Hello CIC Community,
I may not be a top-ranking simmer or a contender for posting quantity, but I have the desire to help others facing a Wing Commander game with a difficulty level never found before in the WC series. Therefore, I am writing a mission walkthrough and some assorted hints that I hope to be useful to newcomers and veterans alike.
NOTE: This guide is still under construction and will be completed as I find time. If you have any suggestions or additions, please let me know.
General Flying Tips:
-Conserve afterburner fuel, especially on long missions. A good trick is to hold the Afterburner key/button until you reach top afterburner velocity, then tapping it every half second or so. You will fly almost as fast as if you here tolding the key/button all the time, but you use much less fuel.
-Some ships are not equipped with ITTS, so you need to learn how to shoot without it. With practice, you can learn the way your enemies move and adjust your aim accordingly.
-Proper targeting helps a lot in your missions, because it allows you to get more kills during a given time. Two useful tricks are the U key, which targets the enemy closest to you, allowing you to find a good target to shoot quickly, and the nav map, which is accessed via CTRL+N. While looking at the nav map, the game pauses and you can see by left-clicking on a ship who is currently targeting it. This lets you find out say, which bombers are targeting your carrier and how close they are. You can also select a new target by rightclicking a ship.
-On higher difficulty levels, watch out for dumbfire missiles fired by enemy ships. They give you minimal warning and if you fail to react quickly, a dumbfire hit can seriously cripple your ship or even destroy it outright. The following hostile ships carry dumbfires: Drakhri, Sartha, Krant, Tarsus.
-All guns are somewhat equal in damage per second terms, but the Particle Cannon is much more energy efficient than any other WC2-era gun. Therfore, if you have some, it is recommended to show to particles only instead of full guns if you plan to fire continuously.
-Even if you do your best in shooting down enemy bombers, sometimes they still manage to get a torpedo of. But not all hope is lost, as you can still gun down a torpedo in mid-flight if you aim well. Being able to destroy torps in flight can help if things get dicey in an escort mission.
-When attacking turrets, make use of your allies. If multiple turrets are firing at you, don't go in guns blazing, go evasive instead and wait for backup. If they are busy shooting your allies, on the other hand, you can kill them easily. Dumbfires work particularly well against turrets.
-Friend-or-foe missiles are particularly effective against Sartha light fighters. The Sartha has no decoys and cannot outrun nor out-turn it. Alternatively, they are useful for shaking off a pesky fighter at your six.
-The Targu II can be killed with only a single torpedo hit anywhere on the ship, but it is densely covered with turrets keen on shooting down incoming torps. It has a major blind spot directly head on, between the two spikes, with no turret cover at all. That's the best place to make your run.
-You can't save 'em all, but try not to lose all of your wingmen in the first few sorties. The game cuts you some slack with wingman replenishing, but you can still lose by running out, especially in the losing paths where refills are more sparse. Still, as long as you make those losses worth it by coming out victorious, you should last long enough till the refill comes.
Specific Ships
Stiletto:
The Stiletto is the first ship you get to fly. It is fast, agile and has a lot of afterburner fuel, but it can't take hits well and lacks in gunpower. Don't take anything head on, use your superior agility to get on the hostile's tail instead. Aside from that, it is your typical interceptor: It handles dogfights well enough, but lacks the armament and protection to go up against anything up from a corvette. Heavy fighters or bombers with tailguns are particularly troublesome, as you don't have the shields to endure their blasts for long. Use a mix of rolling, staying at a moderate distance and killing the heavy quickly, preferably with one of your four HS missiles, to manage these.
Gladius:
The Gladius is a... troublesome ship. It is your only attack craft during the early game, and despite it's armament, which is pretty good, it is ill-suited for large-scale actions. It's shields and armor cannot compensate for an extremely low afterburner velocity of 1000 kps, meaning it fails to outrun anything after the Prolouge, and a relatively small amount of burner fuel to boot. Good gunning and wingman cover are your best protections with this ship. When used in an attack role, just burn in, launch your torpedo and get out, praying not to get hit on the way. Again, friendlies help here. It lacks ITTS too, and cannot compensate by getting in a good firing position like a Rapier could. Additionally, the lasers are horribly off-center, unable to hit anything up close. Try using Particle Cannons only if you have energy management problems. At least the fighter loadout comes with a generous amount of eight missiles, though half of them are FFs.
