Favorite Missions

S

Sharpshooter

Rear Admiral
Okay, so we've had "Hardest Missions" threads and "Favorite Ships" threads, but we haven't had many "Favorite Missions" threads yet. Here are mine :

WC1 - Port Hedland 1. A great mission where you have to fight against overwhelming odds. This is also the first mission where you get to shoot down a fleeing capships, if memory serves.

WC1 - Hell's Kitchen 4. The suicide mission is a lot of fun, especially if you don't hate the Scimitar. Fighting every single class of Kilrathi fighter and the aces in one mission is really something.

Rise to Honor - Gimle 1. Who would have thought that 3 Rapiers would put up such a tough fight?

Rise to Honor - Dakota 1. One of the hardest escort missions out there. A very nice challenge that takes some careful planning and quite a bit of flying skill.

Rise to Honor - Dakota 3. Because fighting Rapier ace Iceman with a Gratha is very sweet.

Rise to Honor - Hell's Kitchen 4. For the same reasons as the original version.

SM1 - Jotunheim 3. Bwahaha.

SM1 - BiFrost 2. The evil, climatic battle against the supply depot (and you should probably just blow it up and get away as soon as possible unless you want to fight 5 Grathas in a Scimitar).

SM2 - The Dralthi missions.

SM3 - Mission 9. Another nice challenging defence mission.

SM3 - Mission 10. I love the fact that you lose if you try to destroy the fighters instead of staying close to the Exeter.

SM3 - Mission 12. 4 Dralthis and 3 Jalthis at once... One of the largest WC1 battles.

SM3 - Mission 14. A true capship-fest.

SM3 - Mission 16. Invisible fighters, yay!

WC2 - Enigma 2. Fighting while the depot is firing at you is just so ridiculously hard that I tend to destroy the depot first (with Angel's help).

WC2 - K'tithrak Mang 4. Despite the fact that the Prince kind of sucks, it's still a pretty good mission.

SO1 - The losing missions.

SO1 - Rigel 1. Despite the fact that it can be quite annoying. :D

SO1 - Ghorah Khar B-3 (or 2-C, whatever). Urg. Now that's what I call a dogfight. Surviving is hard enough as it is, but taking down Khasra is very difficult.

SO2 - The losing missions.

SO2 - Most Morningstar missions, because I like the Mace.

WC3 - The losing missions.

WC3 - Kilrah 3, mostly due to the T-Bomb run.

WC4 - Most missions :D. Okay, so I especially liked Masa 2 (there are two ways to to get the BW forces to surrender), the Peleus missions, Circe 1 (Tanks), Circe 3 (that battle with the Destroyer is insane if you don't take out the Destroyer as soon as possible), Speradon 3 (you get to defang a Carrier), and Outrun Ella (which is nearly impossible if you don't have a good strategy. Once you do have one, it can actually be pretty easy, but it's an epic battle no matter what).

UE - Treacherous Nebula. You should be able to guess why if you've played it.

UE - That "Defang the Fralthi" mission, as well as the one that comes next.

UE - The final battle.

Standoff - Ep.1 Pirate Base mission.

Standoff - Ep.3 Snakeir mission.

Standoff - Ep.3 losing path (Back Route to Sirius). Yep, all of it.

Standoff - Clearing the Path. Painful, but very fun nonetheless.

Standoff - Hakaga mission.

Standoff - Skinning Cats (both versions).

Standoff - Backlash in Sirius (again, all of it).
 
And a third good thread gets a third Space Point.

Some of my suggestsions:

Midgard 2 and Firekka (1) 2 - for giving you the option of going back and engaging large Kilrathi fleets without reward (and even sharply criticizing you for doing so.) That built the 'living universe' very well!

Gwynedd (1) 3 - this was a step in a direction that I wish the series had went further in - bomber escort missions. I'd have liked to have seen massive bomber escorts similar to the strategic bombing campaigns in WW2 in later games. I also like the idea of *not* letting the player blow up the capital ship once in a while (although WC2 eventually took this to an extreme.)

Locanda 3 - this is one of the few missions (I believe) where ships are somewhat randomized... there's four or so possibilities of which groups you encounter and you may or may not see them all before you find Flint. What's more, one of the ships is the elusive 'Kilrathi Scout', which by itself made the 'world' of the game incredibly interesting to me.

