to be such a royal pain in the *** while attempting to destroy the turrets, but lo and behold, neither one gets anywhere close to 50% integrity. Don't even bother telling them to attack a beam cannon; that ain't happening. In fact, all they're good for in that mission is as a preoccupation for the Shivan fighters, and when they get bored with them, they start coming after you.
Now let's look at the actual bombing run. You can't vary your loadout at all for some strange reason, so you can't carry more than 4 Helios torpedoes, making rearming during the course of a mission a necessity. For your actual bombing technique, you'll have to fly at a precise angle toward each wing, blast your afterburners, and release both Helios bombs at the precise moment. Otherwise, you'll end up at a turret with 5%, 15%, or my personal favorite, an astounding 55% integrity left over. (I'm not kidding, but during one attempt, both torpedoes completely missed the arm, leaving me with a fully healthy turret and no chance of victory.) The Helios torpedoes are the most powerful weapons in the game; no turret, however well-armored, should be able to withstand a pari of them going off within 30 meters of it. Plus, as I'd like to point out, the turrets are located at the thinnest point of those gigantic arms, which by any definition of engineering should be the weakest point on the whole vessel. Not in this mission, though.
Meanwhile, those aforementioned uber-flak guns are pounding away at your hull, wearing down your shields. Since full power to engines is a requisite for moving around fast enough, this quickly becomes a problem, especially if you're being attacked by fighters at the same time. Now suppose you did manage to destroy the beam with one salvo, or with a quick pair of trebuchets if you were lucky enough to get off with 5% left. Now, you have to turn around, haul *** away from the Sathanas while it's in motion, and position yourself for another run. Oh, did I mention the fact that the Helios's absurdly slow lock time, coupled with that flak, make it damn-near impossible to attain aspect lock? All right, so you have two cannons down; now you need to rearm in the midst of the flak, while being shot at by enemy fighters. Now you have to do the whole thing twice again, and by your last run, you'll literally have seconds to spare and absolutely no margin for error. Nothing like doing the first three turrets perfectly, only to have your Helioses **** up on the last one.
Oh, I left out the one mistake that's my favorite of all: forgetting to switch from the Helios to the Trebuchet after rearming or at the start of the mission. There's nothing like doing that perfect run-up toward the cannon, letting your payload go, only to see two dinky missiles impacting with the turret and taking it down 5%. Yeah, that'll just make my day so much more fulfilling.
All right, so you've managed to finally get all four turrets down. Now, all you have to do is manage to avoid the absolutely massive capital ship that's about to jump out right on top of you. You can forget about those flak turrets; you'd need another two minutes at least to take care of them, and that's with the help of your incompetent wingmates, God knows where they ran off to. (Unbelievably, my wingmates once managed to take down these turrets by themselves; I still have no idea how or why. Of course, managing to take advantage of such a gift, I promptly misfired my Helioses and ruined my chances for that attempt.) As for that back bonus beam turret, I've never even so much as seen it during the mission, and with the time required to move down the whole length of the largest ship in the game, the odds of getting that one approach infinity to one.
So, you've managed to destroy the beam turrets and dodge the Sathanas. You'd think that this would be the end of it. But no, now you have to protect a puny Sobek that chooses to go mano a mano with a newly-arrived Demon. You're now supposed to take out three turrets on the Demon (at least they aren't as well-armed as the uber-guns of the Sathanas), one of which begins firing at the Sobek as soon as it arrives. If you don't kill that turret within the time frame of its first three shots, there goes the Sobek, which does absolutely nothing in the realm of fighting back against the Demon. Oh, I forgot to mention: you're already damaged from fighting the Sathanas, and you'll need to rearm yet again before taking it on. Also, you only have a limited time frame to take out this Demon; don't get it done in time, and you automatically fail the mission. Just today, I got the thing down to 2%, then it jumped without warning; despite the fact that I could take it down with one shot in the next mission and that it would provide absolutely no threat against the Colossus, and also despite the fact that I had done a 4/4 on the Sathanas, the oh-so-wise Command declared this whole thing a "failure." High standards, anyone? Finally, provided you've managed to take out both the turrets and the Demon, make sure not to jump before taking out every remaining fighter. Somehow, leaving one damaged Basilisk behind also constitutes as a failure. Thanks a lot, Command.
