Soo... About this Guide.

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Well I've blazed my way through to the final mission, studiously sticking to a damned perfect score. (Aside from fighters, I think the only non scripted Confed losses have been two minelayers.) And I've had a lot of fun poking at the branches, and trying to figure out how to perform well.

I've read in this forum in dozens of places about the nifty guide which will tell me all sorts of magical secrets and explain all the bits of missed. I totally can't find a copy anywhere on the internets though, even thought it's mentioned several years ago as being basically complete and missing a few graphics.

Any news? I couldn't care if it's only 70% complete, that's a lot more than zero, and I want to know what's in these losing missions and if it's worth going all the way back and playing intentionally badly.

(Like, should I go and lose extra minelayers, so I can save the San Paulo, because it seems the poor thing counts as being destroyed if I don't get the option to fly the mission to save it. (Fair cop, I suppose.)
 
It's definitely worth playing the 'losing track' series of missions, especially in the final episode. I have my own mission list that I made for myself, but others have made fancy graphs and the like. For the most part, reaching the 'losing' missions isn't too hard - just lose a mission! But there are a few scenarios which require less conventional conditions like having insufficient fighters available, or having a wingman or wingmen eject on a patrol mission.

I'm sure others will chip in with their input on this. From (my hazy) memory, saving the Sao Paulo (or was it the Verdun?) was the centre mission of a complex series of branches and conditions.
 
It's 150% worth it to take the losing path. You can use Farbourne's Mission Trees to figure which missions you've covered.

As for the guide, it's still sitting here on my hard drive. However, other WC duties have sort of superseded it. I will say that discussion are ongoing as to what to do with it. Hopefully there will be some news sooner rather than later....
 
Dundradal said:
It's 150% worth it to take the losing path. You can use Farbourne's Mission Trees to figure which missions you've covered.
Click to expand...

Dundradal links to the thread where I was developing the branching guide. The CIC actually hosted the finished (well, nearly finished...I'm still open to fixing mistakes if anyone finds any and reports them) guides. The "quick reference" flowchart is here:

http://download.wcnews.com/files/mods/standoff_mission_tree.pdf

And the more "written out" version that gives greater details about the branching criteria is here:

http://download.wcnews.com/files/mods/standoff_mission_branching.pdf


Have fun! And definitely play through the losing tracks. When I was making this guide, I played (almost) ever mission (never managed to lose enough fighters in the prologue to get "Final Strike"), and in general, the losing path missions are more fun. Four of my five favorite missions are losing path ones.

And if Standoff is too easy, there's some extra fun challenges you can try...like actually "unlocking" the mission "Search and Rescue" as opposed to "Rescue Run" (a Rapier has to get shot down while on patrol...but the Rapier pilots in that mission are too darned good, so you have to "help them along" without getting declared a traitor), or actually losing the "Making Way" mission on the higher difficulties (to lose, you have to fail to destroy a Ralatha...but your wingmen are very capable of taking it out even if you sit on your thumbs, so the only way I found to lose it is to fly point defense for the Kilrathi capship and shoot down your wingman's torpedoes...quite an interesting challenge!)

Oh, and beating "Jump Point Defense"...probably (in my opinion) the single hardest mission in the entire game (and they throw it at you as the third mission of the prologue if you get cute in the first mission).
 
I've played Final Strike. It's...not really very different to Storming the Rock, just fewer fighters on both sides. You aren't missing much there.

I'm not sure about four of my five favourite, but there's no doubt that "Flight of the Arrow" is a wonderful little surprise waiting for everyone who does play the losing path, and there's plenty of other fun missions too.
 
I agree about "Flight of the Arrow"...it's probably my favorite mission in the game. Or at least, really close to it.

I think my top 5 are:
* Flight of the Arrow
* Rescue Run
* Armageddon (if only for the exchange between Freyrs and Trigger, but it's also an awesomely designed mission)
* First Encounters (mainly for the tech comms)
* Convoy Hunting

Four of the five are Ep 5 missions (I think the Standoff folks really came into their own in Ep 5, although there is a tendency to like more recent things more...so maybe it's just my bias), and four of the five are on a losing path somewhere.

Other awesome missions that didn't quite make my top-5 cut include Sabre Pursuit (Gladius version), Skinning Cats (the losing path version), Backlash, Sacrifice, Torpedo Delivery, and Destroyer Rescue.

And Middle of Nowhere is a wonderful surprise too...if only for what doesn't happen in it.
 
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