Cruiser defense: unwinnable?

[Frumple]

I'll try to put it up somewhere if anyone is interested in playing this scenario.

Gave it a shot, heh. Everything but the engine was destroyed before I even got to move more than about a square, and the engine got aced about three (2 hench, 1 self) tactic turns in. Made it to the other side of the cruiser before the engine dropped, but by that point the enemies had spread out around the target to the degree I couldn't get 'em all to focus on me -- and even then, there were enough swarm carriers to take out the last component despite mes hombres sitting on top of it. Interestingly, the Heavyfoot was MVP of that fight; took out probably half the enemy mecha, most with a single shot. I normally avoid the heavy gauss due to weight, but it does pack a bit of a punch, dunnit?

Interesting fight, anyway. Would suggest an alt. ending if you waste all the attackers, perhaps within a certain period of time, I think.

[magic.coding.fairy.peridot]

I'll try to put it up somewhere if anyone is interested in playing this scenario.

Gave it a shot, heh. Everything but the engine was destroyed before I even got to move more than about a square, and the engine got aced about three (2 hench, 1 self) tactic turns in. Made it to the other side of the cruiser before the engine dropped, but by that point the enemies had spread out around the target to the degree I couldn't get 'em all to focus on me -- and even then, there were enough swarm carriers to take out the last component despite mes hombres sitting on top of it. Interestingly, the Heavyfoot was MVP of that fight; took out probably half the enemy mecha, most with a single shot. I normally avoid the heavy gauss due to weight, but it does pack a bit of a punch, dunnit?

Interesting fight, anyway. Would suggest an alt. ending if you waste all the attackers, perhaps within a certain period of time, I think.

I'd vote for at least a different message for "wiped out the attackers but lost the cruiser". This already happens when you kill someone you're supposed to capture (though I think the consequences of that are not severe enough; I never bother with NONLETHAL weapons, I just take the lower reward if they die). I'm not sure what the outcome would be - maybe no loss of reputation but also no trimphant messages from enemies you blew up? Easy for me to say if I'm not writing the code...

I'd like to see missions more like the GH1 escort missions, where the vehicle you were escorting moved, and you  just had to make sure it survived to reach the other side. Enemies would spawn indefinitely, at random or (for added difficulty) in waves, so there'd be no question of winning by wiping out all the enemies. You'd also have to decide whether it was worth the risk of stopping to pick up that Breaker Cannon. This would also make SMOKE weapons a lot more interesting (if they work in space...).

[Phil Munoz]

BTW, I acquired a themed Haiho in Cayley Rock that's just sitting there.  I didn't bother with it, seeing how effective the Heavy Gauss was so I let my henchman stick with his Heavy Foot.

I played this three more times and twice the cruiser was totalled before I even finished turning my mecha towards the direction of the enemy.

An alternate ending I would suggest is that once the cruiser has been totalled, the Enemy leader would call out a message saying they are pulling out since they've already done what they came to do.  The player can then choose whether to chase them down... meaning the fight continues, or let them leave to look for survivors in the wreckage.

[Joseph Hewitt]

I just noticed something off about the cruiser mission- it spawn stronger enemies than the regular battle mission. This is a bad thing. I think the mistake came in when I copied the scripts from the arena battle or somewhere else- probably, I wasn't paying close attention.

At the moment if you lose the cruiser but still defeat all the enemies, you don't lose renown and still get salvage.

[magic.coding.fairy.peridot]

I just noticed something off about the cruiser mission- it spawn stronger enemies than the regular battle mission. This is a bad thing. I think the mistake came in when I copied the scripts from the arena battle or somewhere else- probably, I wasn't paying close attention.

At the moment if you lose the cruiser but still defeat all the enemies, you don't lose renown and still get salvage.

Might this be a problem with some of the other missions too? I felt like I was getting harder missions when I was on a "capture the ship" raid as well. Or maybe that was just the gigas nuking me.

[Joseph Hewitt]

Capture the ship is supposed to be harder, but there are usually bigger rewards as well as ways to make it easier.

Regarding different endings for different outcomes: That would be difficult to do in this case because of the way the plots are set up. The battle itself is structured as a setup for the interaction with the enemy NPC. That interaction has a lot of freedom for different outcomes, but the battle itself is fairly limited in terms of passing triggers to it. I'll think about how to incorporate something like this.