[Kolgena]

Interesting. I never found Place of Chariots hard at all on Insane, even without wingmen micromanagement. I guess I'm just a lot better at dealing with fighters than cap ships (or because you're more likely to be in tempest range when dogfighting than when shooting turrets)

[Sushi]

Slaying Ravana
-This mission sucks. Pure and simple. Even more above Medium; I must have died about 20 times before somehow passing it. No fighter cover, a cheaty Ravana that can shoot through itself, moronic wingmates, and a choice between the obsolete Medusa, the deathtrap Ursa, and even worse deathtrap Boanerges. Basically, I found that once any fighter, even a Basilisk, gets on your ass, you are dead. Have a nice day. Anybody looking to re-do the FS2 campaign, fix this mission, big time.

This mission is the perfect way to show how bad being a bomber pilot sucks. Bombers are flying targets in FS, especially FS2, and especially Terran bombers, and that's what that mission is supposed to show. Deal with it.

No, the mission just sucks. Badly.

[Snail]

Yeah. There were a few crap missions in FreeSpace 2, that one was among the worst.

[Dilmah G]

I don't think it's such a bad mission, but seriously, lack of adjacent friendly support and fighter cover, anyone?

[Veers]

I always thought it was an odd mission, Command commenting that they had already taken casualties from the Ravana. Yet the ship itself had suffered little, and deploying bombers without proper cover seemed to contridict the fact that bombers needed cover.

I still found it highly enjoyable though

[Mars]

The mission sucks for several reasons reasons.

First - you're totally unescorted and given only heavy bombers to fly. Fighters can come by and hit your rear and the best you can do to stop it is turn painfully slowly in their direction, or perhaps expose a turret toward them.

Second - At best, the mission consists of pounding a ship, over and over, reloading, and doing the same thing again.

Third- The corvette is perfectly capable of winning the mission, in fact, if it dies, there are two more ships that will jump in.

[ssmit132]

I always thought it was an odd mission, Command commenting that they had already taken casualties from the Ravana. Yet the ship itself had suffered little

Second - At best, the mission consists of pounding a ship, over and over, reloading, and doing the same thing again.

Third- The corvette is perfectly capable of winning the mission, in fact, if it dies, there are two more ships that will jump in.

That bothers me - the fact that the Ravana supposedly had already done some major damage ("We've lost the GTD Delacroix, and the surviving warships in the battlegroup are damaged") yet a single wing of bombers armed with Cyclops torpedoes can take it down in a matter of minutes*. I mean, the Delacroix may have wandered into the firing arc of the frontal LReds or the Ravana might have turned to face it; we don't know, but once we get into the mission, the Ravana is just sitting there letting the Yakiba beam it to death - it doesn't even deploy bombers! It just doesn't feel at all threatening after the initial encounter where it kills the Lysander. Although, that might have been intentional storywise, to serve to fuel the GTVA's belief that they were better than the Shivans.

The most difficult part of that mission, I think, is to not get splashed by the Ravana's fighters.

*Although, I admit I've never attempted it over Medium, so I don't know how long it takes to destroy the Ravana on higher difficulties whether factoring in the fighter escort or not.

[Mars]

Well the Ravana definitely looks and seems like it's made for blitzkrieg tactics (what in BP is called a shock-jump). And it demonstrates those tactics in The Great Hunt. It could very well be the Ravana was intended by the developers as a fragile, but powerful blitzer, designed to destroy ships quickly and jump out. More like a howitzer than a tank, if you will. Given that skill-set I could see how a corvette and a SQUADRON of bombers wouldn't really have a problem taking it down.

In game however, that aspect of the Ravana isn't mentioned. It's presented to be the successor of the Lucifer, essentially.

It really does only take minutes in game, even on Insane. Your wingmen will all be dead, unless you manage to lead them to the corvette and tell them to defend it.

 The interceptors from the Ravana are frustratingly distracting, and they will kill you, but it's perfectly winnable. In fact, as I said, the corvette can win itself. If you're really having trouble in that mission, and you aren't being a kill-whore, just cover the corvette.

[Asteroth]

Well the Ravana definitely looks and seems like it's made for blitzkrieg tactics (what in BP is called a shock-jump). And it demonstrates those tactics in The Great Hunt. It could very well be the Ravana was intended by the developers as a fragile, but powerful blitzer, designed to destroy ships quickly and jump out. More like a howitzer than a tank, if you will. Given that skill-set I could see how a corvette and a SQUADRON of bombers wouldn't really have a problem taking it down.

In game however, that aspect of the Ravana isn't mentioned. It's presented to be the successor of the Lucifer, essentially.

The majority of shivan capital ships, especially FS2 ones had this philosophy. Rakshasa, Ravanna, Lucifer, and the Sathanas all had massive forward firepower, but were useless at any other angle.

[Mars]

The Lucifer was less like that because of its side beams (which did not appear in missions to be fair) the fact is though, the Ravana is completely ineffectual used any other way.

The odd part to me is that this aspect of Shivan tactics is never explicitly mentioned.

[IronBeer]

The Lucifer was less like that because of its side beams (which did not appear in missions to be fair) the fact is though, the Ravana is completely ineffectual used any other way.

The odd part to me is that this aspect of Shivan tactics is never explicitly mentioned.

I believe they make some note of such tactics in the Ravana's Techroom entry; the Sathanas has just about zero info stated, though.

[Mongoose]

Once you see it in action, there isn't much that needs to be said.