Difficulty levels and ship choices...

Ilanin

Captain
So this thought was originally engendered by trying to survive Unknown Enemy #2A on Nightmare but it does apply here, and I figured it might actually have a chance of being read if posted in the Standoff forum instead.

Theory: Nightmare difficulty in the Vision engine makes flying heavy fighters and bombers disproportionately harder.

This is because halving a light fighter's durability makes little difference; you're trying not to get hit in one, and while having twice the durability means you afford a couple more mistakes, it's not a huge change.

Heavy fighters on the other hand struggle to avoid the enemy and if (especially likely Secret Ops and even more so in UE/Standoff with the large numbers of fighters in some engagements) you are being engaged by multiple light fighters you are far less able to use your shield strength and concentrate on just a couple of them to even the odds.

Opinions? This may partially explain why I often find escorting a strike mission in Standoff easier than flying the strike (though if Rapiers had torpedoes...no, that probably wouldn't work either)
 
I often find myself leaning towards the escort assignments as well. If you can quickly rip through the enemy fighter cover it's a lot easier to ensure torpedo delivery. Whereas having the AI fly top cover for you is a tough call since you have to deliver the torps and protect yourself.

I usually spam "Help me out here!" when I fly the strike missions.
 
It's safe to assume you're correct - light fighters tend to rely more on the player's reflexes. And these, naturally, are not subject to change dependent on the game's difficulty settings.
 
Agree. On Standoff missions where you have to fly the bomber (or when I chose it), I find them much easier if I turn the difficulty down (to say, Veteran), whereas on missions where I fly the fighter, the mission usually gets easier if I turn it up to Hero.

However, another factor is that, on hard difficulty, your wingmen and more importantly your bombers, are better at keeping themselves alive, so the bombers need less help, making the escort task a little easier.

It's interesting...I've been playing a lot of Standoff recently, and I would pose that after Nightmare, Ace is actually the hardest difficulty. On easier settings, the AI is so dumb you can down them quickly, and on harder settings, your wingmen seem good enough that the awesomeness of the Rapier evens the odds a lot without you having to even do anything. I think Nightmare is only so hard because of the ship handicapping, not the AI change.

But on Ace, the AI is good enough so that the superior numbers of the cats hurts you, but your wingmen aren't good enough to save you.
 
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