Episode 5 - Missions/Tactics *SPOILERS*

Yeah... it's very good to hear, though - tells us what a world of difference those special effects added. Alex and Eder put in quite a lot of work on those, and sometimes (mainly whenever we discovered the framerate still wasn't good enough) it just didn't seem like the final result would be worth the effort at all.
 
Yep, it's exactly the same Bengal model as it was in UE, one of the oldest meshes in the whole game. :p
 
Wow, that's very surprising that it was the same model. I definitely think the textures and special effects were worth the effort. Thanks Alex and Eder.
 
It's good to see getting into all those huge arguments with each other was worth it. ;)
 
I suppose that's typical of creative groups. That happens a lot to music groups (Beatle's, The Police, and just about any other group that has a hard time getting back together for a reunion tour).

Alrighty.. so continuing tactical ideas.. I found some of the suggestions interesting, such as Quarto's suggestions of taking out flak turrets if you're in a Rapier and using your torpedos on Targu II's so the rest of your fighters don't all waste their torps on them. Has anyone ever tried these ideas on Episode 5 nightmare level? I tried blowing up a Targu II, but the mission was still a failure. Even if I do my usual tactics the missons can come up as failures too, so it's not a decisive test. Also, has anyone chose to fly a Rapier or Crossbow for the major Ep. 5 strike missions on Nightmare and won? Strike missions haven't gone nearly as well when I've chosen these.
 
Depending on how I feel, sometimes I will try to get the Targus before the other friendlies (although it can be hard at times to beat the Morningstars maces to the punch), but most of the time if I'm flying top cover, I stick to just interceptions and leave the rest to the bombers themselves.

I've used the Rapier in the Ep5 strike missions and have usually done fairly well. Not complete victory, but enough to win the day. I haven't tried it too much in the Crossbow...I tended to end up dead a lot.
 
I have to say that everybody else's wingmen on Nightmare seem to be a lot better than mine. In ten attempts at sending the Sabres after the carrier after the initial clash of fighters, the most damage they've ever produced is a single torp hit on an engine.

The mission is really fun in a Rapier, but damn the AI sucks at strike. In one of my better attempts I had 26 kills at the point Bradshaw ordered the retreat. There had been countless torp launch reports across the radio and precisely three hits. (I decided that enough people hadn't died yet, stuck around and ended up with 46 kills when a Drakhri got me with a dumbfire).

I may have to decrease the difficulty, except I don't want my wingmen to get even worse...
 
So, as I mentioned, the Easter Egg hunt got me started playing the losing path. The first two missions are quite easy even on Nightmare, and I was beginning to wonder if the losing path was intentionally more straightforward than the winning one.

Mission 3 cured me of that delusion. I've played it a fair bit now, and the sequence of events is invariably something like this:

Launch, try to kill the Kamekhs without losing too much front armour.
Avoid dying to Krant heatseeker spam, hope not to lose more than one wingman. Usually lose two, grrr wingmen.
Arrive at the next fight. Swear.
Kill Gothri, then kill some Krant while waiting for...
Firekka a) complains I'm not doing my job despite there being nothing attacking it on the nav map and b) tells me reinforcements are coming
Kill more stuff
Doomsday and the Landreich bombers
arrive, as do Kilrathi reinforcements
1-4 Capships go boom, usually including the Firekka.

What kills the TCS Firekka here? It isn't any torpedo bombers, since there are sometimes none alive and never any within torpedo range of my carrier at this point. Presumably it's the Kilrathi capships. This implies (as does Freyers) that I actually have to intercept torpedoes in this mission, which, since they can't be targeted and don't show up on the nav map, is unfriendly even for Standoff. Do I really, or am I missing something?

If I'm not, what's my trigger to decide to quit dicing Krants and go hang out near the Firekka to shoot torpedoes? Freyers telling me reinforcements are on the way?
 
What kills the TCS Firekka here? It isn't any torpedo bombers, since there are sometimes none alive and never any within torpedo range of my carrier at this point. Presumably it's the Kilrathi capships. This implies (as does Freyers) that I actually have to intercept torpedoes in this mission, which, since they can't be targeted and don't show up on the nav map, is unfriendly even for Standoff. Do I really, or am I missing something?

If I'm not, what's my trigger to decide to quit dicing Krants and go hang out near the Firekka to shoot torpedoes? Freyers telling me reinforcements are on the way?

You are missing something huge.

