Episode 5 - Missions/Tactics *SPOILERS*

Dundradal

Frog Blast the Vent Core!
I'm starting this thread for one...because the problems thread is making me sad that all these damn issues are appearing because of that stupid bug (and all these other bugs that seem to be coming up as well :( )

And two...to talk about the missions we fly in Ep5. Some are insanely difficult and often take special strategies to fully complete them.

Now I won't be the first to post my impressions, because well, I already know basically every trick for all of them. :p But for everyone exploring it for the first time, post your hearts away. And this will definitely be a spoiler zone, so if you don't want to know...don't read :p

My personal favorite missions in Ep5 are the Civvie mission on the winning path. I recommend asking the different civvies for their status at the end...they have some pretty interesting responses.

On the losing path it has to be the arrival in Sol. It's one of those epic missions that forces you to use the nav map if you want to complete it. Oh and it helps a lot that my favorite ship, the Tarawa is present. Oh and the fact that I got my dream role by being able to voice the Tarawa herself. What more could a wingnut ask for? :p
 
Hm. Well, I'm no master tactician. But here's a basic one that I think many of us learned to really use in Ep4 and it's equally useful here:

Taunt everything.

Keep the comms menu up and spam 't'-'1'-'t'-'1'-'t'-'1'-'t'-'1'-'t'-'1' whenever you're not actively shooting something. This will do three things: first, if you watch the silhouettes that spin through your targeting VDU, you'll become aware of any bombers in the furball. Make sure you do this any time a friendly comm notifies you that more Kilrathi have arrived (i.e. "They're bringin' in help!"), because chances are, there are bombers in the mix. Second, any time you manage to get an enemy's attention on you, you may be pulling a Drakhri or a Sartha off a friendly bomber (damn those dumbfires!) and help your mission-win odds. Third, it'll save you precious afterburner fuel, since they'll be coming after you instead of you having to chase them down.

Bombers: Grikath, Gothri, Gratha

It was always a useful tactic, even all the way back in WC1, but it's nearly compulsory in Standoff.
 
Well, I'm going to keep posting as I figure things out, but after finishing the first mission, and almost finishing the second if it weren't for a lucky dumbfire, I can offer my advice there.

Ep 5 Mission 1 (assuming there's only one initial mission - if not, this is on the winning path): Escort Rapiers.

Okay. This is NOT what I expected when I got the briefing. I expected Rapiers, and I expected something similar to The Hurricane from UE with a pile of running around answering distress calls from burning hulks in the fleet. Instead I got HELL in Vatari form. What sadistic bastard does this to us...oh right you.

Anyway, once you pick up the rapiers and head back to the Firekka you run into a bunch of Sartha. Problem is you've got about a 40-60 second window (or thereabouts) before a kat ace in a Vatari comes in with 3 or 4 friends. This is BAD. Double bad that on Hero, YOUR GUNS DO NOT BEAT THEIR SHIELD REGEN. You _NEED_ missiles or the rapiers' guns to kill them.

This means your objective is:
- Keep the Vatari focused on you as much as possible. Note that one shot from their front guns strips your entire armour, so while they have to focus on you, be sure they don't actually hit you more than once. Two shots might kill you, full volley always does.
- Kill the Sartha as fast as you can. Seriously, what you really need is to bog the Vatari down in idiot techs flying fighters that can actually DAMAGE THEM.

If you get a good run behind a Vatari while you're killing Sartha, throw two heatseekers at it from close range, or hit it a few times to make it run from you and get back in the fight. Don't dick around trying to gun down its shields: you can't hurt it.

Oh, right, and you're going to need about 2/3 to 3/4 of a tank of afterburner fuel for the next part, so you have to do this conserving burners.

After that, you have to scan a Rigakh in the middle of a battlegroup. Honestly this doesn't suck nearly as bad as it sounds if you're good, it comes down to having a LOT of burner fuel. You have two options here.
1) Kill all the escorts and fly in before more are launched. This is a bad idea. You have 3 fighters, probably with a lot of damage on them. They have 3 SQUADRONS.
2) Burn past them.