Hellespont 1 - One of the things Wing Commander IV set out to do was to make a 'breathing' universe around the player... and a lot of effort went into doing that which didn't get beyond this one mission. For one brief beautiful moment you see all kinds of background 'stuff' crammed into the Wing Commander universe - things like the relay station being guarded by other Lexington pilots (which was created to help explain a whole system of FTL communication that never really came across.) Chasing down but not killing the pirates to win is a cool touch, too.

Losing Missions - There are several, but I really like the idea of missions you can't win. Rather, missions that you can win but fail to win the war... Hell's Kitchen, the losing Ayers Rock patrol, Proxima and Sol. Also, kudos to any losing series' that introduce new concepts, ships, etc. - how cool is it that they bothered to create a giant Kilrathi asteroid base for Delius?
 
Firekka (1) 2 is a favorite of mine as well, I just forgot to add it. Midgard 2 was pretty good, but it's not as epic since a lot of the ships you fight are Dralthi (and they're not much of a challenge).

I too thought that the idea of escorting bombers was pretty interesting... Good thing Standoff has missions like this one. ;)

Locanda 3 - it's been too long since I played WC3, but I remember this mission being pretty interesting indeed. I also remember it being long and quite difficult. I think the unexpected Cruiser at the last Nav point is also a nice touch. I'm not sure if I even managed to destroy it back then. I probably did, but I guess it took me quite a few tries. I think I'm going to play WC3 again soon, assuming I can get my old DOS version to work on my computer.

Delius is so cool... Kind of makes me wish that there had been more losing paths in WC3.

Regarding the losing mission in Ayers' Rock... I'm not sure not killing Jazz would make that much of a difference. The Concordia retreats in both endings. While it makes more sense to make the game end after the climatic battle with Jazz, I felt the "bad" ending after that last patrol fitted SO2's plot better, since you more-or-less lose the game no matter what (WC3 would have been very different otherwise).
 
The first mission where you meet the Drakhai. I remember I was almost scared to death. The imperial guard was chasing me...
 
I'd have to say the Behemoth and Temblor Bomb missions are my favorite.\

With the Behemoth mission, the atmosphere feels so confident that the Confederation is going to win the war with the Behemoth, but when it's destroyed....I remember playing WC3 for the first time and thinking that the Confederation was going to lose the war, when I failed to defend the Behemoth.

With the Temblor Bomb, I felt like the tone of the war had changed from not doing whatever it takes to win the war, to doing whater it takes to win the war. The Confederation gambled most of its fleet in a fleet action that was to be a distraction for the Temblor run. Knowing this as your flying down the trench on Kilrah, that if you fail, the Confederation loses is quite amazing.

That's what I like about the Wing Commander games. The game makers are able to make it feel as if you're actually there in the middle of the action and you're able to sense how the crew is feeling aboard the ships.
 
Bandit LOAF said:
Losing Missions - There are several, but I really like the idea of missions you can't win. Rather, missions that you can win but fail to win the war... Hell's Kitchen, the losing Ayers Rock patrol, Proxima and Sol. Also, kudos to any losing series' that introduce new concepts, ships, etc. - how cool is it that they bothered to create a giant Kilrathi asteroid base for Delius?
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Delius is a great set of missions that is often forgotten. All these new threads today are making me want to go home and fire up the games.

I started replaying WCP a few days ago. Maybe I'll go back a few more years to fight Kats again.
 
I always enjoyed the last Ariel mission in WC3 where the Kilrathi cloak the jump point and then you have to escort the Victory to a new jump point. The first time I played through the game and before Rollins came on and said that a new jump point had been found I was like, "Um, what do we do now?"

I also liked the missions in WC4 where the Lexington and then later in the game the Vesuvius was chasing the Intrepid. The cut scenes before those missions helped to convey a sense of urgency, especially at the end of the game where Tolwyn orders the Vesuvius to turn around right before the jump point and attack the Intrepid. It was one of those "Oh shit, what have we gotten into" moments.

In general, i tend to like escort missions, where you have to go out and help a transport or smaller warship, or cover a ship while it moves to a jump point. These missions really seem to help flesh out the WC universe for me and help me imagine being part of a larger campaign with other ships being on other missions.
 
Kurasawa II. Nothing- NOTHING- gave me a greater rush, feeling of satisfaction, and bragging rights to my confused, clueless friends than icing those gratha and bringing in that ralari. No other mission can compare, now- I honestly cant think of any. Fighting off 400 waves at the end of SM1 after Knight left IMMEDIATELY is a second, distant one.
 
