[B5M2] Battle 5 - Mission 2: Attack Imperial Convoy

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[B5M2] Battle 5 - Mission 2: Attack Imperial Convoy

tubaman21
Cadet 4th Class
Posts: 11
Joined: Sun Jun 28, 2020 2:36 pm

Post by tubaman21 » Sun Jul 05, 2020 6:22 am

I still want to to some more testing on this one, but it is giving me fits. I remember my squadron mates being pretty worthless in the original version, but it is even worse now. They are all getting destroyed by the Preybird fighters without taking any of them out. I'm working on the fighters and then I have 4 on me because the rest of the squad is gone and I don't last long. This is on easy. One time I was able to get the the T/Is with one wingman (who was quickly destroyed), but while trying to get the Ties off me, one of the others took out one of the transports. The mission was complete at that point, but with the loss of the transport, it changed to failed. I still want to try on medium difficulty. Has anyone else had any issues with this mission, or is it just me and my crappy joystick?
Last edited by Forceflow on Tue Nov 03, 2020 5:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Title Adjusted
~Bryan
Commander Tubaman
Maverick 2
Task Force Maverick
"We stand alone, together."

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Mark_Farlander
Rebel Alliance
Posts: 580
Joined: Tue Jan 16, 2018 10:47 pm

Post by Mark_Farlander » Sun Jul 05, 2020 11:51 am

Hello,
I've taken a look at the mission and there is a bug in the jump to order 3 in region 2 condition of the FG #2, which is Y-W Green 2 (your wingmen).
It is set to "100% of GU1 must defect" instead of "100% of GU2 must defect".
Also, the 2 "Escort (prevent boarding)" orders given to Y-W Green 2 are not assigned in a recommended way because they do not have order to escort a single craft FG.
An order rework for FG #2 (Y-W Green 2) is surely recommended, but you can give orders to your squadron through the Flight Commands menu to overwrite the default ones anyway.

Still, the biggest problem for "mission balancing" here is a completely different one.
As you probably know the AI level of Flight Groups not in player's team or allied to player's team gets increased by 1 level at Hard difficulty, and reduced by 1 level at Easy difficulty.
However, the AI level of the Flight Groups in a mission is an info that gets loaded when the mission is being loaded (you see the loading mission screen), and then it is not refreshed during the mission.
But what happens if a Flight Group has the "Defect" order? The answer of course is... nothing. The AI level stays as it was before.
So when the Preybird fighters of the Hurrim defect, they stay at Veteran AI, regardless of the difficulty level.
The good news are that the not-AI level-refreshing logic also applies to the Xiytiar Transports you have to disable, therefore this mission is easier when played at Hard difficulty because you have to prevent the destruction of 25% of GG2, which is the Toburik Haulers convoy, and as such you wish them to put as much resistance as they can against the Hurrim.

That said, there is another thing that really needs to be investigated in detail, and I think this should have priority over any other issues, and at the moment it looks very strange to me: if you attack the Hurrim too early you get Mission Outcome Failure, and of course if you attack them too late it is too late to save the convoy as well. Timing problem? Not properly.
As far as I know there are only 2 ways to set a condition to prevent: as a Global Goal or as a Flight Group Goal.
Here I don't find that the Hurrim (GG1 or GU2) must not be attacked in neither of those 2 ways.
Since an "event-triggered-removable condition to prevent" must have been set here to allow you to attack them afterwards, and you simply cannot set such a thing in X-Wing Alliance as far as I've discovered (perhaps my info are incomplete?) it is mandatory to set it as a "Message #N must be shown" condition to prevent.
Why? Because even if you cannot set a condition to remove a condition to prevent, you can still set a condition to cancel a message, and B0M5 (another mission where the "Defect" order appears) applies this logic.
In B5M2 I don't see this solution applied, and I don't even see any solution to this problem in general, but testing the mission I have to admit that it sometimes works anyway and you don't fail the mission when you attack the Hurrim, and it sometimes doesn't work.
I don't judge tactics. The Battle is the best and only Judge.

tubaman21
Cadet 4th Class
Posts: 11
Joined: Sun Jun 28, 2020 2:36 pm

Post by tubaman21 » Thu Jul 09, 2020 9:20 pm

I finally had a chance to try this again and was able to complete it on Medium difficulty. The remainder of my squad was still taken out, but they were at least able to disable 3-4 of the Preybird fighters before then.
~Bryan
Commander Tubaman
Maverick 2
Task Force Maverick
"We stand alone, together."