Every capship in this mission has the ability to fire torpedoes at you (Kamekh, Targu II and Ralathi). They show up on your radar as yellow dots. Freyers has a specific com when torpedoes have been launched by a capship.

Watch the Targu that immediately jumps in (or I'm guessing in your case you jumped back and killed it because you lost a wingman?) or if you did kill it watch the 2 Targus and Ralathi. You'll hear Freyers tell you to "do your job" and you'll see the contails as the torpedoes leave the front of one of the capships (they alternate firing...)

The Firekka has 3 components and in only a few salvoes those 3 capships can wreck it.
 
Predictably I finished the mission on my first attempt after whining. Still don't remember seeing any yellow dots appearing on the radar map though. I did, on the other hand, see the torpedoes being launched from the frigates this time - however, shooting them down proved unnecessary due to Landreich pilots not letting them get more than one salvo off (which was something of a pity inasmuch as I'd got myself into the perfect place to intercept and even remembered to turn full guns off - I'm guessing that section feels a lot like Starlancer if you actually have to do it).

So now it's Flight of the Arrow. So far, my first attempt has provided the valuable information that I probably shouldn't fly into the back of a Grikath and get my guns broken.
 
That torpedo interception mission was quite a pain - but an interesting experience nonetheless. And yes, with the salvoes being thrown your way, it did feel a little like one of the StarLancer missions... without the ability to target the torpedoes themselves, though. :/
 
Predictably I finished the mission on my first attempt after whining. Still don't remember seeing any yellow dots appearing on the radar map though.
Yeah, that's because Dundradal was remembering wrong - torpedoes aren't yellow dots, they're the grayish-green dots.
 
If I recall correctly, there are similar situations where you have to defend Luyten star base from torpedo attacks in Secret Ops. And yes, the torpedoes show as dark-green on the radar there as well.
 
Yep, it's definitely nothing new as far as the WC universe is concerned. We've seen it in Secret Ops, and it was a useful tactic in Prophecy.

It's true that not being able to target torps makes this a challenge - but it's also what makes this different, because you have to look for something different than a big red bracket. However, we did mess up a bit by not having a proper voiceover to explain to the player what he has to do - that's what makes this mission so confusing and (initially) frustrating.
 
Initially frustrating is right. I think I remember seeing the torpedoes on the radar and dismissed them as my bomber wings... and before I knew it, I'm without a carrier. Huh?

Of course, in 'reality', this would be a terrible way to go. "I was stranded because I thought the enemies' torpedoes were my own." How embarrassing.
 
I guess ultimately, the players are what you bring them up to be :p. We introduced capship combat a little too late in the game, and most of the time when it did happen, it was scripted to produce a particular result every time. Having a couple of less deterministic capship combat missions earlier in the game would have helped a lot. Oh, well, you can always do better with hindsight.
 
Yeah, that's because Dundradal was remembering wrong - torpedoes aren't yellow dots, they're the grayish-green dots.

Damn it, larger missiles are yellow (see STL M17). You can tell it's been a while since I've been able to fire up Standoff (since October when my neighbor moved and took my testing machine with him).

I think what also affects this mission is if you've flown the Crossbow S&R mission. If you have then 99% chance you killed the Targu. If you don't fly that mission (or kill the Targu) it jumps in at the start of the following mission and you get a quick intro to torpedo interception 101.

Because of the bug that went out with release in the Ep5 losing path (always made you fly Stiletto to start....which was only supposed to be punishment) many people had wingmen eject and then had to S&R them. So they missed out on the early torpedo experience in STL M15.
 
In 'reality' you'd land on the Tarawa or Guadacanal and Kruger would probably attempt to requisition your fighters (and yourself) as Landreich assets, and you'd maybe have a problem with a court-martial for losing your ship some time after the Battle of Earth was over.

I do recall seeing something slightly off-coloured on my radar screen now, but it was a sufficiently similar colour to the background that I didn't really take much notice of them. I doubt "I didn't notice the torpedoes because they were camouflaged on my radar screen" would have been taken as mitigating circumstances by a military court though.
 
Just listen for Freyer's "Pilots, get over here and do your jobs!" that means that torps are in the water.

I guess because I played STL M15 so many times with the first Targu there (to make sure it worked correctly) I didn't do enough time without it and a blank mind to see how players would react to torps flying.

But as Quarto said, all hindsight for next time....
 
I guess I could have changed the torps colour from that WCP greenish-brown to yellow like the capship missiles and mines... but didn't. It's true it would have made them easier to spot on the radar.
 
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