Sartha Admiration

frostytheplebe

frostytheplebe

Seventh Part of the Seal
PROMOTION TIME!

And in celebration of such, I decided to turn over things a bit, rather than finding another fighter to gripe about, I would like to show my admiration for one: the Sartha.

The Sartha is the tie fighter of Wing Commander. When 4 or 5 of these come swarming at while you are flying anything other than a Broadsword bomber... you're in for a headache. Rapiers have the most problem with these.

They are small, fast, and appear to have turret Neutron guns that tear into almost anything.

I never understood the idea of putting long range guns on light fighters. Get in close so the enemy can't hit you as easily, or maneuver you into their gun site, and light you up with a super hot Neutron burst.

The Sartha does this beautifully.
 
It is indeed an underestimated danger, I don't know if the concept is supposed to be that the Sartha is a few generations on from the Salthi, but if that's the case, it's come a long way. Best bet in my opinion would be to face them in an Epee.
 
-danr- said:
It is indeed an underestimated danger, I don't know if the concept is supposed to be that the Sartha is a few generations on from the Salthi, but if that's the case, it's come a long way. Best bet in my opinion would be to face them in an Epee.
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Nah, the BS turrets rip em apart pretty quickly too.
 
Wow, I really disagree with this.

With the notable exception of the Sartha flown by the Drakhai, I always thought they were not very tough at all. It seemed to me as if the Kilrathis got tired of putting too-light weaponry on their fighters throughout all of WC1 (excepting their heavy fighters, of course), and overcompensated in WC2, even with their "light" fighter, the Sartha. Yes, those neutrons were deadly, and they were pretty maneuverable, but they were very slow, and didn't fire all that fast.

I actually thought the Epee was one of the WORST fighters to face Sartha in, because its armor was so light a solid neutron hit or two would really hurt, while it's own guns re-fired too slowly to dance with them properly. But I liked toasting them from a Ferret, with its rapid re-firing mass drivers. I also found the Rapier to be excellent against them...it had enough firepower to take them down easily, and enough speed and maneuverability to fly ciricles around them.

Conversely, I hated them when I was in a broadsword, almost as much as an Epee. You could smoke one easily in the initial pass with your front mass drivers, but then your ship was just too big to fight with them easily, and your turrets were less than useless. Meanwhile, they'd tear my ship up.

They really only struck me in dangerous when in large numbers, or when flown by Drakhai (were the Drakhai Sartha beefed up versions of the fighters, or was their AI just better?) and in that respect they kind of reminded me of the Dralthi Mk II (the WC1 Dralthi which got mass drivers attached)--kind of a crappy fighter, but with enough manueverability and a powerful enough gun that it sucked to face in large numbers.

The fighter that truly seemd very dangerous in WC2 was the Grikhath.

I wonder why my WC2 experience seems so different from many posters...the fighters I love and hate are often different from many people. Is it just that WC2 is a diversley rich game which accommodates many different playing styles and gives people their own experiences...or is it that what worked well and what didn't is very dependent on how fast a machine you were running the game on?
 
Yeah, that is kind of odd. The Grikath seemed pretty helpless against fighters to me, like the Paktahn, and in both cases I usually only caught fire from their rear turrets. The Grikath seemed to be more like a bomber than the heavy fighter the game documentation made it out to be.

Anyway, the Sartha's my favorite Kilrathi light fighter. It's lean, but mean. Probably not a craft you'd want to fly if you had the choice, but it's a good fit for the cats' niche. I have to agree with Delance, the Sartha royal guard were the most challenging part of the last mission.
 
I'm inclined to agree with Farbourne's assessment. From memory, they were pretty easy to tear to pieces (I am guessing this is why you see so many of them in your humble Ferret). Their manoeuvrability could cause headaches while in the Broadsword, but of course, the solution is to just let fly a Pilum FF, or switch to one of the turrets.
 
The problem is on the last mission and there's no wingman to draw fire, so they concentrate on you.
 
I agree with Farbourne, the Grikhath was dangerous, on or two hits and you were toast.
 
How the heck did any of you even take a hit from the drakhai sartha after Thrakhath? Thrak would always hit me a bit but I'd always come out on top, and then the sartha were the equivalent of kindling. The only thing I felt to be more pathetic than the sartha was the drakhri when it came to the kat way of doing things.

Actually, for some reason the sartha at the end of the game were the easiest ones I ever faced. Sometimes they could actually get annoying at other times, but other than that I'd stay the heck away from the cockpit of one.
 
Max Gene said:
How the heck did any of you even take a hit from the drakhai sartha after Thrakhath? Thrak would always hit me a bit but I'd always come out on top, and then the sartha were the equivalent of kindling. The only thing I felt to be more pathetic than the sartha was the drakhri when it came to the kat way of doing things.

