Mission number two, episode three, man

FleeBalls

Spaceman
I destroyed the Ralaltha on my first attempt without losing any Broadswords and only one other ship from the Concordia's squad, and barely limped back to my carrier alive after engaging the snakeir. I think I lost all but one of my ships in that catfight. When I got the FUBAR message over the comm, i thought, "oh, that explains it, it's written into the script that the mission cannot be won." But upon returning to my ship, the "mission failed" thing and getting chewed out by the damn comm officer (I should put that guy on KP duty for mouthing off) makes me think I could have won. Ever since then, I lose alot of Broadswords just taking on the Ralaltha, so my odds were best the first time I played through, and I still lost. Any tips, hints, or suggestions on how to win?
 
My first tip would be: if you're playing on rookie, switch up to veteran. Rookie doesn't really pay off IMHO since your allies also get dumber.

Tip number two: use your navmap to periodically check which cats are attacking the bombers, and take those cats out first. Press CTRL+N to bring up the navmap, then zoom in to the current NAV point. Now you can use the [ and ] keys to zoom in/out and the numpad to rotate the map. Left-click a ship to select it, right-click to save it as your current target.

Also, when playing with the Gladius, always go straight for the capship. You should be able to take out the Ralatha yourself pretty quickly, then after that just help keep the Broadswords alive for the rest of the mission (the Snakeir will require 3 torpedoes, and you'll be out).

(FWIW, the idea was indeed to make killing the Snakeir be *near* impossible, because FA says that, during the Battle of Warsaw, all Confed achieved was "two hits on a carrier with moderate damage." :p)
 
FleeBalls said:
When I got the FUBAR message over the comm, i thought, "oh, that explains it, it's written into the script that the mission cannot be won."
Well, the FUBAR message is there to make sure everybody understands that failing to kill the Snakeir doesn't mean that you must die in the attempt - retreat is actually an option. But yes, the mission can be won - it's just really hard :p.

(and don't worry, even if you fail to destroy the Snakeir, you can still win the episode overall)
 
Ok, I finally killed the thing, I was playing on ace I think, whatever the default setting is...But i used invul for a couple of seconds. Im a cheater.
 
I flew a Gladius so that I'd have my own torpedoes to play with. Let the broadswords take out the first ship, and for the second I fired my two torpedoes into the 2 engines, and a broadsword took out the bridge and that finished the ship. No idea if there were other torpedo hits on it.
The first time through I flew the other ship and only one engine got taken out on the snakeir and the fubar message was sent. I think too many broadswords got taken out before launching their torpedoes
 
The next mission is much more fun if you fail to kill the snakeir anyway. A bit harder, but loads of fun. Makes me want to play the losing path... have to try it next weekend.
 
I personally reccommend saving your torps for the Snakier--if you fly decently you should be able to keep Sierra wing intact at the Ralatha navpoint.
 
In short: Yes the mission can be won. But it is designed in a way that it is next to impossible to actually do it. Its supposed to be lost. And it won't be the last of this kind...
 
Funny, I didn't think this mission was that hard- at least, not with the Rapier. I got pwned with the Gladius and usually lost most of the bombers at the Ralatha battle, but with the Rapier, I was able to save most of the bombers and take out the fighters in record time. I think the strategy I used was to go after the Jalkehi and Gratha with missiles / full gun bursts right off the bat to decrease the Kilrathi number advantage, and then just flew around the broadswords killing anything that got close. I managed to beat the mission successfully (including blowing the Snakier) the first time I used the Rapier. My question is- anyone have any advice on saving the Sao Paulo in mission 4? That is near impossible!!!
 
Nope, saving the Sao Paulo *seems* nearly impossible but is actually pretty easy. You can use the nav map to check which Grikaths are currently making their torpedo runs (you will know, because they will be facing the Sao Paulo while others will be just maneuvering around)... or you can just hang around the Sao Paulo's engines and shoot down all incoming torpedoes.
 
So, are there any other missions in Ep. 3 that are meant to be lost?

(By the way, Eder, I like the inclusion of the Sao Paulo. Just a little homage to the home town).

By the way, I haven't posted it yet, but fantastic work Eder and team! Eder, I do believe you just keep getting better with each release. Thanks for the hard work on the project!
 
