[garibaldy]

Hi there!

I'm new to this game and just about to start my first campaign. I'm using Freespace2 Open 3.6.9. Now, I have some difficulty choosing a difficulty level.

What exactly changes when difficulty level is higher? Is the AI better? Does the AI have some other advantages (faster ships, more hitpoints etc.) Is the game speed perhaps faster? Or is there just simply more enemies? Or (gulp) all the above!? I read in one thread that players ship has more hitpoints than specified in ships stats when difficulty is hard or lower. Only on insane the hitpoints are what they "should" be. Is this the case?

I'm just trying to find a most "realistic" difficulty level where my ships capabilities are same as AI's. Insane level seems to be the choise, but it sounds a bit.. insane. I mean I enjoy hard dogfights with somewhat intelligent AI as should be expected on insane level. But if that means that there are swarms of enemy fighters..then it's not worth it. I'm just not a fan of mental institutions.. Any recommendations?

[Killer Whale]

Many missions have more fighters jumping in on higher difficulties, but that has to be fredded. The higher the difficulty, the slower your ship is, your energy levels recharge slower, and damage is increased. That's all i know. Which is very minimal seeing as i almost always play on easy/very easy

[Jeff Vader]

The player ship takes less damage from weapons fire and explosions on lower difficulty levels. The damage caused by weapons is always the same, but on Insane, you take as much damage as the non-player ships. The energy levels do indeed recharges slower on higher difficulty levels, which makes rational firing and usage of afterburners a necessity. Your subsystems are actually vulnerable on more difficult settings. That's why the AAAf beams on capital ships are a real menace, as one salvo is more than enough to punch 2-4 subsystems down. Try doing something, when your engines are down, weapons won't fire and you can't even call for a support ship.

I seem to recall rumours that on Insane, hostile fighters have their crosshairs fixed on your targeting reticle, which means that they hit you. Always. No matter what you do.

It is a bit hard to say what level suits you the best. You might just want to start playing on Hard, for example, and then depending on how you succeed, you can tone it up or down between missions.

[MT]

Not just AAAf but even flak now becomes deadly since your shields do not recharge as fast.

[aRaven]

and then you can always modify the ai_profiles.tbl.

I modified it to suit my more realistic tastes, for having the same characteristics as the ai. i.e. weapon/shield recharge lvls same as ai, and toned down accuracy of ai fire, since nobody can hit 100%.

[FreeSpaceFreak]

Welcome speeches can be found here. I won't post one, because the admins (= Goober) complained about it.

If you want the dogfights to be realistic, play on Insane. It doesn't make things more difficult for you, it just doesn't make things easier. However, it's really insane, as you said. Most of us play on Medium. Of course, everything depends on your piloting skills.

It is a bit hard to say what level suits you the best. You might just want to start playing on Hard, for example, and then depending on how you succeed, you can tone it up or down between missions.

[Colonol Dekker]

You need to update your compendium, you forgot my speech 

[Shade]

I seem to recall rumours that on Insane, hostile fighters have their crosshairs fixed on your targeting reticle, which means that they hit you. Always. No matter what you do.

They always hit *if* you fly in a straight line at a constant speed. Solution: Don't do that

Another two effects of difficulty level that hasn't been mentioned is the number of missiles that can be targeted on the player, as well as the number of enemy fighters that can attack the player at once. Both of those increase the higher the difficulty is set, and on insane it is not too unusual to have 30+ missiles inbound at once if the AI is packing cluster munitions.

[garibaldy]

Hey, thanks for warm welcome. There's nothing better than a hot friendly laser beam directed at me. 

Thanks to everyone for the info!

aRaven: Could you perhaps reveal to me your version of ai_profiles.tbl?

[castor]

"Insane" is a bit too much for the first time through the game. If you like a tough fight, go with "hard". Otherwise medium should be fine.
You need to be very solid with the controls to play on insane.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

Scoring is also different on the various settings.  I think on insane you receive 120% of the score, hard is 100%, easy is something like 60%.  Medium is a strange figure somewhere around 78%. 

Another thing you might want to consider is what you are writing the campaign for.  For example TBP missions tend to be challenging on easy, hard on medium and practically impossible on insane.  Not sure about other mods. 

Is it some kind of elite or special ops campaign?  Those would tend to be more difficult so making them harder to beat would be logical.

Then there is multiplayer.  Missions are going to be played more so people will tend to learn tricks to beat them over time so while playing on insane may seem impossible now it might not be quit as challenging in a few months. 

[Droid803]

and then you can always modify the ai_profiles.tbl.

I modified it to suit my more realistic tastes, for having the same characteristics as the ai. i.e. weapon/shield recharge lvls same as ai, and toned down accuracy of ai fire, since nobody can hit 100%.

That makes insane a whole lot more sane 

[colecampbell666]

Scoring is also different on the various settings.  I think on insane you receive 120% of the score, hard is 100%, easy is something like 60%.  Medium is a strange figure somewhere around 78%. 

Very easy = .5*score
Easy = .75
Medium = 1.0
Hard = 1.5
Insane = 2.0

IIRC

[FUBAR-BDHR]

Must be different for multi then.  http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,45066.0.html

[FreeSpaceFreak]

You're welcome about the welcome

You need to update your compendium, you forgot my speech 

It's not mine, it's jr2's.

Anyway, more difficulty discussions in this thread. You probably had a look at it already.

[garibaldy]

Allright, after some thought I decided to try playing with insane and work my way towards very easy

I found these links very helpful too:

http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Ai_profiles.tbl
http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Ai.tbl

I just posted these to help some other newbie like me. Ai.tbl suggests that in retail version AI is "only" 70% accurate with his first shot on insane. I think I can live with that..or not.

Anyway, thanks for help!