Standoff Ep 3 mission path question

[Farbourne]

Thanks for all the information. I appreciate it.

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.

Wait, you can join the Pirates by just flying to their base on the mission that you find it in? I always assumed that, since they were red dots and I was way outnumbered, if I tried flying in, intending to defect or no, I would get shot to pieces. I confess that I've never tried joining them there, only when Squealer offers.

I assume you meant Squealer's offer, not Spoons'? Or is there a hidden and highly hypocritical side of Spoons that we never see?

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

I don't recall the Verdun being lost either way...isn't it the Moskva that is evacuated or destroyed? We just never see the Verdun again.

I recall Quarto saying at one point that saving the Sao Paulo doesn't make up for losing the Verdun, but I'm not 100% sure of my memory and in any case, it was an offhand comment in a thread, so I'll defer to you here since you've playtested the game so much.

Thanks for these guides. Like I said, as a visual aid to myself to make sure that I haven't missed playing a mission (still working on that), I've combined all of your trees into one big, entire game, (but more simplified) tree. I'm still populating the data a little (I'm color coding each box by the system that it takes place in, just for the fun of it), but if you'd like to see it, let me know. Also, since it's almost entirely based on your work, I won't share it with anyone else without your permission.

 

[Dundradal]

I assume you meant Squealer's offer, not Spoons'? Or is there a hidden and highly hypocritical side of Spoons that we never see?

Oops sorry. It's been so long since I've played Standoff itself (I don't think I've played at all besides bug fixing stuff a few times since Ep5 came out) that I mixed up the names. Somewhere Quarto is sharpening a blade....

I don't recall the Verdun being lost either way...isn't it the Moskva that is evacuated or destroyed? We just never see the Verdun again.

Ugh my bad again. That's what I get for thinking I knew the answer off the top of my head and not checking my own guide...

If the Verdun is saved path is now for Winning M3A.

If Verdun is lost path is now for Winning M3B and Losing path Ep4 unless Sao Paulo is saved then path is for Winning Ep4.

Either way Proceed to Winning M2.

I recall Quarto saying at one point that saving the Sao Paulo doesn't make up for losing the Verdun, but I'm not 100% sure of my memory and in any case, it was an offhand comment in a thread, so I'll defer to you here since you've playtested the game so much.

Here's what I've got in the guide now written several years ago which I'm 99% sure is correct.

If you lost the Verdun previously your only way to continue with the Winning path is to save Sao Paulo. Otherwise you will move onto the Losing path.

Success Proceed to Winning M5.

Failure Proceed to Losing M5.

Thanks for these guides. Like I said, as a visual aid to myself to make sure that I haven't missed playing a mission (still working on that), I've combined all of your trees into one big, entire game, (but more simplified) tree. I'm still populating the data a little (I'm color coding each box by the system that it takes place in, just for the fun of it), but if you'd like to see it, let me know. Also, since it's almost entirely based on your work, I won't share it with anyone else without your permission.

I'm all for seeing an improved tree. The ones I posted were made with what I could find on the internet. I'd like to do more "official" Standoff trees done in classic WC1 mission tree style for each episode and placed in the guide.

I'm sure wingnuts would be happy to see another Standoff mission tree. I can see about posting the Ep5 mission branching info if you want to confirm your Ep5 trees.

 

[Farbourne]

Here's what I have so far. It's still a draft. I've color coded the missions that I've played according to the system that they take place in, but I haven't coded the missions I haven't played yet.

Ignore the text color...that's my own notation. Everything will be black eventually.

This tree doesn't tell you what you have to do to progress along certain arcs, just what mission is possible to follow what mission.

I am aware that I'm missing the "didn't kill the Kamehk" mission in Ep 2. That's a mistake I'll fix shortly.

I didn't count as separate missions that are the same mission, but just have different enemies show up based on previous events (e.g. "Wild Weasel").

