Loki 2

Please post any problems or comments specific to this mission here.

At Nav 2, the one with the 'Sports: After all fighters had been destroyed, all fighters engaged the 'Sports but it would've helped if they targeted their engines. Because they didn't, one transport escaped.

Mantis please

KeldorKatarn wrote:Mantis please

#0000344: Fighters don't shoot engines in Loki 2

Hmm, does anyone else find it too hard to destroy the engines ? Realy, I think it's even easier to kill the transports than destroying their engines. I noticed hull seems to get damaged faster than you can destroy subsystems before but I didn't think it would get this important.

Please share your opinion on this.

yeah I noticed this. we might have to reduce the hitpoints of engines. Please open a ticket for this one

Overall nice mission - it's good to be on offensive. As Samheyn noticed there's problem with disabling the transports. I managed to destroy 4 out of 6 engines before the transport was decimated and I'm pretty sure I was pointing my guns at the engines alone. You should be able to destroy all engines while the ships still survives. Didn't managed to destroy the second one - he managed to jump out just barely, which was nicely pointed out in the debriefing. ➡️

Edit: One thing though - doesn't this guy from TCS Jim Bowie looks the same as 'Little John' (Hell's Archers squadron leader)? Or maybe they are twins 😉 it can be little confusing.

📎 [Attachment: beta5-loki2.JPG]

📎 [Attachment: gerhard.JPG]

and side by side comparison

📎 [Attachment: comparison.JPG]

He looks a little alike. It may even be the same model with different hair and beard style. But it is the right person 😉 Trust me 😉

About those engines, we already reduced the hotpoints of engines on all ships. In Beta 6 you should be able to disable a ship with it still being ~50% intact.

KeldorKatarn wrote:He looks a little alike.

Only in this picture. It's a different model, low quality HUD animation compression combined with very low resolution might make them look a little alike.

Thanks for clearing that out.

That's what happens when you render some crap overnight, by the way. 😊

It's just coincidence, buddy. As it turns out, Little John is loosely based on Max Martini from "The Unit" and Keifer Sutherland from '24', and the ONI officer from the Jim Bowie (you'll see him again, btw) is based on Hugh Jackman. But this wasn't set till much later in the development process.

Whenever a script is written and even when the mission is programmed, a character is just defined in names and words, no set faces or definitive looks on how he should look like. It's only way afterwards when we decide on what models and how this character should definately look like. And it was pretty late in the game when we decided to have individual faces for each capship (instead of generic static video that you see in Prophecy, or WC3/4). So it was just wrong place at the wrong time.

The second Loki mission was some more fun raising hell behind Kilrathi lines. The presence of the Jim Bowe gives you something else to look after in the course of the mission. The engagement with the Corvette scouting group was fun. I liked the part where you have to burn down the one Corvette before it takes out your jamming support.

The troop transports were another neat one. It makes you have to trust your fellow pilots to watch your back while you go darting through the Kilrathi fighter escort to get to the transports before they jump out. Even then you have to be quick to take both of them out before they get to the jump point.

The final part where you kill those fuel transports made it seem like you are trying to avoid a direct confrontation with the ships they were waiting for and then it’s all “Let’s go kill a cruiser and destroyer just for fun while we are at it.” I think you did a good job so far with the Loki missions. They seem very well polished. The thing that was most disconcerting to me was that fact that I was carrying a missile load other than the default. I was so used to have the default load out that I did not even look at it until in the middle of the first Nav Point when I was told to put a Dumbfire in that Corvette’s missile launcher. I was like “Dumbfire?! What?”.

Hehe, yeah well this is a search and destroy mission, not a patrol. Therefore you have a more offensive loadout and less fighter-vs-fighter missiles.

We will reduce the hitpoints of all capship engines in the next beta, so please test this mission again, epecially whether it is too easy to stop the transports now.

KeldorKatarn wrote:We will reduce the hitpoints of all capship engines in the next beta, so please test this mission again, epecially whether it is too easy to stop the transports now.

I agree with Light. These seem very well polished missions.

RE: The engine hitpoints is there a reason for that? I did find that I was destroying the transports before taking out all of the engines and that the Dart DF did help me in that goal. I thought it was a cool objective but on Easy it wasn't a huge challenge. Maybe it is a bit more so at the higher difficulty levels.

Ice wrote:I agree with Light. These seem very well polished missions.

