Standoff Ep 3 mission path question

Farbourne

Rear Admiral
So I'm playing through Standoff again, and trying to find hidden missions and things I might have missed before. Meaning I'm trying to do both better and worse than I did on my first playthrough. Worse is easy. Better is hard. So I turned the difficulty down when trying to do better to see what happened. Most missions did get easier... But now things are happening that I didn't expect.

In Ep 3 (winning path), I saved the Verdun, and then, for the first time ever, took down the Snakeir. However, the last Broadsword was nailed as it released its torp (the torp that took down the Snakeir), and I got Stringray saying the mission was fubar just before the Snakeir went up. I got the congratulatory message at the end and the objectives read "Completed" so I assume I got credit for winning it, but I'm not sure. Then, in the minelayer mission, I completed the primary objectives (laid enough mines at each nav point, and got the "Completed" in the mission objective screen), but failed the secondary objective of keeping at least four clydesdales alive (I lost two, so only three survived).

Now I get the "Save the Sao Paolo" mission. Which is fine...I like that mission...but it flies in the face of what I thought people said about the Ep 3 winning mission path. I thought if you saved the Verdun and completed the minelayer mission, you didn't get the Sao Paolo mission. Plus, I took down the Snakeir. Does failing to complete the secondary mission objective in the minelayer mission automatically force you to fly the Sao Paolo mission?

For that matter, a more general question: If you complete all primary objectives but fail or leave incomplete secondary objectives, is the mission considered "won" or "lost"? What about bonus objectives?

It seems strange that a single Clydesdale seems more important than a Snakeir...
 
I can't recall the details, but I would think that primary objectives need to be completed at the very least, for a mission to be deemed successful (by definition of the terms). This is speaking generally. For Standoff, there may be subtle mission-specific branches that are not necessarily stated explicitly in the mission objectives.

That is indeed an unexpected race-condition regarding the Broadsword/Snakeir mission, though.
 
The behaviour you're reporting is essentially identical to what I had in my Nightmare run - I think Dundradal's Episode 3 Winning Mission path chart is just wrong and you have to do Destroyer Rescue whatever the result of Rearguard Action.

And, really, that's as it should be - Destroyer Rescue is one of the best and most challenging missions in Standoff and as many people as possible should see it.

The best solution to mission objective race conditions is the one that X-Wing vs TIE Fighter used - allow "drawn" as a mission result if both win and loss conditions are fulfilled. Of course that sort of decision is one you have to take at the start of your campaign, rather than partway through.
 
The behaviour you're reporting is essentially identical to what I had in my Nightmare run - I think Dundradal's Episode 3 Winning Mission path chart is just wrong and you have to do Destroyer Rescue whatever the result of Rearguard Action.

The tree is correct. I've completed both missions and go on directly to Ep4.

Quarto or Pete would be able to answer this better, but from the sounds of it because of how the events transpired the game may have recorded the conditions differently than what was generally expressed. So because the game saw the events differently it sent you to Destroyer Rescue instead of Ep4.

Hopefully Quarto can drop in and provide a more detailed explanation.
 
Don't remember, but from my records, Episode 5 was mostly linear within the individual winning/losing paths. As best as I could tell, there was a branch for the second and third missions in the losing path, but that's it. Excepting the ending variations, of course.
 
I think I can confirm the problem:

Then, in the minelayer mission, failed the secondary objective of keeping at least four Clydesdales alive

This appears to put you on the Sao Paulo/Breslau mission, regardless as to winning the Minelaying mission - four of the Clydesdales need to be kept alive, the landing dialogue changes if this is accomplished, and Lt. Freyers will confirm the Firekka is jumping out.

It's not a particularly difficult mission to beat but it can be frustrating to lose one too many minesweepers and have to start over - particularly with all that opening dialogue. Most of the risk to the Clydesdales comes during the first wave, either keep an eye on your nav map to see who's hassling them, or just stick close and wipe out the Krants quickly.

Side note: It's False Colours that mentions Clydesdales lay mines, but minesweeper is a correct term as per WC2 Tolwyn, I think.
 
I think I can confirm the problem:



This appears to put you on the Sao Paulo/Breslau mission, regardless as to winning the Minelaying mission - four of the Clydesdales need to be kept alive, the landing dialogue changes if this is accomplished, and Lt. Freyers will confirm the Firekka is jumping out.

It's not a particularly difficult mission to beat but it can be frustrating to lose one too many minesweepers and have to start over - particularly with all that opening dialogue. Most of the risk to the Clydesdales comes during the first wave, either keep an eye on your nav map to see who's hassling them, or just stick close and wipe out the Krants quickly.

Side note: It's False Colours that mentions Clydesdales lay mines, but minesweeper is a correct term as per WC2 Tolwyn, I think.

Thanks. I suspected it was the secondary objective that gave me the Sao Paulo. No matter...that's a fun mission (although, even knowing the right strategy, it sometimes is just nearly unwinnable...the starting position of the Grikhath's seems to be randomized, and if they happen to start just wrong such that you can't pick off one or two in your initial approach, you get about three torps in the air at once from different directions, which is too many to handle even if you're guarding the engines. Luckily, this seems to happen only rarely...).

