Having trouble going from WC 1 to WC 2. (Edit: WC 2 mission 3)

[Ansark]

Hi.

I recently started playing this series for the first time, and my goal is to play all WC campaigns. I had a blast with Wing Commander 1 despite its age, but I'm finding it difficult to adapt to WC2.

I beated WC1 no problem, even the infamous Secret Missions felt quite manageable. But here, in WC 2, I had serious difficulties beating Gwynedd 3, which caught me off guard as it only was the third mission in the game. No matter what I did, either the "WC2 Salthi"-s or the capital ship allways ended killing one of the Broadsword and the second one most of the times. I finally managed to beat it, but it surelly felt too hard for a third mission. I am also finding it a lot more difficult to hit anything. Is this normal? Is it possible that there is something wrong with my dosbox configuration?

I'm using the GOG version. Dosbox staging, WC 1 set a 3000 cycles and WC2 at 5000. I use a T16000m FCS HOTAS via Joystick Gremnlin and dosbox mapping.

I attach my dosbox congif file.

 

[ChrisReid]

I don't think DOSbox settings necessarily play into it too much, but I think it comes down to the natural difficulty of escort missions and the first time you're escorting fighters. You're outnumbered 5 on 4, so you need to take out 1-2 Sarthas immediately no matter what the cost. After that, focus on protecting the Broadswords and pick off whomever is shooting at them.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

I don't think it's a DOSBox issue, there's a noticeable difficulty spike with that mission. It's one I dread! You should have an easier time with the next several seriseses!

(It comes down to a specific design philosophy they followed at Origin, which was to try to get as much as possible into the start of their games... with the reasoning that that was where you either captured the players' imagination or lost their interest. Unfortunately that often meant introducing some brand new game element without easing the player into it... like the torpedo runs in Wing Commander 2 or the Skipper missile intercept in Wing Commander 3!)

 

[Ansark]

Ok, that's surely a relief. Thing is that after beating SM2 I thought I would have an easy time with WC2 for at least a couple series. Didn't expect to find such a difficulty spike so soon. I mean, escorting Draymans felt quite easier in WC1 in comparison.

In any case, my impression is that the way the mission resolves is quite random. Not sure if the dynamic difficulty has something to do with it. But sometimes I managed to take down one or two Sartas quite fast, and closely guarded the Broadswords, but lost both of them anyways. In other cases, I might have been distracted by one Sartha, but the surviving Broadsword managed to take out the capital ship.

Well, I guess I'll have to deal with it. At least now I know there is nothing wrong with dosbox.

Thanks to both of you.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

No problem! It's a frustrating one especially because I'm one of those people who can't move on if I don't save /both/ Broadswords... can't let them get Kilroy!

 

[Oggy]

is it just me or does the "speed and flow" of combat in WC2 just seem faster and more frenetic?

 

[Ansark]

is it just me or does the "speed and flow" of combat in WC2 just seem faster and more frenetic?

Yes, that was also my impression. It's one of the reason I started this thread asking if there something was wrong with my dosbox settings, because, at first glance, WC2 felt like an accelerated WC1, which is what you get in WC1 when you set the dosbox cycles too high.

 

[Farbourne]

Think of the difficulty spike as adding an in universe element…its supposed to have been 10 years since you flew a combat mission, and so naturally your character will be a bit rusty and missions will seem harder!

 

[Ansark]

In case someone having the same problem reaches this thread. After beating the game and its expansions, I can say that this mission isn't representative of the rest of the game. It's generally a lot easier and definitively less random. This mission is just badly designed, specially for a third mission.

Despite having so much trouble with this one, I managed to beat the last mission of the base game at first try.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

Happy to hear that! Now you'll run into this again in Wing Commander III on the fourth mission... and Wing Commander IV on the fourth mission... huh...

 

[Ansark]

Happy to hear that! Now you'll run into this again in Wing Commander III on the fourth mission... and Wing Commander IV on the fourth mission... huh...

Well, I certainly lost the transport to that pesky skipper missile first time 😅, but it didn't give me as much trouble as scorting those Broadswords in WC2.