As you can tell, this mission has pissed me off to no end, and I needed a way to blow off some steam. I'm sure there's more than one of you that will agree with me: this mission's design blows chunks. I think that's why the next mission, High Noon, where you get to sit back and watch the Big C blow the ever-lovin' crap out of the Sathanas, was made to be so easy: the [V] boys knew that we had all given ourselves coronaries after attempting the previous mission. Anyway, I hope this has provided something of an amusement, and if you're reading this anytime soon, I'll probably still be getting pissed off at this paragon of frustrating game moments.
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*nods in silent approval*
You're given disrupters for a reason though, you can carve several points off of each cannon during you're runs. You're real objective in that mission is to keep you're wingmen alive to help you with the Demon that jumps in. For some reason the AI has always had problems with even attacking a Sath. Best case scenario(and I only play on very easy) 3/5s of you're wingmen survive with 2 cannons down. When the mission starts tell you're wingmen to ignore the sath and engage the enemy(not cover, they'll go fo the sath), then kill 2 cannons(they are only really vulnerable from inside the "basket")and attack the third until you're warned that the Sath is engaging it's subspace drive, all the while making sure that you are near the bottom of the Sath. When the warning comes, order you're wingmen to form up and dive at full burners. Since all the Shivan fighters are ordered to attack you you're wingmen should be close and they'll mostly avoid the 3 billion ton behemoth that tries to run them over. After that, disable the demon and you 'win'.
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The wingmen are more or less usefull for the flack, as are missiles. Most of the time when i noticed a flak was still up the bombers i had assigned to destroy it are gettng pushed along by the sath right by the turrets pitifully trying to use their disruptors on them.
Anyways, i find that during this mission your best bet is to start with the near bottom bean, then the far bottom beam, then work on the top ones.
Most people (like me) realy wnat to complete all objectives for this mission and no ther, at every cost.
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I've taken them all out. Repeatedly. Got the flaks too, though that was something of a fluke. You have just enough time to do it all yourself. And if you go crazy with the afterburner, you don't have to divert power to engines...well, much.
My pet peeve with that mission is the support ship blithely cruising along through the Sathanas' flak fire and getting blown away before it can rearm me.
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I just want to clarify something: I have taken out all four beams in the past, plus the Demon. It's just that it took me about 50 restarts last time, and it looks like I'm well on my way there again. With the increased loading times required by the SCP, this gets to be even more annoying. My biggest pet peeve is how damned lucky you have to be with the angle at which you hit the things...if they delivered a one-shot kill 90% of the time instead of 50%, I'd feel much better about the whole thing.
P.S. Any comments on the other two missions I mentioned above, particularly the first SOC mission? I want to know how many other people have managed to keep that Faustus at around 5% or so, only to have it and the Iceni do their typical let's-collide-for-two-minutes-straight, resulting in the Faustus getting offed? There would also be times where the thing would suddenly drop about 40% for seemingly no reason; I always assumed a stray asteroid or two. The really complicated thing about that one is that you have absolutely no control over your wingmen. The next mission, "Love the Treason...", wasn't much better; I'd always want to save Snipes, even though it wasn't an objective, but he had a knack at getting himself killed. You'd think that, since he's in the game later on, that would be an objective, wouldn't you? :p
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I could've sworn Snipes' Herc II had ship-guardian on it...
For me, normally the Vasudan corvette gets the Hinton, or the asteroids do, way before the node. I did save it once, but I don't know how.
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Well although Bearbaiting was hard, and occasionally frustrating, I never had that much trouble with it. While I'm approaching the Sath, I fire off 5-6 Treb's in linked config, switch to Helios (linked too) and 'em fire off at the ship. If it doesn't kill is (sometimes it does, others doesn't) having all Alpha Destroy This subsystem works (they seemed alright to me). Target nxt turret and repeat. Take out as many as possible. When Demon arrives destroy the beam that is firing on the GVCv Thebes, when that is done, switch to the other beams....and just shoot it + rearm.
I know this all sounds rather simple, but if you get the timing right when you do the switch from Trebs to Torps, you can fire off the max ammount of missles before switching to the Helios'.
