Part 60: Middle of Nowhere, Talos System, Sol Sector (Gameplay and Story)
I think most of the reason the Gratha is kind of done lazily is because it shows up like three times in the game. Standoff would probably have been better off with fewer ships which had more time spent on them, which of course it doesn't have because fine-tuning your models is boring so...Anyway, have an update. I'll be interested to see what people make of this one.
1st Janurary 2669, Talos System, Sol Sector
Episode 5, Mission 4 - Middle of Nowhere
The Landreich fleet and the Firekka close in on the Sol jump point, while dispatching a crew to aid repairs to a Terran destroyer.
Talos. Jumped again, huh?
Damn straight. People who have played Secret Ops may remember something like this list of systems; the Firekka's taking a route pretty similar to that the Cerberus took.
All hands, brace for node acceleration (Youtube)
Mission Briefing:
Briefing Video (Youtube)
Mission Video (Youtube)
Kills this mission: 100% of all enemies
Which is zero. The fake-out mission where nothing actually happens but it's set up to make you think it will is used pretty commonly in other genres, but I can't recall a similar mission in a starfighter game. Tachyon: the Fringe has two missions, one for each path, which can have no fights in provided you choose the right wingman, but otherwise do contain fights. I'm interested to know what people think about doing this. I kind of liked it. I don't think Standoff is short on missions overall so that's not a problem, and sometimes things have to be quiet when you get in a fighter, right?
Tactics Corner
Are you awake there at the back? THERE ARE NO ENEMIES. You press the autopilot button twice, and swing the fighter around so it points at the right nav point before you do if you're anything like me.
Ship of the Day
Morningstar
Class: Heavy Fighter
Length: 22.43 m
Mass: 20 tonnes
Max Velocity: 400 kps
Afterburner Velocity: 1200 kps
Maximum Yaw/Pitch/Roll: 80/80/80 degrees/second
Weapons: 3x Particle Cannon, 2x Image Recognition missile, 2x Torpedo, 1x Mace missile
Shields: Front: 150 Rear: 150
Armour: Front: 200 Left: 200 Right: 200 Rear: 200
Game says: The latest heavy fighter in Confed service, the Morningstar packs excellent armour and shields. Armed with torpedoes and the nuclear Mace missile, the Morningstar is a very potent capship killer.
I say: In the campaign, Morningstars are exclusively seen in strike missions where you're joined up with the Concordia, and they tend to volley Maces at the start of the mission, which makes them the most effective AI fighters by far at destroying Targu II frigates. They're fun to fly in the simulator, with the Mace doing the damage of a torpedo with the utility of a dumbfire, and the particle cannons being as useful as they always were, though it's no Rapier in terms of turning. Somewhat better than a Sabre, due to the shields.
Storyline
The cutscenes are largely similar to the winning path, with a couple of alterations to reflect the fact that we're not in Sol. But the e-mails change a bit more - Squealer's rambling about his court-martial is edited to note we're now in company of the Guadacanal (which was the ship he served on prior to going pirate):
IES Message - Received at 0507 hours GST on 2669.001 posted:
From: 1st Lt. Jason Beverly (TCSF, TCS Firekka)
To: Capt. William Bradshaw (TCSF, TCS Firekka)
Subject: Shit...
So, I figure this may be the last chance I get to talk to you, Captain, before all hell breaks loose in Sol. Well, maybe I'll make it, but... you know, I got a bad feeling about this. I mean, all that pirate bullshit... I guess if I bought it right now, it'd have to be karma. Or something.
Listen, I'm really sorry about Capella - nobody ain't got no reason to believe me, I know... but really, I am. I don't know what's gonna happen to me if we actually do make it, and you know what? At this stage, I figure going back to jail wouldn't be too bad.
