So guys … the blonde or the redhead?
Interesting gameplay note:
- If you pick the redhead, the blonde gets mad and in at least one instance won’t let you change your ship loadout.
- If you pick the blonde, there is some ship benefit - can’t remember if it’s letting you use <REDACTED> early or better missiles
Nope, only a permanent penalty from the one you scorn. According to Gamefaqs, you can avoid the penalty by just never talking to them again. Works in real life too!
And the penalty is permanent, the tech will tell Hamill: you can do your own damn loadouts from now on. My MST 3K ad lib when she stormed off: “Hey, your loadouts sucked anyways!”
Which reminds me, I think this installment is the secret inspiration for Mass Effect. Binary choices where the top option is the nice guy approach, bottom one is the asshole option. Catfight between two potential love interests, etc.
Hmph… stupid false memories. Thanks for the clarification.
I have a strict ‘Don’t piss off the person fixing the machine on which my life depends’ policy.
So in continuing I’ve done the optional simulator 1 on 1. Won it handily, and said person’s tune changed completely. Gotta say that the mission you fly to get that challenge was a BLAST. The first time all game I felt like a killing machine. This is partly because that craft has a very useful special power, one that goes a long way towards smoothing out the control issues endemic to using a mouse.
Which is something else I’d like to talk about. Now I can’t fully fault the game, after all it is designed to use a stick which I simply lack, but it is really hard to precision aim with the mouse. Now often this isn’t much of an issue, it merely forces me to engage at closer range to give a wider target, but those abominable skipper missiles. I played the mission where those appear probably 8-10 times to take out that thing. Perhaps with a stick I’d have been able to do so better, but I simply didn’t have enough time to track it down. It’d appear once at 20000, I’d have to guess when I closed range to turn around and hope I got it on it’s second appearance because when it appeared the third time it was about 1 second from impacting the ship. The mouse simply has too little fine control (there is a pseudo ‘dead zone’ that makes small corrections very difficult) to reliably hit the target. Like I said, they are an annoying target at best, butt without a proper flightstick they are just miserable.
Still I’m making good progress. The first mission in Flint’s home system is proving quite hard, I’ve died 4-5 times already doing it. Again the precision, or lack thereof, of mouse controls is almost certainly a contributing factor. Right now I’m set on veteran, and I’d rather not have to set it to novice simply due to control imprecision. Hopefully over the weekend I have time to mess around with the controller tips Rock8man linked, didn’t feel like it yesterday since that would have likely eaten all my game time.
There’s a tonne of extra downloads on the gog site, including the behind the scenes VHA. How much do I actually need to read in order to play this game?
Yeah, skipper missiles are dumb.
Anyone figure out a strategy for dealing with them in that first mission they show up in?
The strategy is haul ass toward their target the moment the mission starts and wait for them to show up. Don’t bother targeting them, just look for the blips on the radar and try to find them in your view.
FTR, when it comes to choosing between the blonde or the redhead, there is ‘one’ right choice, in the sense that WCIV makes a choice for you (and it’s the one I never chose).
Wing Commander 3 reminded me more of the old Battlestar Galactica than Star Wars. I enjoyed playing in the Wing Commander universe, but Wing Commander Armada and Wing Commander Privateer were better able to offer more control and choices to players who wanted to make strategic level decisions rather than just fight branching tactical battles. Though, WC 3 and WC 4 were very effective at tasking the player to complete exciting missions fighting alongside characters that the game developed through FMVs and dialogues. It was easy for me to believe I was living and working as part of the flight crew alongside characters that mattered aboard the TCS Victory.
It’s easy to forget how revolutionary WC3 (and the other WC’s) were for their day.
A lot of games in the WC3 era used video but for most it took away from the game rather than adding anything good, like modern games with too many CGI cut-scenes. WC3 is interesting due to being one of the relatively few games where FMV added to the game experience.
Back in the day I played to both the victory and defeat endings and don’t regret it.
Guys, I was really afraid I was going to have to quit the game on the first skipper missile mission. Well, okay, I guess I would have continued the game with that failure, which, let’s face it, would probably show me missions that 95% of players have never seen! I wonder if this mission was meant to teach players that it’s okay to fail. I don’t think it succeeds at that because there’s nothing else communicating it, but given how unforgiving it is and how early it occurs, I think that that’s what they might have been thinking.
On that stage of that mission, did anyone else experience a stuttering in their controls? It made it hard to fine tune my direction, as the small moves I made would jump in the opposite direction. The first time it happened was on that one encounter, and it happened every time. Now it’s cropped up in other encounters in a few other missions after that. Very strange, since it’s not a problem most of the time, so it can’t be my joystick.
I’m curious what people’s strategies were for the Flash battle. Maybe I’m just an old grandpa, but I found him impossible to pin down, however halfway through the fight I learned a thing or two. I think one key is to fly defensively and let him use up his afterburner fuel. Then you can stay on his tail much more easily. It still would have taken me forever to whittle him down if he (or I) hadn’t gotten a little too close and clipped his wing. I think the player pretty much always comes out on top of collision situations, all other things being equal. So, if you’re having a hard time with this (and you definitely don’t want that smarmy shit to beat you), try ramming!
Re: ships. Maybe most players like having options, but I don’t like how quickly they give you multiple ships to choose from. Rarely does a mission briefing give me a really clear sense of what ship I should have. I’d like to know before a mission that, in particular, I should bring a torpedo-loaded ship. I guess I just prefer more of a progression with the ships than the free selection process.
