[PeterX]

NF Avishag and NF Phantasm are the hardest opponents. they are so agile,so you have to be a real ace to hit them if you closer than 1000 meters(clicks).
Peter

[Mad Bomber]

My list of frustration:

- SF Dragon (and to a lesser extent the SF Hydra)
- Cordi fighters from WoD
- anything that can cloak (Strakhas, Chimeras, Pegasi)
- the Horus-X from Awakenings does deserve a mention, tho these days it doesn't give me as much trouble
- AF Kato, depending on the mod (piloting it in ASW is often difficult too, due to lack of shields)
- Damn near everything in Dimensional Eclipse

Basically anything that's horrendously maneuverable, tiny, or hard to shake.

Sorthaks also get a mention for being made of turrets and extremely tanky, but once I learned The Way Of The Dumbfire I found they didn't bother me much anymore.

[BengalTiger]

Against stealth fighters I did a Thach Weave knockoff- while the wingmen were flying around in circles I was flying in and out of their little group, always selecting one that was facing me when flying towards them.

That way if the cloaker appeared behind me, the wingman instantly got a shot- if it appeared behind the wingman- I got the shot. After a bit of experimenting it gave quite good results.

[Lorric]

Against stealth fighters I did a Thach Weave knockoff- while the wingmen were flying around in circles I was flying in and out of their little group, always selecting one that was facing me when flying towards them.

That way if the cloaker appeared behind me, the wingman instantly got a shot- if it appeared behind the wingman- I got the shot. After a bit of experimenting it gave quite good results.

Mmmm, very nice. Both your idea, and the Thach Weave that I didn't know of.

I wonder how your idea would work though with the invulnerability on the wingmen turned off. I've done experiments and modified missions with that, and there's nothing more lethal to your wingmen than stealthies, I generally have to remove them or make their AI "coward" to keep the mission winnable, or they crush all your allies very quickly. I may have to try this myself sometime.

EDIT: As far as annoying goes, it has to be the Cordi.

[BengalTiger]

Another thing is to keep them to form up if they get spread out after a fight.

I didn't check if they'd play along to do the Weave if they were flying in formation, or if the delay between the player turning and them adjusting is too small to make the whole group fly in different directions around the player.

If it's possible, then order them to form up, after that order to attack all enemies, and do figure 8's violently or something to keep the formation out of whack.
There should be ships covering various approaches, so at least one or two would be able to get a shot quickly when the stealth ship appears.

[Sharkfinn]

SF Dragon is definitely the worst in Freespace.
GTF Loki also annoys me sometimes, I've spent 5-10 minutes chasing down one Loki in the second mission of retail, though that may be due to my lack of piloting skills.
And not technically Freespace, but the raider fighters (Zephyrs I believe) from TBP are probably the worst thing I've ever had to dogfight.  Their profile is so thin that you can only really get them when they turn, but even then I've had trouble.  And there's no guided missiles to get them that way either.

[WolfShepard]

In the retail campaigns: SF Dragon. Already explained.
Not retail:
EAF Claymore
EAF Stentor
EAB Gagana
The first two are worse than Dragons in my book.
The Gagana because of it's stinking swarm bombs.

[Belisarius]

 

May I be forgiven for bumping this topic, but when it comes to hated ships in dogfights, then I always think of the SF Scorpio in FS1. The mission where you're ambushed by Vasudans first and right behind the Shivans pop up. First they attacked the Vasudans and then the science cruiser you're meant to protect. At this time your sensors couldn't track Shivans so you had to shoot them blindly without weapons capable of getting through their shields. And in the debriefing your recommendations were that it'd help lifting morale if you'd be able to shoot one of those bastaeds down. So I retried and tried again, but never managed to get one of those fighters down before they jumped out.

I ever since then consider them a red rag. I tried really everything...

[Mad Bomber]

May I be forgiven for bumping this topic, but when it comes to hated ships in dogfights, then I always think of the SF Scorpio in FS1. The mission where you're ambushed by Vasudans first and right behind the Shivans pop up. First they attacked the Vasudans and then the science cruiser you're meant to protect. At this time your sensors couldn't track Shivans so you had to shoot them blindly without weapons capable of getting through their shields. And in the debriefing your recommendations were that it'd help lifting morale if you'd be able to shoot one of those bastaeds down. So I retried and tried again, but never managed to get one of those fighters down before they jumped out.

I ever since then consider them a red rag. I tried really everything...

Fly a Valkyrie and load up on Furies (the Apollo's missile banks are too far off center to be useful). Make sure one of your weapon banks is a Disruptor, since it actually does more shield damage than the ML-16 (and there's the off chance you might disable your target by accident). Stay on him, and keep unloading Furies into him. You'll get your kill, don't worry

[Trivial Psychic]

There's also that bug where heat-seeking missiles can track non-tracked targets.  In such a scenario, you may want to bank-up on MX-50s.  Also, I've always found the Disuptor's shield-damaging abilities to be somewhat overrated.  While the Valk's primary firepoints do well to spread out your fire and ensure a hit, I sometimes find it preferable to fire in unlinked mode to increase the fire rate.  Sometimes I wish there was a way to get linked banks to fire alternately instead of unison.  I have done it by switching to linked mode while firing, doing it between volleys, but I haven't always been successful.  Also, the Apollo has an advantage in hull strength and secondary capacity, which can be helpful in sustained combat.

[Mongoose]

I think I actually managed the kill once with ML-16s alone, but it took freaking ages of wailing on the annoying little gnat of a Scorpion.

[Lorric]

I know I've taken more than one down before, but some people have actually got the science cruiser to the jump point intact. I don't know if that would involve wiping them all out or not.

