Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: Droid803 on January 12, 2011, 01:31:32 pm
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I've never "completed" A Game of Tag, even on very easy.
I've always lost the Lucidity, or died to friendly beam fire :/
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Really? I find it easy on insane. :P
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It would be easier if you were flying something that had more reasonably placed secondary banks and wasn't equipped with Subachs and Prom R.
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It doesn't help any that the mission has a stupid premise, yeah.
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Least favorite canon mission.
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Yeah, the fact that I basically have to protect the Warspite with a single Subach bank isn't fun.
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It's even worse if you know that the single redeeming point in that mission- the Kappa wing foreshadowing- was not originally planned for it, but thrown in on a whim. The original mission did nothing for the plot in any way, and was just as annoying.
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I think it was just showing off their scripting.
"Hey, check this out. We can get this warship to specifically nail whatever it is that you've tagged. Neat hey?"
And yeah, personally I haven't had much trouble in that mission. I think the trick is to stay close to the Warspite and to make sure not to get in between it and your target. If you can manage that, each of your TAG missiles are essentially OHKO tempests.
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This is actually one of my favorite missions.
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It's one of my least favorites, not due to the gameplay addition of the tag, but due to the fact its premise is absolutely idiotic and that it has no reason to be in the campaign since TAGs don't even function correctly in any other mission.
'Oh hey, let's slave our weapons into this experimental missile which is carried on a 30-year-old, outdated piece-of-junk which also has a Prom R with no way of retaining control over our weapon systems. Also, we'll do it in the Shivan infested nebula instead of using drones. Great idea, huh, what could go wrong.'
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It's one of my least favorites, not due to the gameplay addition of the tag, but due to the fact its premise is absolutely idiotic and that it has no reason to be in the campaign since TAGs don't even function correctly in any other mission.
'Oh hey, let's slave our weapons into this experimental missile which is carried on a 30-year-old, outdated piece-of-junk which also has a Prom R with no way of retaining control over our weapon systems. Also, we'll do it in the Shivan infested nebula instead of using drones. Great idea, huh, what could go wrong.'
And you know what? This never occured to me when I played the mission :p
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If TAGs were actually useful further on in the campaign, that mission might have had a purpose.
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And you know what? This never occured to me when I played the mission :p
Just because it didn't occur to you doesn't mean it isn't true.
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And you know what? This never occured to me when I played the mission :p
Just because it didn't occur to you doesn't mean it isn't true.
>Implying I said anything of the sort
Nope.avi
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But that it didn't occur to many players like that does mean the mission designers didn't do as bad a job as you claim. Even if it didn't serve a purpose to you later on, so what? You were part of a failed experiment. It was showing that the GTVA was trying any means it could to gain an edge on the Shivans, and a live test probably provides much more useful data than a drone simulation. We know Command was more than willing to put lives at risk, so it's no surprise to me what happened.
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It's not so much the location as it is they force you to use the Ulysses and the Deimos can't regain control of its weapon systems in case of an emergency.
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I hated the gameplay, but loved the premise. At the time, I thought it was meant to show that Command was busy inventing useless weapon systems and underestimating the Shivan threat, without considering the situation of the pilots. Now (partly thanks to working TAGs in other campaigns), it seems that they may have known what they were doing after all.
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But that it didn't occur to many players like that does mean the mission designers didn't do as bad a job as you claim. Even if it didn't serve a purpose to you later on, so what? You were part of a failed experiment. It was showing that the GTVA was trying any means it could to gain an edge on the Shivans, and a live test probably provides much more useful data than a drone simulation. We know Command was more than willing to put lives at risk, so it's no surprise to me what happened.
Except then they're all proud when they give you two new TAG missiles. They're like "hey dude, these are awesome" when they're completely useless.
And yeah, how do you even manage to slave a weapons system with no way to regain control if Alpha 1 and 2 flying Ulysses die? They also throw away a lot of Lokis and pilots simply to lure in some fighters.
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Well they didn't force you to use them or equip them by default, so it's like "Oh here's more stuff to test if you want" WoD-like.
