Is it just me or is this the most difficult game on normal difficulty you've ever played? Why does no one else talk about it or do I just suck? I have never dropped down to easy, or it has been so many years I've forgot, I would never dishonour myself and my family name in that fashion but goddamn has this game brought me damn close.

Pretty sure it was just FS2 I played many years ago (there's a fog mission with no radar/tracking where you stumble upon a cruiser that sticks with me) and it was nowhere near the same league of difficulty as this and just plain fun. And I am not whining for whining's sake, I am now half way through the second expansion but there has been a lot more than one mission I've retried at least 10 times to finish, it has been a monumentous struggle getting here.

I have no problem dogfighting, I would consider myself well above average in FPS and I can solo dragons with primaries only (if that is a standard for dogfighting, I don't know). Freespace is more than that though, to me it feels like success is 49% preplanning, 49% in game wing management and 2% your skills as a pilot.

I feel like I am way beyond that level though, I have foregone tactics by this point that makes sense and just use anything that works ( forgoing bombers and taking out a destroyer with a "solo" heavy fighter for instance). But now I am in a mission that required me to take out 4 cruisers inside 5 minutes (Hellfire, in the Silent Threat Reborn expansion), and I am fucking stuck, like way above 20 repeat tries stuck.

I can go full subsystem damage (on disabling engines) or full plain damage with me as solo support to take out fighters and no chance before Hellfire 1 escapes (I have taken out the Cain class cruisers by this point). I am talking about 3 wings (with my solo fighter, + delta wing) of bombers either maxed out for subsystem damage with stilettos or armor damage with PhoenixTtsunamis barely able to dent the Hellfire 1 before it gets away.

Its not just this mission though, there are so many times in the past I have felt this close to giving up, The lack of insane playthroughs for this mission on Youtube feels like its somehwat telling, in fact the only one o Youtube looks like its on easy considering cruisers are not disabled (never mind destroyed like the videos show) this fast. Yet no one posts about this game being difficult, I feels like I am in this parallel universe where everyone thinks this game is no sweat but is unable to demonstrate it.

I hate Freespace so much yet love it a the same time because I know at least a few people beat it on insane for them to create all these campaigns. Yet the walkthroughs on the wiki barely contain enough tactics to beat it on easy and half the time are downright inferior to what I came up with. I honestly feel like I'm playing a totally different (and ridiculously difficult) game compared to everyone else.

It's been a while since I played Freespace but I do remember in the original campaign, there was one rage inducing mission but I forgot which one it was. The rest of the game I didn't have a big problem with, even the last mission.

There where 2 missions in Silent Threat that got to me though. One was an escort mission and some bombers jumped in like over 10000m behind the convoy. Because they were so far away, I just let them be but then I found out not taking them out causes the games scripts to stall. The convoy won't jump out because those bombers were still there. However, that mission was more of an annoyance but it did break immersion.

The real kicker was the last mission of SIlent Threat. Seriously, the only way to finish that mission is to use some serious cheese. Not sure if you're there yet so I won't say anymore.

Still, other than those, I never really had any serious problems with the game.

Well I am now more than half way through Freespace 2 and Medium Difficulty has been easier than Easy Difficulty in Freespace (I ended up finishing STR in Easy from the Hellfire mission onwards and there were still a few hairy moments). In a lot of missions I don't even bother optimising loadouts just to keep it interesting, there is something seriously out of balance with the ported version I have, the difference should not be this extreme so I'm pretty confident now that it's not just me.

Keep in mind that a lot of the extra OpenFreespace missions are designed by people who played this game to death and usually design those missions to challenge themselves which may be a bit too much for a newcomer.

People can play this game above 'easy' level???

Even as a veteran of X2 and X3 if i dare to try normal difficulty in Freespace all that happens is my ship explodes about 3 seconds after commencing combat each and every time, i mean, it is not even a matter of being 'harder' because harder suggests there is something i am doing that is hard, but exploding is not really that hard at all and there is no option available for avoiding exploding....so yea, normal difficulty is real easy!

It''s not just you; FS2's missions vary quite wildly in difficulty.

Generally it's okay, with some missions being good, some being ridiculously easy, and other being rage-inducingly unfair.

(Pretty much anything with mass bomb-spamming Seraphim bombers and Dragons).

Fortunately you can skip missions if you fail them enough times!

It was one of things I like more in TIE Fighter - They had the balance down perfect in that!

Interesting tidbit: I found some missions were *EASIER* on higher difficulties as the difficulty blobs mostly control AI behaviour and, for some bizzare reason, very easy makes the enemy AND friendly AI's dumb as bricks, while going the other way makes them both sharp-shooting death machines!

(They maaay have fixed this in a later SCP tho', I forget!)

god this makes me feel better.
at first I thought the reason for my suckiness is that this is my first time flying with a joystick, but nope, this game can be HARD with all the chaotic stuff during missions

I have finished Fs2 on insane and Fs1 on hard. Fs1 is definitely harder than 2. Never played through the entire Silent Threat as I find that campaign very boring (for some reason). I look forward to trying ST Reborn, but haven't gotten to that yet.

The thing about Fs2 on insane is that all you need to be good at is dogfighting, most missions do not require any planing or commanding to win. Loadout is easy; just use a Perseus with double Subachs and harpoons every chance you get and you'll be fine. Only a few missions, like the SOC optional ones, have Fs1 level difficulty.

Fs1 is a very interesting challenge on harder difficulties as, unlike Fs2, no single playable loadout or craft is superior. In most missions you probably want to fly the Ulysses as it's maneuverability gives you the best survivability in combat (never give it to the AI, they use it wrong and die fast). The Herc is great for killing lots of stuff fast, but it's slow speed makes defence missions hard and may also get you killed often by swarms (unless you are a good sniper, I'm not). Stay away from the Valkyrie, it has the same low armor of the Ulysses but not the same ability to dodge bullets. The Apollo is a nice middle ground of the other fighters, usually you want to specialise and not play a "jack of all trades" but I found this ship invaluable in Clash of the Titans where both speed and firepower was needed to take the heavy bombers down in time.

I found the first Bioshock to be really difficult on standard difficulty. I'm pretty good at shooters, but I had to reduce it to easy to finish it.

There's another side effect of the difficulty settings in Freespace, and that's how it affects the AI. I believe it tends to make friendly AI slightly less helpful on lower difficulties as well. This is especially interesting on escort missions when you need to be able to rely on wingmates to help cover a convoy, but their aim is about as bad as the enemy's, and the enemy is throwing bombs which really don't take much aiming. I think I remember hearing that hard could be easier than medium or easy on certain missions because of that side effect, if the main issue you have is the bomber onslaught and not getting shot down yourself. Something to consider.