Pilot Archive

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FireZeeMissiles wrote:

If the escort is determined by the ship going from point a to point b, then make the damn thing go faster than 126. It sucks having to fly at 1/100th my top speed, if it could at least go 400-500 maybe i'd feel a little better

/sign

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I'll stand by the same list of changes I'v always wanted for escorts.

1. Make the ship travel faster, 1/2 the speed of whatever the average for a crafted engine of that tier is.


2. When a wave spawns, have the ship stop forward progress and go into evasion mode. (slow loops)


3. When you finish off the wave, the ship proceeds on its way.


4. If you take too long, backup fighters spawn, and you have to keep working.


5. Change the escort mission texts to give accurate status reports on the progress. Let us know how close to done we are.


6. Steadily increase the difficulty of the waves. Having the same 3 ship groups appear over and over is BORING.


7. Make the targets you are escorting weaker, but also make it possible to use specials like jumpstart on them. There is little or no sense of jeopardy in current escorts. Also the ships should shout accurate warnings about their damage and peril.

Not an overwhelming list of changes, and it would make the whole process a lot more engaging. I will not sign a petition for blanket removal of escorts, nor will I favor dumbing them down or making them overall shorter. Something is wrong with them, and they should be improved, not gimped.

Escort missions are a key mission type for flight simulators. I would never support removing them, but would welcome some changes to the system.

1. I would welcome some of the changes psikobunny mentioned, at least as a start. I think escorts could be sped up a bit, but only if out of combat. Otherwise you'd never be able to keep up with it while engaging the enemy.

2. Regular status reports on position percentage would be wonderfull. Even telling me "we're almost there" is better than nothing.

3. Allow the success/fail of the mission to be determined by damage taken by the frieghter, no how far away from the frieghter you are (although I don't mind that either).

Another thing I'd like to see is escorting a POB ship or gunboat through a battle, the goal being the destruction of a equally large capital ship and also the survival of your escort. Takes me back to my days of TIE Fighter To my knowledge I've never seen this type of mission yet in JTL. Usually you just escort and enemies jump in, and the escort leaves whenever it reaches the end of it's flight path.

         /                   \            
       //|                   |\\          Kauri:
      ///                     \\\           Really BadJack - Shipwright/Swordsman
|\  ///                         \\\  /|
 \//|/         /=======\         \|\\/    Radiant:
 /|O|\       ///---+---\\\       /|O|\      Nabushin - Pistoleer/Commando
|-^-||------///  \ | /  \\\------||-^-|     Olaw - Artisan/Shipwright
|_O_||>====<|||___\|/___|||>====<||_O_|
| O ||>====<|||   /|\   |||>====<|| O |
|-v-||------\\\  / | \  ///------||-v-|
 \|O|/       \\\---+---///       \|O|/ 
 /\\|\         \=======/         /|//\ 
|/  \\\                         ///  \|
      \\\                     ///      
       \\|                   |//       
         \                   / 

Escort missions as they are are a complete snoozefest. I was actually pleasantly surprised with Imperial Inquisition when I did not have to dedicate 3 hours of my time to every mission. When I am noton vacationmy playtime is very limited, and I am lucky to be able to get 2 hours total to play every two nights. If it were not forChristmas holidays (I got one week before, and a week after) I never would have finished Storm Squadron. As it is my wife got quite angry I spent so much time doing so LOL.

These missions need to be morechallenging, and let us KNOW how long they will take. If I know beforehand - either by a percentage like those "hold this spot while transmission received", or an actual timer - that the mission is going to be around an hour I can at least decide whether I have the time to do it or not. If Psikobunny's suggestions also speed up the missions I am all for it.