And for the beams my guess is they removed the targeting system to make room for ULTRAness or something.
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No, they do force you to use an Ulysses, Prom R, etc. You don't get to choose your loadout.
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But that it didn't occur to many players like that does mean the mission designers didn't do as bad a job as you claim. Even if it didn't serve a purpose to you later on, so what? You were part of a failed experiment. It was showing that the GTVA was trying any means it could to gain an edge on the Shivans, and a live test probably provides much more useful data than a drone simulation. We know Command was more than willing to put lives at risk, so it's no surprise to me what happened.
Except then they're all proud when they give you two new TAG missiles. They're like "hey dude, these are awesome" when they're completely useless.
And yeah, how do you even manage to slave a weapons system with no way to regain control if Alpha 1 and 2 flying Ulysses die? They also throw away a lot of Lokis and pilots simply to lure in some fighters.
When neither of the two missiles ever appear and one is incompatable to every fighter. :P
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The TAG-B is available in "Speaking in Tongues"; I was wrong too, as it is equipped by default.
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Clearly, GTVA command didn't think the whole thing through, or they simply failed to account for...a lot of scenarios...
Unfortunately the rest of the game doesn't make a good effort of providing you with ships that can really take advantage of the TAG system...shame, it had promise if you weren't shoved in a crummy fighter with one primary bank crippled, and no backup missiles in the one mission it actually works in >.>
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The wiki says that turrets slightly prefer to shoot tagged targets. Is there any truth to that?
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Yeah, they do, if it's TAG'd type 2 or something (the TAG B type, not TAG A)...not like it does much though...
The only real use of TAG A's is highlighting stealth fighters (aside from FREDded stuff like weapon slaved to TAG)...which never comes into play.
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A is also type 2.
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Oh huh.
A testament to how little it does :P
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Derelict (I think) used TAGs to great effect. So they have potential, just like, it wasn't realized in the retail campaign.
And you'd have to have some epic skill to tag a stealth fighter. Hitting one with primaries is hard enough for me without the lead indicator, let alone with slow dumbfire missiles with slow refire rates. The aspect lock TAGs would also be nigh useless against stealth fighters.
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I don't seem to have much trouble hitting them with dumbfires.
Probably because of Retail AI. :P
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the tags in game of tag would work a hell of a lot better if the missile points on the uli weren't so bad for the job, because of the positioning you have to get close (but not too close) too your target and then fire off several missiles hoping one hits. If you could just fire one without having to concentrate where it was spawning from, the mission would play a lot better 'cause you could just lob 1 or 2 off at a a target and move on knowing the Warspite would beat the daylights out of the little shiv ****
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You guys do realize that if you stay within beam range of the Warspite that she basically kills everyhting you TAG right? When they say all available fire power, they mean flak, beams, blobs and the kitchen sink.
Stay within 1500m and you should be golden.
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Worst. Mission. Ever. Of all time. I managed to play through it once, but then i just cheat my way through it whenever i'm playing retail campaign.
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You guys do realize that if you stay within beam range of the Warspite that she basically kills everyhting you TAG right? When they say all available fire power, they mean flak, beams, blobs and the kitchen sink.
Stay within 1500m and you should be golden.
Yeah, you are bassicly the forward artillery observer. ALl that firepower is at YOUR disposal. I actually kinda liked that mission.
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Maybe if the artillery was cool but it wasn't, it was just whoop pshaw pshaw like all AAA except more powerful and with different sound effects.
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It was kinda of frustrating getting stuck in an Uly, but it wasn't my least favorite misson.
I was kinda fun having all that firepower practically in your control and I too think tagging is underused in retail. They could've made some awesome missions with that system. :/
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It was kinda of frustrating getting stuck in an Uly, but it wasn't my least favorite misson.
I was kinda fun having all that firepower practically in your control and I too think tagging is underused in retail. They could've made some awesome missions with that system. :/
Vassago's Dirge!
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It was kinda of frustrating getting stuck in an Uly, but it wasn't my least favorite misson.
