Standoff Drakhri: One of the toughest enemy ships?

[-danr-]

Am I the only one who finds the WCS Drakhri to be one of the most underrated oponents of all time? (Not Drakhai, they're all bitches regardless of ship.)

It's easy enough to kill if you're on its tail or flanks, but on countless occasions now, I've rushed one head on in a Sabre and found myself getting absolutely torn apart by its front guns.

 

[Dundradal]

The Krant is perhaps even more of a bitch because of its speed. It's slightly faster than most missiles (except DF and HS) at full AB and is always the one fighter that drives me insane.

I tend to roll out early from head on passes with Drakhri in the hopes of avoiding all but one or two of its salvos while it's running into a similar number of mine.

 

[-danr-]

I tend to roll out early from head on passes with Drakhri

I find this works especially well in an Epee, and I strongly agree about the Krants too - prefer to nail them quickly with a well placed DF.

 

[Dundradal]

I find this works especially well in an Epee, and I strongly agree about the Krants too - prefer to nail them quickly with a well placed DF.

99.9999% of the time I refuse to expend a missile on them. I prefer to save missiles for bombers and heavy fighters. Only if a particular Krant is driving me insane will I send an HS at it and even then I still prefer to use guns. I just hate wasting AB fuel chasing those bastards around.

 

[frostytheplebe]

WC2 Gothri = PAIN IN THE ASS!!! The DrAkhri were nothing!

 

[Max Gene]

This is Standoff, frosty... at any rate, I didn't find them too bad in Standoff, but I play on low settings as I suck at Standoff. Drakhri were rather easy for me, really.

 

[frostytheplebe]

This is Standoff, frosty... at any rate, I didn't find them too bad in Standoff, but I play on low settings as I suck at Standoff. Drakhri were rather easy for me, really.

Blah I stand by my statement, even in standoff, and i play on high difficulty.

 

[Dundradal]

I play on Hero mostly because at that level the wingmen AI are fairly competent anything lower and they are just flying zombies.

Gothri aren't too bad as long as you avoid head on runs and try not to stay on the same place on their 6 for too long otherwise those neutron guns can hand you some damage.

Sartha and Drakhri are especially dangerous though on the higher settings because they carry DFs and tend to be fairly good shots with them.

 

[Toast]

I play on Hero mostly because at that level the wingmen AI are fairly competent anything lower and they are just flying zombies.

Gothri aren't too bad as long as you avoid head on runs and try not to stay on the same place on their 6 for too long otherwise those neutron guns can hand you some damage.

Sartha and Drakhri are especially dangerous though on the higher settings because they carry DFs and tend to be fairly good shots with them.

Agreed. Some fighters do a lot better than others after conversion to Vision engine. Drakhri are not particularly maneuverable and fairly flimsy, but frontal attack is risky, and it's a little more important to make your armor and core strength last when you're outnumbered 50 to 1.

Gothri seem to be one of the easier enemies in Standoff, especially if you're flying a Rapier. They suffer in the conversion the same way that the Sabre and Raptor do.

Krants (and I suppose it should be remembered that these are Krant Mark II's) aren't very dangerous but they do take a long time to kill. Thick armor and good maneuverability. They jink in front of you like crazy - which makes pretty good use of their armor. Half of the time, I end up having to chop through left, right, and rear armor before landing the kill.

 

[Sharpshooter]

I play on Hero mostly because at that level the wingmen AI are fairly competent anything lower and they are just flying zombies./QUOTE]

Heh, really? I'm used to playing on Ace, but maybe I should try switching to Hero if it really makes your wingmen this much smarter. I'm kind of tired of seeing my wingmen getting hopelessly wasted in the (nearly unwinnable) Ep.1 losing path.

 

[Dundradal]

Heh, really? I'm used to playing on Ace, but maybe I should try switching to Hero if it really makes your wingmen this much smarter. I'm kind of tired of seeing my wingmen getting hopelessly wasted in the (nearly unwinnable) Ep.1 losing path.

There isn't a "losing path" par say in Ep1. There certainly is mission branching depending on your choice in the first mission, but either way you go you will end up at the start of Ep2.

 

[-danr-]

While we're on the subject of Standoff, I wanted to bring up the subject of self-editing the game - but I want to ask about this respectfully and tread very carefully.

Reason I say this, well I just spent an hour reviewing countless threads posted over the years by ungrateful newbies demanding advice from the WCS team about editing, all of them asking for all the answers and offering absolutely nothing to the project.

I am aware that the WCS team are a busy bunch, and they've done a bloody good job on a superb project so far. If any of you have the time to help out a genuine fan, then I ask somebody to take a moment to answer the following:

1) What is TREman, and what does it do?
2) What is WCPedit, and likewise, how might it be used to edit WCS?

Thanks.

 

[Sharpshooter]

There isn't a "losing path" par say in Ep1. There certainly is mission branching depending on your choice in the first mission, but either way you go you will end up at the start of Ep2.

All right, let me rephrase this : I recently tried (again) to play as many losing missions as possible in Ep.1 (in the same playthrough), and on Ace, it turned out to be so ridiculously hard that it might as well be impossible. No, really. The wingmen drop like flies, especially in that mission where you have to clear the jump point with a Gladius.