Rapier II:
Simply put, the Rapier is the best ship to have in a dogfight, at least within the campaign-flyable ships. It has a good profile, nicely centered guns, a good selections of missiles to play with, nice shields that can take a hit or two, and enough speed and manouvreability to go around. It's only weaknesses are the lack of torpedoes to go up against capital ships and low armor underneath those sturdy shields. Again, it lacks ITTS, but with a good pursuing ability, that shouldn't be too much of a problem for a good shooter. Just go on killing whatever's closest to you, except on escort mission, where you should focus on bombers.
Sabre:
The Sabre is an alright ship, if you are willing to overlook a few weakpoints. First, it has a large profile and shields actually weaker than the Rapier's, and the generous amount of armor to compensate for that only lasts for so long. It's mass drivers are somewhat off-center, but it's a lot better than with the Gladius and the Particle Cannons are centered enough to score good hits at any range. The ITTS helps a bit, too. All of the Sabre's loadouts come with a lot of missiles to go around, including the only IR missiles found in the campaign ships.
The Sabre works a lot better with a team than solo, as it has some trouble shaking off fighters from it's rear without backup, especially if they gang up. It's afterburner fuel tanks tend to deplete quickly too, so conserve well.
Overall, despite it's flaws, you get a ship that can dogfight well enough and engage capships using afterburners to go in and out quickly, and it can be quite enjoyable.
Crossbow:
Flying in the Crossbow differs tremendously from anything you flew previously in Standoff. It has ultra-thick shields, equal to a Kamekh, a vast amount of armor, manouvreability comparable to a fighter and is only slightly slower than a Sabre on regular drive, but is has no afterburners! It's strenghts make it ideally suited for large-scale strike missions, where it can fully play out it's strenghts and overcoming the weaknesses by being backed up by a large allied force. With five guns, it can devastate any fighter stupid enough to go head on, but it takes time to recharge again, just like a real-world crossbow. Since you cannot pursue enemy fighters, you'll have to wait until they come to you, then gun them down. Then again, dogfighting is not your job: This is the big bomber designed to defeat the strongest of enemy capships, well armed with six torpedoes to deal massive damage and well-protected enough to live to tell about it. Once you grow accustomed to Crossbow flying, you'll find it to be very rewarding to use.
To be added: Sim-only ships, sim-specific tips, complete mission walkthrough
I may not be a top-ranking simmer or a contender for posting quantity, but I have the desire to help others facing a Wing Commander game with a difficulty level never found before in the WC series. Therefore, I am writing a mission walkthrough and some assorted hints that I hope to be useful to newcomers and veterans alike.
NOTE: This guide is still under construction and will be completed as I find time. If you have any suggestions or additions, please let me know.
General Flying Tips:
-Conserve afterburner fuel, especially on long missions. A good trick is to hold the Afterburner key/button until you reach top afterburner velocity, then tapping it every half second or so. You will fly almost as fast as if you here tolding the key/button all the time, but you use much less fuel.
-Some ships are not equipped with ITTS, so you need to learn how to shoot without it. With practice, you can learn the way your enemies move and adjust your aim accordingly.
-Proper targeting helps a lot in your missions, because it allows you to get more kills during a given time. Two useful tricks are the U key, which targets the enemy closest to you, allowing you to find a good target to shoot quickly, and the nav map, which is accessed via CTRL+N. While looking at the nav map, the game pauses and you can see by left-clicking on a ship who is currently targeting it. This lets you find out say, which bombers are targeting your carrier and how close they are. You can also select a new target by rightclicking a ship.
-On higher difficulty levels, watch out for dumbfire missiles fired by enemy ships. They give you minimal warning and if you fail to react quickly, a dumbfire hit can seriously cripple your ship or even destroy it outright. The following hostile ships carry dumbfires: Drakhri, Sartha, Krant, Tarsus.
-All guns are somewhat equal in damage per second terms, but the Particle Cannon is much more energy efficient than any other WC2-era gun. Therfore, if you have some, it is recommended to show to particles only instead of full guns if you plan to fire continuously.
-Even if you do your best in shooting down enemy bombers, sometimes they still manage to get a torpedo of. But not all hope is lost, as you can still gun down a torpedo in mid-flight if you aim well. Being able to destroy torps in flight can help if things get dicey in an escort mission.
-When attacking turrets, make use of your allies. If multiple turrets are firing at you, don't go in guns blazing, go evasive instead and wait for backup. If they are busy shooting your allies, on the other hand, you can kill them easily. Dumbfires work particularly well against turrets.