I was kinda fun having all that firepower practically in your control and I too think tagging is underused in retail. They could've made some awesome missions with that system. :/
Vassago's Dirge!
Has one of the best uses of TAGging, for sure. I'd still like a BP scenario which has me piloting an Aurora and using that to tag ships for SSM strikes.
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The GTVA actually used TAGs pretty extensively in Post Meridian and a mission that didn't make it into R1, but it was so deadly to players it had to be toned down.
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Fury AI flak was already retardedly powerful. I cringe to think how much worse it'd be if the player got tagged.
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Avoid the flak and you won't get hit, pilot.
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You guys do realize that if you stay within beam range of the Warspite that she basically kills everyhting you TAG right? When they say all available fire power, they mean flak, beams, blobs and the kitchen sink.
Stay within 1500m and you should be golden.
The Warspite will kill everything you TAG, and you along with it, if it is between you and the Warspite, or you're between it and the warspite. :<
It also doesn't help save the Lucidity.
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The Warspite will kill everything you TAG, and you along with it, if it is between you and the Warspite, or you're between it and the warspite.
I learnt that to my cost. :P
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Eh, as much as i didnt like this mission, I don't have trouble clearing it. Granted i engage with my primaries and ignore my TAGS as much as possible. as for least favorite mission, definitely the one where you rescue snipes from the NTT grall. The sensor scrambling PISSED ME OFF
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Thank god the designers were kind (or perhaps lazy) in that mission and you can ignore everything, fly straight, and run into the Grall :P
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No kidding, but first playthrough, was not aware of that happy fact
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Yeah doing it "properly" is a pain.
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Ah theres the beacon. There we go, center of radar fly.. oh **** under attack. K pop those fighters and... **** which of the three beacons was i heading for
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Eh, as much as i didnt like this mission, I don't have trouble clearing it. Granted i engage with my primaries and ignore my TAGS as much as possible. as for least favorite mission, definitely the one where you rescue snipes from the NTT grall. The sensor scrambling PISSED ME OFF
I play this mission straight with 3D radar. I rely essentially on never engaging the basilisks myself to prevent disorientation. I just rc31 and c39 as appropriate.
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I think I played that mission 10 times before I got it right... -_-
Vassago's Dirge really is awesome. If you like the concept of tagging and haven't played it yet, go over to the release thread is NOW!
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Ah theres the beacon. There we go, center of radar fly.. oh **** under attack. K pop those fighters and... **** which of the three beacons was i heading for
Ohh I remember that...
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Eh, as much as i didnt like this mission, I don't have trouble clearing it. Granted i engage with my primaries and ignore my TAGS as much as possible. as for least favorite mission, definitely the one where you rescue snipes from the NTT grall. The sensor scrambling PISSED ME OFF
I gave up on FS for a while when I got to that mission. I embarrassingly got stuck on Training 6 for whatever reason, I shot all the turrets off the Deimos and still no "Destroy sensors" objective complete...I'll blame it on how young I was at the time...
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How about the original Playing Judas? Command asks you to fly into the Lucifer's fighterbay, and you proceed to smash into the invisible polygon covering the bay until a) Command decides you've got it or b) you're destroyed by lots of tiny collisions.
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Was that the one where you had to time your approach to avoid the patrols? I hated that mission with a passion for several reasons. Much preferred the FS2 version where they give you a Mara and say 'blow **** up!'
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Yeah, you had to keep so far from each of Arjuna wing. I always detested it. A Mara with like, 800 Tempests was a much more fun mission.
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I've always thought that mission was easy even when I was 6-7 when I first got the game. The trick is to, as soon as you hear command telling Arjuna is near, to press r and run a different route.
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I've always thought that mission was easy even when I was 6-7 when I first got the game. The trick is to, as soon as you hear command telling Arjuna is near, to press r and run a different route.
Personally, that part was really easy for me. Like I said, I always had trouble getting "into" the Lucifer's fighterbay without getting shot to death. IIRC it's not an issue in the port, because there's no invisible polygon.
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I found the TAG mission OK. Never had problems finishing it, and it was interesting since it was different.