Why, and thank you too, Sphynx, for helping make it possible. ;)

As for missions that are "meant to be lost" (and I put that in quotes because I must stress that it's still possible to win the Snakeir mission - it's not scripted to always fail like, say, the WC3 losing ending)... well, I don't think there are any other missions that are supposed to be near impossible to complete in this episode, but there are others that also affect the following missions... so while they're not "meant to be lost" they are definitely worth losing once just to see what happens. :p

Most of these are pretty obvious, though - for example, on the losing path, if you fail to kill the fleeing Krants in the mission where Reismann tells you to not let anyone flee, you'll get a different follow-up. Same happens if you don't kill the Fralthi, I think.

Also, as a rule, keeping Confed ships alive changes either the following missions or the outcome of the episode (or both). You never know when a ship you've saved at some point might decide to return the favor. ;)

And when I say that there aren't any more missions which are supposed to be near impossible to win, I mean *in this Episode* :p You guys should get used to this sort of thing, because we're going to give you all sorts of crazy objectives ("Destroy the Hakaga" anyone? :p) which we expect only the most skilled players to succeed at.

Of course, we're aware of which missions are really hard to win, and we won't make Standoff a game where failing the hardest missions leads you straight to the losing path or to even harder missions.
 
In general, Fleet Action is a good guideline. Standoff is a game, so we let you achieve stuff that Confed failed to achieve in FA... but we also make it much harder. We won't lie about it - the game is weighed towards the Fleet Action ending (which is the middle ending in Standoff)... you'll have many opportunities to do better than FA (...and to do worse - for example, if you lose the Verdun in Warsaw, you're doing worse than FA... so don't blame us when you kill every Hakaga at first attempt and still get the middle ending :p), but each time it's gonna be a real struggle.
 
Eder said:
Of course, we're aware of which missions are really hard to win, and we won't make Standoff a game where failing the hardest missions leads you straight to the losing path or to even harder missions.

Experience from UE, eh?

Requiring skill sounds OK, but the Snakeir mission seems to be beyond all skill, relying on your luck. When choosing Rapier, one finds his bombers destroyed by turrets or inifinite fighters, whomever you are not paying attention, before they hit all 3 vital spots. With the Gladius, escort duty becomes even harder and often, I find my bombers killed after I torp'ed both engines.

I fear that destroyed the Hakaga is even worse, for it would take like 20+ torpedo hits judging by Eder's statements.
 
Lazy Panda said:
Requiring skill sounds OK, but the Snakeir mission seems to be beyond all skill, relying on your luck. When choosing Rapier, one finds his bombers destroyed by turrets or inifinite fighters, whomever you are not paying attention, before they hit all 3 vital spots. With the Gladius, escort duty becomes even harder and often, I find my bombers killed after I torp'ed both engines.
Hehe, the fighters are not infinite... it's just that there's a lot of them, a Snakeir has a pretty big fighter compliment.

(and it's definitely not a matter of luck, since there are people who can reliably win this mission every time they try it)

I fear that destroyed the Hakaga is even worse, for it would take like 20+ torpedo hits judging by Eder's statements.
Well, yeah - but remember, destroying the Hakaga was so damn near impossible that they ended up boarding them and blowing them up from the inside. The first time Confed attacked them, their entire strike force only managed to damage that particular Hakaga.

So yeah, destroying the Hakaga in one mission is next to impossible - but if it wasn't, people would complain that we made them too easy.
 
I have never actually read Fleet Action (a pity, I know). I don't suppose anyone knows about the existance of a good summary of what happens in the book (other than the book itself) that would let me know when my Standoff game is following or diverging from the story?
 
Lazy Panda said:
Requiring skill sounds OK, but the Snakeir mission seems to be beyond all skill, relying on your luck. When choosing Rapier, one finds his bombers destroyed by turrets or inifinite fighters, whomever you are not paying attention

If you could find a way to get the bombers to quit chasing the fighters, it'd be a lot easier. You can kill as fast as you want but as long as they're chasing fighters also it's pointless... and you usually get their salvos in the back while they're at it.
 
Quarto said:
So yeah, destroying the Hakaga in one mission is next to impossible - but if it wasn't, people would complain that we made them too easy.

Yes, killing a Hakaga is likely going to be like killing the Tiamat dreadnought in the Kilrah system in Prophecy--you'd have to "soften it up" first (maybe kill 50% of turrets and launch bays minimum) and then go for the engines and bridge in a separate mission. A Hakaga does have six launch bays after all, and you've only got four torpedoes per ship on your side.
 
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