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The Hinton is really hard to save, but it doesn't count against you as long as you scan it. The Port includes a modified mission to give the Iceni and the Hinton separate waypoints so they don't collide.
The mission I find the most frustrating is Proving Grounds. Between saving the Oberon, killing the Tiamat, and getting the Aquitaine through above 50% hull (for the medal), it's basically impossible to accomplish two of the three, let alone all three. I'm so disgusted with that mission that I always switch to Very Easy so I can get through it as soon as possible. It's strange, because Proving Grounds and Argonautica are nearly the same mission (and were done by the same author) yet I consider Argonautica to be much more fun.
I actually don't find Bearbaiting all that frustrating. Hard, yes. Challenging, yes. But it's so much fun that I don't really mind it. I've actually gotten quite good at it, to the point that I can regularly get all 4 turrets, most of the time get the flak turrets, and very occasionally get the bonus turret.
There's a trick to each objective, of course. For the flak turrets, Delta is automatically ordered to attack them, and I send the rest of Alpha along to help them. I also fire some Trebuchets and Akheton shots at the flak cannons whenever I can to help them out. With Beta engaging the enemy, I can usually hold off the Shivans long enough to get the beam cannons.
The trick to destroying the beam cannons is to find the right spot to fire your bombs. You learn this by trial and error: you have to hit the beam cannons on the flat of the arm or directly in the concave valley. If you hit them on the edge or from the front they won't be damaged very much. Incidentally, the same is true for the flak cannons: you have to hit them from directly above or directly below - hitting them from the front doesn't do much. It's just how the model was made... you have to learn which attack paths work and which don't. Next time I play that mission I'll have to take some screenshots.
As for getting the bonus cannon, this is surprisingly easy under the right circumstances. If your wingmen manage to take out the flak cannons early on, then target the Sathanas, switch to the external view and swing around to the back, and toggle through its turrets until you're targeting the one just below the hangar. Order all your wingmen to destroy that turret. Given enough time, they can take out that turret easily.
Of course, this is all for FS2 retail. I haven't played the main campaign with FSO recently, and we haven't fixed all the balance issues yet, so you may find some other unexpected problems.
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:wtf: @ Mongoose
1) You aren't meant to take down all 4 beam turrets on the Sathanas. The mission requires you to get two of them to proceed. The others are there just as a challenge and to make the briefing seem more realistic. If you're not able to blow up all 4 turrets, the flak guns and the bonus objective then don't. FS2 frequently gives you mission objectives that can't be completed because that advances the plotline. A mission briefing which told you to blow up two turrets and then sit back and wait for the Sathanas to jump out wouldn't be realistic in the slightest.
2) I really don't think that Snipes can be killed. There are not just one but two events that make him invulnerable in the mission. It shouldn't be possible to get him below 30%
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Yet he can be killled. Happened to me several times. Mostl likely the infamous getting-shot-by-a-missile-that-does-more-than-30%-damage -per-unit bug.
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Could be but that make his dying a bug rather than an oversight of the mission designer. There shouldn't be an objective to look after Snipes because he should be able to look after himself. That said it would be easy to change that.
When he's at 47% or so the game makes him vulnerable again. Change that SEXP to a ship-guardian and he'll never get killed.
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I have no idea why people think that Bearbaiting is so unusually difficult. I've played that mission on Medium and always seem to get all four cannons, the flak turrets, and sometimes even the rear beam cannon with time to move.
I always start off by Trebbing the nearest cannon till I'm out of ammo, then launching off a pair of Helios at it to finish it off. As soon as my Trebs are empty, I call in support, which promptly rearms me as I take care of another turret. Another Helios, then another Treb. Repeat for the last two, then I go after the flak guns (which are surprisingly easy to kill) with a round of Trebs, then a Helios from above.
I usually direct Alpha to go after the rear cannon, and have Beta engage any targets, while to Gamma I give a disarm order.
Simple. The Beleth is even easier.
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Beleth: 2 Helios to Engines. Two trebs to beam cannons. Lots of trebs and Helios to hull.
Most annoying mission: As Lightning Fall(s?)
"S-- a---n Al--a 4 I-m --ving tr-bl- r-a-di-ng yo-."
