[dayle]

im doing i best i swear to god, but after trying and failing to do the mission rebels and renegades for the 50th time even my resolve is crumbling. every walkthrough ive found online tells me to do something different, and no matter what i do just.cant.beat.it. if someone has any advice im all ears but jesus. i havent been this frustrated for a long long time.

[General Battuta]

Turn down the difficulty?

What are you flying? At what point are you failing?

Cheat?

Besides, it's an SOC loop, optional mission. You can always come back to it.

[headdie]

i believe if you fail a mission 3 of 5 times you can skip it.

have you tried adjusting difficulty setting?

also have you looked through this http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Rebels_%26_Renegades ?

[dayle]

its kind of a stupid matter of pride, but i refuse to turn the diffuclty down below normal. perhaps its all my own fault. anyway i fail because the ****ING asar never dies, and the icini is ripped to shreds, SOMETIMES with the asar with 1 health. some guides say IGNORE the asteroids they do ****, go for the asar. so i do this, the asteroids tear it to peices. others say IGNORE THE ASAR, GO FOR THE ASTEROIDS, so i do that and the asar tears it to peices. in addition to the fighters, bombers, friendly fire, no orderable units. ****. i cant call this a bad game given its one of those all time classics but christ!!

[General Battuta]

What are you flying?

The Iceni should murder the Asar. It's just a cruiser. Is the Iceni firing its beams?

Prioritize enemy bombers if they're nearby. I'd say the asteroids are probably a bigger threat than the Asar.

The mission isn't that hard, so whatever's going wrong is happening on your end. Stick with us, we'll help you through it.

[dayle]

alright,
im using the Myrmidon, armed with 2 Subachs ,2 Tempests and Rockeyes.
the asar simply doesnt go down. even if i remove its beam gun or whatever. i might add im running the most recent open source version.

[General Battuta]

With the MediaVPs?

Ditch the Rockeyes, they suck. Otherwise the loadout's pretty good.

Can you tell what's doing all the damage to the Iceni? Is the Iceni firing its beams at the Asar? Are there hostile bombers (you can target them with the B key)?

I'm gonna guess you should be prioritizing the asteroids.

[Nuclear1]

The Iceni should murder the Asar. It's just a cruiser. Is the Iceni firing its beams?

The Asar is the Sobek, and it really is a ***** to deal with in this mission.

Here's how I do the mission usually:

Have two banks of Rockeyes and one of Tempests.  Use your Tempests in limited numbers on the bombers, only after you're broken their shields with the Subachs.  Don't use your Rockeyes on the fighters and bombers.  Save them for the Asar.  When it shows up, get at an angle above the front of the ship and target the anti-capital beams.  One bank for each turret should either completely destroy them or badly damage them enough for you to finish them off.  You can try taking out the AAA first and then just using your Subachs on the turrets, but I can't guarantee the flak won't eat you up doing so.

After that, simply stay clear of the Asar.  Focus on the bombers and the asteroids at this point.  If you got the Sobek's turrets reasonably early, the Iceni should be able to take a few asteroid hits. 

[dayle]

yeah will all the media vps. thats the only mod im using thus far.

[General Battuta]

Oh, okay, if the Asar's the Sobek, that's a bit tougher.

Nail the two forward beams and then ignore it. Don't tell your wingmen to ignore it, though. You can use the 'V' key to target turrets under your reticle - should help.

[dayle]

thats it. im done. this game is going off my hardrive and the flightstick back in the garage. i thank you all for trying to help me out, but it simply cant be done, and i refuse to play a game that pulls **** like this. im sure its a wonderful game, but its obviously not for me. ive never been this frustrated in my life. again thank you all but thats it.

[General Battuta]

What? Come on, we haven't even figured out if your mission is working properly. Something could be broken.

Turn off the MediaVPs and see if it plays any different.

It obviously simply can be done. At the very least, just hit 'exit loop' and keep going on the campaign; it's only an optional mission.

We've got plenty of non-expert players here who have beaten that mission. Just give it a rest and come back to it later if you don't want to exit the loop. There's no reason to give up on the whole game on account of one mission.

The game isn't pulling any ****. The mission works fine for most of us. If there's something broken with your mission, let us help figure it out.

[dayle]

heh the uninstall has already finished, but to satisfy my curiousity do the mediavps have a history of...err...well...breaking the game?

[General Battuta]

No. For god's sake, don't be an idiot. There are hundreds of user-made campaigns you could be playing even if one mission in the main campaign frustrated you. You can skip the mission, it's optional.

[General Battuta]

Okay, just played the mission using the latest nightly build, 3.6.10 MediaVPs with patch.

The Iceni blew the Asar away with about 60% hull integrity left. The mission appears to work fine on Medium difficulty.

Could you reinstall the game and follow the steps in the troubleshooting forum to generate a debug log? Then we can help figure out if there's a problem.

[dayle]

ha well upon your advice i re-installed and tried to play it straight with no open, thus no media vps, thus no unforseen problems...and now it doesnt read my joystick. all i can do is laugh. a break of at least a week is required here, least i kill something

[General Battuta]

You weren't required to drop FSOpen, just deselect the MediaVPs in the launcher.

The debug log, if possible? Instructions are here.

[Colonol Dekker]

Stick with it man.
You'll experience something that will change your life forever. . . . The eponymous 'dive' speech.
 
 
My advice is play the one mission on easy. Then ramp it back up to normal afterwards. . . . I even followed the directions.

[General Battuta]

Yeah. Or, seriously, just skip it. It's an SOC loop mission. They're optional.

Come back to it later when your skills have improved.

[Mongoose]

(Note to self: If dayle does decide to stick with the game, keep him far away from Procyon Insurgency. )

I do seem to remember this mission being somewhat of a pain in the ass on occasion, at least on Easy, though I don't know if the Asar was ever the main factor.  I feel like the asteroids wound up giving me some significant trouble, particularly on the Hinton.  What I do know, however, is that its most major hair-pulling moments were generated by the glitch mentioned in the Wiki article, which I think (or at least hope) has been fixed in the MediaVPs:

Unfortunately, both the Iceni and the Hinton try to jump out at the same spot. And both ships have the same speed. This may result in a long series of collisions at the node before they jump out. Roughly 50% of the time, the Iceni batters the Hinton to death at the node regardless of your efforts.

(Dear lord, did that piss me off...)

In any case, dayle, we've all collectively played through this mission enough times to assure you that, under normal circumstances, it is in fact winnable, albeit maybe a bit challenging.  It does sound like something may have gone wrong on your end, as the Sobek shouldn't be posing that large of a threat.  I hope you'll consider sticking around and giving the game a second chance, even if it means you have to skip the mission for now; it's definitely a worthwhile experience.