[IcemanFreespace]

I usually played on the Easy setting, as that allows me to be the superman this universe deserves. That playing style didn't translate well to Medium, and I was useless at the two hardest levels. What playing style do you employ, what sort of enjoyment do you seek from the gameplay and basically, how the hell do you even play at Insane?
On easy, I usually complete all the objectives, minor and main, hardly ever run into hull integrity problems and am usually the hero type. Shoot a lot, risk a lot kind of game.

[Snarks]

When I first started playing Freespace back around 1998-2000, I would play on the hardest difficulty using only the keyboard, and being a perfectionist, I tried to get every single bonus objective. I shot down a Shivan fighter with ML16 lasers using a keyboard on the hardest difficulty. I was pretty disappointed that they didn't give me a medal.

That was when I was around 10 years old and had way too much free time. If you ask me to do that feat again, I'd say you're crazy and refuse. Now I just play on medium and use a mouse to aim although I still aim for the bonus objectives.

[General Battuta]

Insane is good, and baller. It requires very careful attacks, wariness of being outnumbered, respect for beams, close coordination with friendly warships, and lots of c31.

[Lepanto]

Never moved past Medium. I cling to the convenience of "fly around in tough heavy well-armed fighter, shoot this, shoot that, occasionally defend yourself mainly by firing countermeasures and mashing Q."

Insane sounds awesome and tactical, but I'm too scared and lazy to even try Hard.

[Kestrellius]

I tried playing on Hard once. I stopped when I got to "Feint! Parry! Riposte!". I hate that mission.

[Phantom Hoover]

I played through WiH  on insane and enjoyed it quite a bit, but I can't play retail-grade missions above medium. You die too much to attrition, it's not fun.

[NGTM-1R]

I play Very Easy, Medium, or Insane. There are no other difficulties. If I'm playing something for fun, then it's on Medium unless that proves unplayable in which case I drop it to Very Easy; afterward completion I'll do a Very Easy run, then if I really like it an Insane run.

I find a lot of campaigns end up...not really balanced for either Very Easy or Insane.

[Mongoose]

The vast majority of my play experience has just been left on Easy by default, though there are a few times I cranked things up to Medium.  I enjoy being a human wrecking ball far too much to bump it up any higher.

[Spoon]

I play Very Easy, Medium, or Insane. There are no other difficulties. If I'm playing something for fun, then it's on Medium unless that proves unplayable in which case I drop it to Very Easy; afterward completion I'll do a Very Easy run, then if I really like it an Insane run.

I find a lot of campaigns end up...not really balanced for either Very Easy or Insane.

It is impossible to balance anything for very easy. For one thing, it would defeat the purpose of it being very easy. Secondly, you get an impossible damage barrier, you recharge shields 4 times as fast and receive 4 times less damage. There is no balancing for that.
Insane though, I'll give you that.
Thing is, the actual fredder will have to be on the skill level that can beat insane. I know Axem and me both play on medium usually, so there is one limitation.

Of course, I'm talking about the default lazy freespace ai_profile.tbl here, not about the ****ing incredible Wings of Dawn one, with a campaign that has most mission take into account the selected difficulty and spawns less or more enemies depending on it.

[NGTM-1R]

It is impossible to balance anything for very easy. For one thing, it would defeat the purpose of it being very easy. Secondly, you get an impossible damage barrier, you recharge shields 4 times as fast and receive 4 times less damage. There is no balancing for that.

And yet every mission you are meant to fail, from dozens of campaigns, must balance it so the player will still fail at Very Easy; and many actually have. (Though not all.)

[Veers]

Depending, but I generally sit on Insane or Hard, and if I have issues or just want to fly casual, I'll drop it down.

[X3N0-Life-Form]

I play Very Easy, Medium, or Insane. There are no other difficulties. If I'm playing something for fun, then it's on Medium unless that proves unplayable in which case I drop it to Very Easy

Pretty much this. By default, I play and FRED on Insane. When playing a campaign where I don't want to have to worry about dying, such JAD (excluding the XA's Endless Gauntlet), or Transcend, I play on Medium. When I get frustrated enough over a mission, I tend to drop it straight down to Very Easy.

What playing style do you employ, what sort of enjoyment do you seek from the gameplay and basically, how the hell do you even play at Insane?