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In that mission where you have to scan the Sathanas with the stealth. Anyone been able to kill one of the Sathanas's front beam cannons? After scaning everything one time, I tried. Got it down to around 39%, so I'm sure it can be done. But, then the thing jumps out and your a bug splat.
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Originally posted by Goober5000
The mission I find the most frustrating is Proving Grounds. Between saving the Oberon, killing the Tiamat, and getting the Aquitaine through above 50% hull (for the medal), it's basically impossible to accomplish two of the three, let alone all three. I'm so disgusted with that mission that I always switch to Very Easy so I can get through it as soon as possible. It's strange, because Proving Grounds and Argonautica are nearly the same mission (and were done by the same author) yet I consider Argonautica to be much more fun.
Funny that, I always figured Argonautica to be the harder mission. Not because it was impossible to defend the Aquitaine or anything, but I always kept getting killed in that one. Too much flying near the damn corvette with dragons on your tail. The Molocs AoE missiles are killers. In Proving Grounds you never had to get close to the corvette, unless you wanted that secondary objective.
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Ah, yes, I tend to die a lot in that one too... nasty bombers with Piranha missles. It's especially annoying near the end of the mission, because it's about 15 minutes long.
But I said it was more fun, not necessarily easier. :) Sure, if all you want to do is save the Aquitaine, you don't need to do much to pass Proving Grounds. But if you want to get the medal and destroy the corvette, it becomes a lot more frustrating.
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karajorma, I know I'm not required to destroy all four beam cannons, but the fact that it can be done requires me to do it that way. That's just me. :p I've never been able to get close to killing the flak guns, not to mention the rear turret, and since my wingmen have never done anything useful at all in that mission, I don't even bother to try.
I think that Liberator's suggestion, using the Akheton on the run to the turret, makes the most sense. I really don't get how some of you are able to use both Trebs and Helioses on one run. The Treb has that 5-second rearm time to deal with, and when you switch over to the Helios, you have to deal with that obscenely long lock-on time. I know that sometimes, even without Trebs, the flak bouncing me around has prevented the Helios from obtaining any lock on the beam, forcing me to restart the mission. (Why do bombs take so much longer to lock than missiles? It doesn't make any logical sense whatsoever. If it's the same technology, shouldn't it take the same amount of time, regardless of secondary?)
nuclear1, I have absolutely no idea how you find the time to do all of that. To me, that seems impossible in the 3:30 or so that you're given before the Sathanas jumps out. As it is, I'm usually killing or attempting to kill the last beam turret around 3:20. I only have time for one reload during that mission, so I have to make the most of it. I don't know; maybe my technique is just wrong.
Goober, I wish my wingmen were as efficient at killing enemy subsystems as yours seem to be. :p It's not that I disapprove of the mission concept itself; it's a very cool thing to do. I just know that I have never once had anything resembling fun in that mission. My usual run-through consists of me flying white-knuckled, praying that my Helios shots will actually take down the turrets in one shot. This usually ends up with me cursing and screaming at the monitor and pounding on my desk when things don't work out. :p
As for Snipes not getting killed, I must have bad luck. Even going back to retail, it was about one time in ten that he didn't get killed before the Erinyes jumped in. Most of the time, he was below 50% just from the initial wave of fighters that are sabotaged. The next wing of Hercs that jumped in often finished him off. The only strategy I have that works is to direct an order to Beta wing, which he is part of, to "Cover me." That way, he usually stays out of trouble. The rest of that mission usually gave me trouble; since both the transport and the AWACS are so weak, one wing of Hercs could just about decimate either one. It amazed me when I replayed that mission the other day and beat it on my first try. As for the previous mission, where you have to protect the Hinton, I did find that the Vasudan corvette does decide to attack it quite frequently, and if it doesn't, then the asteroids are sure to do a number on it. There's nothing to frustrate you, though, like the Iceni giving the death blow to it by ramming it. :p
