Space Mission Difficulties

I just made it to level 40 and decided to do a little space combat the other night. I have never had a problem doing these missions. I have all of the latest upgrades, and buy the comm upgrades as soon as I can.

I tried doing one of the level 36 missions last night which was green for me in the quest log. The first one I tried (sorry I dont remember the names) was something like Pukani Defense. Its the one where you have to protect your space station from incoming bomber attacks. Anyway, I failed it at the last minute for some reason. The imperial ships did their hyperspace thing, and my time counter hit 0. Then I just get a failed mission for no reason.

I have also noticed that the difficulty is just over the top now. I would not have a problem with the difficulty if you were at least able to dodge some of the incoming blaster fire. It does not really matter what I do, I just cant dodge the blasts. I have tried moving around more, and doing barrel rolls, but there are times you just get bombarded with fire and there is nothing you can do to stop it. The blaster fire is on a magnet course to your ship, and will change directions to follow where you move to.

This makes me just not want to do these missions anymore, which sux because I liked them before. I thought they were fun and a nice way to make a decent chunk of creds. If Im going to waste 5 or more minutes of my life on these, knowing Im 90% guaranteed to fail....I just wont bother anymore.

This is why I wanted to preface my comments with a little background.

If the difficulty actually hasn't changed at all; then we can look into tips / tricks to improving the player's gameplay.
But I think we can reasonably conclude something is different; if some players are able to report issues such as:
-starting the mission late
-the mission advancing while still on loading screen
-being placed on the rail at some point into the mission already on a quick load
-being placed on an entirely different path on a mission we've repeated enough times to know the normal path.
-having the path 'offset' in one direction or another that would skew flyby times or windows of opportunity for firing at targets.

The next step should be to get more data; we know some things happen, but is it an intermittent bug that may be isolated to end user setups; or a more wide spread client problem.

Go forth and test!

Yeah, the difficultity has gone way up after patch. I wonder what %^&# thought it was a good idea to mess with one of the least used aspests of the game. I have never seen more than 3 players in "space" channel ever.

With the last patches bugs and the "unadvertised and unwanted" rakghoul plague effecting gameplay, I would not be surprised that the guys/gals that originally worked on the code is no longer working on this project and the "janitorial staff" aka management + interns are in control now. Too many bone-head decisions to think otherwise.

I can complete any of the space missions, that being said I have a complete set of the top of the line gear. Yesterday upon loading into ascendancy barrier I had no ui, and at the time didn't know how to fix it. I knocked out every mission including the bonuses with some hot shot flying and intelligent use of blasters/missiles. I could NOT use any of my other equipment but I was still capable of finishing the mission. There is a level of skills needed for these missions, and to me i'd love another 2 tiers of difficulty. All this being said I do feel like I'm being hit harder after 1.2 but it's nothing I can't handle.

Advice, get your gear and then run missions trying to avoid I ncomming fire as much as possible, run missions without firing a shot and see if you can survive. This will at least get you out of the, standing in fire, mindset. Secondly tr y only firing when you have a clear shot, this will optimize your shield regeneration.

On proton torpedoes, there is lag time after firing a torpedo so you can designate a shield generator to fire them at between reloads. Space missions are all about awareness even if they're on rails, and when you know the missions backwards and forwards you'll then realize they aren't so tough. If you have difficulties just try to. Utilize every part to it's maximum potential and you'll be fine.

Ditto. Add that it's a rail-shooter, and there's not much fun in trying to punch through enemy shields while seeing your own shields and armor shredded on a path you can't leave. Will wait out to see if they improve it.

I think the one I played was rogue leader for the gamecube(correct me if I am wrong). Now that game was difficult, but it was the kind of difficulty that a gamer respects. It was not random deaths at all, it required a lot of skill. It also felt more balanced so you were more prepared for the difficulty spike.

Those all are related to loading problem. It was there since launch, getting fixed for a while(where tou started always at begining, no matter loading time), then messed up again. This however, is easly 'fixed' or 'avoided' by quickly dying and restarting mission(that is, if you do need that lost time)

Nope.

All still easy.

Ok, I have recently resubscribed because I wanted to give 1.2 a whirl.

I have been a proponent of a more challenging and deep space combat system, but I still played the heck out of the space missions because they were generally a good way to augment experience while leveling. I see a lot of misinformation in this thread about what you NEED to complete space missions (on any difficulty); but as my experience was with the missions before 1.2, I am also curious if there were any actual changes to the difficulty.

Someone mentioned in this thread that you sometimes start on a different "rail" than normal. Is this true? Is this intended? Is this a bug?

Was there any mention in any patch notes about changes to Space Combat at all? (I can't be bothered to rifle through the notes, because I am sure there are people who pay more attention than I do).

Unless there really are changes to the hitpoints of enemies, or to the damage your ships can sustain/dish out, then I disagree with most of the people in this thread stating you "NEED" lvl6 purple upgrades. I also disagree that you "NEED" the EMP upgrade. I am not sure I have even purchased, let alone equiped, the EMP on any of my characters, and I have completed all levels and (pretty sure) all bonuses. In most levels, it is entirely possible to acheive the minimum mission objectives entirely with lasers. Takes some practice and memorization but it is possible.

That is not to say that the items don't help, but they certainly arent required.

I am still very curious if the "rail" has been changed on some maps. With the way the levels have you "bearly" missing asteroids and ships, I can't immagine any change to the rail being intentional, and that could very well contribute to the "increased difficulty".

when you get in the thick of things in space combat barrel roll like crazy trying to avoid fire while moving side to side. when the combat lightens up a little switch to defensive shield and regen the shield back. get used to doing this a lot,then back to offensive. also find the best place you use your " explode everything around you " ability for example on ascendancy barrier the best place to use that is in the second set mine field just as you turn to the left. that area you fly in and out for the next 2 minutes. makes it much easier when there inst any mines. also in that space mission you will get to use that ability again just before the final ship.
clouds of vorondoo is still bugged if you have proton torpedoes equipped don't forget to take off the torpedo before you go into combat. the space missions become trivial once you know where the fighters and such come from.
keep at it , i still love this part of the game