[Goober5000]

u r teh nubz

The good-secondary-time trick has been known for a long while.

I never said it hadn't been.  I was confirming the veteran comment on the wiki page.

Fury's AI, however, permits Trebuchets to be fired at fighters and bombers. I don't know why, apparently neither you nor Fury do either, but it does. I'm guessing smart secondary weapon selection.

Actually, Fury did say he thought it was because of $smart secondary weapon selection in ai_profiles.tbl.  And he's correct, that's what bypasses the HUGE restriction in the code.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

You say that, but I've personally tried Fury's AI in retail on 3.6.12 before. I never saw my wingmen using Trebs.

[The E]

Well, try BP:AoA with the 3.6.12 AI. Go to Forced Entry, equip your friendlies with Trebs, and watch the whole mission drop down a bit in difficulty.

[Qent]

That's a pretty high-end campaign; without looking, I would expect it to make liberal use of good-secondary-time.

[General Battuta]

That's a pretty high-end campaign; without looking, I would expect it to make liberal use of good-secondary-time.

Doesn't.

[Timerlane]

You say that, but I've personally tried Fury's AI in retail on 3.6.12 before. I never saw my wingmen using Trebs.

Don't know about wingmen, but watch how fast the Trinity dies from Basilisk Treb fire(in Mystery of the Trinity).

[Androgeos Exeunt]

I don't recall Basilisks using Trebs in that mission.

[MatthTheGeek]

Of course, given that they don't with retail AI. But I guess Timerlane have tried this mission with Fury's and noticed that they did use them.

[ChronoReverse]

And they use it so much.  While I was playing through the retail missions with Fury's AI, I had to tweak a great number of them so they'd be beatable on Normal.  The enemies strikecraft were often given Tempests and/or Trebuchets to limit their secondary usage or as default which utterly destroys some escort or protection missions.

[Timerlane]

Yeah, that's what I meant. Maras, Aeshmas and Basilisks all have Trebs in their default loadouts(as well as many/most Shivan bombers, but of course they're usually 'customized' to carry bombs).

I thought it might be a bug at first, until I heard about the 'smart weapon selection' in Fury AI, and figured that must have bypassed whatever hangups that kept the AI from using Trebs. They'll also happily shoot them at you if you're in a "bomber"-flagged craft, so they're definitely used the way both the "bomber+" and "huge" flags imply they should be.

[ChronoReverse]

Indeed, Bear Baiting with Fury's AI is ridiculously hard because of the Trebuchets being lobbed at you.

[QuantumDelta]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67DCm0szeQY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekdFaVcPICM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOVAv1fjxDo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7p1d0De5sk


Two missions where I actually put in a fairly decent performance, you really can't afford to take Harpoons on these if you want all these kills especially on ITLD.
I don't really know how better to end any 'debate' here. You can see my trying to make harpoons work effectively in other parts of the playthrough but they simply aren't fast enough (lock or travel time) to make it worth taking however many of them over 200 tempest.

[Mongoose]

Remember, though, you're a somewhat-specialized case in that your skills allow you to use Tempests to absolutely brutal effect.  As I noted before, my own skills do not allow me to do so, so Harpoons are far more useful to me personally.

[Droid803]

Tempests are pretty easy to use bro.
Point and shoot. No funky missile lock antics.
Harpoons are good for killing interceptors when you're feeling lazy (ie. don't even want to point, just shoot) though.

[ChronoReverse]

It's not really that easy to use considering it doesn't always quite align with primary weapons and has a short range.  Not everyone is capable of playing Insane or even simply targeting and chasing down targets quick enough to make good use of Tempests.

[Droid803]

I don't play on insane.
Insane is for insane people

The AI likes flying head on into you (and everything else) anyway, unless you have Fury AI (which I hope changes the AI's tendency to RAM EVERYTHING IN SIGHT). Range isn't really an issue unless you're flying escort, and you're in something like an Ares.

Most things either don't take many tempests to kill, or are slow enough for you to fire a lot of them into it.

Frankly, if there's a cruiser to kill, I'll take tempests over cyclops. (They have a higher DPS anyway).

[ChronoReverse]

Well, I don't know about Harpoons (which I'm not a fan of even in terms of purely Aspect Seekers) but the long range of Tornadoes make them very useful.  The ability to have either 1x or 2x the power of a Harpoon simply by switching dual-fire modes is nice too.  In general I just use Trebuchets anyway

[Droid803]

Trebs are better than tempests in many situations, actually, I'd agree.
They have very different roles though.

I've always felt that Tornadoes run out a little too fast if they're on dual fire which is when they're most effective.

[ChronoReverse]

Yeah, but in single shot mode they're about equal in effectiveness as a dual harpoon with more range to boot.  Honestly, I usually leave the interceptor missiles for wingmen.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

...unless you have Fury AI (which I hope changes the AI's tendency to RAM EVERYTHING IN SIGHT)...

Not really, but they do move towards you in a corkscrew-like motion now.