Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: jkalltheway on December 20, 2009, 04:11:17 am
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so i'm still on the last level of the FS2 campaign. i beat it in normal mode, so now i'm giving it a shot one level higher. I'm finding it extremely difficult, the wing of dragons usually wipe out all of my wingmates and then i engage with 3+ dragons in a dogfight where we circle each other endlessly until they manage to whittle my life down to nothing.
Any tips guys?
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1st : Don't attack the dragons unless you have to. They may be extremely maneuverable, their weaponry is light so you can afford letting them fire on you for a while.
2nd : Keep your secondaries for them. Not that it's impossible to dogfight Dragons on Hard (I do it myself without that much difficulties) but it is long and taking them down with a Trebuchet or a couple of Harpoon is much quicker.
3rd : The last mission isn't the easiest, maybe you should redo the whole campaign in Hard to earn some dogfighting experience in Hard difficulty.
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2nd : Keep your secondaries for them. Not that it's impossible to dogfight Dragons on Hard (I do it myself without that much difficulties) but it is long and taking them down with a Trebuchet or a couple of Harpoon is much quicker.
Not to mention that it is extremely satisfying to kill the little bastards from beyond their effective range.
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Also, hitting the Z Key while using Match Speed will allow you to decelerate while in a dogfight, use this to your advantage. When you dogfight Dragons, try not to be too close to them, especially when you're in a fairly potato-like aircraft *cough* Ares! *cough*. Let him overshoot you, and use the Z key to decelerate behind him so you can get a few shots in on him with the UD-8. Once you practice it, you can get some nice, easy kills.
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The issue is, the dragons i think pretty much go straight for my wingmates, and after wiping them out they turn on me. I usually don't use trebuchets to take them out though, i think they just dodge them. And it has been a while since i've been able to play FS2, i finally got a working mouse, maybe i should practice a little more. Using a Hercules MkII in that mission too, so all i've got is trebuchets and those freefire missiles. Forget what they're called. And even though they don't do that much damage, when theres four of em on your tail, they whittle away quite quickly. Your tips do help though.
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Actually, the AI is pretty bad at dodging Trebs, at least in my experience.
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I've found that fighters, especially Dragons and other maneuverable ones, have a lot harder time dodging Trebs when you fire them from longer range. The missile has plenty of time to maneuver itself for a hit. If you fire from shortrange, the enemy ship just has to move a bit to dodge.
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Oh wow. I should try that.
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If you must get close up and personal, firepower en-masse is the way to go. The Erinyes with 4-8 Kaysers (given that you're a good shot) will waste Dragons wonderfully, while the Herc 2 with a bank of 400 Tempests will rape anything that gets in your crosshairs. Mate that with PromS or a bank of Kaysers and you're set.
Just as a note, the Eri and the Herc 2 are in many ways the same. The Eri handles exactly the same as the Herc 2 but travels 10m/s faster and has far inferior secondary capacity. I also find that the AI has a bad habit of dying with the Eri...
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I've found that fighters, especially Dragons and other maneuverable ones, have a lot harder time dodging Trebs when you fire them from longer range. The missile has plenty of time to maneuver itself for a hit. If you fire from shortrange, the enemy ship just has to move a bit to dodge.
Strange, since one of my preferred tactics to deal with dragons in FS1 is to stalk them from behind, and at the last possible second, press the afterburners and fire a dual Phoenix V shot. But that's not the best idea if you are playing on medium, hard or insane, since most of the times you get caught in the blast at such a short distance, and it kills. And maybe trebs are different.
In FS2 (tested in blueplanet), I've found rockeyes (yes, rockeyes) to be quite effective against dragons at middle range. But they are really a burden to carry. I'll test it again now, just to be sure.
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Well, honestly, firing off dual trebs/Phoenix V's at point blank range is accurate as well. On Hard, I find it easier to fire missiles from longer range (but not at the back of the enemy ship) than to stalk them for long enough to fire point blank shots.
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What a coincidence, I was just playing that very same mission an hour ago, I had no trouble with the Dragons, maybe because I was around the Lemnos at the time, that corvette's flak worked like charm on them, and I had a full bank of tornadoes to unload.
