Is this cheating?

Highball

Spaceman
Ok, so I have to ask this question of all of you, because I need your opinions. Today, I was playing SM1 on the mission where you encounter 5 Rapiers and the Gwenhyvar. I nuked the 4 Grathas and 4 Jalthi with ease, and moved onto thr nav where I knew the Rapiers and the Exeter would be waiting.

Here's the weird part. Normally, I have always flown this mission with Spirit, IIRC. This time, she was KIA before we'd even flown together in the Secret Missions, which I can't ever recall happening before. Which meant I'd flown all thr missions that I normally flew with her alone, which was a nightmare at best.

After I'd gotten to the Gwenhyvar, I managed to shoot down 1 of the 5 Rapiers (holy cow) before they killed me. I knew I had no real hope of out maneuvering 5 Rapiers in a Raptor all by my lonesome, so I decided to ignore them and try to kill the Gwenhyvar as fast as humanly possible, then bolt.

I was trying to do this before work, so I didn't have time to re-fight 4 Grathas and 4 Jalthi, so I used the alt delete cheat to explode them and the 1 Rapier I'd previously shot down so that I could try the other tactic. It bears mentioning that previously, I made it to the Gwenhyvar with minimal damage, minimal afterburner usage, and all missiles intact. Then, something weird happened.

As I was desperately chewing away ag the Gwenhyvar, the other 4 Rapiers disappeared. Had I drawn them so close to the cruiser that they accidentally crashed into it? Was it a game glitch? A by product of activating the alt delete mode? I didn't alt delete them, that is for sure. I took down the Gwenhyvar, and the wing of Krants at the next nav as normal, but fled from the ensuing wing of Gratha, as I was pretty beat and all used up by then. My question is, is the above story cheating?

I only blew the ships up that I previously had killed with ease plus the one Rapier, and this was to save time, as I didn't want to be late to work, not because I couldn't kill those enemies by myself. I couldn't believe the phenominal stroke of luck with the disappearing Rapiers, but I figured I'd best not look a gift horse in the mouth.

I also tried ejecting before I did all this just to see if losing would put me on the retreat path, and it wouldn't have, so the only difference between ejecting and what I did is the 14 kills I managed to score before I booked.

Thoughts? Thanks.
 
Strictly speaking, I would call it cheating, as you are not flying an entire mission in one contiguous block using only what would normally be available to a player.

That being said, I have used this method to return to a point in a particular frustrating mission in the past, so I certainly wouldn't condemn you for doing so.

As for your apparent glitch, I can safely say that the Alt-Delete debug mode trick to eliminate enemies should not have had an effect on the rest of the ships present.

With regards to Spirit disappearing, this is known as the 'Series Overflow Bug', where wingmen will randomly disappear upon moving to the Secret Missions. The way to work around this is to use a save game editor to restore Spirit, or whoever has mysteriously perished, to the flight roster. I would not call this cheating as you are not breaking normal game rules, but correcting a flaw in the program.
 
Well, I kind of figured that if I had to ask, then it was cheating. I hate cheat codes, unless I am just playing a game to screw around, which I very rarely do. Usually, my reasoning is that I enjoy the game and have enough respect for it that I don't want to cheat in order to win. I am usually very strict with myself, and NEVER EVER use cheat codes. I will re start a mission before I cheat, and man, that has really sucked on some levels of WarCraft 2.

Believe me, I was very, very torn this morning whether or not to save the game after I had come back from the mission. The only thing that made me save the game instead of just exit out and try the same things again later after work was the Rapiers' disappearing act. I'd never seen that before, and I was sure I wouldn't see it again next time. What I wasn't sure of is whether or not I would be able to outrun them in my Raptor, even on full afterburn, so like I said, gift horses.

That's an interesting situation regarding killed pilots. I've noticed that Hunter has been killed, too, as I've played through. I think that everyone comes back in SM2, but I am not sure, as I haven't played through it in a while. I'm glad Iceman and Knight (the last two pilots I have to fly with) haven't been killed yet, and I stress yet, because God, I hated flying all those missions by myself without Spirit to draw enemy fire, especially Jotunheim 1. 1 Raptor VS. 6 Salthi, 4 Gratha, 1 Fralthi, and 7 total Krants. When I saw Col. Halcyon say 18 kills, I just said to myself: "How did the game designers expect me to wax 18 enemy targets all on my lonesome?" That took me SEVERAL tries, and some very aggravating times.
 
@highball,
Key figures to the story will come back; Maniac, Hunter, and spirit are critical to the story flowing.
 
No, they don't. Once pilots are dead - whether from being killed in action or disappearing due to the bug - they stay dead.
 
That's what I figured -- you transfer characters over from one game to the next in WC1, and I guess the character files include dead pilots. Does that mean I am going to be on my own again for some nightmarish missions in Firekka?
 
