[General Battuta]

Just finished a playthrough on Insane. All in all, not too bad! The main campaign is surprisingly well-balanced for that difficulty.

A few interesting observations, all running counter to the idea that a) capital ships are easy to kill, b) Alpha 1 is god, and c) Shivans have only crap ships.

1) Having a fighter on your tail is serious business.

1a) Having a Nahema on your tail is awful. Who knew that ship was such a good dogfighter? And it can outrun...everything. Once, on Argonautica, one just hung off my Perseus' tail and dropped me from 100/full shields to 8/no shields.

1b) Having a Nephilim on your tail is just hell. It can't usually stay there very well, but it if it does - yowch.

1c) You should never fly in front of a Seraphim formation.

1d) The Astaroth doesn't suck as much as I thought. The Mara is more than solid. The Dragon deserves its reputation -- I saw one last a good ten seconds while being C31ed by four Kayser-armed friendly wings. If these carried better weaponry they'd be really irritating. Shivan fighters seem to be very specialized, and while they don't do well outside their roles, they're pretty decent within them.

2)Attacking even the smallest capital ship is risky business. This is due to AAA beams. Flak makes it exponentially worse against destroyers. Blobs aren't generally a serious threat unless your shields are down.

2a)  Flak is hell. Bomber crews must have an ungodly casualty rate.

3) Allied Command has pretty good tactics. Command is not dumb. Recon elements do a lot of good spotting in the FS2 campaign, and friendly warships are (generally) employed well.

4) Speaking of command, the last few missions of the FS2 campaign are really superb at making you feel like a squadron leader. More than any previous mission, they depend on your guard assignments and orders. I felt really cool on 'Clash of the Titans', telling various wings to guard each cruiser and then setting Gamma after each inbound bomber wing. 'Apocalypse' requires you to identify the critical targets the Shivans are going after and focus your protection on them. Fun stuff.

5) The Infyrno isn't junk. If you could carry a few more, it'd be my anti-bomber weapon of choice. You can take out entire formations with one hit.

It's cool that I'm still getting new stuff out of this game after ten years of play.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

I've had to withstand the torture of exchanging circles with a Manticore on Insane while flying an Ares. If I didn't have ~ + I on, I would die very quickly.

[Enigmatic Entity]

It's not the Manticore that you're chasing, it's the other ships that take you out while you're doing it.

[Killer Whale]

I heard somewhere that if you don't target ships, they don't spin round and start really attacking you. Such as attacking a bomber wing, if you don't target them, they don't fly off from the others. Is that true?

[Androgeos Exeunt]

They follow their orders to the letter, so as long as you don't shoot at them, they won't break formation. The same applies to fighters attacking a large ship.

There are, of course, ways to destroy fighters and bombers without them noticing. That's why we've got Infyrnos and Piranhas.

[Dilmah G]

That's why we've got Infyrnos and Piranhas.

Piranhas are bloody useless

Anyway, in an attempt not to succumb to recent fashion and pull threads way off topic
With slightly better friendly AI who valued self preservation a bit more I think Insane would be slightly more fun. ATM there are some really insane missions. I've passed Slaying Ravana once, on Insane, only to be killed by a Manticore as a I jumped out. Never touch the main campaign on insane again.

[Pred the Penguin]

I haven't even passed normal.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

I haven't even passed normal.

At least that's better than me. Cheated my way through Insane and completed Very Easy without cheats. In other words, I haven't tried playing through the main campaign on Easy without cheats.

[General Battuta]

That's why we've got Infyrnos and Piranhas.

Piranhas are bloody useless

Anyway, in an attempt not to succumb to recent fashion and pull threads way off topic
With slightly better friendly AI who valued self preservation a bit more I think Insane would be slightly more fun. ATM there are some really insane missions. I've passed Slaying Ravana once, on Insane, only to be killed by a Manticore as a I jumped out. Never touch the main campaign on insane again.

That was the hardest mission for me. Try either attacking from the Ravana's rear and disabling the flak guns or using the friendly Sobek as cover.

The only time the Piranha ever seems to do any good is when Nahemas start just tossing them everywhere. Even then the individual munitions don't do much, but the shockwave is occasionally pretty deadly.

I heard somewhere that if you don't target ships, they don't spin round and start really attacking you. Such as attacking a bomber wing, if you don't target them, they don't fly off from the others. Is that true?

Yes. Definitely true.

[Charismatic]

I have beat it on hard, but have tried most missions on insane several times.

[Enigmatic Entity]

I heard somewhere that if you don't target ships, they don't spin round and start really attacking you. Such as attacking a bomber wing, if you don't target them, they don't fly off from the others. Is that true?

That's why you go right up their six and blast them with Kaysers and Tempests so they blow up before they can engage their afterburners. By the way, exactly why are they called afterburners?

[Androgeos Exeunt]

Because that's what they're called in real-life.

Maybe it's also because they come out from the exhaust.

[Mongoose]

That's why you go right up their six and blast them with Kaysers and Tempests so they blow up before the can engage their afterburners. By the way, exactly why are they called afterburners?

Because in the jet aircraft where the term is derived from, the act of dumping and igniting fuel after the engine's turbines provides a temporary burst of increased thrust.

[General Battuta]

I heard somewhere that if you don't target ships, they don't spin round and start really attacking you. Such as attacking a bomber wing, if you don't target them, they don't fly off from the others. Is that true?

That's why you go right up their six and blast them with Kaysers and Tempests so they blow up before the can engage their afterburners. By the way, exactly why are they called afterburners?

That doesn't really work when the bombers are coming towards whatever you're defending.

[Pred the Penguin]

get behind them?

[Enigmatic Entity]

Well, sometimes one wheels off when you attack it sort-of head on, by the time you've finished destroying it, the others are in a position so that it is easier to attck them from behind. Mainly because I always order my wingmen to attack the fighter wings, so I'm left with the bombers.

[Pred the Penguin]

I usually send my wings after the bombers. It's pretty hard for me to handle bombers and their bombs.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

I usually send my wings after the bombers. It's pretty hard for me to handle bombers and their bombs.

Given that you've already played BP, I don't suppose you've noticed that the Shivan warheads in BP are a hundred times more dangerous than the canon firecrackers we've had then.

[Pred the Penguin]

I've seriously lost count of the times I've died from those...

[Black Wolf]

Anyway, in an attempt not to succumb to recent fashion and pull threads way off topic...

Recent?