Sycrusian
Rear Admiral
Hello, guys. Long time no see.
Something just happened that made me want to share a little anecdote.
It had been some 2 years since I had played any Wing Commander. I.E., decidedly too much.
I still had my old games running on DOSBox but, to get a new freshstart, I decided to repurchase the series in GOG and get myself started on a new all-series playthrough.
I've already played the full Vega Campaign (and I do mean full. Since I've already played that campaign more times that I can remember, I got the idea of using WCSAV to force the game to let me play all 13 series and 40 missions in sequence with a single character. I had to pretty much reinvent the story of the campaign to accomodate all those series in the order I decided to play them. But it was pretty interesting.) and then used the transfer tool to move on to Operation Thor's Hammer.
Well, the Secret Missions are pretty much linear, so, I didn't have to pull my little stunt with WCSAV again to play all of SM1. But, after I shot down the Sivar, I got the idea of doing it again, and annex the Retreat series to my save file before transferring it again to SM2 and moving on.
After all, I reasoned, even if the Claw managed to destroy the Kilrathi secret weapon, this doesn't magically transport it back to Confed space. They still got to escape a horde of vengeful Kilrathi and all that. (Of course, this is just me being eager to fly every mission there is to Wing Commander I).
So, I used WCSAV again to reasign my save after my last Vigrid mission, ignored all the dialogue about the failure of the operation, and merrily launched on my Scimitar with Maniac on my wing. All documentation says this is a recipe for disaster but, again, I reasoned, I flew with Maniac on a Scimitar back in Brimstone not long ago, and he acquited himself... semi-adequately back then. What could possibly go wrong?
Yeah, I should have known better.
Well, after a few tries through Retreat Mission 1 in which Maniac either managed to get himself killed pretty fast or, worse, got ME killed, I finally grew wiser to his ways, and started to see progresss in the mission.
I managed to keep him alive through the Fralthi and the Krants at Nav 1.
I managed to keep him alive, surprisingly, through all 3 wings of Dralthi at Nav 2.
Finally at Nav 3, things are looking good. I still have all my 3 heat-seekers and a decent supply of fuel, so, I hunt down each of the Grathan in turn, and take them all out. By now, Maniac is attacking one of the Ralaris.
Well... I had learned my lesson. Never put yourself between the Maniac and his target. So, I decide to attack the other Ralari. I take it down, and turn to see that Maniac is still taking pot shots at the other one.
Take it easy, I say to myself. This mission is pretty much over. I carefully approach the remaining Ralari. It's already pretty damaged, and obviously won't survive for much longer. I can already feel the taste of victory in this difficult mission.
And then, Maniac rams the Ralari...
Something just happened that made me want to share a little anecdote.
It had been some 2 years since I had played any Wing Commander. I.E., decidedly too much.
I still had my old games running on DOSBox but, to get a new freshstart, I decided to repurchase the series in GOG and get myself started on a new all-series playthrough.
I've already played the full Vega Campaign (and I do mean full. Since I've already played that campaign more times that I can remember, I got the idea of using WCSAV to force the game to let me play all 13 series and 40 missions in sequence with a single character. I had to pretty much reinvent the story of the campaign to accomodate all those series in the order I decided to play them. But it was pretty interesting.) and then used the transfer tool to move on to Operation Thor's Hammer.
Well, the Secret Missions are pretty much linear, so, I didn't have to pull my little stunt with WCSAV again to play all of SM1. But, after I shot down the Sivar, I got the idea of doing it again, and annex the Retreat series to my save file before transferring it again to SM2 and moving on.
After all, I reasoned, even if the Claw managed to destroy the Kilrathi secret weapon, this doesn't magically transport it back to Confed space. They still got to escape a horde of vengeful Kilrathi and all that. (Of course, this is just me being eager to fly every mission there is to Wing Commander I).
So, I used WCSAV again to reasign my save after my last Vigrid mission, ignored all the dialogue about the failure of the operation, and merrily launched on my Scimitar with Maniac on my wing. All documentation says this is a recipe for disaster but, again, I reasoned, I flew with Maniac on a Scimitar back in Brimstone not long ago, and he acquited himself... semi-adequately back then. What could possibly go wrong?
Yeah, I should have known better.
Well, after a few tries through Retreat Mission 1 in which Maniac either managed to get himself killed pretty fast or, worse, got ME killed, I finally grew wiser to his ways, and started to see progresss in the mission.
I managed to keep him alive through the Fralthi and the Krants at Nav 1.
I managed to keep him alive, surprisingly, through all 3 wings of Dralthi at Nav 2.
Finally at Nav 3, things are looking good. I still have all my 3 heat-seekers and a decent supply of fuel, so, I hunt down each of the Grathan in turn, and take them all out. By now, Maniac is attacking one of the Ralaris.
Well... I had learned my lesson. Never put yourself between the Maniac and his target. So, I decide to attack the other Ralari. I take it down, and turn to see that Maniac is still taking pot shots at the other one.
Take it easy, I say to myself. This mission is pretty much over. I carefully approach the remaining Ralari. It's already pretty damaged, and obviously won't survive for much longer. I can already feel the taste of victory in this difficult mission.
And then, Maniac rams the Ralari...