[GammaDraconis6]

That's the Hecate-class destroyer in Bearbaiting. It got disabled as it was jumping out by the BFReds, and so I got some heavy-duty help fighting off the Beleth (Demon-class destroyer). It was tagged invulnerable at 1% and at least one of its green slashing beams was still working. Yay! 

Anyways, that's never happened before.

I always thought it was a shame we never got to see a Hecate-class destroyer in the main FS2 campaign unless it was being blown to bits in under 5 seconds or hidden in a veil of fog.

[+ Rennie Ash +]

On the contrary in Derelict, a similar mission has a large enemy ship jumping in and causing the allied ship to reduce to health critical, so it tries to jump out. Several times in a row it gets neutralised as it's jumping out. I thought this was normal but the mission stagnated and nothing more  happened - unpassable - for 4 times in a row! I finally try it one last time, amazingly the ship *finally* manages to escape and what do you know, return to base pilots!!!

Also I've had the Phoenicia destroyed many times because the inv probably got bypassed due to too much incoming damage and it goes from 5% to 0% in one "hit" somehow as the 4 BF Reds rip through it.

As for how the Phoenicia is in front of the juggernaught, it either has jump drives that recharge reaaally fast or the Sathanas didn't bother shooting until the ship was getting close...and you'd think command would know better than to stick something in front of the Sath after a corvette got vapourised in 5 secs. (Then again, it's command, YOU HAVE YOUR ORDERS!!!)

[qwadtep]

I always thought it was a shame we never got to see a Hecate-class destroyer in the main FS2 campaign unless it was being blown to bits in under 5 seconds or hidden in a veil of fog.

And even when hidden in the fog it gets bushwhacked by a Moloch of all things.

[Lorric]

Amusing.

I also didn't know the Phoenicia was supposed to be invulnerable, in my experience it blows more often than it escapes. I always thought it was set up to be touch and go whether it makes it out or not!

[GammaDraconis6]

OMG it happened again! Yeah... I've been playing this mission over and over on insane trying to beat it with all objectives completed (except the bonus objective... that's too ambitious for now).

I took some screenshots this time. These are all me trying to take out the Sathanas' flak guns while the Phoenicia beamz the Sathanas to 93% and lower.

Btw, I find it ridiculous that this destroyer was featured in Blue Planet. Canonically, the Phoenicia is supposed to survive at 4%, since that's when the invulnerable tag kicks in (at least according to the Freespace Wiki) if it hasn't been destroyed too fast. But I think realistically it would be so damaged at this point that it would be beyond repair and would have to be scrapped.

[General Battuta]

Beam damage tends to be extremely linear, and ships are built compartmentalized. If it can still jump out of this engagement, it's probably fixable - it's taken a small number of catastrophic hits to particular areas, not a huge amount of battering across the spaceframe.

The damage percent-o-meter is an abstract index of a ship's progress towards catastrophic failure, not a literal indicator of the percentage of the hull and systems that remain un-vaporized.

[+ Rennie Ash +]

Given that you can repair damaged engines on a Hecate in 2 minutes which includes carrying the "parts" 1km along the ship, I'm sure getting to 4% hull is a breeze... XD Except when the creators of the game decide your ship will take months to repair when others come back out with 100% in a few days!

[General Battuta]

Yup. Plus you can always do as many have done before and transfer the name to a newly commissioned hull.

[qwadtep]

After the pasting they received at Capella I imagine the GTVA was probably scrambling to repair any salvageable spaceframe they could, much less a destroyer.

[WorldsDawn]

The Hecate needs a bit of love... 

Good thing it gets featured in BP so we might see some Hecates in action again
Now the only thing that blows is the Diomedes Corvette... it's "FreeSpace 2 - Hecate" all over again   

[Mars]

I don't think the Diomedes problem (the Worf effect, characters in game freak out, Diomedes then gets defeated by major ship, wild Laporte powers) is the same as the Hecates (the tech room says its good, game experience says it blows).

[X3N0-Life-Form]

Yeah, it's been proven that the Diomedes kicks serious ass. For instance, if you don't call for backup in Aristeia, it's quite capable of laying waste to to both frigates.[citation needed] (didn't test it recently)

[qwadtep]

Diomedes are absolutely terrifying. In Darkest Hour I'm perfectly content to sit back and let the Indus and Vatican and Lorna and all the other fighters handle it.

[Mobius]

Shouldn't GammaDraconis6 get a custom title for this? Afterall, he's the Savior of the Phoenicia, one of the almighty Saviors. 

[General Battuta]

I don't think the Diomedes problem (the Worf effect, characters in game freak out, Diomedes then gets defeated by major ship, wild Laporte powers) is the same as the Hecates (the tech room says its good, game experience says it blows).

The Diomedes has the opposite of the Worf Effect going - even the mission designers can barely prevent it from kicking too much ass.

Player reaction to the Dio has been an interesting experiment in human psychology, since people believe it gets a 'weak showing' even though it has more chances to actually defeat the player than the Atreus and all of Serkr team combined - none of which can actually engage the player in a success/fail sequence until late in Act 3, and even then only under very limited conditions.

[Phantom Hoover]

Well exactly, if the Dio's put in a position where it might defeat the player then it's doomed to failure in any successful run of a mission.

[General Battuta]

Yeah, my point exactly. People weigh narrative performance over gameplay performance in judging tactical capabilities. This is an example of hindsight bias - a large threat to large stakes, met with a large response, gets written off as no threat at all, to the point where people actually think it's analogous to the 'Worf effect' even though they bear no resemblance.

Selecting on the dependent variable leads people to some weird places.

[Phantom Hoover]

Actually, as an aside:

The Diomedes has the opposite of the Worf Effect going - even the mission designers can barely prevent it from kicking too much ass.

I definitely remember you telling me that the Valerie had to be buffed in FRED to make the fight in Darkest Hour close enough for the player to matter.

[General Battuta]

Buffed, nerfed, buffed, nerfed - the Valerie has gone back and forth so many times (rather like that entire mission). You realize that 'buff' can mean a lot of things, right? Better tactical position, better orders on the air wing, better maneuvers during the engagement. You're talking about it like it's some kind of buff from a neutral baseline instead of 'buffed from wherever it was before balance iteration #217'

[Dragon]

He's most likely thinking stuff like special HP or swapped-out weapons, the way small adjustments are often done. The Valerie had some very big adjustments going on. It wasn't easy to find that "sweet spot" for it to be in so that the mission will play well. But this applies to all powerful ships, unless you build a mission around a single one.