-Friend-or-foe missiles are particularly effective against Sartha light fighters. The Sartha has no decoys and cannot outrun nor out-turn it. Alternatively, they are useful for shaking off a pesky fighter at your six.
-The Targu II can be killed with only a single torpedo hit anywhere on the ship, but it is densely covered with turrets keen on shooting down incoming torps. It has a major blind spot directly head on, between the two spikes, with no turret cover at all. That's the best place to make your run.
-You can't save 'em all, but try not to lose all of your wingmen in the first few sorties. The game cuts you some slack with wingman replenishing, but you can still lose by running out, especially in the losing paths where refills are more sparse. Still, as long as you make those losses worth it by coming out victorious, you should last long enough till the refill comes.
Specific Ships
Stiletto:
The Stiletto is the first ship you get to fly. It is fast, agile and has a lot of afterburner fuel, but it can't take hits well and lacks in gunpower. Don't take anything head on, use your superior agility to get on the hostile's tail instead. Aside from that, it is your typical interceptor: It handles dogfights well enough, but lacks the armament and protection to go up against anything up from a corvette. Heavy fighters or bombers with tailguns are particularly troublesome, as you don't have the shields to endure their blasts for long. Use a mix of rolling, staying at a moderate distance and killing the heavy quickly, preferably with one of your four HS missiles, to manage these.
Gladius:
The Gladius is a... troublesome ship. It is your only attack craft during the early game, and despite it's armament, which is pretty good, it is ill-suited for large-scale actions. It's shields and armor cannot compensate for an extremely low afterburner velocity of 1000 kps, meaning it fails to outrun anything after the Prolouge, and a relatively small amount of burner fuel to boot. Good gunning and wingman cover are your best protections with this ship. When used in an attack role, just burn in, launch your torpedo and get out, praying not to get hit on the way. Again, friendlies help here. It lacks ITTS too, and cannot compensate by getting in a good firing position like a Rapier could. Additionally, the lasers are horribly off-center, unable to hit anything up close. Try using Particle Cannons only if you have energy management problems. At least the fighter loadout comes with a generous amount of eight missiles, though half of them are FFs.
Rapier II:
Simply put, the Rapier is the best ship to have in a dogfight, at least within the campaign-flyable ships. It has a good profile, nicely centered guns, a good selections of missiles to play with, nice shields that can take a hit or two, and enough speed and manouvreability to go around. It's only weaknesses are the lack of torpedoes to go up against capital ships and low armor underneath those sturdy shields. Again, it lacks ITTS, but with a good pursuing ability, that shouldn't be too much of a problem for a good shooter. Just go on killing whatever's closest to you, except on escort mission, where you should focus on bombers.
Sabre:
The Sabre is an alright ship, if you are willing to overlook a few weakpoints. First, it has a large profile and shields actually weaker than the Rapier's, and the generous amount of armor to compensate for that only lasts for so long. It's mass drivers are somewhat off-center, but it's a lot better than with the Gladius and the Particle Cannons are centered enough to score good hits at any range. The ITTS helps a bit, too. All of the Sabre's loadouts come with a lot of missiles to go around, including the only IR missiles found in the campaign ships.
The Sabre works a lot better with a team than solo, as it has some trouble shaking off fighters from it's rear without backup, especially if they gang up. It's afterburner fuel tanks tend to deplete quickly too, so conserve well.
Overall, despite it's flaws, you get a ship that can dogfight well enough and engage capships using afterburners to go in and out quickly, and it can be quite enjoyable.
Crossbow:
Flying in the Crossbow differs tremendously from anything you flew previously in Standoff. It has ultra-thick shields, equal to a Kamekh, a vast amount of armor, manouvreability comparable to a fighter and is only slightly slower than a Sabre on regular drive, but is has no afterburners! It's strenghts make it ideally suited for large-scale strike missions, where it can fully play out it's strenghts and overcoming the weaknesses by being backed up by a large allied force. With five guns, it can devastate any fighter stupid enough to go head on, but it takes time to recharge again, just like a real-world crossbow. Since you cannot pursue enemy fighters, you'll have to wait until they come to you, then gun them down. Then again, dogfighting is not your job: This is the big bomber designed to defeat the strongest of enemy capships, well armed with six torpedoes to deal massive damage and well-protected enough to live to tell about it. Once you grow accustomed to Crossbow flying, you'll find it to be very rewarding to use.
To be added: Sim-only ships, sim-specific tips, complete mission walkthrough