In WCP the mission "Holding the Line" was my favorite. Nothing gave me a greater thrill then when you think all is lost and all of a sudden, "The Kilrathi are pleased to provide assistance!"

And then having to listen to these two species roar at each other:

"Show your claws pathetic creature!"

"Your numbers are few, your fighting pathetic!"

"Fight furless freak!"

"You are no warrior!"

"Tremble hairless ones!"
 
Max Gene said:
Kurasawa II. Nothing- NOTHING- gave me a greater rush, feeling of satisfaction, and bragging rights to my confused, clueless friends than icing those gratha and bringing in that ralari. No other mission can compare, now- I honestly cant think of any. Fighting off 400 waves at the end of SM1 after Knight left IMMEDIATELY is a second, distant one.
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Completing Kurasawa 2 was pretty satisfying... Though if you're implying that this mission is the hardest, that's simply not true. There are much harder missions out there - Jotunheim 3, Hubble's Star 2, SO1's nightmarish final mission...
 
Kurasawa 2 may not be the hardest mission... but it's the most *celebrated* for being hard. Winning it is something you can brag about to everyone... or at least other fans.... while the others are a more personal accomplishemnt (though recognition of that last Special Operations 1 mission has come a long way in recent years.)

I've always greatly enjoyed the fact that the Wing Commander I & II Ultiamte Strategy Guide simply has Lafong *lose* the Ralari mission...

(Fun fact: the first thread at Origin's Official Wing Commander Chat Zone, our anscestor from the mid-1990s, was about the Ralari mission. The poster? Yours truly.)
 
I won this mission once. After trying a hundred times. And never again. I think I have to try it once more, haven't played it for years...
 
Outrun Ella in WC4 is definitely my favourite. It is one of the few missions where you need to use cloaking well to win, which is what I like best about the WC games. I really wanted to use a normal stealth fighter (ie. one with weaknesses, like the Strakha in WC3) sometime, but never really got to.
 
Well, Kurasawa may not have been the hardest for _most_ of us, but I've always hated escorting anything in any game- I want my butt out of there alive, and no one else's, excepting a few allies. Jotunheim 3 was the one with the Gwenhyvar, correct? Another one I greatly enjoyed and didn't beat until several playthroughs later. SO1's final mission... hmm. I think I actually let myself lose that one and went and did the losing branch mission to finish it off. I can't remember.

I really liked WC1's flight engine the best, for some reason, though I've only been able to play up to 3 so far- haven't yet found the cash for copies of wc4 and prophecy.
 
Heh, you really don't need to use cloaking to win Outrun Ella. I won this mission a lot of times without using the Dragon, and I even beat it in a Dragon without cloaking. Cloaking is mostly useful when you run out of decoys or really need to get rid of ships that keep getting on your six.

I only ever won SO1's final mission once, and it was mostly due to sheer luck. The Fralthra's AMGs are so unpredictable (their accuracy seems to be somewhat randomized) that they aren't much fun.
 
The one in WC4 where you join the the border worlds forces.. it's just nice and cinematic.

"Fight the good fight, heart of the tiger"
 
Nightshade said:
Outrun Ella in WC4 is definitely my favourite. It is one of the few missions where you need to use cloaking well to win, which is what I like best about the WC games. I really wanted to use a normal stealth fighter (ie. one with weaknesses, like the Strakha in WC3) sometime, but never really got to.
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I love this mission as well because of the capships you get to take on. It makes it feel like you really are running around a major military installation.
 
The WC4 mission where you chase Eisen and Maniac in the shuttle and have to decide if you want to join them and the Border Worlds or shoot them down and stay loyal to Confed. I remember how intense and unexpected it was. We didn't have much information on why they were defecting.. it was like trusting your friends or being loyal to your oath of service to Confed.

I remember I wasn't sure if one of those was the right decision and had to decide quickly. I'm a little surprised that I trusted Maniac and Eisen since there perhaps wasn't enough information to justify being a traitor. I committed treason against Confed just on the basis of trusting in my friends. For all I knew they could've been defecting in order to make money, sell secrets, get promotions, or other selfish reasons.

It was emotionally difficult because I knew I would have to shoot them down and didn't want to kill them, and it was intellectually difficult because I didn't want to be a traitor to my oath. Stay loyal to my friends or to my word and nation? In the heat of the moment I chose friends.
 
I liked that part too.

(On the other hand, I didn't like the end of the Confed path all that much... Script-killing the Lexington if you destroy the Intrepid is just illogical, cheap, and plain evil :p )
 
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