Insane forces you to adopt a more careful and nervous playstyle. For instance, on Medium or lower, flying a missile boat filled with Harpoons and Tornados is a rather effective tactic, a dual hit from the Harpoon will make short work of most Shivan or NTF fighters. On Insane, the AI is much better at dodging missiles at close to medium range, meaning that the Harpoon loses much of its effectiveness. Instead, you want to get as close as you can to hostile fighters, as you can more easily slip out of their view and prevent them from spamming their missiles.

You also learn a couple of things, for instance that the tempest is the most effective and practical missile in the game due to it's high damage output against hull, shields and subsystems, big ammo reserve, as well as its fast rearm rate.
You also learn to manage your ETS more effectively. For instance, if you are carrying subachs early in the campaign, you can safely decrease you weapon energy to the bare minimum without any ill effects, giving more power to shields or engines. There's also the fact that you don't really need much power to shields when your shields are intact and you don't get hit, such as when you need to pancake wave of bomber while flying a thing that has eight guns. Basically the trick is to juggle with your energy distribution to suit you immediate needs.

[IcemanFreespace]

Battuta said an interesting thing I recently read, that for a mission to be enjoyable you have to be the observer as much as the player. It's hard to observe when running for your life.

[Valrog]

On my first playthrough several years ago, I left it at the default Easy setting.

I'm now playing on Medium. I replay each mission to ensure that I succeed on every Primary, Secondary and Bonus objective, and get the kill on every enemy capital ship or transport. Therefore, I fly bomber whenever possible. I also usually nerf my wingmen to remove their missiles, unless it's the Stiletto, and give them a weapon that damages only shields. If I'm not able to get past a mission, I then set my wingmen to "Kill", by giving them Prometheus-S/Kaysers with Tornado missiles, or whatever is the strongest at the point in the campaign, so that they WTF own enemy fighters while I kill the capital ships before they flee.

I'm planning to play on Hard next, but will only focus on finishing the mission with all objectives (Primary, Secondary and Bonus) met and will not focus on Medals or kills.

[wardog300k]

I completed FS 1 on easy,medium and insane, and FS 2 on easy and medium few times. But I usually stick to medium, its easy and lets me carelessly ram hostile warships even if I have a paper like a Serapis. Still have to try FS 2 on insane.

[Deepstar]

For many years i played on Very Easy... just for the story and because most of custom campaigns back then were imbalanced as hell.

Later i began to play on Easy, because it is the Standard Difficult setting and i forgot to change it back to Very Easy one time.

Since i started with my FreeSpace Let's Plays, i play on Medium, even i read that this is actually the easiest setting in the game objectives-wise, because the AI-wingmates are so good, that they can beat the game alone.


I actually played and beat ever only one mission on Insane: "Clash of the Titans", because it is my all time favourite.
I amazed by everyone who can play and beat this game on insane. That is the reason i like her playthroughs for example. I was even able to learn a few strategies only by watching. Even i can not react so fast or play with a high sensivity joystick like in these videos.

[potterman28wxcv]

My difficulty is almost always Insane. At least, for the two main campaigns.

Then, when it comes to Silent Threat Reborn or Blue Planet, usually i tone it down a little bit, because some missions are just impossible in Insane objective-wise (staying alive is not the hardest). 4-5 years ago, I would have been able to start again a mission a hundred times just to be able to protect this or that ship, or complete this objective ; but now I just tone it down whenever i'm struggling.

Though, playing on Insane rewards you with incredible intense fights. You are not a superhero anymore, you are as killable as any other fighters, and that's what I love. It makes me really feel to be in the mission.

[niffiwan]

When playing for fun (as opposed to coding/testing which is usually on easy) I default to playing on hard. I've managed to (once each) beat FS2/FS1/ST:R on insane (well, except for one mission in ST:R, I hate stealth Loki's, I hate protecting the Krios escape pods ).  I'll reiterate what others have said, namely that insane requires much more caution especially in avoiding being outnumbered, not fixating on your current target, and respecting AAA beams. Also, as others have alluded to, many mods (but not all!) are not balanced for insane making playing them on that difficulty either impossible or very frustrating. Therefore I'll now happily reduce the difficulty level when I start getting frustrated, after all it's a game for fun, not some tortuous skill challenge that must be beaten at all costs

ps. I also play nuWoD on insane, I like Spoon's approach to higher difficulty settings