Wing Commander IV: Missiles Overpowered?

[Ijuin]

As I understand it, the main appeal of choosing heatseekers over ImRecs in WC3 was because the former had moderately better speed, turning rate, and explosive yield (about 450 vs 350 IIRC). However, with anything lighter than a Longbow or Lance falling to a single ImRec, the advantage disappears, so the ImRec's lower spoof rate and ability to be launched from any approach angle makes it the preferred choice.

On another note, has anybody here tried to play WCIV "Price of Entertainment" style? In other words, use Leech weapons whenever possible. If flying a craft with no Leech guns, you carry as many Leech missiles as possible and do not use any other weapons on a leechable enemy until the Leech missiles are expended. If flying a craft with Leech guns, then leechable enemies must be leeched.

 

[AD]

On another note, has anybody here tried to play WCIV "Price of Entertainment" style? In other words, use Leech weapons whenever possible. If flying a craft with no Leech guns, you carry as many Leech missiles as possible and do not use any other weapons on a leechable enemy until the Leech missiles are expended. If flying a craft with Leech guns, then leechable enemies must be leeched.

After WC 1 to 3, shooting confed pilots who were just caught up in the conspiracy unaware just didn't sit well with me. So I did do several playthroughs with just leech guns and missiles. The main issue I remember is that there's a spawning bug where the next wave of fighter won't spawn and therefore won't let you finish the mission if there are leeched enemy craft still present. So basically you were forced to destroy the leeched craft. And really, shooting the sitting duck pilots felt worse than just killing them to start with.

 

[Wedge009]

Yeah, I seem to recall certain missions allowing you to proceed only when a given wave of enemies were all killed, not just disabled.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

Dumb Fires are useful against capital ships or large, less manoeuvrable fighters. But I understand your point.

I know, but from a gameplay perspective I want the player to FEEL it rather than just read about it in the manual. Maybe something like giving the Dumb Fire an especially big, spectacular explosion when it hits. Something to reward the additional skill necessary when choosing them.

 

[Wedge009]

I was agreeing with you. I was just pointing out that there were still good game-play reasons for using missiles other than the IRs, even if it was usually more compelling to just go with a full IR load.

I recently finished replaying Prophecy and Secret Ops (thanks to the OpenGL improvements) and noticed that once the Spiculums are adapted to become enhanced long-range missiles, there's little reason to use another missile type. I tended to save the lower-powered Pilums for weaker targets lacking missile decoys such as Stingrays, Skates and Lampreys. At least that variety was still available, I suppose.