I would recommend option 2. Either way, hug the hull of the Rigakh and pulse your burners like a madman while you scan it. Don't bother trying to take out turrets, you'll take too many hits. The real rough part is burning out: these guys pursue to a REALLY long distance. You're going to need about 2/3 of a tank of burner fuel just to get away from the Rigakh and straight to the Firekka. Ouch.

This is the secret Wing Commander level of I Wanna Be The Guy, isn't it?
 
Next piece of hell: mission 2 winning path, carrier attack.

6 Targu IIs. 3 Ralathas. 1 Fralthra. 1 Snakeir. YOU HAVE TO KILL ALL OF IT.

Yeah. You heard me...

Three options: Rapier, Sabre, Crossbow. Each forces different strategies on you.

In the Rapier, it's a classic escort mission and plays exactly like the Snakeir mission in Ep 4, just a lot harder. Pick off anything that looks like it's going for your wingmen, and keep it up. Take out turrets when there are no fighters around.

The Sabre plays a lot like the rapier until you realize how little afterburner fuel you have. Yeah, it sucks. At the start of the mission stick with the bomber wing and pretend you're an extra crossbow. Your wingmen are IMPOSSIBLE to keep alive from my perspective...they're going to kamikaze themselves into a couple Targu IIs and die. They'll likely take out 2-3 of the frigates. Your job is NOT to make a run for the snakeir and blow it up. It's tempting, but from what I can see it doesn't stop fighter reinforcements unless _maybe_ the Fralthra also goes bang (you don't have enough torps for that!). That means you need to shut down some flak. Four torps nets you two Targu IIs and a Ralatha, or two Ralathas if the Targus are down. Do that. After that, play exactly like the Rapier mission. Keep those crossbows alive!

The Crossbow is very different. I'm not actually sure quite WHAT you have to do in the xbow yet - I'm still playing around with it. Almost won the mission once, so it's a good sign. If taking out the Fralthra and Snakeir does stop fighter reinforcements (or at least shrink them), then thread the needle right through those Targus and go get the carrier. Consider waiting for the Drakhai Hhriss to die - they'll chase you and hurt you bad. If it DOESN'T stop the fighters, then your job is to push in toward the Snakeir anyway, then turn around and nail Targu IIs and Ralathas from behind. Take out as much flak as you can, and use your close-in firepower to take turrets off of the remaining capships.
 
This means your objective is:
- Keep the Vatari focused on you as much as possible. Note that one shot from their front guns strips your entire armour, so while they have to focus on you, be sure they don't actually hit you more than once. Two shots might kill you, full volley always does.

Oh, right, and you're going to need about 2/3 to 3/4 of a tank of afterburner fuel for the next part, so you have to do this conserving burners.

After that, you have to scan a Rigakh in the middle of a battlegroup. Honestly this doesn't suck nearly as bad as it sounds if you're good, it comes down to having a LOT of burner fuel. You have two options here.
1) Kill all the escorts and fly in before more are launched. This is a bad idea. You have 3 fighters, probably with a lot of damage on them. They have 3 SQUADRONS.
2) Burn past them.

There's actually another way to fight the Vatari and have it be much easier. I'll let you guys figure it out, but just consider other options....

I always go for the Rigakh on the left of the player when you arrive. It's closest towards the direction you eventually need to go to get back to the Firekka.
 
The escort and scan mission you guys were talking about was a blast! I had to play it four or five times before I finally got through it. When I was trying to disengage after the scan my burners were severly damaged causing me to keep panic tapping my tab key! I ran out of burners and some cat fighters began to close on me but I must have reached a safe range because they turned back and the auto pilot light came on... so happy to see that light!
Side note: Worst part of that mission is the chatty cathy allied pilots. WOW do they talk A LOT!
Great game, I just played through 1-4 a couple weeks ago and its an amazing game (Prologue is great too)! The missions werent just hard, they were great and a lot of fun to play. Now I'm going to try some of the losing path missions.
Thanks 2 all the devs of this game!
 