I have only managed to keep four Clydesdales alive once. The problem is that Krants are way too annoying to take down quickly, although they're not much of a threat to me. If I go after the Grathas (an absolute necessity), the Krants always end up hammering at least two Clydesdales, and if I take any time at all to deal with Krants, at least one Gratha gets through and one Gratha is all it takes to make life unhappy for Clydesdale crewman.
 
No, but I can find my notes and create one for each path.

Durandal,

Do you have you finalized mission trees posted anywhere formal, or are they just hanging around in old discussion board threads? I'm having some issues finding what the final version you've blessed is.
 

is a type of retired French fighter jet, but Dundradal is a poster here ;)

The problem is that Krants are way too annoying to take down quickly

This is the only mission I advocate using a dumbfire on a Krant, especially if it's taking me more than ten seconds to kill him. In fact it doesn't matter if you use all your missiles at the first nav point here, at the remaining navs there's nothing too heavy - and lots of easy kill Sartha.
 
Durandal,

Do you have you finalized mission trees posted anywhere formal, or are they just hanging around in old discussion board threads? I'm having some issues finding what the final version you've blessed is.

Eps 1 - 4 with winning and losing paths.

I still have my rough Standoff guide through Ep4, but I'm not sure what we are going to do with that just yet. It's taken a backseat to WCPedia.
 

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Side note: It's False Colours that mentions Clydesdales lay mines, but minesweeper is a correct term as per WC2 Tolwyn, I think.

I don't think False Colors mentions Clydesdales...

... but these are opposite actions -- a minelayer places mines and a minesweeper disables them. We see a Clydesdale minesweeper in Wing Commander II... and we also see the Kilrathi using a Dorkathi as a minelayer.
 
Sorry I meant Fleet Action, doesn't it say something about Clydesdales 'spraying' Porcupine mines, just before Baron Jukaga contacts Tolwyn?

I might just have imagined they were Clydesdales since playing Standoff, but since we've established that minesweepers and minelayers serve opposite purposes, perhaps they weren't a canonical choice for that Standoff mission after all.
 
Sorry I meant Fleet Action, doesn't it say something about Clydesdales 'spraying' Porcupine mines, just before Baron Jukaga contacts Tolwyn?

I might just have imagined they were Clydesdales since playing Standoff, but since we've established that minesweepers and minelayers serve opposite purposes, perhaps they weren't a canonical choice for that Standoff mission after all.

I find that a lot of people imagined the WC2 ships in Fleet Action--in reality it's extremely rare for the novels to mention a particular class of ships from the games... almost everything is just a carrier or a destroyer or a transport... or something the books came up with (Granicus-class, Victory-class, etc.). In this case it's just "escort ships" dropping mines, which actually sounds more like destroyers.

The choice in Standoff is probably because of the Dorkathi laying mines in WC2. It makes some sense--if what the Clydesdale minesweeper is doing is scooping up the minefield and disarming it somehow then it makes sense that it could also be used to place a new minefield.
 
I've noted the lack of explicit definition in ship class throughout the novels, the fighter names all seem to get a mention at some point or another - basically all the WC1 ships (bar the Jalthi and Hhriss) are named in FA as far as I can remember, then as we've seen, that's patchy.
 
Jalthi actually do show up in Fleet Action--there's a flight of them fighting off landing craft in the last battle scene. No Salthi, though! (The selection from Wing Commander II is also odd... only Grikath, despite End Run using nearly the entire lineup.)

Stranger still is that both books feature cloaked Kilrathi fighters but call them 'Stealths' instead of Strakha. My guess would be that Dr. Forstchen was drawing the names from the booklets that came from the games rather than his universe bible... or that the editor just didn't like the word Strakha (which is entirely possible--one thing I was asked to do with False Colors was look at a list of the ship names mentioned in the book and tell them if they were right.)
 
Eps 1 - 4 with winning and losing paths.

I still have my rough Standoff guide through Ep4, but I'm not sure what we are going to do with that just yet. It's taken a backseat to WCPedia.

Dundradal,

These mission paths are awesome! I'm trying to explore all the different missions in Standoff, and they're a great help. I hope your Standoff Guide doesn't get forgotten...Standoff is a great game, and far more nuanced and challenging (and hence in need of a guide) than many other games.

A few questions, though, for you or for other Standoff team folks. I'm trying to assemble your mission paths into one big, entire-game mission tree (including Ep 5), and at the same time make sure I've had a chance to play every mission in the game at least once. And there's a few things that I've tried that your mission paths are vague about or don't agree with...

* You list two missions if you pick the Glaudius in Ep 1. I only get one (granted, a two part mission involving jump drive in the middle). Do you count this two-part mission as two missions, or am I missing a mission somewhere?

* On the Episode 1 winning side, you have the chance to join the pirates during "Finding the Rock". Doesn't that happen during "Striking Distance", or am I remembering wrong?