Incidentally, I'm having a devil of a time getting to the mission "Charging to Sirius" on the Ep 3 losing path. You have to fail to kill the Ralatha at the jump point, according to Dundradal, but every time I try, on every difficulty level, my wingmen manage to take it out. I've tried flying a Gladius and directing my wingmen to the Fralthi, but then the other wing takes it out. I've tried taking a Rapier and keeping my wingmen on my wing and flying far, far away, to deprive the Gladii of fighter cover, and they're still too good. I've even tried hanging around the Ralath and trying to shoot down my friend's torpedoes (kind of a fleet defense mission in reverse), but no dice (It's really hard to do that when the Ralatha and the fighters insist on shooting at me even when I'm trying to help them). And I can't shoot down my own wingmen without being a traitor (maybe a perfect dumbfire hit on each?)

Any suggestions for tactics to get to that mission?

 

[Dundradal]

That is a fantastic mission tree! It looks pretty good from my quick review.


Here's what I've got written down...this is all unverified stuff so don't be surprised for inaccuracies in some things.

Losing Mission 3A – Capship Strike 2668.358.1105

Briefing: Well, Captain, I'm afraid we don't have much information to give you regarding this mission. All we know is this - if there is indeed a Kilrathi capital ship at the Sirius jump point, as the data the Drake has collected seems to indicate, it must be removed. The stakes are big on this one - it's not just a question of us having a clear path to join the main fleet. There is also a danger that the Kilrathi could use this jump point to strike the fleet from the rear. Of course, we don't know the size of the force we're up agaist here, but even a single cruiser on the loose along the fleet's supply routes could be disasterous. In short, you must clear that jump point.

Objective:

Primary: Patrol Sirius Jump Point
Hidden Primary: Destroy Fralthi Cruiser
Hidden Primary: Defend the Firekka
Hidden Secondary: Defend the Drake

This mission allows the player to choose their ship. They can either fly escort in the Rapier or the strike package in the Gladius. This is a capship strike, as the mission name states, however it is also slightly blind since the player is unaware of exactly what type of ship they are going up against.

Until the attack on the Firekka has been beaten off, ejection means capture.

Nav 1 contains no enemies.

At the Jump Point Nav there is: a Fralthi, four Jalkehi, four Krants (including Virahn Bloodclaw), and six Drakhri.

Two minutes after the player’s arrival they receive a recall order from the Firekka because the ship is under attack. The player can now retreat from the nav point towards the Firekka. The Kilrathi will break off pursuit once you are roughly 40,000 meters from the nav point.

In order to kill the Fralthi the player must be quick in killing it. They have roughly three minutes from arrival until the recall order is issued.

Thirty seconds after the Firekka message, if the player is still at the nav point the following begin to launch from the Fralthi: six Drakhri.

If the player is still at the Jump Point Nav a minute and a half after the Firekka message they receive another desperate plea for help from the Firekka. If the player leaves after the second recall message the Firekka will have lost one engine component and several turrets.

Once the player has retreated the autopilot light will come on and they will be able to finish the journey using autopilot.

However, at Nav 1 there are three Shok’lars waiting for the player. After they have been defeated the player can continue on to the Firekka.

The Firekka is under attack from: a Kamekh, three Gothri, three Gratha and six Krants. Once they have been destroyed the mission is over.

If the Fralthi was killed the mission is a success Proceed to Losing M4A.

If the Fralthi survived the mission is a failure Proceed to Losing M4B.

What's interesting is it seems that M4B is a mission I still needed to write up myself as I don't have an entry for it yet.

 

[Quarto]

* 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?

You're talking about a mission that never existed. There is no mission 4B at all. There were originally plans for such a mission and Dund, while writing the guide, got confused by these original docs. We'd explained to him since then that there's no 4B, but he seems to have forgotten about it . Basically, while we planned for the player's failure to destroy the Kamekhs, we ultimately realised that there's simply a snowball's chance in hell of this happening. The only way the Kamekhs can survive is if the player ejects - which ends in capture, unless you do it before the mission even really starts. So, we cut 4B out of the game.

* 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?

Hmm. For the life of me, I can't remember how exactly this works. I think that if you lose the Verdun, you'll go on the losing path no matter what you do - but it may be that saving the Sao Paulo does make a difference. I just don't know, I'll have to check the source.

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).

