Anyone else find the "444" mission ridiculous?

[Phileosophos]

I think it's the fifth mission of the campaign, and I think it's called "444". It's the first one in which SPOILER ALERT! you're a convicted bad guy and you're sent up with the rest of the scoundrels. You're supposed to shoot down bombers.

My beef with the mission is two-fold. First, I'm under CONSTANT missile lock from start to finish. And I mean START TO FINISH. Like, I've just taken off from the air field, there are no bad guys around yet, and I am under constant missile lock and having to dodge to avoid getting blown out of the sky. How does that make ANY sense when there are no enemies in the area and all the friendlies are weapons disabled?!

Second, no matter how fast I take down the bombers, despite constantly dodging like a ♥♥♥♥ing mad weevil rolling himself sick, I get a "mission failed" message a few minutes into the mission. Nothing seems to make any difference, so I'm obviously missing something.

Thoughts?

[Useless Bunny]

It's impossible to be locked on as soon as you take off, stop exaggerating. Yeah, you must be missing the bombers bombing the airfield, go watch a video of someone clearing the mission and compare with your own performance.

[Phileosophos]

Ursprungligen skrivet av BEEP BEEP BEEP MISSILE ALERT:

It's impossible to be locked on as soon as you take off, stop exaggerating. Yeah, you must be missing the bombers bombing the airfield, go watch a video of someone clearing the mission and compare with your own performance.

I'm not exaggerating at all. Once I take off and get the "altitude restrictions lifted" message, I am locked onto and have missiles coming at me non-stop the entire time all the "humorous banter" is taking place with my fellow convicts. I'm not making a thing up. It makes no sense. That's why I'm posting.

[SleepyKitti ❤]

And where are the missiles coming from? I have never had this problem. Try to stay away from all airplanes especially don't let them fly behind you.

[SleepyKitti ❤]

In the 1st phase of the mission, weapons are disabled. So you have to defend yourself. Enemy jets might be flying all over the airport, it's normal. But I almost only played on Ace difficulty. I never got shot down. The bombers are pretty nonsense. You have to take them down quickly ideally before the other enemies. You are not alone on that mission. Your team helps too (not much :)). If I could do the mission with using only guns, you can do it too!

[normalredux]

If you have trouble shooting down the bombers, try using the MiG-21 with gun pods.
They absolutely shred big targets.

[Useless Bunny]

Ursprungligen skrivet av {O|G}Phileosophos:

Ursprungligen skrivet av BEEP BEEP BEEP MISSILE ALERT:

It's impossible to be locked on as soon as you take off, stop exaggerating. Yeah, you must be missing the bombers bombing the airfield, go watch a video of someone clearing the mission and compare with your own performance.

I'm not exaggerating at all. Once I take off and get the "altitude restrictions lifted" message, I am locked onto and have missiles coming at me non-stop the entire time all the "humorous banter" is taking place with my fellow convicts. I'm not making a thing up. It makes no sense. That's why I'm posting.

Our games must be different versions then.

[Jonathan J. O'Neill]

There's about a dozen planes in the sky and at least two will chase you after taking off.

Dodge them while getting in position to take some out after your weapons are unlocked by Bandog. Once you're weapons free, you just have to take out the bombers (seven groups IIRC). If you want time to take out the fighters, kill all but one bomber. You won't lose if one bomber drops on the airfield as I've had it drop and heard radio chatter talking about it.

[RAWRmonger]

Just my 2 cents:
- 5th mission
- 444 (3 fours)
- 3^2 + 4^2 = 5^2
IDK if there's any actual symbolism, but this is the numerology that occurs in my mind.

[iamzeroedin]

Missile Missile Missile Missile.

I actually turned off the volume, I couldn't take it anymore. Also, why does this game pick and choose what you can and cannot lock on to? I'll be directly behind an enemy aircraft and my missiles will not lock on.

[Phileosophos]

Ursprungligen skrivet av iamzeroedin:

Missile Missile Missile Missile.

I actually turned off the volume, I couldn't take it anymore. Also, why does this game pick and choose what you can and cannot lock on to? I'll be directly behind an enemy aircraft and my missiles will not lock on.

Yeah, that's pretty much what I was hearing the entire time. I haven't had trouble locking on, though, not after hitting the 'Y' button on my controller to switch targets anyway. I'll try again when I get the chance. So far I can't even focus on the bombers because I'm constantly dodging missiles to the point where I can't get to them in time. But I'll give it a couple of days and another go.

[Phileosophos]

And now I can't take off at all. This is so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ weird. I came back to the game tonight, and now every time I try to start the fifth mission, I can't take off. I hold down the right trigger on my controller so the throttle is full on, and I get to 300 MPH or KPH or whatever it is, but I never lift off from the runway. No matter what I do with any of the other controls, now I can't take off on this mission. What the ♥♥♥♥ is wrong with this game?!

[Phileosophos]

Wow. A single reboot later and the can't-take-off problem is gone. Once I chose the F-14D I unlocked and configured it with the long-range missiles (LAAM), the mission goes from impossible to a complete cake walk. Even though I can hear nothing but "Missile! Missile! Missile!" throughout the whole mission, the LAAMs mean I can just line up all the bombers before they get anywhere near the runway. I don't understand the weird can't-take-off issue I saw tonight--a once-in-a-lifetime oddness--but with different weapons the mission is nothing. I'm not sure whether I should be happy or disappointed. Sheesh.

[Jonathan J. O'Neill]

Do you have a HOTAS and/or other controller plugged in that may be competing with input?

As for the missile warning, I don't hear it much. However, I also have all three of my volume sliders at about 25% as well as the AC7 instance at about 25% in the Windows audio volume mixer.

I can hear the rest of the game fine but I don't hear the missile warning unless I really strain to hear it.

[Sahasrara00]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Jonathan J. O'Neill:

...I don't hear the missile warning unless I really strain to hear it.

I can hear missile warning everytime where there's enemy planes and i fly the fighter jet like i'd fly a Boeing 747...

[Mad Scientist]

If you're using Logitech, run the program as Administrator; problem solves itself when just launching the software from the taskbar, let alone a clean launch as admin. I only had the "couldnt takeoff" problem when it was minimized in the tray; opening it making it load the configuration did it. If you're using something else; apply the same logic.

Anyway, this is one of the easiest missions ever, haven't had this problem whatsoever in regard to locks let alone constant locks or locks supposedly on takeoff.

Honestly most problems with games are usually due to lack of user knowledge; you're on a PC, expect to troubleshoot and have the knowledge to troubleshoot things, it's not a console. There's so many configurations of hardware/software that can cause issues, so you should sit down, dont angrily type, dont lose your temper; troubleshoot and fix the issue. It's an easy game for just about anyone that's played one of these games before.