Also, on a side note, for the first time I managed to save the Nebtuu and I got nothing from command :(
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What i ended up trying, was running straight to the corvette and taking them out from the safety of the Corvettes flak guns. However, this made me mad when my wingmates would pursue the dragons and themselves get destroyed by the corvettes flak >.>
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In FS2 (tested in blueplanet), I've found rockeyes (yes, rockeyes) to be quite effective against dragons at middle range. But they are really a burden to carry. I'll test it again now, just to be sure.
Bah, forget it! Just tested again on insane on a 1v1 duel with a dragon and it is not effective. I guess trying such a tactic against a full wing could only make them laugh to death.
Well, honestly, firing off dual trebs/Phoenix V's at point blank range is accurate as well. On Hard, I find it easier to fire missiles from longer range (but not at the back of the enemy ship) than to stalk them for long enough to fire point blank shots.
I know, but the first time i tried that I was really frustrated with the dragons in "a failure to communicate".
As a side note, I find that mission much easier in the port, or perhaps now I suck less.
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FS2 missiles tend to track a bit better than the FS1 ones IIRC.
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FS2 missiles tend to track a bit better than the FS1 ones IIRC.
Aye. I haven't used any missiles besides the Fury back in FS1, however in Port I've found things like the Phoenix or Interceptor quite useful.
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Whenever you're outnumbered by small, fast, fighters, it's much more effective to spin around and shooting different targets rapidly (blind shots or Y targeting) rather than focusing on a single dragon. If you keep bouncing between ships that you're shooting, the AI spends more time dodging and less time shooting you.
I remember last part of bear-baiting on hard, where it was me at 15% vs like 6 Aeshmas by myself. Sure they're Aeshmas, but I doubt I could have survived it if I didn't juggle targets.
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AI also has the very helpful habit of switching their energy to guns and engines when you aren't shooting at them, so you can take down a Dragon with a few shots instead of a dozen.
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Whenever you're outnumbered by small, fast, fighters, it's much more effective to spin around and shooting different targets rapidly (blind shots or Y targeting) rather than focusing on a single dragon. If you keep bouncing between ships that you're shooting, the AI spends more time dodging and less time shooting you.
I remember last part of bear-baiting on hard, where it was me at 15% vs like 6 Aeshmas by myself. Sure they're Aeshmas, but I doubt I could have survived it if I didn't juggle targets.
In truth, the Aeshma should be a pretty scary fighter, no?
Its handling is supposed to be comparable to the Perseus, I believe. Fortunately, the AI doesn't seem to know this... :P
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In truth the Shivans are supposed to be fearsome period. :P
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What I did on insane was to protect the lemnos, and then fly circles around it while it shoots down the dragons... didn't find any other good way.
Btw, has anyone ever managed to protect every lambda transport in that mission on insane?
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Don't think you can.
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I made it on medium, I've never been able to pass through the 3rd mission on insane :P
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If your wingmen die they probably die alone, far from the rest of the team, gang banged by Shivans. A good way to prevent that is having them form up on your wing every time they complete an assignment (such as killing a wing of bombers, a cruiser or disarming a capship). While they are coming back into formation, you, the squadron leader must look for the next most important thing to shoot at. As soon as all ships under your command are pretty close (500 meters or so would be enough, waiting until they take their positions takes time), give the next attack order.
Now the Shivans are facing one or multiple wings attacking in a well organized wave. They rely on the opposite to succeed.
As for killing Dragons...
-8x Maxim and some kind of shooting skill will take at least one down before it even gets in range.
-4 Trebuchets launched at a wing will score one or 2 hits (and Dragons don't often survive these)
-Changing targets rapidly to shoot only the nearest Dragon also works when you're outnumbered
-Having your wingmen in formation, waiting until you get in range of missiles and giving the C->3->9 order usually gets the Dragons under heavier fire than they can handle, at least until the dogfight begins.
-Having your wingmen armed with 8x Maxim gives good results too, as long as they're in formation with you when you give the order to shoot.
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I usually order wingmen to protect that Mentu, then rush ahead and try to get the Thanatos kill, then protect the Lemnos.
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Its handling is supposed to be comparable to the Perseus, I believe. Fortunately, the AI doesn't seem to know this... :P
No. Just no.
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Its handling is supposed to be comparable to the Perseus, I believe. Fortunately, the AI doesn't seem to know this... :P
No. Just no.
Yes. Just yes, actually.