I go with the furies myself. Get the ship filling up your screen so you can't miss then pump furies into the target until it explodes. You want concentrated damage in a short period. Get right on the tail before you unload the furies.

[Mongoose]

From my experience, the Plato is far more likely to survive to the node intact when playing the FSPort than it ever did in retail FS1; I can't remember an instance in the latter where it actually survived.  I don't know if that's a matter of the subtle AI changes between FS1 and FS2, or something else strange that's going on.

[NGTM-1R]

From my experience, the Plato is far more likely to survive to the node intact when playing the FSPort than it ever did in retail FS1; I can't remember an instance in the latter where it actually survived.  I don't know if that's a matter of the subtle AI changes between FS1 and FS2, or something else strange that's going on.

There are more than AI changes. I remember FighterKillers having a huge knock in FS1, but in FS2 and the Port...most of the changes are relatively subtle though. The FighterKiller's the only major gameplay one I've ever noticed.

Have you considered by the time we do the Port, most of us have simply gotten better? Not even at the flight aspects, simply at tactical prioritizing.

[Mongoose]

Well, I think it's more than that honestly.  Back when I used to play the mission in retail FS1, I generally wouldn't do much to hinder the Shivans attacking the Plato; even when I did take a few pot-shots at them, they'd still kill the thing fairly quickly.  But in the Port, even if I'm sitting still doing nothing, the Shivan bombers don't seem to do nearly as much damage as they did back in FS1.  Maybe it's more a case of your friendly AI being better and chasing off the bombers before they can do enough damage, or the bombs they launch getting shot down more effectively.

[Lorric]

This is Freespace 2 annoying strikecraft, so I assume Belisarius is referring to the port version.

However, here's something. I've never played FS1. But one thing I like to try is to win missions without firing a shot. Win by directing my wingmen to complete the mission for me. And in particular, my FS1 port record is really surprising to me in terms of success. Here it is, it's got some notes and stuff in there too. It looks like I haven't attempted the last few missions yet, otherwise I would have failed them on Very Easy and marked them as "Fail".

Here's the record:

AI Only (Default loadouts)

1 - Insane
2 - Medium (+ Ace) (Best, Ace or no Ace.)
3 - Insane (Can be won without reinforcements.)
4 - Insane (Perfect)
5 - Insane
6 - Insane (Galatea 83% hull!)
7 - Insane
8 - Hard (Order engage as soon as enemy wings arrive, then back to protect.) (best)
9 - Medium (Ignore all capships, order destruction of cargo one by one.) (best)
10 - Insane
11 - Insane
12 - Insane
13 - Insane (Perfect)
14 - Medium (Perfect) (Order engage and order ignore all freighters at start then order attack freighters one by one.)
15 - Hard (best)
16 - Hard (best)
17 - Hard (best)
18 - N/A
19 - Easy (best)
20 - Insane
21 - Insane (Perfect!) No Reinforcements -
22 - Insane / No Reinforcements -
23 - Insane
24 - Easy (No reinforcements.) (Best, can’t even do medium with reinforcements.)
25 - Insane (No reinforcements, only one transport saved.)
26 -
27 -
28 -
29 -
30 - N/A

[mjn.mixael]

From my experience, the Plato is far more likely to survive to the node intact when playing the FSPort than it ever did in retail FS1; I can't remember an instance in the latter where it actually survived.  I don't know if that's a matter of the subtle AI changes between FS1 and FS2, or something else strange that's going on.

I suggested fixing this several times when I was with the Port, but got turned down every time. Most not change the Port!

[WolfShepard]

I've gotten them once or twice, but not the last time. Hadn't thought of the disruptor, though.
PS: Any time you get a huge difficulty jump in retail when you go from fighting crappily armed Shivan craft, doing well, then get stomped by a Terran fighter with the Subach, or Vasudan with the Mekhu.

[Klaustrophobia]

i'm pretty sure i've protected the plato in retail fs1 before.  i think it was because for some reason, the shivan bombers didn't actually fire their bombs.  same on the taurus, it hung around for quite a while with the shivans just buzzing around.  long enough that its escorts made it to the plato.  i think it might have even eventually self-destructed instead of being killed. 

similarly, in the HOL mission with the ramses and tarranis, the first several times i played the ramses was destroyed quickly and easily, even with me trying to protect it, but at some point this stopped happening and the same thing would happen as with the plato, where the shivans would just buzz around and ignore what they were supposed to be killing. 

unless my memory is REALLY that bad and this all happened on FSPort, but i only started playing that the 4 or so years ago i first came here (goes to look up join date), and i'm 99.9% sure i encountered the behavior i'm talking about here LONG before that.  maybe my install got broken or something.  did installing to XP have any known bugs like that?  i know at some point i encountered the no background stars unless turning and wonky distorted text.  not sure if that was because of XP or not though.

[Drogoth]

i'm pretty sure i've protected the plato in retail fs1 before.  i think it was because for some reason, the shivan bombers didn't actually fire their bombs.  same on the taurus, it hung around for quite a while with the shivans just buzzing around.  long enough that its escorts made it to the plato.  i think it might have even eventually self-destructed instead of being killed. 

similarly, in the HOL mission with the ramses and tarranis, the first several times i played the ramses was destroyed quickly and easily, even with me trying to protect it, but at some point this stopped happening and the same thing would happen as with the plato, where the shivans would just buzz around and ignore what they were supposed to be killing. 

I had the same experience with the Ramses, and as for the Plato I've only successfully done it once, and that was in retail. Although that being said, I put zero effort into defending it since the first time I did it, so that might be part of the reason. I was so proud of myself when I finally managed to get the plato to the node, and then it just sat there refusing to jump. I'm still bitter about. Stupid ship can burn...