As for "Proving Grounds," don't even get me started. :p I have never come close to killing the Tiamat; the Aquitaine has never been able to bring it below 15% for me. And, because of that absolutely inane "big-ship" flag on it, disabling it and keeping it there after the Aquitaine bugs out doesn't do any good, either. I'm usually content with managing to defend the Fenris and keeping the Aquitaine above 50% just to get the medal. Just the last time through, I used a trick that someone had suggested: using EMP missiles on the stealth fighters. It worked wonders; one direct hit, and the things were flying every which way. Whereas I usually just manage to keep the Fenris above 40%, this time, it stayed at an astounding 90%. That was definitely one of the better runs. Once the Shivans show up, however, everything goes right to hell. Right when they jump in, you have a wing of Maras at the front of the ship that seem to do a disproportionately large amout of damage; I've had them take the Aquitaine down to 85% by themselves. Are those things modified in some way? To add to that, the wing of bombers that waxes the Fenris soon turns at the Aquitaine, almost forcing you to hang back and take care of them. In the meantime, the Tiamat jumps in far ahead, forcing you to put all power to engines and haul *** back toward it. After you take care of its three beam cannons with Stilettos, you have to haul *** again back to the Aquitaine to take care of the bombers before it drops below 50%. I see absolutely no way that you can stay close enough to the Tiamat to let the Aquiataine destroy it and, at the same time, protect the Aquitaine from the bombers that do a huge number on it. You need at least two Alpha Ones in that mission, one to take care of the Tiamat and one to defend the Aquitaine. :p Of course, all you're given is two measly wingmen, as well as Epsilon wing should these wingmen die. My real question: why the hell doesn't Epsilon wing get launched as soon as the Shivans show up?
I've had my share of problems with "Argonautica" as well. Usually, if it isn't the Shivan bombers' cluster bomblets that get me, it's the explosion from the bombs themselves. How's that for frustrating? :p
I've never understood why so many people find "As Lightning Falls" so annoying. Sure, you have the EMP storm messing up your sensors, but all you have to do is follow the nav buoys and wax a few Shivan wings that are as disoriented as you are. After that, kill a few more Shivans, call in the transport, and you're done. Simple.
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I find most of the Barracuda missions tiresome. And as for Bearbaiting, how the hell do you have time to target the specific turrets ? Takes ages to cycle through 'em all. I can nail the 4 beam cannons but nothing else on the Sath.
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The rear turret can be taken out with 2 trebuchets IIRC, so can the Flak guns.
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Targeting the flak ones, at least, isn't too bad. When you start off flying toward the Sathanas, they're listed just a few after the main beam cannons. I think Goober posted a method above for targeting that rear turret.
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When you save the Hinton, which I've done several times, it's course intersects with the Iceni at the node with all the crashing you'd expect such an event to bring, it very rarely survives ramming the Iceni repeatedly to jump out. It actually quite funny to hear Snipes complain about losing the Hinton when there are no hostiles around.
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That SOC mission was actually easy for me, I just didn't do anything, as I didn't want command screaming at me for killing several Vasudans, I just destroyed the asteroids and then it jumped, I only restarted when Snipes got killed
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I made an image about this once (http://dynamic4.gamespy.com/~freespace/forums/attachment.php?s=&postid=480022)
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ROFLMAO
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Originally posted by Stunaep
Funny that, I always figured Argonautica to be the harder mission. Not because it was impossible to defend the Aquitaine or anything, but I always kept getting killed in that one. Too much flying near the damn corvette with dragons on your tail. The Molocs AoE missiles are killers. In Proving Grounds you never had to get close to the corvette, unless you wanted that secondary objective.
I tend to arm myself with Trebs and Tempests. They take care of bombers and Moloch's most annoying turrets rather fast.
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Oh, I swear at a lot of inanimate objects. :p
I did finally get the mission right today; I just had a lucky run of killing every turret on its first fly-by. In a previous attempt, I got greedy and tried to go for the flak, only to wind up plastered across half the galaxy by the Sathanas jumping out. :p As for the Beleth, I discovered that it's remarkably easy if you simply order all of your wingmen to destroy it; as long as you take down the one dangerous beam cannon quickly enough, the thing is toast in about a minute. What's unusual, though, is that if you don't take down all three main beam turrets (on either side at the front and on top) before the thing is destroyed, the secondary objective "Destroy Beleth beam cannons" doesn't get satisfied; wouldn't taking out the whole ship also entail killing its beam cannons? :p
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You dont fly at a precise angel, you fly AT the sath for best acuracy, another thing you leave the bombers to do their already assigned buisness and the fightewrs you tell to attack all enemys, but ignore sath.