Actually, for some reason the sartha at the end of the game were the easiest ones I ever faced. Sometimes they could actually get annoying at other times, but other than that I'd stay the heck away from the cockpit of one.
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That's probably because enemies in WC2 change their attack behavior a lot depending on your speed. Once you find the most efficient ship speed setting for this fight, you can beat them fairly easily without afterburners. Same goes for Thrakhath, actually.
 
I didnt mind the Sartha, they werent much of a problem but were still a threat, I liked them quite a bit. The fighter that was pretty much a sitting duck for me was teh Jalkehi, attack it from the side in a Rapier and its iced in 1 or 2 runs, loved it when I saw them in WC2, easy way to raise the killscore haha
 
Iceman16 said:
I didnt mind the Sartha, they werent much of a problem but were still a threat, I liked them quite a bit. The fighter that was pretty much a sitting duck for me was teh Jalkehi, attack it from the side in a Rapier and its iced in 1 or 2 runs, loved it when I saw them in WC2, easy way to raise the killscore haha
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Other than the Sartha, the only fighter to offer true resistance... and a lot of turmoil was the Gothri. Why?? Because of that damn rear turret. I used to love getting right on the enemy's tail and letting them have it with a full salvo, but you can't do that against a gothri. If you tried, that tail gunner would tear you apart.
 
Rear turrets were a real pain in WC2. I have the distinct impression that shots you got in the front of your ship from the rear turrets of Kilrathi fighters had a tendency of knocking out the targeting computer, which in turn would make certain missions unwinnable.
 
frostytheplebe said:
PROMOTION TIME!
(...) Rapiers have the most problem with these.
(...)
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Rapier II's from WC2 have no problems with any (core) WC2 Kilrathi fighter.

The Sartha is pathetic but since 3 out of 5 Kilrathi fighters are pathetic (the Jalkehi is an easy target but it's not pathetic), I agree that it is the least pathetic of the pathetic fighters.
 
Delance said:
Rear turrets were a real pain in WC2. I have the distinct impression that shots you got in the front of your ship from the rear turrets of Kilrathi fighters had a tendency of knocking out the targeting computer, which in turn would make certain missions unwinnable.
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Ugh... that was a royal pain in the ass. But worse was when they knocked out your communications. I'm sitting there stopped dead in space with the Concordia pointed right at me at the end of the mission like, well F*** now how the hell do I land!?

Mekt-Hakkikt said:
Rapier II's from WC2 have no problems with any (core) WC2 Kilrathi fighter.

The Sartha is pathetic but since 3 out of 5 Kilrathi fighters are pathetic (the Jalkehi is an easy target but it's not pathetic), I agree that it is the least pathetic of the pathetic fighters.
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I must respectfully disagree... the Ferret had no trouble, but the Sartha had the Rapier in terms of speed, keeping it in the targeting sight could be tedious. I liked taking the rapier against larger fighters, then she ripped them to pieces. Plus I was disappointed when they changed the layout of the guns in WC2. Lasers and Neutron guns from WC1 rocked!
 
frostytheplebe said:
Ugh... that was a royal pain in the ass. But worse was when they knocked out your communications. I'm sitting there stopped dead in space with the Concordia pointed right at me at the end of the mission like, well F*** now how the hell do I land!?



I must respectfully disagree... the Ferret had no trouble, but the Sartha had the Rapier in terms of speed, keeping it in the targeting sight could be tedious. I liked taking the rapier against larger fighters, then she ripped them to pieces. Plus I was disappointed when they changed the layout of the guns in WC2. Lasers and Neutron guns from WC1 rocked!
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I don't think your communications could ever be completely destroyed. I've been on the edge of death many times and my communications still worked (mind you it took about a million stabs at the "c" key to finally get something through, but it came through)
 
frostytheplebe said:
I must respectfully disagree... the Ferret had no trouble, but the Sartha had the Rapier in terms of speed, keeping it in the targeting sight could be tedious. I liked taking the rapier against larger fighters, then she ripped them to pieces. Plus I was disappointed when they changed the layout of the guns in WC2. Lasers and Neutron guns from WC1 rocked!
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But the Rapier II is faster (450 to 400 kps) and more manoeuvrable (10 dps to 8 dps in game, only 4 dps even after the manual) than the Sartha (and of course more heavily armed and protected).
 
J "Phantom" D said:
I don't think your communications could ever be completely destroyed. I've been on the edge of death many times and my communications still worked (mind you it took about a million stabs at the "c" key to finally get something through, but it came through)
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Oh I could get the communications terminal to appear, but it would static out before I could choose option 2.
 
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