Lady's and Gentlemen, on 4-28-04, I performed a miracle. I completed On Thin Ice with the 1.3 patch - on hard difficulty. What's the catch? I didn't have to deploy my recycler to do it. I sucessfully completed this mission with the turret, the recycler, and the transport still intact.
HERE'S HOW I DID IT!
1) Annihilate your dropship with a satchel charge ASAP. Switch your tank with the scout - you need speed, not firepower. And that tank will come in handy later.
2) Locate your recycler. Becuase you destroyed your dropship with a satchel, no one will try to locate your recycler until your bring it to the center of the ice maze. Lucky for you, that comes MUCH later. First thing: Get the tank, turret, and recycler down to the first turn of the maze. (it should be left of where you entered to find it. Why? If you don't, it will get attacked by an ice rhino OR something else. As long as you move it to the first turn, it will be fine and no scions will discover it.)
3) Now that your three squadmates are out of harms way, fly your scout out of the maze towards the first nav point. Remember: from here on out, you're alone. Now it's time to go on a snipe-o-rama! :cool: Turn left and snipe both of the gun turrets infront of you. They will both be replaced eventually, but you only need to get past them this time. (Plan to come back here to pick one of them up later, so you may want to undeploy one of them so it's good to go.) Fly past the first hill (go between the turrets, not around them) and fly over the second hill/mountain. Park your scout somewhere near the entrance of the second hill so you can get it later, but don't leave it on the ground. (It has to be on top of the hill or else the scions you will piss off will probobly destroy it.) Save.
4) Backtrack to the sniped turrets. If your fast enough, you won't have to deal with the scion turret's replacements, but if you snipe them before they deploy they won't become invunerable to your rifle. Grab one of the empty turrets and fly it past your scout. More snipe-o-rama. :cool: On the left side of the hill / mountain, you will eventually see the scion forge in the distance. (you should see the right side of it.) park your turret near the side entrance so you can get in it fast. DON'T MISS A SINGLE SHOT! make them all count or your up a creek. on foot, run down the hill and start sniping the vehicles around the forge. The last thing it will build before your job here is complete will be a scion rocket tank. You can only snipe about 3-4 scion tanks from this site: I don't know why you can't hit some of them, but once you have taken out the one's you can snipe (The rocket tank IS one of them you can hit.) get into your turret and continue to fly down the mountains until two advanced extracters are infront of you. Sometimes you will see two scion scouts flying around the hill behind them: don't worry about them - avoid them when your can, as you can't really fight them off with a turret, and your not supposed to alert the forge scions to your position yet. (This is something odd I have discovered: If they are flying around, leap out of your turret, plant a single charge on each extractor, and back away. The scouts will detect the satchels and will try to burn them off with their plasma streamers! :-) saddly, they are horribly innacurate, and when the satchel detonates, it takes both of them with it :D ! hillerious.) After you have satcheled both extractors, finish them off with the turret's cannons. The satchels will drop their health to vertually nothing - one ion gun mk2 shot will destroy them. Save. REMEMBER: NEVER GET CAUGHT OUT OF A TANK WHEN A SATCHEL IS GOING TO GO OFF :shock: ! it will shock and amaze you how far those little suckers can kill you if your on foot.
5)Now things get more interesting. Fly up the hill on the RIGHT side of the hill or else a nasty gun tower will annihilate your scion turret. If you didn't fight those two scouts, and if they are still paciently camping near the last extractor, you can snipe both of them. Trust me: you will need almost every scion vehicle you can get your hands on to complete this one. Now before you go down the hill to whack the last extractor, start sniping the last few tanks around the forge. You can bag a few more of them from this hill, but there will still be one or two you will have to fight, or trick. Snipe who you can, save, and fly down the hill. Satchel the extracter once, and whilest waiting for it to detonate, sneak around the side of the extractor and bag those few extra-stubborn scion tanks that refuse to die (Keep an eye on the timer though...) now things get tricky again: as soon as you destroy the scion base's last extractor, one of two things might happen: either your turret will be blown up by that gun tower I said to avoid earlier, or the remaining forge tanks will deside to grow some balls and will start shooting at you. My preferance is to have the forge tanks come after me. As soon as your turret is gone, be sure you land on top of the hill closest to the last extractor. On hard difficulty, and with 1.3, the scions will know you are up there. As long as you can snipe better than you can fly without wings, this is a cake walk: bag the tanks below you with your sniper rifle :evil: and finish the ones that refuse to die quick deaths. When your done here, save again.
6) first: it doesn't really matter what you charge the scion's with first, so long is it's healthy and fast :) . Expect to learn a new respect for the scion gun towers after this one. Fly towards the scion comm bunker and as quickly as possible, swoop around it to the left and plant a satchel on the gun tower. (get it on the base or inside - if it's on the ground, the lightening turret will destroy the satchel before it can detonate.) It takes one satchel to destroy a lightening turret's lung, and drop it's health to 1/5th of it's max :twisted: . Finish that pesky gun tower off before it can repair it's lung, and your job becomes alittle easyer. Now you can fly around the forge with little harrasment from the gun towers nearby. It takes two satchel charges to destroy the forge, and be sure to bag a builder who usually hangs out around the forge's entrances. When the forge goes boom, fly back to the hill where "hopefully" you have a nice little depot of sniped scion vehicles waiting for a new owner. Replace your tank if nessesary, and get ready for the next important target the scions will use against you - the scion recycler. There are about two or three gun towers that will annoy the hell out of you when you try to satchel that thing to kingdom come. Eliminate any gun towers (useing the charge - at - the -base and satchel the lung method) that will try to frag you as you charge at the recycler. Once you've cleared a path, or if you can find a blind spot in the turret's field of view, get ready to plant not one, not two, but :evil: !THREE! :twisted: stachels to destroy that annoying building. As soon as you blow up the forge, the three extractors, the builder, and the recycler, your job is done and you can continue to step 7, or you can continue to obliterate the remaining scion buildings if they piss you off that much :twisted: .
