[Snail]

I am actually going to agree with Mobius on this one, at least to an extent.

Advising people to avoid cliches does not equate to telling people to avoid breathing through their nose. It's just the same as telling people not to end their epic books with "And then I woke up and it was all a dream lol," which as we all know is perfectly valid advice.

[Krelus]

I know I'll have at least one instance where you have to destroy a Ravana's LReds in my campaign, but I'm A.) beefing up the subsystems in the table so you can't, y'know, disarm it by sneezing on it and B.) have it make sense. The plot is it shows up mid-mission, screws everything up and fries the Deimos you're trying to capture. Command sends the nearest thing available to deal with it, which is a semi-damaged Raynor, and you're tasked with neutering the destroyer while the cavalry is en route. It stands no chance of winning with the two LReds still operational, but it's more like a coordinated ambush than an escort.

I'm hoping to use this particular FS2 Trope only once, and I hope I'll have done enough to differentiate it. I do agree, though, this is a bit overused.

EDIT: To clarify, the reason the Raynor doesn't just jump out in a broadside position is it's coming from another system and the Ravana is pointed at the node.

[Mongoose]

Mongoose misenterpreted my point like no one ever before and made my opinion look silly. I never said that I'm against the deployment of Ravanas - I said that it should be, overall, handled in a better way.

Funny how me making your opinion look silly works out to my "misinterpreting" it.  Methinks that says more about the opinion than about the person criticizing it.

We know from in-Universe points of view that destroyers aren't always supposed to join battlefields. Doing so would be a tactical error since allowing the enemy to damage ships of the importance of a destroyer is not good. The Shivans are likely to be an exception, but they're not stupid.

We know from in-universe points of view that the Shivans are exceptionally offensively-minded, and that they have no qualms whatsoever about throwing excessive firepower at a particular obstacle, nor about taking losses in the process of doing so.  This is the same species that sacrificed multiple juggernauts at the drop of a hat in order to accomplish some nebulous (hee) objective.  I highly doubt they're all that concerned about a Ravana or two biting the dust or being de-fanged.

Also, valid or not, the total lack of originality is more than sufficient to change the tendence. Why would a FREDder keep doing something that is becoming much more obvious than Briefings and Command Briefings?

Maybe because, oh, it makes perfect sense to do so?  Or should campaign designers also stop creating "defend the convoy from fighter wings" missions simply because it's been done fifty times before?

[Lucika]

I might make a mission in Syrk (cough, cough, Dilmah and the others... still remember what it is? ) where the Ravana makes a kamikaze run on an Orion. Tho the Terrans have absolutely 0 chance against the Shivans (pre-FS1 but not contradicting canon), so it isn't such a big deal. I'd love to see it in an FS2-era campaign tho.

BEWARE!!!! Self-quoting!
No one noticed my idea about a Ravana running kamikaze?

[Droid803]

Why would it ever do that unless its main beams were disabled first?
Especially against an Orion...

[Lucika]

Why would it ever do that unless its main beams were disabled first?
Especially against an Orion...

Half-scrapped, for instance?

[Droid803]

A half-scrapped Ravana?
Uhm...ok...

[Rodo]

two different FREDders, two different points of view and two different ways of using the same ship.

I think it's better to get an interesting or original mission rather than a common one, but most of the times getting an interesting mission done is quite difficult.

[Droid803]

And here, I'm thinking that you can have an interesting mission using the right combination of common components.
The idea behind it and the execution just needs to be solid.

* Droid803 thinks of 'Forced Entry'

I see a Ravana there. Check.
The way to win is to take out its beam cannons ASAP. Check.
Awesome mission. Check.

If the Ravana just sat there and spat out fighters, I doubt the mission would have been as good, nor as memorable. I don't think it would have presented as much of a threat either.

[Rodo]

sure thing, common ships will never become boring if used correctly.

but for example... which mission did you love the most from STR??? and I can be completely sure that most of the members will agree in one particular mission.

[Droid803]

I liked the Last Hurrah (which other people hated) cause I racked up the kills that mission. Killing immobile targets is always fun. (And yes, I finished it on my first go).

I didn't like He Who Rides the Tiger (which other people loved) because I had to sit through the boring, long-winded talking at the beginning like four times before I actually managed to finish the damn thing.

[Rodo]

And here, I'm thinking that you can have an interesting mission using the right combination of common components.
The idea behind it and the execution just needs to be solid.

* Droid803 thinks of 'Forced Entry'

I see a Ravana there. Check.
The way to win is to take out its beam cannons ASAP. Check.
Awesome mission. Check.

If the Ravana just sat there and spat out fighters, I doubt the mission would have been as good, nor as memorable. I don't think it would have presented as much of a threat either.

ahh you got another one there, forced entry is a good example of an interesting mission.... you can actually see the amount of work that went into that one, and even being as hard as hell to beat it (which would discourage most of the players) I found it incredibly fun.

you see.. the ravana was used marvelously in that one, you could almost touch the tension and embrace that sense of defeat when looking at it jumping in, that's what a mission should do with the player, yet as I said before... it's quite difficult to achieve.

