need some pro tips
- Thread starter Jdawg
- Start date
capi3101
Admiral
SOTWCU, pg. 343-4: "Even though you've got a rear turret, do not use it. By now, you're accustomed to using the rear turret on the Broadsword, confident that you can blast an attacker for a while with your neutron guns, because the Broadsword has so much shielding that you can take a beating for a while and not sustain damage. That's not true in a Sabre. If you let someone trail you and blast your hind-section, you'll take some real damage, real fast. Kill the Jalkehi by targeting one Jalkehi and then using afterburners to stay on it, using full guns to beat it down. Always stay just off to the side of the rear, rather than right behind it. You cannot beat a Jalkehi Drakhai if you allow it to hit you with its neutron guns; the Drakhai's shields are just too tough, and it'll chew you up before you even get a chance to do any serious work on the Jalkehi. Remember, you've got Grikaths waiting for you back at Concordia."
Hopefully that's somewhat helpful. I don't know which part of the mission you're having trouble with; I'm guessing it's the first part, but it's a fair guess considering what you're up against.
Hopefully that's somewhat helpful. I don't know which part of the mission you're having trouble with; I'm guessing it's the first part, but it's a fair guess considering what you're up against.
centaurianmudpig
Rear Admiral
I remember this being a tough one, hopefully my play through might be able to help you out, though it was far from a cake walk.
Jdawg
Commodore
thank you all I beat that mission and the rest of the game this morning. that was the only challenging mission out of the last 4. the stealth fighters are so easy to take down in wc2 like two hits. of course just like when jazz was my wingman when we squared off he only fired once lol, god I wanted to kill him so bad. Then the fight with prince thrakhath was easy, he was quick but no match for me. finally watching that star base explode I cheered. its amazing that strike team lead my angel never showed up, and that mission was the one time tolwyn had the right to be a jerk and instead promotes you, what if you failed, the starbase then would have known it was about to be under attack and the whole mission fubared and maybe lost.
also back to the first mission of the final four. I was pretty damaged on my way back to the concordia, but the fighters attacking it were pretty easy, after reading I was worried, but the concordia easily took out 2 or 3 and I took out the last one. In fact the few times that the concordia was attacked it easily defended itself, pretty badd ass ship
also back to the first mission of the final four. I was pretty damaged on my way back to the concordia, but the fighters attacking it were pretty easy, after reading I was worried, but the concordia easily took out 2 or 3 and I took out the last one. In fact the few times that the concordia was attacked it easily defended itself, pretty badd ass ship
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Dondragmer
Rear Admiral
If you eject or return to the Concordia without destroying K'Tithrak Mang, Angel has time to tell you that you're fired, and then you're back on Caernarvon Station and are told that that the Concordia has been destroyed.
If you die and select "Continue Script", Prince Thrakhath tells the Emporer that the Concordia has been destroyed - while standing on K'Tithrak Mang, so it survives.
Neither sequence is unique to this mission - they are standard game over messages through most of WC2. However, a consistent outcome is that, without Blair, the Concordia and the entire Enigma Sector will be lost.
Incidentally, in most missions ejecting will result in a Sabre returning you to the Concordia (although you'll end up on the losing track, or possibly just instant game over). However, a few ejections end with the even more abrubt game over of being captured by the Kilrathi. In particular, this happens in Heaven's Gate 4 and K'Tithrak Mang 3. It's quite common through the Special Operations 1 and 2.
Hey, at least Blair's final ride is inside a Bloodfang. I'm sure that makes him feel better.
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In WC2, only torpedoes can harm the Concordia, so it is safe as long as you don't leave any of the Grikaths alone long enough for them to get a torpedo lock.
Mace
Vice Admiral
The problem with the final part of the mission is that when you get your ITTS destroyed, or you run out of torpedoes, youre done and can only fly back... now here is the odd thing... if it happens, sometimes you fly back and you hear the "mission succesfull theme" during autopilot, you can still land and pass... likely a bug. Also, when I first played the game I had a 386SX, and found dogfighting in WC2 a lot harder then when I replayed the CD deluxe version on a 486..
I don't know, at least you could press the Turbo button on the 386 if things got too hairy...
Dondragmer
Rear Admiral
I've experimented with this, and I consistently get the victory ending if I reach the K'Tithrak Mang nav point and destroy Prince Thrakhath before returning to the Concordia. Destroying Prince Thrakhath alone insufficient and leads to the bad ending. I haven't managed to reach the nav point without shooting down Thrakhath; if I use the invincibility cheat and ignore him, my turret shoots him down. If I switch to turret view to prevent this happening, my Sabre keeps changing direction so I'll never get back to the Concordia.
If I cheat to destroy Thrakhath and K'Tithrak Mang from long range without reaching the nav point, then return to the Concordia, that also counts as a victory.
Dondragmer
Rear Admiral
Do you mean that you're on Series 4 Mission D? This is commonly rated as the hardest mission in the Wing Commander series. I've never finished it by playing fairly. On rare occasions I've shot down all the Gothri, but with so much damage that I can't survive making the torpedo runs. The Fralthra just hurl out too much anti-matter-gun fire.
Some ingenious pilots manage to turn this against the Fralthra by lining up so one of them shoots the other - which will still leave you with one anti-matter-spamming Fralthra to deal with. That's probably what happens in centaurianmudpig's run on this mission; at 7:58, one of the Fralthra spontaneously explodes.
If anti-matter chicken doesn't work out (and it's both dangerous and time-consuming), I fully endorse using debug codes on this mission. While you could just apply the finger of death, there's a more subtle cheat that makes it easier but still requires some work on your part. Use the "Origin" command line parameter, then while in flight press "Alt-i" to increase AI skill, and "Ctrl-i" to decrease it. If it's working, you'll see red text saying "Dynamic Intelligence = #". You may need to use the shortcut multiple times before the number changes; possible values range from 0 to 10. Also, when you destroy ships the number silently increases, so you'll need to lower it again periodically.
With the intelligence lowered to zero, I've seen all my wingmen survive the Gothri - and all three are still destroyed by the Fralthra before they can launch any torpedoes!
You need to destroy both Fralthra to win this mission and the campaign. Leave one or both alive and you'll find yourself in Series 5 Mission D - flying a Sabre against a Fralthra defended by more Gothri. It's no easier the second time.
I've often wondered why the mission designers give you a Sabre with its usual paper-thin shields, after making the second half of SO1 all about the Crossbow. (Yes, the script justifies this by saying there isn't time to rearm the Crossbow, but in other missions they have no trouble turning around Blair's existing craft in minutes.) Possibly they just wanted to reuse the background of everyone climbing on the Sabre to celebrate from the WC2 ending.
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AD
Finder of things, Doer of stuff
I beat the mission... but it's been a long time since then. IIRC though my tactic was to draw the fighters out of flak range of the capships. Then, for the first capship, do your usual sit-just-far-enough-outside-flak-range tactic to get a lock but make sure that the two capships are lined up so the nearest one completely covers the second and then do your torpedo run on the first as normal. Once you launch then high-tail it back out of torpedo range and repeat. I'm pretty sure it took me a lot of tries to get it right though. I'm sure there's a more... elegant solution out there.