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It wasn't so much that Playing Judas was hard, it was just that I'd have rather been shooting at stuff ;)
As for TAG, I did it on the second try by completely ignoring the existence of the TAG missiles, and using, I think, the Morningstar to push stuff away.
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In "A Game of TAG" you can't get Morning Stars without cheating.
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Yep, your loadout is locked.
One time one of my older pilot files corrupted itself though, and I think I had 1 Subach and no secondaries as my locked defaults. Needless to say, I was unimpressed.
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That's why I said 'I think', I'm pretty sure one of your loadout was a kinetic? It's been a few years since I played the mission.
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Yep, your loadout is locked.
One time one of my older pilot files corrupted itself though, and I think I had 1 Subach and no secondaries as my locked defaults. Needless to say, I was unimpressed.
That's about what you really get for that mission anyway :P
That's why I said 'I think', I'm pretty sure one of your loadout was a kinetic? It's been a few years since I played the mission.
Well, kinetic guns are great for the mission after (pushing those pesky Pegasi away from the Fenris, eventually ticking them off and making them come after YOU. Works especially well with EMP missiles, which allows you to kill the pesky Moloch too :P)
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That's probably the mission I'm thinking of now you mention it...
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This mission is frustrating simply because I don't get the kills. :(
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This mission is frustrating simply because I don't get the kills. :(
Just get in a few hits with the Subach and you will; capships can't get kills with beams.
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I thought that had been fixed in the code more or less recently.
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Nope, as it was never a bug; you have to enable an AI profile feature.
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I liked A Game of TAG. It was different, interesting, and fun. Plus we got Kappa 3 providing plot development, which was pretty cool. :yes: I didn't have trouble killing fighters; I just did what I was told and stuck near the Warspite.
A shame Alpha 2 couldn't follow orders the same way. :sigh: Invariably, she ends up disabled at 1% hull hollering "I can't hold them off much longer!" repeatedly, until she finally sends her mission-critical messages, has ship-guardian turned off, and blows up. (It struck me that "Roger Command, we'll get the job done" was a pretty even-tempered response in light of her inevitable death two seconds later.)
I'm actually surprised there's so much dislike of this mission compared to the next one, Proving Grounds. It has essentially the exact same A-plot as Argonautica, with a much inferior B-plot. And trying to save the Oberon is absolutely Sisyphean in its frustration. I can't stand Proving Grounds; I cheat through it every time I play the main FS2 campaign.
No kidding, but first playthrough, was not aware of that happy fact
Funny story for me... the very first time I played that mission, I couldn't understand what the heck "follow the nav buoys" was supposed to mean, so I just flew straight ahead, looking for nav buoys. Lo and behold I run smack into the Grall a few minutes later. :D I remember thinking at the time that it was a rather underwhelming mission considering the set-up, but then I found out what you're actually supposed to do and flew it properly the next time.
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Proving Grounds used to really really suck for me at one point. The Moloch was unkillable at any difficulty unless I got really lucky, and I failed the mission unless it died.
I think some things were already starting to break with that pilot file, which is why I couldn't progress until the damn corvette got ~+K'd
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Proving Grounds and Argonautica were both really hard.
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Ironically, Proving grounds is a mission that gets easier the higher you turn up the difficulty. At least, that's if you want to kill the Moloch.
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I never actually found out whether the tag missiles worked in any other mission; seemed like too much of a hassle, locking on, probably not hitting the target. If the original version of the tag missile, firing like a tempest, was retained, and it still worked in the next missions, I might give it a shot.
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I thought the idea of tags in the game was pointless. If you fly near a friendly corvette with evil people chasing you, the corvette will blast them out of the sky for you without tags.
I would have found tags handy if you could mark an area on a target with them and would make bomb lock on time 10x faster or something while still performing normal tag missile abilities. And also would have been cool to have a couple of going out in stealth fighter and tagging a few shivan war ships for tracking (use tags like beacons in a longer term sense).
The mission in question isn't too hard, just annoying. Stay near that corvette, tag it, take it out with subachs while the corvette does it's thing. When the bombers come out, i usually get a little pissy, but you can keep that corvette alive.
