Tips for mission 2A?

I

Ijuin

Admiral
I have found myself unable to complete mission 2A (the one where you must capture the Fralthi) at levels higher than Rookie. Does anybody have any advice? I am flying the Epee (Scimitar can't dodge the turret fire on the Fralthi).

Also, I would like to know two things about this mission:

First, at the Fralthi nav point, do the Kilrathi fighters keep coming in endless waves until the Fralthi is disabled, or is it possible to destroy ALL of them BEFORE going after the Fralthi's turrets? I ask this because whenever I concentrate on the turrets, all my wingmen get shot down by the fighters that I am ignoring.

Second, can dumbfire missiles damage turrets? If they can't, then I am better off saving them for the Vaktoths instead.
 
First up, you're in the Border Worlds, so you'd better make every missile count ;). Don't waste Darts on Dralthi, and don't waste Javelins on Vaktoths. If you hit a Dralthi with a Javelin, that's an immediate kill, which means less fire on your wingmen. A Dart will immediately kill almost any fighter, but treat them as a weapon of last resort, since they're infinitely more useful against missile turrets.

Use the Heavy Stormfire against the turrets. Try to start your attacks at maximum effective range, but at the same time, close in as fast as possible. Use the Fralthi itself to shield you from turret fire. Do not use Darts against gun turrets - although a Dart can damage a turret, and indeed will kill it in one shot, the turret will almost always be shooting at you, so the Dart is likely to get shot down.

Pay close attention to the positions of the missile turrets. Take them out before anything else. This is the point where Darts are the most useful. Since the missile turrets are all topside, attacking from underneath allows you to close in without exposing yourself to missiles until the last moment (and then you'd better have decoys handy).

I find the difficulty of this mission is about the same for the Epee and the Scim. Both have definite advantages and disadvantages. I actually prefer to take the Scim, though... it can survive a mine in the nose, and that's important ;).

And in answer to your other question, you can reduce the fighter cover a lot before going after the turrets. If you find yourself losing wingmen, then try to even out the odds a bit before going after the Fralthi. But remember, you don't have infinite afterburner fuel - especially in the Epee.
 
Originally posted by Ijuin

First, at the Fralthi nav point, do the Kilrathi fighters keep coming in endless waves until the Fralthi is disabled, or is it possible to destroy ALL of them BEFORE going after the Fralthi's turrets? I ask this because whenever I concentrate on the turrets, all my wingmen get shot down by the fighters that I am ignoring.
Second, can dumbfire missiles damage turrets? If they can't, then I am better off saving them for the Vaktoths instead.
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Regarding the DFs: Yes you can kill turrets with DFs. One per turret is sufficient. I do that all the time.

As for the infinite waves of Kilrathi ships - to my shame I have to admit I dunno. I always fire at the fighters until I get to a spot where there are none. Then when some reappear I go for them again. I never waited if the waves end at any time.
 
Can anybody comment on whether the fighters just keep coming until the Fralthi is down or if there is an end to them? My personal preference is to kill ALL the fighters before starting on the capship so that I don't have them on my tail while I take on the turrets, but I would like to know if this is possible, or if I am just wasting valuable ammo and fuel trying to do it.
 
Hey, now, we can't reveal all the exact mission details just two weeks after the release :p. Experiment a bit.
 
I think Quarto you shouldnt help anyone ! You enjoy a game if you accomplish it by yourself !
 
This mission is proving pretty frustrating. The Gratha's seem to know just the right moment to drop a mine when you can't avoid it (ouch!), the Scimitar isn't fast enough to afterburn away from the Vaktoths (the first time I played this mission, I took out the first wave of Vaktoths at the Dralthi/Vaktoth nav, afterburned past the second wave I met, and found no Fralthi at the nav point - I generally hit the burners now the instant I get the new nav, but my Scimitar died REAL fast the one time I tried it in a Scim), and all of my wingmen generally die before the Kilrathi guarding the Fralthi do.
And then there's the 'tag team' tactic that the Kilrathi seem to have adopted. Me and my two wingmen vs. two Kilrathi fighters. I gun for one, and the other shoots me up. The exact moment that I switch targets, they exchange roles, and the little 'hit' flashes never get interrupted.
And this is on Rookie...
 
