[rbxplayer]

Further to ideas submitted by Fabian...

http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,47376.0.html

"It again feels strange that no bomber wings have stillettos on board. One hit and you have a ship with engines disabled, which then is an easy target, because either the whole convoy needs to stop and have one ship repair the broken one or its left behind its escort. It might be very unfair to have bombers with stillettos from a playpoint point-of-view, but it was something I ever wondered about."

Why not create more complex missions where enemy bombers have stillettos and if they manage to disable your convoy, there should be a back up plan? If you are an admiral, would you send out a huge convoy without an engine repairing ship? In the mean time, maybe an extra wing of bombers maybe sent etc... and you are able to buy yourself time, you should still make it to finish the mission... This is especially great fun for missions which need to be completed in a specific time frame.

[Clawandfang]

I was under the impression that stillettos were only used when trying to capture craft. If a bomber wing was smart, they could target the engines with powerful bombs, thereby dealing damage AND disabling the craft. Stillettos are only useful when you're trying to do little damage to the ship.

That having been said... I've never seen Freespace AI do anything that smart, but no doubt someone somewhere is improving AI.  Yes, yes... I would if I had the know-how.

[eliex]

 That's actually a great plan - especially given that the enemies have at least 30 bomber in total . . .
Hard to do that in Inferno though . . . the Stellito III aren't as good ( from my point of view ) as the Stellito II's.

 And modern ships are more disable-proof - there have more engines! 

[Aardwolf]

Um... Stiletto III is not canon, as it's from Inferno, therefore it has no place in this discussion, unless it were broadened to include Inferno.

[Stealth]

BEE TEE DUB...

Stilettos deal more damage to subsystems than bombs of comparable damage, plus they're harder to shoot down (faster, smaller)

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

Thus i agree... bombers disabling the target first is a great idea

[Clawandfang]

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

Alright, that does make sense from a gameplay point of view. From what I remember though (please correct me if I'm wrong!) the Stiletto knocks a substem out, rather than destroying it outright, which is what was needed with the Lucifer's reactors, as they wanted the explosions to trigger a chain reaction which would destroy the Shivan Super Destroyer.

[Kie99]

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

Alright, that does make sense from a gameplay point of view. From what I remember though (please correct me if I'm wrong!) the Stiletto knocks a substem out, rather than destroying it outright, which is what was needed with the Lucifer's reactors, as they wanted the explosions to trigger a chain reaction which would destroy the Shivan Super Destroyer.

The only weapons that knock things out rather than destroying them is the EMP and the D(isruptor)-Missile from FS1.

[IceFire]

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

Alright, that does make sense from a gameplay point of view. From what I remember though (please correct me if I'm wrong!) the Stiletto knocks a substem out, rather than destroying it outright, which is what was needed with the Lucifer's reactors, as they wanted the explosions to trigger a chain reaction which would destroy the Shivan Super Destroyer.

As far as the mission triggers are concerned it doesn't matter.  Subsystem = 0% really doesn't care how it got there.  But fictionally...yeah the idea was to cause big booms.

[Stealth]

Stiletto destroys subsystems

[blowfish]

Yes its true that Stiletto IIs can dish out subsystem damage faster than any other weapon in FS2.  But you can do more subsystem damage for the same amount of sbank capacity (albeit over a longer period of time) with Trebuchets, Helios, or even Cyclopses (the #short version).  Most people won't take stilettos when there are Trebuchets to be had unless their mission is specifically to disable and not destroy a certain ship.  (And even then, many would use trebs).

But this is getting somewhat off topic.

[eliex]

 I'll still say that unless you are attacking a heavy cruiser or a corvette, just load the bombers up with hornets and trebs and swarm
the freighters < poor suckers > in one go!

 HORnETS ArE UNSToPPABLE!!

[Titan]

I love stilletos, i remember back in the good 'ol days of two weeks ago, i used paired stilleto IIs to knock out every beam cannon on every ship i encountered. And i honestly didn't care about damaging these ships, my cap ships could do it. but they wouldn't have been able to if i hadn't fragged the enemy's beamz.

[blowfish]

I love stilletos, i remember back in the good 'ol days of two weeks ago, i used paired stilleto IIs to knock out every beam cannon on every ship i encountered. And i honestly didn't care about damaging these ships, my cap ships could do it. but they wouldn't have been able to if i hadn't fragged the enemy's beamz.

But if you don't care about damaging those ships, you could have just used Trebuchets.  They have more range, do more subsystem damage, and can't be shot down.

[admiral_wolf]

I personally hated them and the Athena when they fist came out to get the Taranis as I felt useless after the Halkins had docked with the Cain.  However, I loved them when I needed them when escorting the Galatea against kamikaze HoL fighters and that blasted Aten cruiser!  The only time I was able to beat that mission was when I used Stilettos to disable the Aten.

[Charismatic]

Tho i didnt like Steleiots (Sp?) they were great  in taking out subsystems, especialy with the Aketon SGD (Sp?).

[NGTM-1R]

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.

[FreeSpaceFreak]

*grammar inquisition*

Though I didn't like Stilettos, they were great in taking out subsystems, especially with the Akethon SDG.

*runs*

[Woolie Wool]

First of all, it's spelling, not grammar, and second, you couldn't spell "Akheton" right either.

[Snail]

Yeah, well I reject your reality and substitute my own!

[Mobius]

Further to ideas submitted by Fabian...

http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,47376.0.html

"It again feels strange that no bomber wings have stillettos on board. One hit and you have a ship with engines disabled, which then is an easy target, because either the whole convoy needs to stop and have one ship repair the broken one or its left behind its escort. It might be very unfair to have bombers with stillettos from a playpoint point-of-view, but it was something I ever wondered about."

Why not create more complex missions where enemy bombers have stillettos and if they manage to disable your convoy, there should be a back up plan? If you are an admiral, would you send out a huge convoy without an engine repairing ship? In the mean time, maybe an extra wing of bombers maybe sent etc... and you are able to buy yourself time, you should still make it to finish the mission... This is especially great fun for missions which need to be completed in a specific time frame.

In my opinion custom made(and 's) convoy protection missions have other problems.

They're the most boring missions in existance and many of them are badly FREDded. Only a few of them have interesting features and I have amazingly noticed that people start using cheats() mostly "thanks" to escort missions. Replaying a LONG mission only because 1-2 torpedoes passed through a fire barrage isn't cool.