[Snail]

I enjoy "eventful" convoy missions, not missions where 2 wings of Hercules fighters just jump in with a wave repeat count of 99. By eventful I mean, an enemy cruiser jumps in or there are different stages to the mission.

[Mobius]

That's not enough. You need more than a cruiser(what an original idea, *Maelstrom* ) to make a boring escort mission an enjoyable one. First of all it shouldn't last 10 or more minutes.

[Snail]

Well a good escort mission IMO is something with plot, storyline and different parts to the mission. So it starts off normally, but then, maybe a cruiser jumps in 4,000 clicks out and the player is sent to intercept it. Then enemy bombers come and try to destroy the convoy ships while the player is away. When the player gets back, another interesting thing happens, like enemy transports jump in. This way you can maintain the "oooh, this is a new type of challenge" atmosphere for longer than 10 minutes.

"Into the Maelstrom" was good because it wasn't just loads and loads of Hercules wings jumping in one after another (Surrender Belisaurius was okay because it was relatively short, and it had an interesting bit at the end). Into the Maelstrom wasn't only an escort mission, you needed tactics to destroy the Maelstrom's beam cannon as well as stop the Medusae from killing off your ships.

Additonally, PI's first mission was good because we could see a lot of new stuff, despite it being uneventful in comparison to the other missions of the campaign. Like the Aten actually doing something, and the Vulcan primaries.

[Mobius]

I agree with you but cruisers aren't original. I don't want to see more copies of Into the Maelstrom - people should find more original things to make escort missions better.

On a side note, there's a 15-20 minutes escort mission in Steadfast(cutscenes included) with thousands of original ideas on it.

[Colonol Dekker]

You got that right! The only time i would wanna escort a convoy for ten minutes+ is if it's ferrying solid gold millionaire strippers! Nothing bores like a wing of Loki on repeat x infinity. 

[Snail]

Convoy missions with chatter are good too. IMO, of course.

[Mobius]

I noticed a problem in designing such missions. Events should be well coordinate, I must be sure, for example, that wing x is destroyed before mission-time = y and other minor things. Disabled bombers that remain behind make everything more complicate...

[Snail]

Disabled enemy ships are destroyed after x amount of time passes. Automatically, I believe.

Might only be on Very Easy though.

[Stealth]

Look at, say, the Harbinger of FS1... an Ursa could carry what... 5 of them at a time?  And they took like 30 seconds to reload after you fire 2 of them?
That same Ursa could carry 50 stilettos... 10 stilettos would take out a reactor of a Lucifer (if i'm remembering right... it's been a while).  and you only wait a couple of seconds between shots

Except-

A Harbinger has a ridiculous subsystem damage value increase, which means that while it does 1600 raw damage, it does 64000 subsystem damage, meaning that a single Harbinger would be sufficent for the task of taking out any subsystem on any ship in the game. If it's economy of effort you're looking for, then the Harbinger wins at that particular task.

BUT, now you're forgetting that
a) A harbinger can only be carried by one ship in the game; a Stiletto by multiple
b) The aspect lock for a harbinger would take even an experienced pilot a good 10 seconds, and that's for a capital ship, let alone for a fast moving cruiser/freighter/convoy
c) The harbinger is much, much slower moving... thus
c1) it can be shot down
c2) even if it doesn't get shot down, you're looking at a 30 second rearm time

[Colonol Dekker]

C and C1 - release close to target. C2 - Switch banks and come around to reaquire lock. fire in dual  mode also.

[NGTM-1R]

BUT, now you're forgetting that
a) A harbinger can only be carried by one ship in the game; a Stiletto by multiple
b) The aspect lock for a harbinger would take even an experienced pilot a good 10 seconds, and that's for a capital ship, let alone for a fast moving cruiser/freighter/convoy
c) The harbinger is much, much slower moving... thus
c1) it can be shot down
c2) even if it doesn't get shot down, you're looking at a 30 second rearm time

You gave a particular example, i.e. taking out the Lucy's reactors, so...

A: There are Ursas available for the task, or should be if anyone's trying it.
B: The time it takes to ripple off ten Stilletos is about the same as it does to lock a single Harbinger.
C1: At any reasonable range at which you could expect a ripple of 10 un-pilot-guided Stilletos to engage the same subsystem on a Lucifer, a Harbinger being shot down is very unlikely
C2: You have three banks, which is 3 within slightly more than thirty seconds, and then your first bank will be ready to go again by the time you cycle back to it.