The Perseus's Rotation Time is 3.3 on all axis (Pl?), the Aeshma's is 3.3 on X and Y, and 3.7 on its Z axis.
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Yes. Just yes, actually.
The Perseus's Rotation Time is 3.3 on all axis (Pl?), the Aeshma's is 3.3 on X and Y, and 3.7 on its Z axis.
And yet even on Insane where the Aeshma gets bonuses in AI hands, the Perseus handles it with it ease.
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Dev problem then, since they almost maneuver exactly the same with the exception of one axis yet fly like retards no matter the difficulty.
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What are it's angular accel / max linear speed/accel?
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In Table-readable terms please.
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This is very interesting, I must say... I'm pretty confident in deciphering the table terms, but an experienced tabler would be a better conveyor of information. I really think it's an AI thing, because the Aeshma really doesn't look like it should be too bad:
$Density: 1
$Damp: 0.2
$Rotdamp: 0.4
$Max Velocity: 17.0, 17.0, 68.0
$Rotation time: 3.3, 3.3, 3.7
$Rear Velocity: 20.0
$Forward accel: 3.0
$Forward decel: 1.5
$Slide accel: 2.0
$Slide decel: 2.0
Here's the Perseus for comparison:
$Density: 1
$Damp: 0.15
$Rotdamp: 0.35
$Max Velocity: 0.0, 0.0, 80.0
$Rotation time: 3.3, 3.3, 3.3
$Rear Velocity: 0.0
$Forward accel: 2.0
$Forward decel: 1.5
$Slide accel: 0.0
$Slide decel: 0.0
So, is the Aeshma dangerous? Yes. The Shivan pilots just clearly lack motivation... :p
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Double post to clarify information for those who may not understand the information from the ships.tbl:
NOTE: use the Wiki and look up "ships.tbl". Then, next time you decide to crack into the FS2/FSO ship VPs, you'll know what you're looking at. ;)
The density values for both fighters are the same, so impacts do the same amount of damage to each. The Perseus has a forward damping factor 0.05 units less than the Aeshma's as well as a rotational damping factor also 0.05 units less than the Aeshma's, so it handles a bit more "snappily." But not by much...
Obviously the Perseus is fast, but the Aeshma can move laterally in x- or y-, up or down, at 17m/s. It can also move backwards at 20m/s... If the AI knew how to use this in close quaters, you'd be in for a much, much harder fight.
Despite the slightly higer acceleration damper, the Aeshma actually has a higher acceleration value. I'm not sure how this works in game as I havn't seen the actual coding to process the numbers from the table (but be pretty sure they're simple algorithms...). It also has acceleration values up or down comparable to the Perseus' forward acceleration, though the damper again compromises those figures. The deceleration value is the same, though the Perseus would in fact decelerate faster than the Aeshma due to the damper.
The moral of the story? In terms of conventional maneuvers, the Perseus would wail on the Aeshma, though it would still be a good fight. Add in a wicked AI or a human player (both of the same skill, of course. Now where did we put Quantum Delta's evil twin?...) and the Aeshma's lateral/backwards flight characeristics and you've leveled the playing field by a significant margin. I'd like to see that one...
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Obviously the Perseus is fast, but the Aeshma can move laterally in x- or y-, up or down, at 17m/s. It can also move backwards at 20m/s... If the AI knew how to use this in close quaters, you'd be in for a much, much harder fight.
At that particular speed I'm not convinced it matters. The AI is quite capable of handling pure lateral/vertical manuvers, as anyone who played FS1 on Insane can tell you about Scorpions, but I think it needs more to work with.
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Blackdove was very slightly better than me btw Thaeris, in terms of dogfights we could be stuck on eachothers tails until one of us made a mistake or he eventually caught me (damned joystick throttle control), for extreme periods..and pretty much most players can 'drag out' a fight in a 1on1 by just turning as hard as they can.
The two fighters would probably be eternally turning if the input systems were exactly matched.
protecting the transports in apoc IS possible but realistically only if you're planning on not making it to the jump node and/or sacrifice other ships.
Apoc is one of the only missions where I 'accept' not getting a perfect outcome :P
If you mean saving them from the super nova then 'fraid you can't, well unless the disabling/disarming and not destroying the two cains bug still works >.>
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Maybe it's the 'no dynamic goals' flag... IIRC that causes ships to not try to dodge shots...
