Topic: SFC1 racing with the asteroids

[Robsoie]

Hello,

I was going through some of my older games and re-installed SFC1 that i didn't played with in years.

At first i was very positively surprised how good it is, especially after SFC3 that unfortunately bored me each time i attempted to get inside of it again.

But that's not the problem, as SFC1 was working differently in term of gameplay (in a better way) than SFC3 , after selecting the Federations, instead of starting the campaign as soon as possible, i went to the Academy menu, in which you had all the tutorials with Sulu, as i wanted to get used again to energy management that is so lacking in SFC3.

But what i didn't remembered is that in the Academy, along the tutorials, you have those nice challenges "Frigate technical", "light cruiser technical" etc... that usually require you to complete an objective in a limited time then put you trhough infinite respawn of enemy ship with you trying to destroy as much as possible before dying, this allow you to earn some medals.

The problem i have is with the "Heavy Cruiser technical" challenge, in which basically you are racing against another heavy cruiser in an asteroid field.

You need to approach each asteroid/waypoint at a distance that is less than 4.
Unfortunately most of those asteroid/waypoints are in cloud fields so you can't always just fly straight at full speed.

An advantage for you as the player is that in term of max speed (when not having any damage or using shields) is that in this challenge you can go faster than the AI. But the difference of max speed is small.

The -very big-  problem now is that your AI opponent do not have to approach the asteroid at all and so do not have to enter any cloud field, it can just race to the finishing line without having to move near any of those forced waypoints.

So it means the opponent will not have to enter any of those cloud field that damage or even destroy you (if you have no shield raised) if you go too fast.

Raising the shields force you to go slower anyways due to energy, and even at your full (lower than with shield disabled) speed , the damage in cloud field is enough to slowly damage your ship, not to the point of destruction, but to the point of ruining a lot your full speed, nullifying then the small advantage you had to your opponent.

Slowing down to avoid damage is a lost cause unfortunately, as the opponent will then be able to move quicker than you in such case and without having to go for each asteroid waypoint, you will never get ahead after reaching the final waypoint as the AI will be so far ahead that you will never come back.

I tried some alternatives, trying to conserve as much full speed as i could, the best i found was to actually raising only the front shield and reinforcing it so it would leave more energy to speed while resisting a bit better the cloud field.

But after the 3rd cloud field , the shield was crippled by the various impacts and so max speed became ruined by the damage, then the opponent got ahead and with the damage lowering your max speed that much, coming back is then impossible.

Really annoyed by this mission design, i decided to do a Kirk's Kobayashi Maru, cheating with what the program made me start with : i enabled the tractor beam and captured my opponent at the start.
While his engine power was giving me difficulties to fly where i wanted, i managed to launch it into the first asteroid/waypoint...

Collision it survived by just going through the asteroid, huh ?
Fortunately the lack of collision was just visual, as i noticed its hull going down a lot and several of the ship component destroyed.

Not letting things like this i captured it again and pulled it to the next asteroid/waypoint (it had too much engine power to enable me to tractor it again on the same asteroid).
This time again, it simply went through the asteroid, but again damage were dealt, the hull went down down down into nothingness.

So it was floating there, destroyed from what i saw of its hull value, but visually without any scratch.

I released the beam to see if it was really as dead as it seemed, and it was not moving at all, so satisfied by this situation  i went back to the 1st asteroid/waypoint to continue the race (as mysteriously while i was tractoring the opponent ship, the game refused to acknowledge that i was going near enough those waypoints).

Once the waypoint reached, i turned to the next waypoint... just to see that the opponent was not there anymore, it was going at full speed to the finishing line.
...

Well, as i assume there must be some SFC1 veterans remaining here, anyone could help me with providing a working startegy to finish that heavy cruiser technical challenge ?

[Robsoie]

Replying to myself in case it helps anyone diving again into SFC1 and that could face the same problem :

It was in fact a bug, my idea was the good (but cheaty) one, as trying it again i smashed the AI opponent to an asteroid as previously, but this time its ship did not move through the asteroid like if it was a ghost, there was the sound and visual... followed by its explosion and the technical director apparently congratulating me for it.

To avoid any buggy or nasty surprise after that, i finished the race alone but at slow speed.

[Nemesis]

If I recall correctly I used T-Bombs both to damage and slow down the opposition.

One question; how are you raising your shields?  If you are doing so by going to red alert you are wasting too much power.  Either raise them directly or by going to yellow alert.

[Robsoie]

I only used yellow alert, as red by powering weaponry indeed takes too much energy that i want in max speed while keeping shield .

On my numerous previous attempts, i tried to simply teleport mines ahead of the racing opponent, but while it slows it down a bit he regain his speed too quickly,

So far throwing the opponent into an asteroid with the tractor beam seems to be the best and most reliable solution that i found to secure everytime a victory in this challenge.

Now that i have cleared every training missions and every technical challenges, i have started to play again that good old campaign in federation side, and like in my memory it is always really good with a strong diversity of missions.

[rpetiger]

I dont have SFC1, but I have used a trick in SFC2 when I have needed to stay with another ship. First hit it with the tractor beam, and slowly raise beam power to 5. If you can maintain the beam at that strength, its unlikely he will break away, making the race easy.

In my case, it was I had to keep close to a freighter to avoid mines, so I just tractored it and forced the ship to stay close.

Shieldwise, if you dont have enough normal shield power to plow through a dust cloud, raise only the forward shield manually, and reinforce it as much as possible.

[ealirendur]

I've done the same lately - loading up SFC1, and I'm actually working on the Fed technical missions at the moment (I'm trying to post ridiculous scores to grab a Legendary Helm officer early - may be a stupid goal, but it was within reach when I randomly got Orions as enemies in the Light Cruiser, that is, until the ludicrously long game crashed out after my NCL had blown away around 40 pirates several hours in - the perils of laptop play).

Anyways, I got through the Heavy challenge without too much dirty trickery - Went to Red Alert, Paused, offlined all weaponry, lower all but front shield except when nearing dust clouds, Speed to 31, Go.  I then trickle charged up the phaser banks, I think. He sits dead on speed 27 the whole time.

 I had exactly the same experience as you until picking the max range point from the Asteroids, since you can just avoid it - I used the Grid and the F1 view as an aid. There's still a dust cloud across one whole stretch - the AI's path is pretty optimal, so I used it; he does seem to take shield damage when he should.   It's a little rude that he immediately gets to shoot you in the stern passage at the finish line (I confess to a total lack of surprise), so I introduced him to the nearest asteroid.

Oddly enough, I called my saved game for this Kobayashi Maru, and had dark thoughts about editing ship lists/scripts at one point ;-)