Next piece of hell: mission 2 winning path, carrier attack.

6 Targu IIs. 3 Ralathas. 1 Fralthra. 1 Snakeir. YOU HAVE TO KILL ALL OF IT.

Err, that's not entire correct as far as I know. It's actually 5 Targu IIs, 3 Ralathas, 2 Fralthra and 1 Snakeir, and you don't have to kill them all, just most of them. Bradshaw will automatically order a withdrawal after you lose too many torpedo-carrying ships.

And Dundradal told me that if you didn't destroy the Hakaga in Ep. 4, you don't have to deal with a Snakeir (it's busy escorting the damaged Hakaga out).

Use every trick on the book to conserve afterburner fuel. Go full burners for a second and then just regularly tap the AB button to be more fuel-efficient, don't go for long chases on burners, etc etc.
 
And Dundradal told me that if you didn't destroy the Hakaga in Ep. 4, you don't have to deal with a Snakeir (it's busy escorting the damaged Hakaga out).

Shhh...you're going to get me in trouble for giving too much away. :p But yeah there are a bunch of similar things you can do that affect the missions that come after...

Lt.Overload said:
Dund, who did you say you were the voice of?

Capt. Graham, FRLS Tarawa, and the civvie pilot that goes "My ship's a wre...."
 
Double bad that on Hero, YOUR GUNS DO NOT BEAT THEIR SHIELD REGEN.

I thought this was true when I first met the Vatari, but actually your guns do beat their shield regeneration. Remember to only start shooting them when your power bar is full, aim well, and you should be able to destroy the regular Vatari with guns. Fireblade, however, is another story, I've yet to beat him without using any missiles. In fact, I tend to save two HS missiles for him.

The "easy way" I assume Dundradal is referring to :

If you damage Fireblade enough, he'll run away, taking the other Drakhai with him. If you kill him, however, I think the Drakhai will go mad at you instead. If you let Fireblade escape, you'll have to deal with him in mission 3. Personally, I prefer to kill him in mission 1.
 
And Dundradal told me that if you didn't destroy the Hakaga in Ep. 4, you don't have to deal with a Snakeir (it's busy escorting the damaged Hakaga out).
That's true... just keep in mind, ultimate victory depends on how much damage is inflicted on the Kilrathi.
If the Tarvakh retreats damaged, you lose both the opportunity to sink a supercarrier and the opportunity to sink that Snakeir. It's a good thing, in terms of making your life easier in this one mission, but it drastically reduces the margin you have for the campaign as a whole. If you drive off the Kilrathi, there is a winning ending and a 'middle' ending - not sinking the Tarvakh makes it very hard to get the winning ending.
 
Mission 2 just keeps hating me out. I come so close to winning the mission, then die to a lucky dumbfire near the end.

So the main victory condition there IS to sink the snakeir. Good to know, this makes the Sabre the go-to ship for this mission. Burn in, blow it up, survive. Use your last torpedo on a Targu II or a damaged ralatha or something. I guess you're expected to lose everything here, because I have never seen a wingman squadron down a Fralthra unless you're very good at stripping off flak turrets.
 
Use CTRL - O to see your mission Objectives in flight.

If the Snakier is present then yes, it is the primary target. But you still need to take out as many of the other ships as possible. I never shot at Targu II's, the wingmen can take them down easily.

You never seen a friendly wing down a Fralthra? What difficultly are you playing on?
 
Really? I've seen it happen a ton of times. Because it is possible to kill every capship at that nav...even when flying the Rapier...
 
How much effort do you usually put into stripping turrets if you're flying the rapier on that mission?
 
Honestly? Zero. I might strip one or two, but the rest of the time I'm taking out the fighter cover.
 
Still can't seem to get it off just right. SO close every bloody time, if I use a crossbow they're usually down to one fralthra and a ralatha or two before I get killed by dumbfire spam. The problem is, flying a crossbow my wingmen are sitting ducks nine times out of ten. Surprisingly though, Popsicle is damn near unkillable in this mission. Most of the time I hear "I must eject!" in the first five seconds.
 
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