I don’t know if I’ve done the skipper missile mission yet? In one of the briefings they bring them up but I haven’t noticed them. In my last mission my ship did explode out of nowhere with full shields and no enemies in sight. Is that related? It was strange. At this point if I die in a mission two or three times I go into options (alt-o) and bring the difficulty down to rookie. I did enable invulnerability for the bio-missile mission and retried it until I won. I don’t know why but for some reason I refused to continue without beating it. I have lost one or two escort missions.
So far I’ve left the ships and loadouts alone for the same reasons. There isn’t enough information for me to make an informed decision.
And thanks for mentioning the FMV settings, Vesper. Not sure how I missed those the first time.
Otto, it sounds like you missed the skipper missile. The mission briefing where they first come up is an escort the cruiser mission. If they get hit by the missile, full shields or no, they instantly go boom.
As for strategy, well what I did to finally beat it was instantly go full burn at the Kilrathi Corvette. As I went I constantly cycled targets. Shortly after you should pick up the missile, briefly. You do get 3 cracks at it, but the first is at fairly long range, with it closing quickly, the last seconds before hitting the cruiser, but the second is your moment. What I did was try to estimate when I was going to pass the missile, and turn before that. At that point fly a direct path towards the cruiser you are protecting. That’s its target, and theoretically this will put you directly behind it for an easy shot. It is still faster than you, even in an arrow, but a brief afterburner keeps you close. With some luck when it uncloaks you should be in laser range. It was a little trial and error, some guesswork, and a decent helping of luck.
Nightgaunt the flash battle wasn’t too hard, though it might be on higher difficulty. What I did was start flying at him, put full guns, and afterburn at ~20 degrees to him. The plan was fly past him, cut speed, and quickly turn at <1000m and fire off a missile and some shots. Did the battle twice (forgot to save) and neither time he posed a threat.
So I didn’t get a ton more play time this weekend, had more important things to do (like have a great anniversary weekend with my wife) but did get past the mission where you save a certain pilot. I had struggled with the first mission in that system, and decided to take Maniac as my wing, and it helped a ton. Now I figured there might be some differences between different pilots, buy the difference is most stark between Flint and Maniac. Flint was a really poor fit for the mission, she’s not nearly aggressive enough for that many fighters, but Maniac was perfect. I also switched ships from the default Hellcat, which I’ll go over next, to the Arrow. I’d stuck to mostly the default loadout prior, but as the game goes, I’m starting to change more and more.
Now those changes, the biggest being the ship. I’ve found I don’t really care for the Hellcat. While in theory it’s the balanced craft, in practice it’s kind of not working for me. For missions with lots of fighters the Arrow is faster, and has more missiles. It also seems as if the weapons systems recharge faster, which counters the slightly lower firepower. That last point might not strictly be true, but it certainly feels that way. The mission I said where I switched from a Hellcat to an Arrow? I’d failed 5-6 times, but beat it the first time I switched. As for the Thunderbolt that DOES have a notable firepower advantage over the Hellcat. Plus a torpedo. While the speed is a hindrance, I do tend to fast and nimble in any game ever, the armor and shields are heavy enough to negate that. Unless I’m facing a lot of light fighters the Thunderbolt has been a good ship for me.
The missiles I’ve also started to drop the heatseekers. It just seems the image rec missiles are more effective. This is partly because the heatseeker requires you to get behind a ship before using, where the image rec does not. I also tend to save them for capital ships, and being able to launch from any angle on them is a big boon. The trouble is there are several other types of missile I simply haven’t tried, nor am I likely to. There isn’t any good explanation to them in the manuals, and though this is the internet, the basic missiles have served well. Flexible, reasonably reliable, and easy to understand. Why would I use the friend-or-foe? Dunno, there isn’t any documentation saying what that’s better at. The Leech? Yeah, I don’t know what you do, no way I’m taking you.
Still I’m making progress, and enjoying the game. One thing I should probably do is dig out my disks for X-wing vs. Tie Fighter: Balance of Power and find out how to make them work. Probably won’t be this week, but after the game ends I might try. The reason being is that it remains my all time favorite flight game of any type. Now I’m curious if my memory matches reality. The reason is that I remember the missions and ships to have a bigger variety. The ships certainly seem more distinct in my memory, and the different gun types had a bigger impact. For example certain craft, the Y and B wings namely, had ion cannons which were prime shield killers. There was also more distinction between the secondary loadouts, including the thrusterless space bomb, which kept your ship speed after launching. Great for taking out Star Destroyers. It also made it so you had to take out the turrets, and other components, on capital ships. I just think the comparison is rather striking. I don’t recall much in the way of story, but the mechanics of the craft and combat stand out all these years later. With wing commander I don’t think the mechanics are particularly memorable in comparison. But that’s the thing, I’m talking memory from more than 10 years ago. Perhaps rose colored glasses are impacting me here.
Anyhow those are my thoughts so far, along with some random musing about a game which came out several years later that I hold as my personal favorite in the genre.
I loved this game when it came out. It was the first game I played on my brand-new 100mz Pentium with the gigabyte hard drive and (“Fast!”) 8X speed CD-ROM. I stayed up all night playing it that first evening. That computer was like a space rocket compared to the 40mz machine it replaced.
BTW, I think all the WC games had cheat codes you could enter if you were having too hard a time on a given mission.
Holy hell the GOG version comes with the extras! That’s awesome! I’ve had the GOG version for a long time and never new it contained that stuff. Loved it back in the day.
Tom Wilson definitely steals the show in WC3 & 4.
Tom Wilson definitely devours the scenery in WC3 & 4.
FTFY. Although, to be honest, it’s like Chris is sitting in his director’s chair, shrieking, “No… overact MORE!!!” to the crew.
?? What extras does it come with?
?? What extras does it come with?