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[Nanostrike]

With the default loadout, this mission is a total mess.  The Tempest will shred your Hounds and Fighters with impunity (And that stupid respawning drone it has can go straight to hell), the Wasps will outrun and outgun your Talons, and the Praxis itself is always flanked by it's Brawler-and-Vigilance escort.

It has enough shielding to block almost anything you throw at it (The default Hammerhead has Assault Guns, Sabots, and PD Lasers.  Good luck taking out shields with that...), and the AI is good enough that it will almost always recognize Bombers as an omega-level threat and annihilate them.

At least in my experience, the AI has gotten too good for that "Use a Rally Strike Force waypoint and a Strike Order to have the bombers hit it from behind" tactic you're supposed to use.  Every time I try that, it turns, blocks the bombs with its shield, and unleashes every weapon it has on them.

And while it's doing that, that damn Tempest and the Brawler/Vigilance escorts will gang up on you (Also blocking your weaponry with their shields so you do almost no damage) so you can't flank the capital ship.

It's just a total mess.



If I refit the ship, it can become stupidly easy, though.  Heavy MGs or Hypervelocity Drivers let me overload the inferior shielding systems of the Praxis and Brawlers easily, and a pair of Reaper Torpedoes pretty much demolishes the overloaded Praxis in combination with the bombers.

So, in summary, something needs to change with a lot of the missions.  Either the loadouts need tweaked, the AI needs to be toned down, maps need to be changed, or some combination of all of that.

[phyrex]

maybe its part of the mission to change the loadout ?

[Nanostrike]

maybe its part of the mission to change the loadout ?

I was assuming that each mission was meant to be beatable with the default loadout.  It'd be a lot easier on newbies who just fired up the game and are wanting to try some "Easy" and "Medium" scenarios without having to mess around in the ship customization yet.

[MidnightSun]

I was assuming that each mission was meant to be beatable with the default loadout.  It'd be a lot easier on newbies who just fired up the game and are wanting to try some "Easy" and "Medium" scenarios without having to mess around in the ship customization yet.

Originally, I think it was. But like Alex mentioned, the missions do very much need to be rebalanced. Some have become pretty much impossible with the standard loadout (given AI improvements, ship systems, etc).

[Nanostrike]

I was assuming that each mission was meant to be beatable with the default loadout.  It'd be a lot easier on newbies who just fired up the game and are wanting to try some "Easy" and "Medium" scenarios without having to mess around in the ship customization yet.

Originally, I think it was. But like Alex mentioned, the missions do very much need to be rebalanced. Some have become pretty much impossible with the standard loadout (given AI improvements, ship systems, etc).

This mission is definitely one of them.  Even with a better loadout, it's still pretty hard.  You can tell it was designed when the Dominator was slow, had really bad shields, and didn't take Bombers seriously as a threat.  Now the thing is a nightmare on this map, as it'll Burn Drive across the map almost immediately and begin beating you or your carrier down, while making sure your Bombers NEVER land a decent bombing run on it.

I'm not sure, but I think the Bombers themselves are a main problem right now too.  Even if the AI didn't immediately target them, they usually MISS with their bombing runs!  And that doesn't seem to be just a problem in this mission.  They have this issue in the campaign too.  Maybe something is off with their targeting?

[billi999]

I think bombers should deflect when making bombing runs, i.e.; aim ahead of the target from a calculation of where it will be if maintaining its velocity and direction.

This probably wouldn't even be too difficult as you could simply take the distance the target moves between frames, take the distance the bombers are moving between frames, and use a product of some description of that to determind where the bombers should fly the bombing run. I believe such a method is still balanced as some ships will likely be able to avoid some, but still less, of the bombs.

[Histidine]

Definitely the bomber AI is a big problem (aside from the targeting issue, getting them to sync their attack runs after the first run is always fun).

Of course, considering the disparity in the two forces, it's not surprising that it's hard. It just needs to be labeled as such.