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[...]Well, kinetic guns are great for the mission after (pushing those pesky Pegasi away from the Fenris, eventually ticking them off and making them come after YOU. Works especially well with EMP missiles, which allows you to kill the pesky Moloch too :P)
I never - and T-LoW means NEVER - ever shot a EMP missile without jamming myself and everyone around me into oblivion. I killed the friggin' Moloch just once in that mission... man, that was a relief for sure :P
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Is the A.I. even affected by EMP's?
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They'll switch targets at random.
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Bombs already in-flight will also self-destruct.
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Wait what??
I didn't know that... Makes the EMP far more valuable in my eyes now.
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No, they just drop to a dead stop, making them stupidly easy to shoot.
Last I knew(though I haven't played it since the 3.6.10MVPs/early 3.6.12 builds), the Warspite for some reason stops shooting at tagged Manticores once the bombers show up, so not only are you scrambling to peg the bombers and shoot bombs to save the Lucidity and Warspite, your 'easy button' to remove the Harpoon-spamming interceptor itch stops working.
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tag missiles are about the dumbest weapon in all of freespace. if i'm going to go through the trouble of tagging a fighter, there better be some better result than it gets hit by an AA beam ONCE. to make tag fun or even worthwhile, it should be an insta-kill, or enable beam hits from retardedly long range or something.
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4km is kinda long. :nervous:
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i'm thinking REALLY long, like other side of the mission area long. upwards of 10 km. make it like artillery.
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tag missiles are about the dumbest weapon in all of freespace. if i'm going to go through the trouble of tagging a fighter, there better be some better result than it gets hit by an AA beam ONCE. to make tag fun or even worthwhile, it should be an insta-kill, or enable beam hits from retardedly long range or something.
they dont get hit once, the tagged ship is shot at until either
1. the tagged ship is destroyed
2. the tag dependant ship(s) is destroyed
3. the tag period expires
4. the tagged ship moves (or shot, especially with AAA beams) out of range
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the UltraAAAs don't hit more often than once, generally...
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I've had my tagged targets killed without fail, usually by 1-2 hits of UltraAAA
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tag missiles are about the dumbest weapon in all of freespace. if i'm going to go through the trouble of tagging a fighter, there better be some better result than it gets hit by an AA beam ONCE. to make tag fun or even worthwhile, it should be an insta-kill, or enable beam hits from retardedly long range or something.
they dont get hit once, the tagged ship is shot at until either
1. the tagged ship is destroyed
2. the tag dependant ship(s) is destroyed
3. the tag period expires
4. the tagged ship moves (or shot, especially with AAA beams) out of range
well whenever i have used them, the tag period only lasts one fire cycle, and only one of the shots hits. sometimes twice. that happens without tagging anyway, and tagging is a pain in the ass. for the tag to have significant gameplay value, i should be able to hit a target with it and immediately go "oh yeah, THAT worked." even if it doesn't kill it, it's GOT to do something more impressive than an ordinary shot or two.
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tag missiles are about the dumbest weapon in all of freespace. if i'm going to go through the trouble of tagging a fighter, there better be some better result than it gets hit by an AA beam ONCE. to make tag fun or even worthwhile, it should be an insta-kill, or enable beam hits from retardedly long range or something.
they dont get hit once, the tagged ship is shot at until either
1. the tagged ship is destroyed
2. the tag dependant ship(s) is destroyed
3. the tag period expires
4. the tagged ship moves (or shot, especially with AAA beams) out of range
well whenever i have used them, the tag period only lasts one fire cycle, and only one of the shots hits. sometimes twice. that happens without tagging anyway, and tagging is a pain in the ass. for the tag to have significant gameplay value, i should be able to hit a target with it and immediately go "oh yeah, THAT worked." even if it doesn't kill it, it's GOT to do something more impressive than an ordinary shot or two.
Like in Vassago's Dirge...or Derelict.
TAG -> UNLEASH THE DEATH BEAMS -> vaporizes destroyer in a single shot \o/