Part 3: Nexus Sweep, Nexus System, Gemini Sector (Gameplay)

7th August 2668, Nexus System, Gemini Sector
Episode 1, Mission 1 - Nexus Sweep

The TCS Lionheart follows the pirates into the Nexus system and looks to pick up on their trail. The Lionheart's deck crews ready her fighters for launch, and Captain Bradshaw briefs his pilots on the situation.

Pre-mission cutscenes:
We talk to Chief Jean Henderson about the readiness of the fighters, and her brother, who was kidnapped by the Guadacanal pirates.
First cutscene (Youtube)
Flight deck, TCS Lionheart
: Morning, Chief. Got our birds ready to go?
: Sure do, Captain. Still checking the jump drives on the Gladii, but the Stilettos are ready to go.
: Great. How are we doing with armamanet? I know we weren't prepped for this kind of action.
: Well, not so good. Enough Javelins for about ten sorties and twelve torps. Gonna be tight, sir. Well, and, um...
: I know, Jean. We'll get your brother back.
: Thanks sir, that's what I wanted to hear. But Captain, this is nuts. He logged like a thousand combat hours against the cats. All that just to be kidnapped by pirates?
: Yeah, I know. This truce is...nevermind. Chief, get those Stilettos spotted for launch.
: Will do, sir.

Spoons (one of our flight wing, see below) doesn't really like Sparrow, one of the pilots we're rescuing. Time to try and head this one off at the pass.
Cutscene video (Youtube)
: Spoons, wait up.
: Sure.
: About Sparrow. I do not want any trouble.
: Well I-
: Spoons, I need you. Rescuing Sparrow is our job. You don't have to like it but we are doing it. Are you with me?
: Yeah, I guess so.
: Good. And hey, relax. We've fought pirates before, this is gonna be a breeze.

Mission Briefing:

Video (Youtube)


So, that's simple enough. Escort our home base, the TCS Lionheart, towards a jump point to the system we think the pirate base is in. We're flying the Stiletto, a fast, light fighter. Opposition is expected to be minimal, possibly because Intelligence also knows this is the first mission of the game.

Let's fly.

Mission Video (Youtube)

Well, that wasn't quite what was in the plan, but I guess emergencies happen every so often. Anyway, we racked up a few kills and the Oakridge is safe, so all's well that ends well.

Tactics Corner

There's only one fight in this mission (well, it is the first one, and games are supposed to have a difficulty curve after all), and while it's relatively simple it's worth looking at the situation in slightly more detail, because it is possible to fail this by not paying attention, like I did in my very first attempt because I didn't think the first mission could possibly be difficult.

Here's the situation just after we arrive at the Oakridge, 2 minutes and 20 seconds into the mission. It's displayed here using the tactical map, a fantastic feature of the Prophecy engine which is a real help in Standoff (and fortunately the game pauses to allow you to look at it), especially in the larger battles. Blue is friendly, red is enemy. I talk about it a bit more in the video.

Friendly forces:
3x Stiletto light fighter
1x Free Trader-class freighter Oakridge (mission objective - must survive)
Enemy forces:
5x Talon medium fighter
Enemy intention:
Destruction of the Oakridge, escape with as much force intact as possible.
Disposition of forces:


The basic problem with this situation is that you're not between the enemy and their target, and they outnumber you. You can't afford to pair off three-on-three because two Talons can and will take the Oakridge down pretty quickly. Fortunately, the tactical map tells you which ships are attacking your current target, so it is simple enough to work out which enemy fighters to proritise. It's best to tail the Talons attacking the Oakridge towards the freighter and nail them with Javelins (heat-seeking missile, rear aspect only, but will take out a full-health Talon in a single hit - also it's all you're carrying). The problem with this is that, as you see in the video, it can lead to giving any of the enemy fighters attacking you a pretty free shot while your missiles are locking. That said, this would probably have gone a bit more smoothly if I hadn't been worried about making sure I got a decent tactical map shot. One you've evened the odds with missiles and taken out the fighters attacking the Oakridge it's pretty simple - you may as well unload your remaining missiles on the Talons left over before finishing the final one with guns if your wingmen haven't already. Only if Spoons or Viper have decided to be really useless will you lose a wingman on this misson.