Course, maybe it just seems like a nice option, when death is the alternative. Still, I do have a bit to answer for, and I get the feeling, it'll never truly be behind me unless I do pay for it, you know? Hell, even out here, in the middle of nowhere, who do we run into? The Guadalcanal... I'll be damned. Heh, I don't know about Sparrow, but me, suddenly I'm just really glad we don't have windows in our cabins. It would be like having the whole damned Court-Martial staring into your room...
Ah, what the hell, it's not like any of us will survive this anyway.
Squealer
And Reismann has an entirely new message, explaining what's happening:
IES Message - Received at 0519 hours GST on 2669.001 posted:
From: Commodore Hans Reismann (TCN, TCS Firekka)
To: Capt. William Bradshaw (TCSF, TCS Firekka)
Subject: Our situation
Captain,
The Landreich ships have pulled into formation around us. Even though we're moving at fastest possible speeds, I don't expect any trouble maintaining formation - as our sister ships, the Tarawa and the Guadalcanal can match our velocity and manoeuvres with ease.
The Landreich pilots are a different story entirely. Some of them are former Confed pilots - some of them you probably even know personally - but the overwhelming majority are Landreich colonials. You've worked with our own militias in Gemini enough to understand what this means. Uneven skill levels, and utter unpredictability.
You will have a hard time working with them. There is no chain of command to unite you - their wings have their own structure, and the colonials would rather hang than take orders from a Confed officer. All you can do is try to persuade them to more or less coordinate their actions with those of your wing.
As we get ready for the final battle in Sol, I suggest you use whatever time's left for joint training. We have more than enough fuel. Put your fighters into space and use it. I don't give a damn if, by the end of today, you'll crash land your fighter on the very last drop of fuel from our tanks. Hell, I don't give a damn if you don't land at all, whether because you're dead or we're dead - but whatever happens, I expect you and your men to make us all proud.
Things are on the edge in Sol. Our force may very well determine ultimate victory.
Reismann
Psion posted:
Anyway, this path is really kind of frustrating to watch I think. It's where Standoff's team actually gets to flex their creativity and honestly they're doing a pretty good job so far. I just wish they'd loosened up on the 'winning path' and done the same. I mean here they are, being more or less true to their source material, yet the mission design is already more interesting than the winning path's straight slog against Kilrathi capital ships all day every day.
also I kinda wish Reismann's email about "keeping up with us" had said something about how insanely fast Krueger was taking his carriers through systems/into jumps, as opposed to this"yeah well we can keep up" routine.
I think the issue is that the actions fought by the Landreich forces just lend themselves better to making an interesting game. They're smaller, which means that the designers weren't going to overload the missions with ships (I like that Standoff's engagements are larger than in most games, but most of Episode 5 winning path's engagements are too big). Kruger does unorthodox things, and Reismann is set up as a similar character (and yes, he should have said *something* about it in his e-mail, I think his deadpan "yeah, we're doing this at full speed" is a bit too understated because even if you do know how stupidly dangerous what they're doing is it's easy to just glance over that Reismann is blase about it), so we get a lot of close ship-to-ship actions which are fun. And the situation is overall more time-critical (we'll see why in two missions time, for those who haven't read Fleet Action, but simply put we're reacting here rather than the main fleet which is actually on the tactical offensive for most of the Battle of Earth), which allows everything to be a bit more frantic.
That said, the designers do miss a trick or two in the next mission - it's still fun, but it is a bit standard and could have been a lot better (admittedly it would have required more liberties to be taken with the plot).
Psion posted:
Or maybe we're meant to assume Reismann runs Firekka around at maximum throttle at all times. I can buy that.
He's actually trying to leave Bradshaw behind, but so far without luck.
Total kills (Standoff): 27 missions / 367 kills
Total kills (including previous thread): 138 missions / 1293 kills
(since these missions didn't happen - the Firekka was "actually" on the winning path - I don't get to count the kills in them in the kill tally.)
Next time on Standoff:
We reach Earth (and a mission with actual enemies in). Three missions left now, one of which is the absolute best in the game.