So Mission 16 is apparently impossible in the remastered edition... [Solution found]

[Haplo]

EDIT:
So I have now completed the mission and no longer need advice. If you are curious as to what the problem was as well as the solution, just go through the thread, I explain it further down.

Original:
I can't believe this.
I spent hours on mission 14 salvaging every single ion cannon frigate, destroyer and heavy cruiser on the map, just as I did years ago in the original game. I even encountered a bug in mission 15 that gave me the option to jump to the next mission without having destroyed the asteroid or losing a single ship in battle.
I have 157 frigates in total, 17 destroyers, 3 heavy cruisers and a full compliment of bombers and multi-gun corvettes backed up by repair corvettes and support frigates. I have used every conceivable tactic, but I lose everytime.

Here's what happens:
I have two major strike groups with half of all my capital ships and frigates in each. But instead of jumping into the map with my mothership, they jump far above and to the side of it. This wouldn't ordinarily be a problem, but since my mothership is flanked on the bottem by about 40 enemy ion cannon frigates, the time it takes me to bring every single capital ship, frigate, bomber and corvette to bear is too long and I lose my mothership time and time again.
I can't repair the mothership fast enough as only about a half a dozen of my repair vessels are allowed to repair it, and the ion cannon frigates drain its health to quickly.
In the event that I miraculusly destroy the frigates below my Mothership, a new fleet has materialised in front of me, also completely ignoring the rest of my fleet and exclusively targeting my mothership.

I have no idea how to win this mission, and I feel like I've already gone above and beyond what could reasonably be expected of the player to do in this scenario.

Has any of you been able to complete this mission?
I don't remember it being even remotely as hard in the original game.

[wraith_unleashed]

isn't there a way to manual dock some ships on mother ship just to hold on until your fleet reaches the mothership ?.. just a thought

[Haplo]

I've tried separating all my bombers into three different strike groups and docking them on each of my three carriers just to reduce the time it takes them to launch, but 70 bombers are not enough to engage the enemy frigates and the rest of my fleet is still too far away to stop the frigates below AND the frigates further ahead.

I'm pretty sure the reason that this mission is so much harder in the remastered edition, is because the game doesn't understand formations like it used to. I think I'll try one final time with a wall formation, maybe that will allow the ships to start the mission closer to my mothership, but I have to use some formation, since otherwise it will just start the mission with a 10km long line of frigates to the left of my mothership.

[Vicid]

It seems that the game scales based on the number of ships you have

[Monarch Black]

I haven't finished 16 on the remastered, as I've been playing more skirmishes and PVP. I'm not in a rush to get through the story, just been doing a mission or two a day. One of my friends on here has finished it. Obviously not impossible.

[JenoLT]

I finished number 16 today.
Important part: there IS some autoscaling involved, which can break the game when the enemy targets specific things, like in this case your mothership.

I jumped in with 19/21 frigates, 6/6 destroyers and 3/2 battlecruisers, and it was perfectly fine for me.
Maybe load up a save of 15, dismantle your fleed down to a normal maximum (sorry for the time it took you to get all those frigates, but this is how it is) and then have a "normal" go at that mission.

I think the autoscaling isn't actually a bad thing in this game, but it can cause problems with specific focus fire with enormous fleet sizes. Dunno what they should do about that though.

[Haplo]

Originally posted by Vicid:

It seems that the game scales based on the number of ships you have

That's... insane? So being less thorough is more effective?

[The Commander]

Originally posted by Vicid:

It seems that the game scales based on the number of ships you have

This and the money you have.

[JenoLT]

Originally posted by |UDG| The Commander:

Originally posted by Vicid:

It seems that the game scales based on the number of ships you have

This and the money you have.

Can't be a big part. I was playing most of the game with 60k+ Ru and normal fleet sizes and didn't have many obstacles to overcome.

[Aori]

I didn't have many issues with a normal fleet either.

[K▲IYOTE]

Originally posted by Haplo:

Originally posted by Vicid:

It seems that the game scales based on the number of ships you have

That's... insane? So being less thorough is more effective?

No, being less thorough with captures is just as effective.

Your ships spawning far away is certainly a bug, I recommend going ahead and retiring a large portion of your ship in the previous mission before hyperspacing so that you get less of an opfor right off the bat.

[Haplo]

Okay, so I've figured out how to make this work with a fleet of my size, but it wasn't easy. Apparently dividing the fleet into 4 different strike groups made them jump into the next mission in a formation that adequately surrounded the mothership. It was a legendarily tough fight, but it worked out in the end.
Thanks for the help.

[Pinard]

I could've swore the original game didn't let you salavage past the cap, or a certain point past the cap. This game seems to have a limitless amount of salavage available.

[Zekail]

Ive completed both remasted campaigns now, and on HW 1:R I captured pretty much every ship I could get my hands on. however I noticed early on that when jumping into the next mission the captured ships would sometimes be in weird places so I started retiring the more useless stuff like ion arrays and fuel pods and the few oddball corvets/frigates and by the time I was at the end the bug seemed to have worked itself out and my ships were in proper placement.

Mission 16 was a bit tough tho just because of the scalling, but after my first loss I sent my salvagers out to quickly grab the more dangerous ships and remove them from combat and had my support friggates/corvets repaired my mothership while the rest of my fleet dispatched the enemy.

[Alcator]

Originally posted by Pinard:

I could've swore the original game didn't let you salavage past the cap, or a certain point past the cap. This game seems to have a limitless amount of salavage available.

Incorrect. That was in HW2. In HW1, salvaging was the "correct" way to get past the ship caps.

@OP: That being sad, 150+ frigates??? WHAT FOR???

I mean, you are obviously making the game needleslly difficult for yourself by munchkining.

[DarSin]

If you used gravity wells it would have been GG.