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Wing Commander seriesImpossible combat(11 posts)solved(11 posts)solved
(11 posts)solved
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Posted June 12, 2011
I have tried the game for a couple of hours running the initial easy scout missions but i find it impossible to kill even one solo ship.
I 've tried the game using gamepad, mouse and keyboard with mixed results.
I bought a second lazer gun and hit the targets when they are close. Their shields will go down just a bit but after a few seconds when their shields will be 100% again.
I 'll do the drill for half an hour or so and then i ll get bored by not being able to kill them.
Targeting is difficult even with a gamepad(jerky movement of the ship) but even with somewhat bad targeting i should have been able to kill them. What is the deal here? What am I doing wrong. I have played many space combat sims before, including WC games, but i have never encountered something this impossible at the beginning of the game.
Is it the ship, the lasers, the controls, me? I do not know....

*edit for typo
Post edited October 30, 2014 by mastorak
This question / problem has been solved by potato_headimage
Posted June 12, 2011
Yeah it's pretty tough in the beginning, and Tarsus is not a great ship. Wait until you get Centauron, you'll feel invulnerable instead. :)
I use the keyboard, and just finished the game, so here is what I learned.

Speed: You can increase and decrease the set speed with '+' or '-'. It can be a tactic to decrease and increase the speed back and forth.

Afterburn: Buy this the first thing you do and tab your way through the game. If energy drains too quickly, consider inactivating a shield. In the beginning, you only have one shield layer though, but you can inactivate temporarily to get away from tough opposition.

Torpedos/missile launcher: Torpedos are fast, cheap and do a lot of damage. In the beginning, you can get into position from a long distance where it only takes 2 torpedos to kill an enemy. For me, this works about 50% of the time. Use '7' or '9' on the numpad to get into position. I recommend selling missile launcher in the beginning of the game for torpedos and afterburner.

Ship area: Attacking enemies from the front or back is difficult if they keep moving. Instead try to get really close (even ramming them) or above or under for more area to attack.

Distance: Attack where you think the enemy will go not where it is, otherwise you will most likely miss (unless it's damaged or similar). Look at the distance to the ship too (press 'e' for information).

Ramming: This is only a good option if you have enough shields, or a reparation drone.

Sliding: The manual explains this with picture, however I don't find it works too well with Tarsus.
Posted June 12, 2011
Thank you for the advice. I ll try out and hopefully i 'll improve my performance.
Do you suggest any kind of mission for early on? What should be avoided?
Posted June 12, 2011
As far as missions go there's not much variety. Take anything in the troy system for under 4000 credits (anything higher may be too difficult right at the beginning).

Or you can see if you can do a little trading between the agro world and the mining base. Turn on invulnerability and infinite ammo, trade and make credits until you can buy a jump drive, then check out the humboldt markets and make more credits, rinse repeat.

Easy, if albeit, a less exciting way to get some coin to put towards a better ship, since the tarsus really does suck.
Posted June 12, 2011
Thanks guys.
I did some research and I ended up selling the lasers which were crap straight away to get the meson blasters. I also sold the missle launcher to get torpedo launchers with torpedos being dead cheap.
All in all the battle performance got a huge boost and I got kills much more easily.
Posted June 13, 2011
Good to hear you are now able to kill enemies more easily.

Regarding missions, I would choose scouting missions, because they pay a lot and you don't have to engage in combat. Just travel to the center of the nav point and you're done. But as monkeysaturday said, missions under 4000 credits are easy enough to do too.

I was very lucky at one point and got 3 missions to scout the same 5 nav points. This resulted in about 30,000 credits. In order to get so lucky, you need to pay the mercenaries guild 5000 credits.

I also like merchant runs, because you can get several runs to the same destination point. For example, you'll see a lot of runs to New Detroit, and from there, there are some good runs. However, going to New Detroit from Troy is very dangerous, so it's better to buy a better ship first.
Posted June 13, 2011
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potato_head: Good to hear you are now able to kill enemies more easily.

Regarding missions, I would choose scouting missions, because they pay a lot and you don't have to engage in combat. Just travel to the center of the nav point and you're done. But as monkeysaturday said, missions under 4000 credits are easy enough to do too.

I was very lucky at one point and got 3 missions to scout the same 5 nav points. This resulted in about 30,000 credits. In order to get so lucky, you need to pay the mercenaries guild 5000 credits.

I also like merchant runs, because you can get several runs to the same destination point. For example, you'll see a lot of runs to New Detroit, and from there, there are some good runs. However, going to New Detroit from Troy is very dangerous, so it's better to buy a better ship first.
Scouting missions often bored me. They may get funds but I would rather do it other ways.
Posted June 13, 2011
Personally I'd recommend getting dual missile launchers ASAP. Two IR or FF missiles is usually enough to instantly destroy a fresh Talon. With 20 missiles you can take out 10 talons effortlessly. Dogfighting in a Tarsus with meson blasers is an excercise in frustration, Talons are just too fast and you don't have enough burst damage to kill them quickly.

Get two missile launchers and then load up on the attack/defend/patrol missions in Troy until you get enough for a jump drive. Then grab 2-3 cargo missions going to the same destination to make 30k per trip. You'll be fully outfitted in no time. Missiles aren't free, but they kill Talons so quickly you can do twice as many attack missions in the time it would otherwise take to dogfight them.
Posted June 14, 2011
Thanks for your input on this

I am still in the tarson but i have significantly improved it since the beggining.
The upgrade path i took was
- Sell lasers and missile launchers
- get the mason blasters + torpedo launcher (that allowed me to win easy dogfights to gather money from 4k-6k missions)
-get engine upgrade
-get afterburner (so i can get close to the enemy when he moves further and keep shooting at him with his shields down. Otherwise until he got close again his shields would have gone up )
-get shield upgrade
-get better plate armor
-sell torpedo launcher and get two missile launcher with IR missiles

My next purchase will be the improved scanner and then the jump drive
so far so good.

I was really frustrated at first because it did not occur to me that the first fights are unwinable without some upgrade on the ship. I assumed that you could go straight into the early battle but the lasers proved to be complete crap of starting equipment. As soon as I got the mason blasters and some torpedos It was a fine starting point for scouting missions.
Post edited June 14, 2011 by mastorak
Posted June 17, 2011
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mastorak: I also sold the missle launcher to get torpedo launchers with torpedos being dead cheap.
About that, stay with two missile launchers and fill them up with IR missiles. They track any locked target (press L, get a solid box around the target, fire once you have the diamond mark), are fairly reliable, and two of them will kill a Talon most times. That means that you can instagib the most common type of opponent with a single salve. The missiles are rather cheap compared to mission payouts, especially once you start running cargo for the merchants' guild.

This is best enjoyed with a joystick since squeezing and holding buttons 2+1 for maybe half a second will fire all launchers simultaneously, pretty much guaranteeing the kill. Using the return key only fires a single launcher, and the delay makes it far more likely to hit different sides of the target.
Posted July 08, 2013
heh yeah you could do that. ORRRR if your willing you could forgo the missing grab some torpedos and hunt those big dramon cargo ships you see floating around. make sure you have a tractor beam and your pretty set. piracy is useful and later when you get out of the troy system you come across more of those big fat cargo cows.
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Wing Commander seriesImpossible combat(11 posts)solved(11 posts)solved
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