Or is that a FRED-side flag and not a ship flag?
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Maybe it's the 'no dynamic goals' flag... IIRC that causes ships to not try to dodge shots...
Or is that a FRED-side flag and not a ship flag?
IIRC it's a FRED flag.
And AI doesn't put too much effort into dodging shots until it gets the first hit that damages it's hull.
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And AI doesn't put too much effort into dodging shots until it gets the first hit that damages it's hull.
You sure about that? I've seen dragons dodge even before getting hit at all.
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Using Fury's AI? I've never seen that.
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when you fire at them, they accelerate, not a crazy way of dodging but..
and technically if you fire a missile, they will dodge, that's dodging before getting hit ;)
or maybe I just suck and tend to fire on the surroundings a lot.
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Add in a wicked AI or a human player (both of the same skill, of course. Now where did we put Quantum Delta's evil twin?...) and the Aeshma's lateral/backwards flight characeristics and you've leveled the playing field by a significant margin. I'd like to see that one...
Obviously the Perseus is fast, but the Aeshma can move laterally in x- or y-, up or down, at 17m/s. It can also move backwards at 20m/s... If the AI knew how to use this in close quaters, you'd be in for a much, much harder fight.
The AI is quite capable of handling pure lateral/vertical manuvers, as anyone who played FS1 on Insane can tell you about Scorpions, but I think it needs more to work with.
You both need to play FS with Fury's AI.
NGTM-1R might have done that in WiH already, if a ship have slide capability, it will use it, and it use it well.
It helps if your ship also can slide, then it becomes a really handy tactic.
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I dunno...competient AI isn't "FreeSpace" last I heard. :P
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It isn't, but it enchances the feel of real flight and is more realistic.
WiH is a mod, so it doesn't have to strictly follow FS2 style.
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I already have the AI, I'm all up for the game being more fun.
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That behaviour was in the default retail package, just doesn't seem to display much in default SCP builds (vanilla/FSU).
Fury's AI having it back = <33333 (And, it does ;p)
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when you fire at them, they accelerate, not a crazy way of dodging but..
and technically if you fire a missile, they will dodge, that's dodging before getting hit ;)
or maybe I just suck and tend to fire on the surroundings a lot.
What I'd really like is them (AI controlled ships) flying away like a Dragon that takes some damage before they even get hit.
At least on hard/extreme.
The AI also has a habbit of dropping a countermeasure and keeping the same direction of flight (especially before getting into a dogfight), which is exploitable by firing anything (including Rockeyes) from directly ahead and still having a large chance of hitting.
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Unless it's you trying it as for some odd reason it seems no matter how fast and hard I turn after dropping even 15 countermeasures I get hammered by heat-seakers. :doubt:
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When you dogfight Dragons, try not to be too close to them, especially when you're in a fairly potato-like aircraft *cough* Ares! *cough*.
Aircraft? What do you think this is? Macross? :drevil:
But yeah, the general tactic of handling Dragons is either not to attack them, or attack them from very far out with your missiles. Dogfighting them in a ship other than a Serapis or Perseus is the worst thing you can ever do.
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They're going to be easier to handle now that the broken countermeasures have been fixed.
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Ohhhh crap... :p
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Countermeasures have been way more effective than they were intended to be for about the last 4 years. With CMs reverted to retail behavior you should find Dragons easier to tag with missiles.
I don't know if Wanderer spotted this on his own or if Fury figured it out during AI development for WiH.
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Was it only enemy CMs, or some difficulty-specific thing, or what?
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All CM's without exception were 100% effective, always. This four year old bug was spotted and fixed by Wanderer in recent 3.6.11 nightly.
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Don't know, but as of late I've had at least a 1 : 100 rate with spoofing heat-seeking missiles, Trying to use countermeasures on Piranha childs seems borderline impossible now, but the AI has absolutely no problem doing it.
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Who uses counter measures *needswhistling smilie* :lol:
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All CM's without exception were 100% effective, always. This four year old bug was spotted and fixed by Wanderer in recent 3.6.11 nightly.
Uh, that's why I find myself having to launch more than one, right? :P
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All CM's without exception were 100% effective, always.
Really? They don't always work for me, you know. Like NGTM, I usually find myself needing to release at least two countermeasures to counter a single missile.
