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General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: Klaustrophobia on February 21, 2012, 03:26:25 am

Title: repairing wingmates
Post by: Klaustrophobia on February 21, 2012, 03:26:25 am
can it be done without cheating?  i'm on the TAG mission now, and alpha 2 always gets herself disabled outside of beam range from the warspite.  she won't call in a repair ship herself, so she just sits there with most of the shivans happily blasting away at her invulnerable 1% hull.  which means i have to take down pretty much the rest of the ships in the mission by myself with crap primaries.  irritating mission is even MOAR irritating.  and then it ****ing crashed.

i tried calling in a support for myself and then using the "capture my target" command, but no dice.  this time i'm just going to tell alpha 2 to protect the warspite from the beginning and hope for the best.  and try to remember not to rearm and crash again.
Title: Re: repairing wingmates
Post by: arjuna 1 on February 21, 2012, 04:14:46 am
You should fire the tag missiles and then get out of there. Let the Lucidity deal with the tagged shivans while you stay away from the beams. Try to tag shivans as many as you can and then tell your wingmates to follow you ( Form on my wing command ) so you lead them to safety from the beams.
Title: Re: repairing wingmates
Post by: Klaustrophobia on February 21, 2012, 04:20:14 am
problem with that is it takes 3 or so tags to kill a shivan.  at least the maras, but the others are much easier to kill with primaries.  a tag won't guarantee a kill unless you're in flak range, which is really rare.
Title: Re: repairing wingmates
Post by: BengalTiger on February 21, 2012, 10:47:33 am
The GTCv Warspite is the ship with beams, the Lucidity is an AWACS.

Ordering wingmen to escort the AWACS might be a good strategy to keep them near the task force.

Waiting until the Shivans come to 2000 meters before leaving the Warspite will nearly guarantee they will be in beam range when they get tagged.
Title: Re: repairing wingmates
Post by: haloboy100 on February 21, 2012, 11:58:49 am
Because the warspite is using a specialized beam for the mission with really long range, the shivans will always be within beam range. But the problem is on medium difficulty it takes a minimum of two TAGs each to kill them.

Just use cheats and make Alpha 2 invulnerable at the beginning of the mission. IIRC subsystems are immune to damage as well as the hull with the invuln flag turned on; the problem here is that alpha 2 becomes invulnerable after she's disabled because of ship-guardian.
Title: Re: repairing wingmates
Post by: Goober5000 on February 21, 2012, 12:05:29 pm
The weird thing about this mission is that it plays much differently on FSO than on retail.

That is obviously a problem with FSO, but I'm not sure where the problem might lie.
Title: Re: repairing wingmates
Post by: Klaustrophobia on February 21, 2012, 05:55:35 pm
how so?  i don't remember it much differently on retail.  granted it's been a LONG time since i played retail.
Title: Re: repairing wingmates
Post by: deathfun on February 21, 2012, 07:17:56 pm
Honestly, I've never had an issue with this mission...
Ever
Title: Re: repairing wingmates
Post by: Mongoose on February 21, 2012, 07:41:41 pm
Honestly, I've never had an issue with this mission...
Ever
Neither have I, which is why these sorts of complaints about it always puzzle me.  I wonder if something has changed in however many builds it's been since I last played it.
Title: Re: repairing wingmates
Post by: Klaustrophobia on February 21, 2012, 08:05:36 pm
i remember this happening in retail also.  it's not that it's all that hard to beat, it's just annoying as ****. 

so if the answer to the original question is "you can't," can this maybe be a future FSO feature?  it would be nice to be able to take care of the stupid AI a bit better without having to cheat and halt progress.
Title: Re: repairing wingmates
Post by: Mongoose on February 21, 2012, 11:22:08 pm
It would be nice.  It doesn't really make any sense how you can magically call for a repair ship even with your comm system disabled, yet your wingmen can't. :p
Title: Re: repairing wingmates
Post by: Kie99 on February 22, 2012, 05:50:17 am
i remember this happening in retail also.  it's not that it's all that hard to beat, it's just annoying as ****. 

so if the answer to the original question is "you can't," can this maybe be a future FSO feature?  it would be nice to be able to take care of the stupid AI a bit better without having to cheat and halt progress.

Cheating hasn't halted progress since 1998.
Title: Re: repairing wingmates
Post by: Droid803 on February 22, 2012, 11:51:46 am
I hate this mission.
I am of the persuasion that it is impossible to actually save the Lucidity on any difficulty, and impossible to pass on any difficulty higher than easy.

****ing friendly beam fire.
Title: Re: repairing wingmates
Post by: Goober5000 on February 22, 2012, 02:19:34 pm
That is consistent with my experience.  I can't save the Lucidity on Medium in FSO, yet I can save it on Insane in retail.
Title: Re: repairing wingmates
Post by: deathfun on February 22, 2012, 03:27:50 pm
I'm inclined to go back to this mission and try it on each of the difficulties
Title: Re: repairing wingmates
Post by: Goober5000 on February 22, 2012, 11:23:05 pm
It would also be good to try it on each of the official FSO releases.
Title: Re: repairing wingmates
Post by: Klaustrophobia on February 22, 2012, 11:52:54 pm
i have never once lost the lucidity, in retail or FSO.  i'm on easy right now, and played as high as medium in retail.
Title: Re: repairing wingmates
Post by: deathfun on February 23, 2012, 04:57:45 am
It would also be good to try it on each of the official FSO releases.