With regards to Spirit disappearing, this is known as the 'Series Overflow Bug', where wingmen will randomly disappear upon moving to the Secret Missions. The way to work around this is to use a save game editor to restore Spirit, or whoever has mysteriously perished, to the flight roster. I would not call this cheating as you are not breaking normal game rules, but correcting a flaw in the program.

The funny thing is, the first time (or maybe the second or third) that I played SM, I noticed a couple of pilots randomly dieing when they weren't on my wing. I didn't realize that it was a bug...I thought it was a new feature that the Origin folks had added to Secret Missions to make the game more realistic and give it more replayability value (i.e. every time you play through it's different, because different wingmen will or won't be available at different times). I did wonder why the random pilots always died, though, instead of just sometimes ejecting and being in the infirmary and unavailable for a couple of missions...

It wasn't until much later that I found out it was a bug.
 
Does that mean I am going to be on my own again for some nightmarish missions in Firekka?
Quite possibly, if you have lost wingmen in earlier campaigns. There is one plot death, in addition to Paladin retiring, making way for two temporary pilots transferring to the Tiger's Claw, Doomsday and Jazz. But other than that, wingmen you lost in WC1 and SM1 will not be available to assist you in SM2.
 
The funny thing is, the first time (or maybe the second or third) that I played SM, I noticed a couple of pilots randomly dieing when they weren't on my wing. I didn't realize that it was a bug...I thought it was a new feature that the Origin folks had added to Secret Missions to make the game more realistic and give it more replayability value (i.e. every time you play through it's different, because different wingmen will or won't be available at different times). I did wonder why the random pilots always died, though, instead of just sometimes ejecting and being in the infirmary and unavailable for a couple of missions...

It wasn't until much later that I found out it was a bug.

It's odd that it's a bug, because random pilots dying actually does make the game more realistic, as well as adding to the grim overtones of the missions in SM. It's naive to assume that you're the only pilot that would be shot down and killed, since the other pilots from the Claw go on missions other than the ones they fly with you on, and they have just as much of a chance of dying as you.
 
Quite possibly, if you have lost wingmen in earlier campaigns. There is one plot death, in addition to Paladin retiring, making way for two temporary pilots transferring to the Tiger's Claw, Doomsday and Jazz. But other than that, wingmen you lost in WC1 and SM1 will not be available to assist you in SM2.

Not according to my game. I just finished SM1 at the weekend and in SM2, Iceman was alive again.
Kinda wish Knight would have stayed dead though. Would have saved him the trauma the second time around.
 
I think it depends if the wingman was killed in action or disappeared due to the overflow. I can't remember for sure, though.

New, that is, non-transferred games, will always have the full complement of wingmen, of course.
 
I think it depends if the wingman was killed in action or disappeared due to the overflow. I can't remember for sure, though.

New, that is, non-transferred games, will always have the full complement of wingmen, of course.

AFAIK, bossman and knight make way for Hobbes and doomsday. But I am sure spirit and hunter suddenly "live again", when you go on to SM2. The only wingman I ever lost and played on with would be knight, so I can not be 100% sure
 
Knight is never forcibly removed from the flight roster and Ralgha never makes an appearance until WC2.
 
It's odd that it's a bug, because random pilots dying actually does make the game more realistic, as well as adding to the grim overtones of the missions in SM. It's naive to assume that you're the only pilot that would be shot down and killed, since the other pilots from the Claw go on missions other than the ones they fly with you on, and they have just as much of a chance of dying as you.

That's why there's the scripted death (which is certainly not the only pilot to die, just the only forced one among your close friends over the course of the year).

AFAIK, bossman and knight make way for Hobbes and doomsday. But I am sure spirit and hunter suddenly "live again", when you go on to SM2. The only wingman I ever lost and played on with would be knight, so I can not be 100% sure

Like Wedge mentioned, Paladin and Bossman make way for Doomsday and Jazz.
 
I think it depends if the wingman was killed in action or disappeared due to the overflow. I can't remember for sure, though.

New, that is, non-transferred games, will always have the full complement of wingmen, of course.

Well, if it means anything to you, I just started SM2 today, and all the previously killed wingmen from SM1 were back. I transferred my character, too.
 
Were they killed in action or lost due to the bug?

At any rate, SM2 and WC1/SM1 use separate executables, so I suppose it's possible dead wingmen are miraculously brought back to life for another sortie. :)
 
Lost due to bug. I'm glad to see Spirit and Hunter back. I like them. Oddly enough, the bug has claimed Bossman now. I wonder when I will have to fly solo because of his absence.
 
Then that makes sense, since Spirit and Hunter never actually died.

If you paid attention to The Secret Missions, Bossman dies during the course of the campaign. That's why he is no longer present for Secret Missions 2.
 
I think you're a little confused at the moment. Because, as you said yourself, he dies and Paladin retires to make room for Jazz and Doomsday who appear only in SM 2. :)
 
Uh, no? That's just what I said. The plot death occurs during SM1, so he will not be present for SM2.
 
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