[Mongoose]

I can't remember which build I last played through the campaign on, but I know I never had much trouble with it in Ye Olde Retail, so something may have changed along the way.  And protecting the Oberon on Proving Grounds was difficult, but quite doable, especially if you went with Morning Stars.

[bigchunk1]

I played this mission multiple times to save the lucidity too. I just don't like losing a ship like that for nothing.

I had to lose the mission once, memorize the point where the taurvi bombers spawn and be at that point ready to tag them when they spawn. You miss the shivan light bombers you lose the lucidity. Little else matters.

[Phantom Hoover]

I don't want to be 'that guy' but I played through the retail campaign on 3.7 a month ago on medium and I got through A Game of TAG quite easily. It's a trick mission, I guess, easy if you happen upon the right way to handle it, hell otherwise.

[Goober5000]

We need someone to do a divide-and-conquer test of all SCP releases to narrow down when the mission balance was changed.

[deathspeed]

OK, this may be a dumb/obvious question, but to try other releases, do I just need to select a different executable and compatible media VPs in wxLauncher, then replay it on the mission simulator in the tech room?

Whoa!  I just saw the Vasudan main hall for the first time ever!  I knew there was one from stuff I had read, but I never made it this far before. 

[CP5670]

Has the actual mission been changed or is does this only occur in newer FSO builds? If it's the latter, it can be very difficult to track down the exact cause. I've seen this a number of times in other missions, where subtle and probably unintentional changes to the AI or physics in the game engine dramatically altered a mission's balance.

[niffiwan]

OK, this may be a dumb/obvious question, but to try other releases, do I just need to select a different executable and compatible media VPs in wxLauncher, then replay it on the mission simulator in the tech room?

Yes

[Yarn]

I tested this mission on Very Easy difficulty in retail and the March 30 nightly (with and without the MediaVPs) and noticed something: In retail, the Warspite opens fire on the bombers when they get close, helping to protect the Lucidity. In the FSO build, however, the Warspite doesn't appear to ever attack anything that isn't TAG'd. This must be what's making the mission harder in FSO.

[deathspeed]

I had noticed that the Warspite never helped out in FSO (3.7.0 and a nightly build of 3.7.1 from January 2014, with MediaVPs 3.6.12 and 2014), but figured it was supposed to work that way. 

I couldn't get retail to load with my pilot, and with a cloned pilot it wanted to start the campaign over and it did not show in the mission simulator.  Is there a way to try it in retail without going thru the whole campaign again?

[The Dagger]

Pressing Ctrl+Shift+S in the Mission Simulator should allow you to play any mission.

[deathspeed]

Derp!  I forgot about that!

thanks!!

[Goober5000]

I tested this mission on Very Easy difficulty in retail and the March 30 nightly (with and without the MediaVPs) and noticed something: In retail, the Warspite opens fire on the bombers when they get close, helping to protect the Lucidity. In the FSO build, however, the Warspite doesn't appear to ever attack anything that isn't TAG'd. This must be what's making the mission harder in FSO.

Oh, very good.   Would you be able to test the official releases to track down when this changed?

[Kolgena]

I've never experienced the Warspite shooting anything without it being tagged first, so that problem might exist even before 3.6.12

The key to the mission is to entirely ignore your primaries (they're a lost cause) and focus entirely on landing good hits with your missiles. This allows you to dump guns energy into engines and/or shields, which you'll need for jinking. You get enough of the missiles to dual fire if you don't miss, but if you tend to miss, shooting them one at a time and keeping track of which side (left or right) it's coming out of is crucial since they don't hit anywhere near the middle of the screen. As long as you're within range of the warspite, everything you hit should be instagibbed, or easily picked off with another tag or a few shots of subachs. If your missile aim is good (try to shoot only within 200m or so, since the missiles are really really slow), and you don't wander out of range of the warspite, the mission is pretty easy. On the rare chance the warspite will instagib you if you're in the way, but it doesn't happen often because your ship is thin. Higher difficulties make it more likely the warspite instagibbs your target IIRC, but of course you don't survive so well soloing waves of shivan fighters on higher difficulties, no matter how bad their guns may be.

I remember your wingman tends to instadie a lot if you don't keep him close, so watch out for that. I keep him close (C38, with occasional C37 micro) and use him as bait while I tag everything.

[Grizzly]

I tested this mission on Very Easy difficulty in retail and the March 30 nightly (with and without the MediaVPs) and noticed something: In retail, the Warspite opens fire on the bombers when they get close, helping to protect the Lucidity. In the FSO build, however, the Warspite doesn't appear to ever attack anything that isn't TAG'd. This must be what's making the mission harder in FSO.

Hmm.
Mission dialogue makes very clear that the FSO method of doing things is intentional 0_o

[Droid803]

I thought it was just the AAA-beams that were slaved to TAG, not everything else.

[qwadtep]

Are TAG-slaved AAAs subject to the same difficulty scaling as normal beams? If so then the mission will be easier on higher difficulties, since the beams will be stronger.

[Droid803]

IIRC, the way the scaling works is that "friendly" beams are less accurate at higher difficulties, and "enemy" beams are more accurate.
That's why there's AAAf and AAAh, from friendly and hostile (NTF). ULTRA-AAAs probably scale like regular friendly beams.

[Yarn]

I finally got around to testing this in 3.6.10; the issue occurs there too.

I'd like to amend what I said earlier: The Warspite does appear to attack when nothing is tagged, but only with its cluster bombs (its only secondary weapons).

[Goober5000]

Hmm.  Could you try 3.6.9 and 3.6.7 (and even earlier releases) too?

[Meatball]

Ummm, I've beaten that mission on Insane several times. It's not hard...