Wait to call in reinforcements till the demon arrives and I have managed to destroy all but 1 beam cannon on several occasions.
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I always fired from inside the spokes. Where the flak cannon was shooting up my arse.
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The bottom ones you can kill form the sides, but not the top. The top ones i find are best killed from the inside and the top (so on top of 'the basket') When killing the top ones try to aim for the little red band that comes because the texture is so huge.
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I find that, if you destroy 2+ beam turrets on the Sath and then jump out before the Beleth and Thebes arrive, you can advance to the next mission with no mention of the Beleth.
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Here's something ironic:
I play out Bearbaiting and get ALL of the beam cannons on the Sathanas. The Sath never even fires a shot off at the Colossus (AAA fire at me, however, naturally). Somehow, despite the fact that nothing even gets within 3 kilometers of the ship, the Colouss is at 80% for the next command briefing.
What the hell did they do, run it through an asteroid field for the hell of it?!
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There's an event the sabotages the Colossus' hull strength I think. That's what I saw happen, anyways. I had it targeted, and right after the Sathanas blew up its hull integrity suddenly dropped for no apparent reason.
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That would be the debris
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"Well, well. Killer debris. Woulda liked to have seen that."
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Well, I just finished up the campaign again, and I have to say that, besides the always-awesome "Into the Lion's Den," I think that my two favorite missions are the last two, "Clash of the Titans II" and...well..."Really big sun 'splosion" :p. (I've never been able to remember that one's name, but I somehow think you know what I'm talking about. :p) In these two missions, more than ever before, you really get a sense of how overwhelming the Shivans are. When trying to protect the Bastion, the Shivans are throwing bomber wings at you left and right, all of them armed with Helioses. (And let me just say that those Nahemas are seriously fast.) By the end of that one, I had one Aeolus left at 11%, and the Bastion itself was all the way down to 5% by virtue of a last-second Helios. Then, the thing decides to start spinning around in the node itself in order to properly orient itself. :p I was relieved to get out of it with 92% hull integrity; at one time in the past, I ended it at 25%, and I had to replay it since I kept getting killed in the final mission. :p
That final mission, though, takes the cake for being overwhelmed. You've got 20 or so allied transports, freighters, medical ships, cruisers, corvettes, etc. at any given time that need protecting. The Shivans are simply throwing bomber wings at you, along with a few cruisers; at one point, they send in two Cains at once. Even before you here about the supernova, you're absolutely guaranteed to lose some escort ships. The best part about this mission is, no matter how many ships you lose, it doesn't matter. Hell, you yourself can die at the end, and you'll still get the ending cutscene. That's what makes this mission so great; you're not the all-powerful Alpha One here, you're just one lowly fighter being overwhelmed. You have to accept casualties; you have to live with the fact that you can't save every ship. This is especially true at the end, when you look out and see the 20 or so ships that have no hope of making it to the node in time. This mission, more than any other, really touches on the realities of fighting in a war.
One final note: if you're more than about 3000 meters away from that node when all hell breaks loose, you haven't got a prayer. Having played through it previously is a huge advantage, as you know about when to start your run on the node. As for your wingmen...ah, just leave 'em behind. :p
P.S. I know this has been discussed to death, but the mission "Their Finest Hour" has some serious design flaws. The allied "fleet" consists of two cruisers and one corvette, none of which have had "beam-free-all" applied to them. They're almost useless against the Shivan capital ships, which you and your wings have to take out almost single-handedly. The only way to get the Perseus/Boanerges reinforcements from the Colossus is to get Beta wing completely killed. As for the Big C itself, even though its engines show up as disabled, Command still yells at it to evacuate, and its captain refuses, even as the ship is decimated. Hate to tell you, buddy, but even if you had tried to jump, you wouldn't get very far. :p Another funny bit is that the Sathanas usually manages to cut off about half of the Colossus's last words; "Hurry up and die already!" :p
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Originally posted by Mongoose
One final note: if you're more than about 3000 meters away from that node when all hell breaks loose, you haven't got a prayer. Having played through it previously is a huge advantage, as you know about when to start your run on the node. As for your wingmen...ah, just leave 'em behind. :p
That reminds me of a hilarious moment that happened the last time I played the main campaign:
Command: "Capella has gone supernova! Repeat, Capella has gone supernova! You must get to the Vega node and engage your jump drives now!"