* In Episode 2, I can't find the mission labeled "Mission 4B", that is supposed to happen if you fail to destroy Kamekh's. If I eject as soon as that mission starts, I still get the same "Ralatha Strike" mission next. Do you have to actually engage the Kamekh's, and fail to destroy them to get whatever "4B" is, or was this mission taken out of Standoff since Dundradal made up his tree?

* On the Episode 3 winning path, I was under the impression that if you save the Sao Paulo but lose the Verdun, you get the Ep 4 losing path (because a destroyer doesn't equal a fleet carrier). Yet the mission tree thinks otherwise?

* In Ep 3 winning path, I've never noticed a difference between "Holding the Line" and "Rearguard Action". Whether I kill the Snaekir or not (I"ve only managed to once), the next mission is always escorting Clydesdale minelayers. Are the enemies different in the two missions? Or is it just the same mission with different names? Or am I missing the mission somehow?

I haven't gotten through all the losing path missions yet (Ep 1 losing path, the Ep 3 losing half of the losing path, and the Ep 4 losing path), but this is a start.

One final note...if anyone reading this has only played the Standoff winning path, you're doing yourself a disservice. The losing path missions (at least the ones I"ve played so far, in Ep 3 and Ep 5) are awesome, and in many ways more fun and strategic that the winning path missions (which are pretty much alternations between major strike missions and defend the fleet missions).
 
Dundradal,

These mission paths are awesome! I'm trying to explore all the different missions in Standoff, and they're a great help. I hope your Standoff Guide doesn't get forgotten...Standoff is a great game, and far more nuanced and challenging (and hence in need of a guide) than many other games.

Thanks, I'm glad they are proving useful. I still need to do Ep5 trees as well. They are on the to-do list for the overall guide.

I'd certainly love at some future date to release it. It still needs a lot of proofing (mostly number of ships) and the Ep5 section to be written but I'm not sure what we want to do with it at this point. I know it would have answered all of your above questions though :p Because that's how I found the answers myself.

* You list two missions if you pick the Glaudius in Ep 1. I only get one (granted, a two part mission involving jump drive in the middle). Do you count this two-part mission as two missions, or am I missing a mission somewhere?

Yes it is counted as two missions. This is because to the game it is actually is two missions without gameflow between.

* On the Episode 1 winning side, you have the chance to join the pirates during "Finding the Rock". Doesn't that happen during "Striking Distance", or am I remembering wrong?

No, it seems I should add a second line from "Striking Distance" to the pirate ending as well and that how I explained it in the guide needs to be revised. I wasn't thinking of Spoons' offer, but going to the base at Nav 3 when you discover it. The idea is that you never win going to the other side.

* In Episode 2, I can't find the mission labeled "Mission 4B", that is supposed to happen if you fail to destroy Kamekh's. If I eject as soon as that mission starts, I still get the same "Ralatha Strike" mission next. Do you have to actually engage the Kamekh's, and fail to destroy them to get whatever "4B" is, or was this mission taken out of Standoff since Dundradal made up his tree?

I made these trees during Ep5's development so all the older Eps were in their final form. You have to engage and fail to destroy them to go the 4B.

* On the Episode 3 winning path, I was under the impression that if you save the Sao Paulo but lose the Verdun, you get the Ep 4 losing path (because a destroyer doesn't equal a fleet carrier). Yet the mission tree thinks otherwise?

Yeah, the factor that decides is the Sao Paulo since either way the Verdun is lost (evacuated or destroyed).

* In Ep 3 winning path, I've never noticed a difference between "Holding the Line" and "Rearguard Action". Whether I kill the Snaekir or not (I"ve only managed to once), the next mission is always escorting Clydesdale minelayers. Are the enemies different in the two missions? Or is it just the same mission with different names? Or am I missing the mission somehow?

They are the same except for one difference. There is an intercept between Nav 3 and 4 that is not present in the other version.

I haven't gotten through all the losing path missions yet (Ep 1 losing path, the Ep 3 losing half of the losing path, and the Ep 4 losing path), but this is a start.

Ep1 doesn't have a losing path per say, it just has a lot of branching. Eps 3-5 have separate paths (that a player cannot move between mid-episode, only at the ends). It's great to hear you are enjoying the different paths.

One final note...if anyone reading this has only played the Standoff winning path, you're doing yourself a disservice. The losing path missions (at least the ones I"ve played so far, in Ep 3 and Ep 5) are awesome, and in many ways more fun and strategic that the winning path missions (which are pretty much alternations between major strike missions and defend the fleet missions).

This was very much in the minds of the team when they designed those losing path missions. Ep5 losing certainly has some unique ones and is the one I enjoy the most since my voice is that of the Tarawa, a ship I've always considered my favorite. Which if you can believe it I had to exert a bit of pressure on the fearless leader to obtain :p But that story will have to wait for "Behind the Mod: Standoff" :D
 
Ep5 losing certainly has some unique ones and is the one I enjoy the most since my voice is that of the Tarawa, a ship I've always considered my favorite. Which if you can believe it I had to exert a bit of pressure on the fearless leader to obtain :p
Dundradal having ben our most reliable test monkey ever, he had to surrender to his demands to keep him happy. Bananas weren't enough by Ep5.
 
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