For some weird reason, i found this mission more dificult in rookie than veteran, your Wingmen are pretty stupid and die easily in rookie.
But i use the AB to fastly go to the Fralthi navpoint.
 
Oh, the Scim can outrun the Vaktoths, but it is a good idea to gun down one or two before running... after all, you do have a few seconds to spare before you get the message about the Fralthi :).
 
Originally posted by Quarto
Oh, the Scim can outrun the Vaktoths, but it is a good idea to gun down one or two before running... after all, you do have a few seconds to spare before you get the message about the Fralthi :).
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Hmm... Oddly enough, that didn't work for me.
I burned out, and iirc, there were only a couple of them left, but that didn't keep them from maintaining a distance of a couple thousand clicks behind me and blowing a hole in the back of my ship. The fact that it doesn't take Vaktoths long to blow a hole in any kind of fighter might have helped. It could be that the fact that the Epee is almost 50% faster under afterburn gives enough oomph to get out of range of the Vaktoths before they can do more than rattle your shields, while the Scimitar is so slow that it has to spend an inordinate amount of time under the guns.
I would hazard a guess, however, that this is tied to the other item that I've noticed - unless I'm at extreme range, the Kilrathi pilots have a tendency to focus on my ship, to the point where they're conducting the 'tag team' tactic that I've described even while my wingmen are supposedly going to work on them.
Then again, I thought I noticed something similar in Prophecy, where it often seemed as if the computer guaranteed that there was always at least one fighter in the engagement gunning for you, even if that fighter was the last one left, and had to break off an engagement on the other side of the battlefield in order to come after you. The Kilrathi don't always play tag team, and they usually don't engage until I get close (unlike the bugs), but when they do, it can get ugly.
 
Well yeah, the game always ensures that the player doesn't feel too safe... after all, you're the one playing the game, so why should your wingmen suffer? :p

Vaktoths are only minimally slower on burners than the Scim, but that's what wingmen are for - order them to go after whoever's troubling you.
 
Originally posted by junior
Then again, I thought I noticed something similar in Prophecy, where it often seemed as if the computer guaranteed that there was always at least one fighter in the engagement gunning for you, even if that fighter was the last one left, and had to break off an engagement on the other side of the battlefield in order to come after you.
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It doesn't only seem like this, the engine enforces it AFAIK. Depending on the difficulty level 1-3 enemy ships always gun for the player (not more however either, even if you are the only one around)
 
Originally posted by cff
It doesn't only seem like this, the engine enforces it AFAIK. Depending on the difficulty level 1-3 enemy ships always gun for the player (not more however either, even if you are the only one around)
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Wrong! If you are the only one around, then a WHOLE BUNCH of enemy ships will be gunning for you! I tried this out in mission #1 of UE at Ace level with Invulnerability turned on. I sat around for a few minutes without shooting anything while the endless waves of Dralthi shot down all my wingmen, then they all turned to pursue me--I looked in the rear view, and there were over TWENTY Dralthi pursuing me flying in a tight formation (more like a solid wall!), and ALL of them were shooting at me with full guns!
 
You can always economise the AB fuel in the Epee by using autoslide a lot. This helps a lot when you are waxing the gun turrets as well (although this is only a good idea after the missile turrets are gone).

But either way, this mission is very very difficult. Survival is difficult enough but you also have to make sure that the bombers are ok and that they don't fire their torpedoes into turret fire.
 
Originally posted by Filler
need I make a reference to my mission against 30 lampreys?
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You've made referance to this mission many many times, but I still have no idea what your talking about. Care to enlighten me?
 
oh, I wanted to see if the lamprey was any good
so I got Quarto to make me a sim mission with 30 lampreys.
It's...hard :p
 
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