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If a CM didn't work, most likely explanation is that it never made contact with an incoming missile's homing cone. When you launch a countermeasure, you also turn sharp to another direction don't you? So does the missile and homing cone with it, meaning the missile's homing cone never made contact with the CM you launched.
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Are you trying to tell us that launching CMs while flying straight ensures a 100% success rate? :confused:
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No. Just that for a CM to work, the missile's seeker cone has to be in the area of effect the CM projects. If your evasive maneuver carries you too far in the wrong direction, the missile will miss the CM completely.
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Not to mention that CMs' have limited area (volume, radius, take your pick) of effectiveness as well as limited lifetime. If a missile is beyond CM's range it will ignore it. Also with heat seekers if the missile wont reach the CM (and hit it) before CM dies it will try to acquire a new target (which may be the previous one).
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If a CM didn't work, most likely explanation is that it never made contact with an incoming missile's homing cone. When you launch a countermeasure, you also turn sharp to another direction don't you? So does the missile and homing cone with it, meaning the missile's homing cone never made contact with the CM you launched.
If I was in a situation where evasion was a simpler option, I wouldn't be launching countermeasures. I only used them before the merge or when on an attack run against a larger ship. I wasn't evading. Typically it was launch countermeasure, pause one and a half seconds, launch second countermeasure if I still had a missile warning.
A second was always effective. But a first only worked about 80% of the time.
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I also noticed with a new nightly build that dual firing missiles sometimes means that the target's CM will only trail off one missile, and the other one will still track and hit. It's kind of cool to watch, and definitely not behavior I've seen before.
Potentially due to this new CM fix you guys are talking about?
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Yep, that's exactly it. Personally, I think it looks damn awesome.
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No wonder I can't spoof Piranah clusters anymore. :doubt:
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Exactly. Didn't you ever wonder why Piranha/Infyrno type weapons were so damn useless? Now you need to actually do some evasive maneuvers and waste those CM's.
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How does this affect Infyrnos? O.o
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It doesn't, Infyrno is an area effect weapon, not a smart suspression missile.
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Exactly. Didn't you ever wonder why Piranha/Infyrno type weapons were so damn useless? Now you need to actually do some evasive maneuvers and waste those CM's.
I figured they were useless because all it usually took was afterburning past them to get rid of them, now even then that seems harder to do.
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It doesn't, Infyrno is an area effect weapon, not a smart suspression missile.
I looked at the missile specs a few days earlier on the Wiki... Supposedly the Infyrno spawns IR-guided "cluster babies." Is it just that they launch really fast and explode really fast, thus preventing them from effectively tracking anything?
...Or, is there some other mechanic which makes them work the way they do?
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Exactly. Didn't you ever wonder why Piranha/Infyrno type weapons were so damn useless? Now you need to actually do some evasive maneuvers and waste those CM's.
Does that make these two missiles the terror that they should be in the first place?
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I don't know, Piranhas still seem to be pushovers.
Infyrnos...well if anything ever used them... :P
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There was this one time I killed a Dragon in a Herc II (or an Ares, I can't remember) with Infyrnos. Unfortunately, I also managed to take out 50% of my hull in the process.
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imagine an infyrno that spawned infyrnos...
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I'd like to fire a piranha that spawned piranhas =D
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I sort of did both of that already, usually crashes the game but it's funny watching it until that happens.
Check the Celebration of FreeSpace thread for them.
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Infyrnos can easily take out an entire wing of Dragons, without blowing yourself up. On the other hand... if you miss, you will end up in a dogfight your craft wasn't designed for.
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http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=25406.msg1215644#msg1215644
Here's that page with the infinite Piranhas and Infyrnos, except they're Synaptics and Cluster Bombs, halfway down the page.
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I sort of did both of that already, usually crashes the game but it's funny watching it until that happens.
Check the Celebration of FreeSpace thread for them.
Didn't someone also modify the spew from a Piranha such that it spawned multiple SSLs and became a giant disco ball of doom?
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Oh goodness, that's got JAD written all over it! :lol:
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I sort of did both of that already, usually crashes the game but it's funny watching it until that happens.
Check the Celebration of FreeSpace thread for them.
Didn't someone also modify the spew from a piranha such that it spawned multiple SSLs and became a giant disco ball of doom?
Yes...It's in the very post he linked.