Now, I'm starting to get tired of endless waves of fighters. A youtuber complained that SM1 had too many enemies. Well, after beating Alcor 1 (sober, but still I had to try many times, faced bugs that prevented mission completion and always lost the Sheffield) I'm very interested to know his opinion about WC3.

At least wingmen in WC3 are competent. Sometimes they even get more kills than me. A great improvement from the glorified baits/distractions of WC1.

 

[Siaynoq]

I beated WC1 no problem, even the infamous Secret Missions felt quite manageable. But here, in WC 2, I had serious difficulties beating Gwynedd 3, which caught me off guard as it only was the third mission in the game. No matter what I did, either the "WC2 Salthi"-s or the capital ship allways ended killing one of the Broadsword and the second one most of the times. I finally managed to beat it, but it surelly felt too hard for a third mission. I am also finding it a lot more difficult to hit anything. Is this normal? Is it possible that there is something wrong with my dosbox configuration?

Man, I hear ya buddy. I'm here just seeking solidarity over this mission. I noticed that only one Broadsword needs to survive. I so far got lucky once when one managed the bomb the Fralthi after like 12 attempts at this mission, only to get killed myself by some flak. Dummmmb. It's a hard game. I also found the GOG for WC2 is unplayable so I'm currently using the KS version which works slightly better using a mouse.

 

[Ansark]

Man, I hear ya buddy. I'm here just seeking solidarity over this mission. I noticed that only one Broadsword needs to survive. I so far got lucky once when one managed the bomb the Fralthi after like 12 attempts at this mission, only to get killed myself by some flak. Dummmmb. It's a hard game. I also found the GOG for WC2 is unplayable so I'm currently using the KS version which works slightly better using a mouse.

As I said later, don't worry. Its just this mission. The rest of the game (except maybe the last mission of Novaya Kiev) is a lot easier and definitively not that random.

¿What do you mean about the GOG version being unplayable? I personally changed from Dosbox to Dosbox Staging (mostly because its inbuilt CRT shader) and set the CPU cycles to 5000 instead of 8000. But, with those changes, the game was perfectly playable. And, even at faster cpu cycles, WC2 has the posibility of adding a delay betwen frames (alt + and alt -).

 

[Siaynoq]

As I said later, don't worry. Its just this mission. The rest of the game (except maybe the last mission of Novaya Kiev) is a lot easier and definitively not that random.

¿What do you mean about the GOG version being unplayable? I personally changed from Dosbox to Dosbox Staging (mostly because its inbuilt CRT shader) and set the CPU cycles to 5000 instead of 8000. But, with those changes, the game was perfectly playable. And, even at faster cpu cycles, WC2 has the posibility of adding a delay betwen frames (alt + and alt -).

The GOG version does this weird thing where when I change direction of my ship, it will keep steering it in that direction for about a second before it stops. Some sort of input lag? I don't know. I just can't maintain control of the ship and combat becomes nearly impossible. Shame really cause I love the sound effects in that particular dosbox version with whatever soundcard it goes it compares to the KS version of the game.

 

[Ansark]

The GOG version does this weird thing where when I change direction of my ship, it will keep steering it in that direction for about a second before it stops. Some sort of input lag? I don't know. I just can't maintain control of the ship and combat becomes nearly impossible. Shame really cause I love the sound effects in that particular dosbox version with whatever soundcard it goes it compares to the KS version of the game.

I used a joystick, and switched standard Dosbox by Dosbox Staging (the game looks so much better with a crt shader), so I can't be sure, but it may be that you have set "timed" to "true" on dosbox setrings. Other thing I found searching online was to set "fulldouble" to "false". It is also possible you have frame delay set too high. Try playing with alt + and alt - to adjust frame delay. Just be aware that the game will be faster with lower delay. You may want to change the cpu cycles from 8000 to 5000 to compensate.

Also, I highly recommend using Munt (roland mt 32 emulator) for sound. It significatively improves the music sound quality.

You may want to follow these tweaks:

 

[MadMac_5]

Happy to hear that! Now you'll run into this again in Wing Commander III on the fourth mission... and Wing Commander IV on the fourth mission... huh...

That fourth mission of Wing Commander IV is an absolute rage-inducer. The "Ace" difficulty already has enemies spamming missiles at the player, but add in a missile turret and it's simply hellish!