Gracious way to lose Wing Commander 1?

Dragoon-

Dragoon-

Spaceman
I played WC1 on my first PC 16 years ago but I can't remember any details anymore. However I recently bought WC1 again from GOG.com, but i find WC1 way too easy. I remembered the SM were much harder.

Anyway, I'm looking more for the Rocky experience. Getting beat down, nothing but despair and ready to let all hope go, before coming back and rise to victory.
Unfortunately not all mission are escort missions. Losing and still have a good game seems a bit tricky.
So I'm asking if anybody know what it takes to trigger a loss for example in a patrol mission. Or to be precise, how can I get most out of a mission like shooting down cats and still have it counted as a loss? Do I have to send my wingman home and let the last fighter shoot me down, or just eject everytime when everyone is dead?

Thanks for any helpful answers.
 
Ejecting right after launch will do it in most cases.

If you want to feel like you're still accomplishing something, then you should know that WC1 awarded points for accomplishing certain goals in a series. Each mission in the series was worth x amount of points. If you scored above a certain threshold, you went along to the next series along the winning track and vice versa. So botching escort missions is one way to do it. Failing to kill aces will do it on occasion; I remember the third McAuliffe mission I didn't kill Bhurak Starkiller and that sent me off (that might've also had something to do with letting Paladin get the Ralari kill in the previous mission). Usually there's one big thing in the series that's worth the most points; botch that and you're certain to head on to crappier pastures.

Best guide I've got on the specifics of this is SWCU; some folks around here may have better sources.
 
Thanks for the suggestions. Especially for the hint about failing to kill aces. That would explain, why even after I failed to protect the Exeter in the Gimble System, I still got send to the victory path at the end. I should have let this Dakhath cat get away. Otherwise I going to miss on occasion the one or other waypoint.
 
The very first time I played Wing Commander, I actually did exactly what you're trying to do - only, I didn't lose on purpose ;).

In my experience, it's easiest to get beaten in McAuliffe. All it takes is that one escort mission with Bhurak, and you're off to Brimstone. That happened to me - and then I ended up losing in Brimstone as well. I don't quite remember what happened there, looking at the mission descriptions it doesn't sound that bad - nonetheless, I did lose.

Once you lose in Brimstone, the next couple of systems on the losing path, in my experience, are so miserable (read: filled with escort missions) that you're almost bound to go all the way to Hubble's Star (the second-last series on the losing path...) before you really have a chance to recover.

The epicity of this approach, by the way, is significantly amplified by amount of time you'll wind up flying a Scimitar. McAuliffe, Brimstone, Port Hedland, Hubble's Star... by the time you win Hubble's Star and switch to a Raptor in Rostov, you will most definitely feel that the ship upgrade was well-earned.
 
The WCPedia WC1 Mission page is also a good place to get some information. Some missions don't have the points in the infobox, but most of the info is in there.
 
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Thanks for the hints again. Luckly I found on GameFAQs a very detail guide written by Kasey Chang in 2001. It's list for each system the total points, victory points and the same goes for each mission. The inevitable spoilers of course sucks, but at least you can calculate exactly how far you can go and when.

Quarto said:
The epicity of this approach, by the way, is significantly amplified by amount of time you'll wind up flying a Scimitar. McAuliffe, Brimstone, Port Hedland, Hubble's Star... by the time you win Hubble's Star and switch to a Raptor in Rostov, you will most definitely feel that the ship upgrade was well-earned.
Click to expand...

That is what I had a beef with too. On the victory path you upgrade your craft so quickly, you barely have time to learn and enjoy your new toy. Flying the Hornet in the flight simulator is more fun than the Raptor in the campaign.
Was the same as in Tie Fighter or the addon disk for X-Wing vs Tie Fighter.
Not the missions where you fly an overpowered Tie Defender, but the ones where you fly the unshielded brick a.k.a Tie Bomber, or the 2 hits and you're dead Tie Fighter missions, are the best. It's just intense and exciting.
 
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