That's a helluva lot of times I've got to do that mission
I'd probably go insane and kill a coworker

"Can I get the large bowls through the mach-"
"INCOMING JUMP SIGNATURE HOSTILE CONFIGURATION"
"Wha-?"
"WE'VE LOST THE LUCIDITY! DIE YOU SHIVAN BASTARD"
*stabs server with knife*
Title: Re: repairing wingmates
Post by: jr2 on February 23, 2012, 05:41:14 pm
I would love an option to repair wingment.  However, that would alter game balance a bit, wouldn't it?  I guess it would have to be a flag?  I don't know.. I try to save my wingmen by telling them to depart when they get around 5%, but that is an almost guaranteed way to kill them also, as it makes them an easy kill while they attempt to warp out.  I wish they would look for an 'opportune' time (like when they don't have a Dragon on their tail) to warp out; which could be overridden by another command or something.

Yeah, I know.  Getting attached to AI is stupid.  But sometimes I like to pretend I'm an actual commander trying to take care of my subordinates.  :lol:
Title: Re: repairing wingmates
Post by: el_magnifico on February 23, 2012, 09:24:28 pm
I would love an option to repair wingment.  However, that would alter game balance a bit, wouldn't it?  I guess it would have to be a flag?  I don't know.. I try to save my wingmen by telling them to depart when they get around 5%, but that is an almost guaranteed way to kill them also, as it makes them an easy kill while they attempt to warp out.  I wish they would look for an 'opportune' time (like when they don't have a Dragon on their tail) to warp out; which could be overridden by another command or something.

Yeah, I know.  Getting attached to AI is stupid.  But sometimes I like to pretend I'm an actual commander trying to take care of my subordinates.  :lol:
As for me, I would love to be able to customize the wings' names so they could suit their role better...

"CannonFodder wing! Cover me while I make my bombing run. DeadMeatFlying wing, attack that Aeolus cruiser!"

Ah! The possibilities are endless... :lol:
Title: Re: repairing wingmates
Post by: Klaustrophobia on February 23, 2012, 10:15:40 pm
I would love an option to repair wingment.  However, that would alter game balance a bit, wouldn't it?  I guess it would have to be a flag?  I don't know.. I try to save my wingmen by telling them to depart when they get around 5%, but that is an almost guaranteed way to kill them also, as it makes them an easy kill while they attempt to warp out.  I wish they would look for an 'opportune' time (like when they don't have a Dragon on their tail) to warp out; which could be overridden by another command or something.

Yeah, I know.  Getting attached to AI is stupid.  But sometimes I like to pretend I'm an actual commander trying to take care of my subordinates.  :lol:

it wouldn't alter balance significantly, since 1) AI are mostly useless anyway and 2) they are supposed to be able to repair themselves anyway, they just don't always. 
Title: Re: repairing wingmates
Post by: deathfun on February 24, 2012, 03:09:43 am
Ever think that perhaps when they don't, it's because their comms are out?
Title: Re: repairing wingmates
Post by: Klaustrophobia on February 24, 2012, 06:04:23 am
i checked that.  even if that were the case, that's just more reason for the player to be able to call support on the AI's behalf.
Title: Re: repairing wingmates
Post by: jr2 on February 24, 2012, 04:37:01 pm
Odds of AI comm being knocked out ~98% of the time...
Title: Re: repairing wingmates
Post by: Grizzly on February 25, 2012, 05:23:47 am
Quote
it wouldn't alter balance significantly, since 1) AI are mostly useless anyway and 2) they are supposed to be able to repair themselves anyway, they just don't always.

I find myself slightly disagreeing with that. The AI is not 'mostly useless'. Especiallly not when you are playing on Insane, where both the friendly and the enemy AI are better at what they do, and where you are just as vurnrable as your AI squadmates (at normal, you have 1,5x armor or so, and there's a limit on how many fighters will attack you at once. This isn't the case on insanity).

Oh, as a side question: Does anyone know what effect ordering your squadmates to depart has? I tend to do so when they are so badly damaged they won't make the next fight, and noticed that the times I started doing that I gained ranks a bit quicker, although I don't know if it just me getting better or it having an actual effect (I know calling reinforcements in makes you lose points, telling them to depart might just help gain them).
Title: Re: repairing wingmates
Post by: Klaustrophobia on February 25, 2012, 06:26:57 am
i've never heard that, but i suppose it's possible.  the other effect that might be going on is you getting more kills that they might have.  i'd be surprised if any of this made a noticeable increase in rank progression though, especially at higher ranks.  points from other stuff like objectives and cap ship kills are just SO much higher.
Title: Re: repairing wingmates
Post by: deathfun on February 25, 2012, 03:52:30 pm
I've actually always done that. They'll drop below that line, and I'll tell them to bug out

Also, never noticed that there's a limit as to how many ships attack you on normal. Afterall, I've had an entire squad firing at me, on top of two very happy beam firing Fenris'