New characters:

Captain William Bradshaw ("Marksman") (according to me, and nobody has decided to contradict it)

Unlike the original Wing Commander (though somewhat in common with WC2 and the games which followed it), our protagonist is not a blank slate. Bradshaw is six years out of the Academy, and spent the first three flying Rapiers off the TCS Defiance, during which time he became romantically involved with Marie "Sparrow" Leblanc, a fellow pilot, but after dating for about a year the two broke up messily. The Defiance was lost in Operation Nightshade, in 2666; Bradshaw distinguished himself in the engagement by rallying the surviving fighters and completing their assigned mission, possibly saving the TCS Valiant in the process and turning a complete failure into a partial success. This display earned him the favour of Admiral Terrell and, therefore, the squadron commander's berth on the TCS Lionheart when the Valiant was mothballed after the truce.

Bradshaw is a fairly standard flawed-hero archetype. He's prone to making emotional judgements and then spending long periods in introspection trying to justify them to himself. He's a somewhat similar character to Christopher Blair in WC2, though without the brooding resentment caused by a wrecked career. He has a general unwillingness to do things by the book and is relaxed about military hierarchy (despite being the senior pilot aboard his ship). There's been many protagonists like him; I found Bradshaw a bit annoying in the first section of the game, though after a specific point in episode 2 (which I will mark when it happens) I began to like him much more. His voice acting is a bit all over the shop; the actor gets substantially better in the later episodes.

Chief Petty Officer Jean Henderson

Jean Henderson (generally just "Chief" in the game; unlike Sparks, she doesn't seem to have a nickname) comes from a military family, with father, grandfather and two brothers all flying fighters for the TCSF; as such, joining the Navy rather than the Space Force was something of an act of rebellion. She's risen rapidly through the enlisted ranks and is currently in charge of keeping the Lionheart's Air Wing running; I'm confused as to why this is considered a Navy position rather than a Space Force one, but then Confed's military structure seems to be confused to hell and back anyway so I should really just relax.

Wing Commander has something of a tradition of female chiefs for the player's fighter wing - we saw Sparks in WC2, and we'll be meeting Rachel Coriolis in WC3 (and 5). I guess I should applaud subervsion of typical gender roles by having female mechanics, or condemn placing women in a subordinate position to men, or something, I don't know, I'm bad at gender politics. There's not a huge amount to say about Jean Henderson, though - while she does have a fairly large amount of interaction with Bradshaw, there's not a huge amount of story or character development to it.

First Lieutenant Fabian Schroeder ("Spoons")

Spoons was in the same Academy class as Bradshaw and also assigned to the Defiance. He didn't get on at all well with Sparrow; we'll be seeing the conflict develop as the game goes on. He is regarded as intellectually brilliant but an unreliable pilot; at the Academy only his room-mates, Bradshaw and Fabian "Squealer" Schroeder were willing to fly with him. With the small size of the fighter wing on the Lionheart he (and the rest of the pilots) have had to adapt and he's become somewhat more reliable as a result, to the extent that some pilots have even been known to request him as a wingman.

Yeah, here's the Maniac archetype. They had to have one, really. Spoons is distinguished from Maniac by being less openly arrogant but more of a smartass; I really liked him as a character. He's always willing to share opinions which, in general, his CO would prefer not shared, so he's the source of much of the in-character conflict in the game, a bit like the young Stingray. And no, I have no idea why he is called Spoons.

New ship:
Stiletto

Class: Light Fighter
Length: 19.64 Meters
Mass: 13 tonnes
Max Velocity: 500 kps
Afterburner Velocity: 1400 kps
Maximum Yaw: 90 dps
Maximum Pitch: 90 dps
Maximum Roll: 90 dps
Weapons: Mass Drivers (2x), Heat-Seeking Missile (4x)
Shields: Fore: 90 Aft: 90
Armour: Front: 90; Right: 70 ; Left: 70 ; Rear: 80.

(Prophecy/Secret Ops, and therefore Standoff, doesn't use the same units for shields and armour as quoted in the manuals to WC1 and 2). I'll be doing one new ship per mission in an attempt to space them out a bit; we'll see the Gilgamesh-class (ie, the Lionheart and the Talon in future updates.

The Stiletto light fighter is one of the primary ships flown by Confed pilots in Privateer; in Standoff it fills the patrol fighter role, the equivalent of the Ferret in WC2. It's faster than the Ferret at afterburner and feels more manoeuverable; it also carries four heat-seeking missiles which make it an excellent Talon killer. It's pretty fragile, though (not helped by Nightmare difficulty halving player ship hitpoints), so it's advisable not to fly straight at the enemy, or, in fact, straight anywhere where there are enemies. It's preferable to the other fighter the Lionheart carries, and I don't dislike it, so I suppose it counts as a good fighter.

Not very many kills for first time out, but it'll pick up soon enough.

Total kills (Standoff): 1 mission / 5 kills
Total kills (including previous thread): 114 missions / 927 kills