Wingman: "Disengaging now for repair!"
That's about the worst possible time to call in support. :p Not only that, but the poor support ship pilot gets nailed too. :p
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Wow... I'm suprised that this many people had trouble with bearbating... I can get everything done on easy every time, and occasionally on Hard. Never had much trouble.
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Originally posted by Mongoose
In these two missions, more than ever before, you really get a sense of how overwhelming the Shivans are.
With the exception of anything with Snipes in it my favourite comments in the game is in the Bastion Mission.
"We're hurting, sir. They've sent in every damn fighter and bomber in the Shivan armada!"
"What class of bombers, Beta?"
"Nephilum. Seraphim. Nahemas. You name it."
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Originally posted by kietotheworld
That would be the debris
I was between the Colossus and the Sathanas when the Sath blew. I was watching the Colossus because I was trying to get screenshots of it firing its beams.
No debris smacked into me (I would have died) and no debris went past me.
Examining the mission in FRED, though, I find no event. But I'm certain it wasn't debris...
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I think he was referring to his own hull integrity.
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I think a worse mission by far though is Proving Grounds:
You're in a crappy fighter, with crappy weapons, using a missile that does no damage, can't track, and is completely dumb, in the middle of a dense nebula, lightning going off around you, a single wingman, drunken gunners on the Warspite, and several dozen Shivan fighters and bombers advancing left and right.
I hate this mission with a passion. It's the single most pointless mission in the game. You're basically testing the prototype for a missile that 90% of players are never going to use again.
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All the Barracuda missions are crap. But I like "A Game of TAG" most out of the three of them because of the atmosphere. And Kappa 3. ;)
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By the end of that one, I had one Aeolus left at 11%, and the Bastion itself was all the way down to 5% by virtue of a last-second Helios
My favorite part about that is that any Aeolus that survives seems to show up in the next mission. A nice touch of continuity.
Command: "Capella has gone supernova! Repeat, Capella has gone supernova! You must get to the Vega node and engage your jump drives now!"
Wingman: "Disengaging now for repair!"
Pathological liar, maybe? ;) "Yeah, I would've stayed and beaten that sun, but I was out of ammo for my rockeyes."
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Originally posted by Mongoose
and...well..."Really big sun 'splosion" :p. (I've never been able to remember that one's name, but I somehow think you know what I'm talking about. :p)
It's called 'Apocalypse.'
My most hated missions are the Barracudas, and the twin 'Save the Aquitaine' missions.
I never understood why the capships didn't fire in 'Their Finest Hour.' It would have been so cool if beam-free-all was on our ships.
Fave mission- Into the Lion's Den (that's the one where you fly the Maras right?)
Bearbaiting isn't too bad (although I always play on Very Easy). I call in support straight away, so it follows me around and is quick to reload. Full burn towards each turret and let rip double helioses. Rinse and repeat. Occasionally one might go down to 13% or something, but I'm happy finishing with 3 turrets disabled.
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Originally posted by SuperCoolAl
Fave mission- Into the Lion's Den (that's the one where you fly the Maras right?)
I think it's fairly safe to say that for about 90% of us that's the favourite mission. :D
I'm yet to meet anyone who wouldn't put it in their top 5 :D
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Yeah, that 92% was referring to my integrity, not the Bastion's. :p
Goober, that scenario has to be one of the funniest I've heard in FS2. That just has to be worked into Deus Ex Machina 2. :p
High Max, when I said "overwhelming," I wasn't referring to a Battle-of-Endoresque fight. I was talking about in terms of fighting/mission events. In both missions, you're heavily outnumbered, and your wingmen get pretty pounded. Even more than that, though, is the fact that casualties among your escort ships aren't only acceptable, they're inevitable. You truly feel like you're taking the pounding of your life, and they're nothing you can do about it. The Shivans are winning; you're losing. And no, as far as I know, killing that bonus turret doesn't change the debriefing; it just garners you extra points. You could always extract the mission and check it in FRED, though.