7) Somehow, make your way back to your faithfull scout waiting on the hill. Expect two new scion turrets waiting to say hello. Fly past them or snipe them, it's your choice. Get back to your recycler. Switch your scout with your tank and start guiding the recycler across the ice, becuase now you need firepower. When it gets to the center, you will be attacked by a warrior and a sentry. Get rid of them and continue to guide the recycler to the nav point. You might be attacked again by two sentry's when your recycler is near the nav, so expect another easy skirmish. Once your at the nav point, fly ahead alone to where the two gun turrets are waiting for you. Pay attention to your radar and you will knowtice three new things hiding behind a hill waiting to ambush you - two sentrys and a warrior. Snipe them all and try this: move the three scion vehicles into a line so they block / slow the turret reinforcements when you snipe the two waiting for you. It actaully works 8) . save.
8) examine Shabiev's drop ship when your order menu tells you to and start ordering your recycler towards the second nav point. Snipe or moartar the two turrets that will start shooting at you, and whilest your recycler's driver discovers his shoes are made of lead, two more sentry's will spontainously appear in the direction of the useless scion base. After these two sentrys are gone, YOUR DONE WITH THE SKIRMISHES :-D ! Now you just have to move your recycler to the second nav point. there are four scion turrets arround the dust off sight: ready for some more good news? You can snipe them all. Once you've sniped all four, the pilots will accept this as killing them and will procede to land. Congradulations, you just beat On Thin Ice without deploying your recycler! :D
Why on earth is this on the beta board?
Because he did it in 1.3? Because Thin Ice has been complained about a lot after 1.3? Hmmm...
I thought it a pretty funny write-up, and a good example of how difficult it is to anticipate every type of player when making a good SP mission...
:)
-Av-
Snipe-a-thons work in almost every single player mission, and giving a battle report of a single player mission in which no bugs occured seems a bit wierd for a beta board report to me. Still, that's just my opinion, it's not like it *bothered* me or anything, just seemed more like main-board material to me.
I don't find OTI all that hard before or after 1.3, but I know Nathan specifically changed the mission in response to posts like this. The original intent wasn't to make an Uber mission, but changes to the idle dispatcher made the AI overwhelm some players.
I think at this point in the SP missions it's good to be overwhelmed...
:)
-Av-
im sorry but thats just gay / for a good laugh after u realy beaten that mission
better off to finish it with bzwinner if u wanna play that way
Personally I think that's an ingenious way of beating that level. Its pretty kewl in my book and I give you a (http://www.bac-clan.com/ubb/noncgi/graemlins/happy_thumbsup1.gif)
Heh, I didn't know anyone liked satcheling the scion base too, I always did that for fun. :P
Quote from: PhoeniX-FlamEim sorry but thats just gay / for a good laugh after u realy beaten that mission
better off to finish it with bzwinner if u wanna play that way
Awe, did poor phoneix get owned by the big nasty scion swarms :? ? Dude, go get some skill and try what I did. You can beat this one without cheating exactly like what is explained above. PS: Atleast TRY my strategy before you flame it. You might be surprised by the results. :P
QuoteAwe, did poor phoneix get owned by the big nasty scion swarms ? Dude, go get some skill and try what I did
Excuse me? Who are you to be so rude to PF? Esp if its over something as small as the way a single player mission is completed.
Not to mention that PF has completed the mission already, like others that go here...
LOL
u talking to me about skills??
sniping a AI to finish a mission??
wanna check how much skills do u realy have in a human vs human game??
be a man take the scion swarms on head to head.
What's so wrong with finding *OTHER* alternatives to beating a mission *AND* not breaking the mission script? You guys should already know about playing the game outside of its intended purposes. Hmmm, hovering ring a bell? :?
Jeesh i cant remember that one it was 4 years ago. :s
Remember people some others have only just got this game and havnt realised how long ago it was released, It's good to see that it still excites people though.
PF it isnt always wise to play Nasy style v newer players in strats, not unless youre gona coach them some, U will only put future strat guys off and they may never come back and the more the merrier i say.
I never did that mission the Reno way, but I must admit it
intrigues me. I shall give it a go once the next 1.3 public is
out.
I always thought the enemy starting guardians should NOT be
snipeable, except for the 'rumble in the jungle' one near
Shabayef's ruin hideout.
I tend to 'uncheat' the single player missions by regarding
them as unsnipeable, and hills as BIG hills, and enemy Rec
as taboo even when easily killable from my ship.
On thin ice still suffers (no matter how hard the starting rush is)
from the mission anticlimax problem, in that it starts HARD and
moves to EASY really quickly.
Mabey we should remake the entire single player so that its alot harder (like..FE style)...
But make it so that if you chose 'easy' setting the damage your weapons does to their ships is more conisderable to what it is now.
That way the current vets can enjoy a single player challenge (i did not really have any challenege even on hard in 1.3 for the entire single player campaine) and if the newer players set it on 'easy' then they can play it though once, and then ask for help etc etc.
Bascially...make 'medium' *alot* harder...and make the affect of selecting 'easy' bigger.
i just think its preaty lame to snipe AI, because they cant do hoot about it...
and they werent ment to be snipeable (the gurdiens)
fried, i dont mind playing nasty against some1 with no skills (exept sniping maybe[lol] ) thats telling me i got no skills...
I always had an idea that the pilot sniper gun shouldnt reload, such as the satchel charge or the grenade things. it would make the game so much more intersting with only limited sniper abilities.