RE: The engine hitpoints is there a reason for that? I did find that I was destroying the transports before taking out all of the engines and that the Dart DF did help me in that goal. I thought it was a cool objective but on Easy it wasn't a huge challenge. Maybe it is a bit more so at the higher difficulty levels.

Well you should be able to disable (in the cannot-fly-anymore sense) any given bigger craft by destroying it's engines without blowing it to the oblivion, otherwise the whole "disable this ship so it doesn't escape" concept will not work. Think of the situation where you would have to capture some transport (maybe some valuable cargo on board) and the only way to do it is to destroy it's engines... I know that in this particular mission this wasn't the case, but I have a hunch that this was a little tutorial to some upcoming mission where you would have to perform such task. Besides the dialog in the mission states that by destroying the engines (which should be faster than taking out a whole ship) you can stop the transport before it reaches the jump point, which buys you some time - you can finish it later. At least that's my opinion on this matter.

We also never inteded the engine destruction to cause this much damage. It's probably due to the way the engine handles impact damage. We reduced it to make it work as designed.

If it is too easy now we can put the transports closer to the jump points if necessary. That's why we want you to test it again.

Tried the mission again and now I was able to disable one transport pretty quickly (with the help of heat-seekers) but the others didn't managed to destroy a single engine on the other transport during that time so I had to step in. I was able to take out 4 engines before the transport jumped out. The first one without any propulsion just waited there to be destroyed, so that worked as it supposed to. I belive that at the second try I will destroy both transports if I save some more missiles for this part of the mission.

Edit: I just played again, and this time I didn't took Ninja's advice and firstly attacked the close transport (with 7 missiles left I think that it doesn't matter after which one you go first) with 3 remaining dumbfires. Destroyed all engines with 3 or 4 Heatseekers still under wings. So I went for the second one which was already targeted by my wingmen. Engaged the transport with remaining ordinance and was able to disable it before it reached the jump point. So the belance seems OK. I wouldn't change the distance from the transports to the jump point.

Guys... "the balance is ok" doesn't mean "I always win, so it's fine" ^^

We actually WANT a certain difficulty here. The player is not supposed to ace them all in the first or 2nd go.

KeldorKatarn wrote:Guys... "the balance is ok" doesn't mean "I always win, so it's fine" ^^

We actually WANT a certain difficulty here. The player is not supposed to ace them all in the first or 2nd go.

I think you misunderstood me Keldor. As I stated, the first time I failed to destroy both transports. I succeded on the second try (in Beta6) after changing my tactics - so the statement "I always win, so it's fine" doesn't apply here IMHO. As is this mission isn't easy, you have to think fast, conserve your ammo for bigger targets that need to be taken out fast and be precise at it to nail it. That's why I said that the balance is OK (in my opinion, let's see what the others have to say).

Edit: I played it on easy - so I consider aceing (is this even a word 😉 ) this mission on fourth attempt (counting Beta5) is pretty good balancing.

Just wanted to drop in and say that troop transport intercept Nav Point when played on medium skill level seems very well balanced to me. If the player maintains his situational awareness and goes for the transport that is closer to the Jump Point first and disables its engines and than goes after the other transports engines, stopping both transports is not that difficult.

However if the player goes after the transport that is farther from the Jump Point first and waste time disabling it then it is nearly impossible to stop the other transport.

I like how it is right now because it is pretty much up to the player's situational awareness and actions as to weatherer one of the transports escapes or not.

Beta8 playthrough:

I agree with Lights last statement, the player should maintain a certain awaremess. It is possible to disable both transports withoput any problems, even if you've got no missiles left. There surely is a time limit and you shouldn't waste you time on what your wingman said, it's quite obvious that the closer transport is going to jump out very soon.

On the other hand... didn't we talk about that sticking to your orders is one of the primary goals ? Maybe some players who stick to these orders might get confused by the way this decision has to be made. Just a point of view one should consider.

Didn't notice any further bugs.

It is possible to attack the other transport as told by Ninja and still get the other one in time.

But you would agree that Ninja isn't able to make it on his own, wouldn't you?

So? 😊

Beta9:

Am I the only one who's got the feeling that the auto pilot scenes for nav 4 (additional ambush) and nav 5 (return to hermes) are a bit too long ? The camera zooms out for quite a while.

The cameras are not final, but please file a report anyway.

Greenlighting status updated.