[General Battuta]

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

Piranhas are bloody useless

One thing Fast Mod didn't do was make child weapons (Cluster Baby and Cluster Baby Weak) have a high turn rate and velocity like the other missiles did, give them the same variables as the Harpoon and Piranhas wipe out EVERYTHING.
Do the same to the MX-52 and it becomes an effective swarm weapon.

I wasn't playing with Fast Mod.

You can mod any weapon to make it more effective, but in this case, it was the FS2 main campaign with no mods.

[Roanoke]

I never bothered with Insane. They can slide, I can't.

[Commander Zane]

I wasn't playing with Fast Mod.

You can mod any weapon to make it more effective, but in this case, it was the FS2 main campaign with no mods.

I know you weren't.
I was just saying they're actually effective then.

[Mongoose]

The reason I skipped Bearbaiting is because I did practically everything (destroyed all the beam cannons, practically all the flak guns and killed the Beleth) but I warped out before the second wave of Gemini arrived.

...yeah, that'd be one hell of a ballbreaker.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

The reason I skipped Bearbaiting is because I did practically everything (destroyed all the beam cannons, practically all the flak guns and killed the Beleth) but I warped out before the second wave of Gemini arrived.

I did that once myself, but instead of skipping the mission, I replayed it again and forced my guns to dual BFRed. Got many more kills on my second run, so that offsets everything.

[Dilmah G]

The reason I skipped Bearbaiting is because I did practically everything (destroyed all the beam cannons, practically all the flak guns and killed the Beleth) but I warped out before the second wave of Gemini arrived.

I did that once myself, but instead of skipping the mission, I replayed it again and forced my guns to dual BFRed. Got many more kills on my second run, so that offsets everything.

I HAVE to try that

[Uchuujinsan]

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.

QFT
Except the thing with the Infyrno, I still hate it.

Especially the last mission on Insane made a lot of fun... I had so many problems surviving those 5 dragons without the fire support of the lemnos (if I lost it), and when I didnt lose it I was stupid enough to fight head on vs a wing of seraphims ^^
I really recommend playing the campaign on this difficulty, while it can get frustrating, it's a totally new experience.
Worst mission was "A game of tag", I died there so often...

[Droid803]

I'm convinced 'A Game of TAG' is impossible on Medium, even.
Tagging the Taurvis are no problem, it's avoiding the god damn friendly fire from the ultra-AAAfs.

[eliex]

"Avoid the beams and you won't get hit pilot!"

[ssmit132]

It's true, though. Don't fly towards a charging beam.

[Dilmah G]

I'm convinced 'A Game of TAG' is impossible on Medium, even.
Tagging the Taurvis are no problem, it's avoiding the god damn friendly fire from the ultra-AAAfs.

I don't find a huge issue with that, but I find myself occasionally having to make kills with my primaries and screaming variations of the word "F*ck" at the screen as I experience first-hand the lack of a punch overall HL-7s have.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

Yeah...I noticed just how terribly handicapped I was without proper missiles. I need, at the least, a rack of Tempests as much as a convoy needs protection from bombers.

A Game of TAG isn't too difficult if you stay close to the Warspite and know where it is whenever you circle a Shivan. Commander Vincey did say, "Get in behind the target and launch your TAGs." which I think should be taken literally.

[Commander Zane]

It's true, though. Don't fly towards a charging beam.

ULTRA-AAAs don't really charge.

[Dilmah G]

It's true, though. Don't fly towards a charging beam.

ULTRA-AAAs don't really charge.

Correct, they Pwn

[Droid803]

A Game of TAG isn't too difficult if you stay close to the Warspite and know where it is whenever you circle a Shivan. Commander Vincey did say, "Get in behind the target and launch your TAGs." which I think should be taken literally.

Taking that literally is exactly what gets me killed by friendly ULTRA-AAAs. They spear the Taurvi, then proceed to hit me, who is behind the Taurvi. I probably should try intercepting them from the side, but then I run into the problem of missing because the TAG comes out of the wrong missile tube...

And it's pretty had to actually catch an ULTRA-AAA charging, especially in the nebula (and the fact that it takes virtually no time to start up).

[The E]

Using the 3d Radar with Radar Icons made that mission much easier for me, since it was easier to keep track of my position relative to the Warspite.

[eliex]

Using the 3d Radar with Radar Icons made that mission much easier for me, since it was easier to keep track of my position relative to the Warspite.

Can't you already target all friendly warships from extremely long ranges even in a nebula?

[The E]

Well, yeah, but TAGging the Shivans safely is essentially a geometry problem. With the 2d radar, or the normal 3d one, I often lost track of which dot represented the Warspite. With the Icons, I was able to determine quickly (and without messing with my targeting), if it was safe to TAG a shivan. It wasn't so much about the ranges as about the battlefields' layout.

[eliex]

Yes, I never really used the 3d/icons radar as it really cluttered up my radar especially in BoE missions so I gave up with them. 

[Androgeos Exeunt]

The 3D radar is nice, and I'm used to it already. Which is why I don't revert to 2D even in As Lightning Fall.