[Rodo]

I didn't like He Who Rides the Tiger (which other people loved) because I had to sit through the boring, long-winded talking at the beginning like four times before I actually managed to finish the damn thing.

that's the one I was talking about

well guess not all the players will find my favourite missions as fun as I did.

[Scotty]

I'm FREDing a mission that I had an idea for a couple days ago.  It has a Ravana defending a cargo and comm depot, immediately following the destruction of the first Sath (explanation:  they're stretched thin).  Good:  I'll find out in a bit.  Original:  I think so.

[Lucika]

A half-scrapped Ravana?
Uhm...ok...

I used the wrong word, sorry. I meant that its hull is under, for instance, 30%.

[Commander Zane]

Why would it ever do that unless its main beams were disabled first?
Especially against an Orion...

Drive the spikes into the hull and then fire for MASSIVE DAMAGE.

[Mobius]

* Droid803 thinks of 'Forced Entry'

I see a Ravana there. Check.
The way to win is to take out its beam cannons ASAP. Check.
Awesome mission. Check.

If the Ravana just sat there and spat out fighters, I doubt the mission would have been as good, nor as memorable. I don't think it would have presented as much of a threat either.

And who said that the only alternate way of using the Ravana is letting it launch spacecraft, and nothing else? I proposed it as an alternate concept, but I didn't say it's the only one.

Memorable? It was cliché.

[FoxtrotTango]

* Droid803 thinks of 'Forced Entry'

I see a Ravana there. Check.
The way to win is to take out its beam cannons ASAP. Check.
Awesome mission. Check.

If the Ravana just sat there and spat out fighters, I doubt the mission would have been as good, nor as memorable. I don't think it would have presented as much of a threat either.

And who said that the only alternate way of using the Ravana is letting it launch spacecraft, and nothing else? I proposed it as an alternate concept, but I didn't say it's the only one.

Memorable? It was cliché.

Doesn't make it any less memorable.

I'll admit, the later missions in said campaign were rather monotonous in accordance to the whole beam-destroying element, but blowing up Shivans also gets monotonous. Blowing up wings of fighters also gets monotonous. Even blowing things up gets monotonous. If there's a point where something gets monotonous, that means that you've been doing it to the point where it no longer interests or surprises you. Other people may like it, but you've just gotten tired of it. Maybe you should play another campaign.

Mobius, I respect you, but when you make these statements as if your opinion should be unquestioned law, it really fails to impress me. You should keep a mind open to any view other than your own, because we don't revolve around you. So you've noticed that many custom campaigns make the player disarm Ravana beam cannons. Good for you. However, instead of urinating on this aspect in public and expecting everyone to join in, how about you actually suggest ways to make these parts more original? I think an idea is coming to me right now that will demonstrate my point...

How about, instead of disarming a Ravana's beam cannons, the Ravana starts out already disarmed? As the weaker allied ships, armed with beams, near its location, the Shivans send wings to try and eliminate the allied beams. You've got to intercept their surgical strikes or the friendly capital ships will be no match for the stronger Ravana.

See? An idea that I'm sure hasn't been done before! And with no lashing out at anyone else? Was that so hard?

[NGTM-1R]

This is a fault, yes, mainly because the Ravana should be doing that classic Shivan thing and jumping in close enough to forcibly sodomize the target with its beams. But this treatment is not really the fault of the mission designers in the end, I'm afraid. It's the fault of the Ravana designers.

I am actually going to agree with Mobius on this one, at least to an extent.

Advising people to avoid cliches does not equate to telling people to avoid breathing through their nose. It's just the same as telling people not to end their epic books with "And then I woke up and it was all a dream lol," which as we all know is perfectly valid advice.

No, this really is telling people not to breath through their nose...or rather, to use your example, it is telling them to end their books with "And then I woke up and it was all a dream lol", because like that using the Ravana in some other fashion defies logic.

Let's be honest now: tactically, the Ravana is an extremely blunt instrument. It's not tough enough to fight defensively and it's not armed for that. It's very clearly designed to act offensively; to jump in and deliever a one or two salvo killing blow from its main battery. That is what it does. It does it very well, too, which is good since it's not much good at anything else.

So don't tell me it should stand off and launch fighters. If it's just going to stand off and launch fightercraft wings, it might as well not be in the mission area.

[Goober5000]

* Goober5000 arrives late to the thread

I agree with Mobius actually.  Killing the Ravana's forward beams has become a bit of a cliché; you find it in many, many post-Capella campaigns.  Only I think people are piling on Mobius because he isn't expressing himself clearly.

I think the problem is that too often the Ravana problem is presented as a hoop the player must jump through.  If he disarms the Ravana in time, the Ravana is rendered harmless and the mission proceeds as if it wasn't even there.  If he doesn't disarm it in time, the Ravana kills a mission-critical ship and you instantly lose.  It's kind of annoying.  And it's made even more annoying by the fact that the Ravana has very little turret armor, so something that should be a big deal really isn't.

I think "Forced Entry" is actually a rare exception to this cliché.  Instead of a hoop to jump through, the Ravana is a threat you must heroically respond to.  And it's made more urgent by the fact that you might have to dash across half the battlefield to do it.