WC3 Kilrah missions difficulty scaled?

Ilanin

Captain
For my ongoing Wing Commander III Let's Play I was challenged to eschew any of the available wingmen and do the final series of missions solo. I've just completed the first one, and was sufficiently surprised at how easy it was I actually had to check to see that I'd still got the game set to Nightmare. The enemies seemed to be approximately what the CIC guide said they would be (excepting one wave listed as 6 Dralthi was actually 6 Strakhas), but they seemed to go down very easily, particularly the final Ralaxath.

There's not any difficulty scaling code that reduces the Kilrathi's hitpoints or AI on that mission if you go into it with fewer wingmen, is there?
 
I've often wondered if there are variables in WC3 that affect difficulty. For instance I've always found the enemy fighters in the 'destroy transports' missions to be much easier prey if I'm flying the Arrow rather than the Excalibur, and I'm terrible in the Arrow. Enemies seem to go down easy if you choose to fly drunk in Alcor, too.

Or it could well be that, as per WC2 difficulty-scaling, the game begins to gets easier the more you lose or get stuck in one place. Did you take several replays to beat the mission? If not, did it take a few attempts to get through the mission before it? Although I guess that getting stuck for a long time on the previous sortie wouldn't effect the subsequent mission.

Perhaps you've just become really good at the game.
 
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Since I'm recording video when I'm doing this, I always quit out of the game rather than hitting the "replay" button (because I want the launch sequence), so as far as WC3 is concerned I suspect it thinks I've beaten the every mission first time. I can't remember enemies in Locanda 2 in the Arrow being substantially easier than they are with the Excalibur, but that may be because my Excalibur tactics are more advanced (which they are). With Alcor drunk...well, I couldn't beat it on Nightmare (evading the huge number of missiles with unresponsive controls being the trick), so they can't be that much easier.

Anyway, my reason for posting again here was to note that you can judge for yourself if the Kilrathi are below par, I guess:
 
Hey, nice vid! What a great YouTube preview picture that is. I can see your point now, and I'm stumped, but from watching the way you went about things I may have been close to the mark when I said about you being a good pilot.

Also, regarding flying a Hellcat for the final missions as mentioned in your clip; it can be done! I seem to remember a savegame editor that allowed you to change what ship you fly if you save and edit right before takeoff. For the Kilrah missions, it lets you fly the ship of your choosing right up until you descend into Kilrah's atmosphere. Of course the game treats the trench run as a seperate mission, and since there's no chance to save between space and atmosphere, you default back to the Excalibur as soon as the planetary part of the mission starts. In fact, that might be wrong altogether, I can't remember but I'm not sure it will let you cloak unless you're in the Excal. Either way, you can't deliver the temblor in anything other than the ship they intended.

I tried the Kilrah series in a Thunderbolt a while back as it's my absolute favourite fighter in the Universe, I chuckled when the asteroid base said in that Liverpool accent "Excalibur you are clear to land" -- muttered to myself, 'are you blind mate?

I hate to say it but the Excal is obviously much better suited to taking on all those light fighters. The 'Bolt seemed a little sturdier against the occasional capship.
 
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