 

[Jason_Ryock]

1) What is TREman, and what does it do?
2) What is WCPedit, and likewise, how might it be used to edit WCS?

1) TREman is called TRE Manager, and it's for managing the .tre files. TRE files are sort of like ZIP files - they are compressed files that store all the files the game needs to run like ships, missions, comms, etc etc.

For a detailed tutorial on using it, see my post here: http://www.crius.net/zone/showpost.php?p=340181&postcount=12

EDIT: You have to turn off UAE if you're using Windows VISTA to get Treman to work. If you're not, don't worry about it.

2) WCPedit is a much more useful tool - it's (essentially) a ship swapper that lets you change two ships for each other. I believe it needs to be used in conjunction with TREman to unpack the TRE file containing the ships, but I may be wrong about this. WCPedit also lets you change the default game value for things like speed, guns, missiles, and armament. This can be fun, but can also ruin the game so use it carefully.

WCPedit will work with Standoff ships and Missions, but you will have to add them to the WCPedit program first. There aren't really any tutorials explaining how to use WCPedit, but then, you shouldn't need them anyway unless you're creating you're own ship that uses an existing ships framework but has seperate stats for a custom missions.

(Anymore discussion about this should probably be taken to another thread, since it's more then slightly off topic and will have a better chance of getting answered if it's in the Fan Projects & Editing forum.)

 

[ELTEE]

The Drakhri design always puzzled me. Why not just stick with the pancakes? Don't get me wrong, I always appreciate learning about new fighters and capabilities. Regardless, I could never look at a Drakhri without thinking "why not just a dralthi?"

 

[Dundradal]

Heh, really? I'm used to playing on Ace, but maybe I should try switching to Hero if it really makes your wingmen this much smarter. I'm kind of tired of seeing my wingmen getting hopelessly wasted in the (nearly unwinnable) Ep.1 losing path.

Yeah this is a much discussed thing in the Standoff CZ. When I playtest missions I typically test for difficultly and playablility on Hero. The wingmen are fairly intelligent and the Kilrathi aren't slouches themselves.

You'll be surprised by the small performance increase you do see.

 

[Max Gene]

The Drakhri design always puzzled me. Why not just stick with the pancakes? Don't get me wrong, I always appreciate learning about new fighters and capabilities. Regardless, I could never look at a Drakhri without thinking "why not just a dralthi?"

Why did the Salthi become the Sartha?
Jalkehi sounds related to Jalthi, but no dice, at least in my book.
Ralari and Fralthi also seemed close to Ralatha and Fralthra, but not quite the same....

WC2's ship names often felt like corrupted versions of their WC1 counterparts, at least when I first loaded it up.

 

[Dundradal]

Why did the Salthi become the Sartha?
Jalkehi sounds related to Jalthi, but no dice, at least in my book.
Ralari and Fralthi also seemed close to Ralatha and Fralthra, but not quite the same....

WC2's ship names often felt like corrupted versions of their WC1 counterparts, at least when I first loaded it up.

My thought is perhaps they are produced by a different clan hence the different naming schemes. They relate more to the clan name than to any particular over arching naming scheme.

 

[-danr-]

1) TREman is called TRE Manager, and it's for managing the .tre files. TRE files are sort of like ZIP files - they are compressed files that store all the files the game needs to run like ships, missions, comms, etc etc.

For a detailed tutorial on using it, see my post here: http://www.crius.net/zone/showpost.php?p=340181&postcount=12

EDIT: You have to turn off UAE if you're using Windows VISTA to get Treman to work. If you're not, don't worry about it.

2) WCPedit is a much more useful tool - it's (essentially) a ship swapper that lets you change two ships for each other. I believe it needs to be used in conjunction with TREman to unpack the TRE file containing the ships, but I may be wrong about this. WCPedit also lets you change the default game value for things like speed, guns, missiles, and armament. This can be fun, but can also ruin the game so use it carefully.

WCPedit will work with Standoff ships and Missions, but you will have to add them to the WCPedit program first. There aren't really any tutorials explaining how to use WCPedit, but then, you shouldn't need them anyway unless you're creating you're own ship that uses an existing ships framework but has seperate stats for a custom missions.

(Anymore discussion about this should probably be taken to another thread, since it's more then slightly off topic and will have a better chance of getting answered if it's in the Fan Projects & Editing forum.)

Thanks for this answer, I agree that this is not the relevant section for this kind of question. I'm really struggling to work out how to 'point' wcpedit to the Standoff ships, even after I've unpacked all of the standoff TRE files, the ships seem to be all .IFF files rather than .WCS

 

[mustanger]

Why did the Salthi become the Sartha?
Jalkehi sounds related to Jalthi, but no dice, at least in my book.
Ralari and Fralthi also seemed close to Ralatha and Fralthra, but not quite the same....

WC2's ship names often felt like corrupted versions of their WC1 counterparts, at least when I first loaded it up.

Perhaps they are just the next line of fighters? Perhaps the Kilrathi are saying... why do they have a thunderbolt 7?