It's an old tradition, dating back to Wing Commander 1 (the Hornet rescue mission!) - losing path missions were frequently more interesting and peculiar than winning path missions. If you're going to have a losing path at all, you have to do something to make it rewarding - otherwise, who's going to even play it? In addition, the losing path gives you opportunities to do things that might otherwise be considered a bit too risky.

...In Standoff's case, though, most important was the fact that the winning path tries to follow the book, while the losing path gets off the hook. So, the winning path is us trying to re-create the events from the book as well as we can - while the losing path, to a significant degree, is simply us having fun.

 

[Farbourne]

You're talking about a mission that never existed. There is no mission 4B at all. There were originally plans for such a mission and Dund, while writing the guide, got confused by these original docs. We'd explained to him since then that there's no 4B, but he seems to have forgotten about it . Basically, while we planned for the player's failure to destroy the Kamekhs, we ultimately realised that there's simply a snowball's chance in hell of this happening. The only way the Kamekhs can survive is if the player ejects - which ends in capture, unless you do it before the mission even really starts. So, we cut 4B out of the game.

Heh. I wish you had told me this earlier. I spent far too long trying the Kamekh mission over and over again trying to lose. It's impossible! If you eject immediately after launch, it's like the mission was successful...you get the same Ralatha strike. If you eject any other time, you get captured (not entirely clear why if you fly back to the Firekka after the first fighter encounter and eject, you get captured, but you do. ). If you fly back to the Firekka after the first fighter encounter, you are not allowed to land...you have to go to the intercept nav first. And once you get to the intercept Nav, your autopilot light doesn't come on until the Kamekhs are dead, regardless of how far away from any hostiles you fly. And in any case, even if you do absolutely nothing to help, and keep the other two Gladii on your wing, the three Rapiers seem perfectly capable of killing all the fighters AND both Kamekhs, on ever difficulty level (trust me, I tried). This nicely prevents you from flying back to the Firekka manually. And you can't control the Rapiers, or shoot them down without becoming a traitor. (I tried to sneak in a few surreptitious friendly fire hits on the Rapiers as they were engaging the cats, but it was never enough to bring them down, and my Gladius was too slow to keep up with them anyway).

It's almost as if the developers didn't want us to fail to kill the Kamekhs, come hell or high water. I guess I know why, now.

Hmm. For the life of me, I can't remember how exactly this works. I think that if you lose the Verdun, you'll go on the losing path no matter what you do - but it may be that saving the Sao Paulo does make a difference. I just don't know, I'll have to check the source.

Please let me know. I'm trying to finalize my Standoff mission tree, and want to make sure I have all the pathing decisions correct.

One thing I do know...destroyers seem insanely important. The critical Ep 2 mission revolves around destroying a Ralatha, the critical Ep 3 losing losing path mission determining which Sirius you get involves killing Ralatha, the initial Ep 4 losing path branch depends on killing a Ralatha, and, if Dundradal is right, which Sirius you get from Ep 3 winning path hinges on saving the Sao Paulo...a destroyer. Never mind if you killed the Snakeir and saved the Verdun!

 

[Quarto]

It's almost as if the developers didn't want us to fail to kill the Kamekhs, come hell or high water. I guess I know why, now.

Well, once we realised that failing the Kamekh mission was virtually impossible, we took steps to ensure that there would be no need for a mission 4B . Looking back, we could have provided this branch, just in case - but at the time, we simply didn't have enough mission coding capabilities for it. I mean, by the time we got to Episode 5, and I was no longer busy writing mission outlines and dialogues, I would definitely have preferred to spend the extra time making 4B. But back then, there simply wasn't any time for it.

I think in general, there's a problem with the branching in Episode 2, and it's something I'd dearly like to fix - but it's tough, since we can't re-record the briefings or anything like that at this point. That Ralatha really should have had a frigate along as an escort, to make failure in mission 4 more probable. As it is, most people are surprised to find out that there's any kind of losing ending to Episode 2...

Please let me know. I'm trying to finalize my Standoff mission tree, and want to make sure I have all the pathing decisions correct.

Right, so...