St@rkiller
Cadet 3rd Class
Posts: 39
Joined: Sun Mar 15, 2020 3:56 pm

Post by St@rkiller » Sun Apr 25, 2021 10:25 pm

Not sure why but I played this mission a few times and after all ships have been boarded, someone keeps attacking me with IO Cannons and disables me. I think it was my wingman because on the last try, i gave my sqdn the order to to rejoin formation and the attack stopped and was able to finish it.

Blazingfirestorm
Cadet 1st Class
Posts: 213
Joined: Sat Dec 09, 2017 9:39 pm

Post by Blazingfirestorm » Sun Apr 25, 2021 10:55 pm

Hey @Mark_Farlander your right about the jump to order being incorrect this is the same in the OG
1B5M2G.TIE
this file should fix it
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LPhoenix
Cadet 2nd Class
Posts: 57
Joined: Tue Sep 13, 2022 5:38 pm

Post by LPhoenix » Mon Nov 27, 2023 6:31 pm

In this mission I've found a few smaller issues, so here are my fixes

1B5M2G.TIE

Changes:
- Changed the first order of Y-W Green 2 from "Escort, Y-W Green 1 or Y-W Green 2" to "Escort, Y-W Green 1", this way they don't escort themselves and just fly in a straight line until they jump to a different order
- Added CN/H Quasar Storage to Global Unit 4 to give them proper numbering
- Added CN/C Greppem Freight to Global Unit 5 to give them proper numbering
- Renamed XIY/T "Tobuirk Haulers" ( typo ) to "Toburik Hauler" so all crafts in the convoy has the same name
- Removed the "Prevent GU Numbering" option from every craft named "Toburik Haulers" to give them proper numbering
- Added the Goal Complete text "LINER Suili: identified" to the Bonus goal of LINER Suili of "100% of Flight Group BONUS must be identified (250 points)
- Added the missing Bonus goal "100% of Flight Group BONUS must be inspected (25 points)" to FRT Toburik Haulers 3 and 4, so now all crafts of the convoy has the same Bonus goal
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LPhoenix
Cadet 2nd Class
Posts: 57
Joined: Tue Sep 13, 2022 5:38 pm

Post by LPhoenix » Fri Dec 01, 2023 4:47 pm

I did a few text changes on top of my previous changes, to make them nicer

1B5M2G.TIE

Changes:
- Primary Goals Completed message from "Capture Convoys' Cargo" to "Convoys' Cargo Captured"
- Primary Goals Failed message from "Capture Convoys' Cargo" to "Convoys' Cargo Not Captured"
- Prevent Goals Incompleted message from "Minimize the loss of civilain life" to "Loss of too many civilian life", it didn't make sense that you had to "prevent minimizing the loss of civilian life"
- Prevent Goals Completed message from "Minimize the loss of civilain life" to "Too high civilian casulties"
LPhoenix wrote:
Mon Nov 27, 2023 6:31 pm
- Changed the first order of Y-W Green 2 from "Escort, Y-W Green 1 or Y-W Green 2" to "Escort, Y-W Green 1", this way they don't escort themselves and just fly in a straight line until they jump to a different order
- Added CN/H Quasar Storage to Global Unit 4 to give them proper numbering
- Added CN/C Greppem Freight to Global Unit 5 to give them proper numbering
- Renamed XIY/T "Tobuirk Haulers" ( typo ) to "Toburik Hauler" so all crafts in the convoy has the same name
- Removed the "Prevent GU Numbering" option from every craft named "Toburik Haulers" to give them proper numbering
- Added the Goal Complete text "LINER Suili: identified" to the Bonus goal of LINER Suili of "100% of Flight Group BONUS must be identified (250 points)
- Added the missing Bonus goal "100% of Flight Group BONUS must be inspected (25 points)" to FRT Toburik Haulers 3 and 4, so now all crafts of the convoy has the same Bonus goal
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