Something funny about "A Game of TAG": on my most recent run through it, Kappa 3 survived! It was kind of funny; I was expecting Command's usual "This has been classified level Phi" spiel, but nope, I guess I can talk about it now. :p
I agree: those weapons-testing ones weren't the best overall. The first one, where you escort the AWACS ship and freighter, isn't so bad, but "A Game of TAG" is lacking, and "Proving Grounds" ranks up there as one of my least favorite. However, I'm with the overwhelming majority on "Into the Lion's Den." :D
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I actually liked "A Game of TAG". There's something cool about watching a Basilisk get buried under an avalanche of flak and triple-A beams when you TAG it...
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HUMM......urr.............right.
1. I've always found that the harder the setting on the Sathanas mission, the easier the turret mauling. Maybe it's my imagination, but your Helios rip a much bigger damage on harder levels of combat, so essentially, all you have to do is shoot the beams four times for them to die (double launch of course).
The way to get the fighters off your back is to c38 your wingmen a lot, and the way to get the flak off your ass is to Treb it (you don't start at 9000 for nothing) and for the other flak cannon, to have support on your ass at all times (it tries to dock with you, but you keep moving, so it's covering you.)
The Demon itself is easy, and you don't need wingmen for it. Again, since the damage values are higher, what you do is you kick it's beam cannons with your trebs, and then nuke it's engine with one salvo of well aimed Helios.
The pain of this mission is getting all those variables to work properly, but it's possible, and not _that_ hard.
2. The Hinton/Iceni mission. Urrrr......I'm sorry, what's so hard about that one? I mean I've never had the waypoints for them to collide (actually maybe I did, but I didn't care), but all you have to do in that mission is kill Sekhmet/Bakha first and Tauret second. I think you can take a ****load of tempests in that Herc1, and the guns on it are spectacular enough to take care of anything that strays (like them asteroids).
3. Tiamat one. Yeah I had a lot of grief with that one until I figured out the same thing as the first thing. Beams deal a lot greater damage on higher levels of difficulty (again, maybe my imagination, but I just found it to be true). All you have to do is make the Tiamat in your sensor range as soon as it jumps in, and take out it's two beam turrets when the fighter/bomber Shivan salvo is resting.
After that, you can try to keep close to it, but I just prioritise little ****ers and let Aquitaine do it's job (it always does).
Hurrrrrrrrm............yea.
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My least favourite missions are the deception/stealth ones, simply because I don't have the patience for it. I ended up skipping the FS1 mission where you are in the captured Shivan fighter because it was too bloody frustrating :(
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You can skip missions in FS1???
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He hacked the campaign in FRED.
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Originally posted by Flipside
My least favourite missions are the deception/stealth ones, simply because I don't have the patience for it. I ended up skipping the FS1 mission where you are in the captured Shivan fighter because it was too bloody frustrating :(
It's fine the first couple of times but then it gets frickin' tiresome.
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Originally posted by Flipside
My least favourite missions are the deception/stealth ones, simply because I don't have the patience for it. I ended up skipping the FS1 mission where you are in the captured Shivan fighter because it was too bloody frustrating :(
:wtf:
I never found that one difficult in the least. I always just send Alpha to disable the Dragon right off the bat, then let Beta do its job on the Shakti. This all on Medium at least.
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That's not the mission he means. It's the one after that.
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Originally posted by Flipside
My least favourite missions are the deception/stealth ones, simply because I don't have the patience for it. I ended up skipping the FS1 mission where you are in the captured Shivan fighter because it was too bloody frustrating :(
The trick for those are to use the keybinds, and map all targets to one key. Then whenever you're not scanning something, you just press that key and watch for numbers smaller than 500 or so (and shrinking).
You can usually exclude everything but fighters/sentry guns from that keybind, so the screen edges don't get too cluttered.
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I've never had any problems with "Playing Judas" myself. Whenever Command alerts me to an approaching fighter, I target the nearest hostile and simply pulse my burners in the opposite direction. I've never even bothered to figure out the patterns. This being said, I've never played at anything more difficult than "Easy," so it may be a different story on harder levels.
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I hated playing judas. Infact, my first post here was asking for help on it.
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Your first post was actually in Helios Vs. Harbinger.