1. Saving the Verdun is critical. If you lose the Verdun, you always get the losing path.
2. Destroying the Snakeir is irrelevant. It affects your final tally in Episode 5 (in fact, both the Verdun and the Snakeir affect your final score in Episode 5, meaning that you might do well in Episode 5 but still get the middle ending because you lost the Verdun and didn't kill the Snakeir), but does not affect the outcome of Episode 3. It does, however, determine if you play mission 3A or 3B. Looking back, it seems a little odd that failing to kill the Snakeir only results in additional hardship for the player (the interception in 3B), without affecting the chances of saving all the minelayers, but... well, that's how it is.
3. The minelayers are important. Losing them will put you at risk of going on the losing path.
4. The Sao Paulo is your last-ditch chance to avoid the losing path - if you screwed up on the minelayers, this is your chance to make up for it. But if you already lost the Verdun, the Sao Paulo makes no difference - you'll still go on the losing path. Of course, there's a few opportunities later to meet the Sao Paulo again, so saving her is still a good thing.

So, where's the logic in all this? Why is losing a bunch of minelayers a losing condition, while killing the Snakeir makes no difference? Why does saving a destroyer affect anything at all? Well, that's the thing - the winning conditions aren't just meant to reward the player, they're also meant to reflect the logic of the events. Whether you kill the Snakeir or not, the fleet will still have to pull out of Warsaw - so, it makes little difference. On the other hand, failing to set up a minefield behind the fleet causes trouble - the enemy is able to pursue the retreating fleet at a faster pace. Failing to save the remnants of DG-2 makes things even worse. It essentially means the Firekka becomes the fleet's rear guard, and gets separated from the rest of the fleet in Sirius.

One thing I do know...destroyers seem insanely important. The critical Ep 2 mission revolves around destroying a Ralatha, the critical Ep 3 losing losing path mission determining which Sirius you get involves killing Ralatha, the initial Ep 4 losing path branch depends on killing a Ralatha, and, if Dundradal is right, which Sirius you get from Ep 3 winning path hinges on saving the Sao Paulo...a destroyer. Never mind if you killed the Snakeir and saved the Verdun!

Well, in most cases, the reason destroyers are insanely important is because they're capable of gunning down the Firekka . That's the general key to it - any time you fail to kill a Ralatha, it makes an appearance in one of the next missions, bringing you pain and misery.

In general, we try to take into account what happens to all these capships. This sometimes has funny consequences - for example, destroying the Tarvakh in Episode 4 makes one of the Episode 5 missions much harder. In the book, the damaged Tarvakh retreated to Kilrathi space, escorted by two older carriers. So, if you destroy it outright, those two older carriers (in our case, Snakeirs) are free to continue with the rest of the fleet. But of course, destroying the Tarvakh and the two Snakeirs is almost critical if you want to get the winning ending...

 

[GBOOM]

Alright, here's a weird issue. Played Lashing Out. The last Broadsword was destroyed, and Stingray called for the retreat (FUBAR was thrown around). However, I still had one torpedo left, and the Snakeir had already lost it's bridge and one of its engines, so I took out the other one. At that point, all the remaining Kilrathi seemed to give up. They were still flying around, just lazily and not shooting at anyone. I ended up with 36 kills on that mission. But it felt more like murder (feline-icide?). Anyone else encounter this?

 

[Farbourne]

Alright, here's a weird issue. Played Lashing Out. The last Broadsword was destroyed, and Stingray called for the retreat (FUBAR was thrown around). However, I still had one torpedo left, and the Snakeir had already lost it's bridge and one of its engines, so I took out the other one. At that point, all the remaining Kilrathi seemed to give up. They were still flying around, just lazily and not shooting at anyone. I ended up with 36 kills on that mission. But it felt more like murder (feline-icide?). Anyone else encounter this?

Kind of. The one time I won this mission, I had used my two torpedoes on the Snakeir's bridge and one engine, and was babysitting my wingman so he could get the other. My wingman launches his last torpedo and then eats a dumbfire and dies. Stingray calls FUBAR while the torpedo is still in flight...and then it takes out the engine and the Snakeir goes down. Felt great. It did seem like the Cats were a bit easier at that point, but maybe that's just because they were no longer concentrating on bombers and not getting reinforced, and the Rapiers and Epees got more aggressive now that they weren't defending bombers anymore. I'm not really sure.