Part 104: Torgo System, Epsilon Sector, Mission 2 (Gameplay)

No wingmanicide yet (like I said, I've got a specific time in mind to show Maniac's funeral). Have an update instead.

3rd September 2669, Torgo System (Mission 2), Epsilon Sector
TCS Victory

The Victory launches bomber wings to mine the jump points leading to the Torgo system, in an attempt to prevent future Kilrathi attacks on the Behemoth.

Pre-mission conversations (Youtube) (Gamerstube/Polsy)


Briefing Video (Youtube) Briefing Video (Gamerstube/Polsy)



Mission Video (Youtube) Mission Video (Gamerstube/Polsy)

Kills this mission: 13 out of 16, thereby meeting the personal goal I'd set myself (in order to make flying on "Hard" a challenge) of outscoring Maniac 3:1. Other than that, it's pretty much the middle of last mission again, except easier and in a Longbow. The biggest problem I had (other than Maniac sneaking too many kills) was Vaktoths flying into me, which they did with alarming regularity.


Ship of the day:
Running out of ships to introduce here, this might become an occasional feature from now on (well, there'll definitely be one next update, since that introduces a new Kilrathi fighter) as I'm not sure there's enough enemies/friendlies left to fill up all the remaining updates. For now, let's take a look at the Kilrathi cruiser we've seen a couple of times, the first one being where Flint killed one in Locanda.

Fralthi II-class

Class: Cruiser
Length: 550 m
Mass: 23,000 tonnes
Max Velocity: 150 kps
Cruise Velocity: 200 kps
Maximum Yaw/Pitch/Roll: 5/5/5 degrees\second
Weapons: 15x dual laser turret, Capship missile launcher
Shields: 3000 cm durasteel equivalent all sides
Armour: 1000 cm durasteel equivalent all sides
Fighter complement: Unknown but clearly at least a couple of squadrons.


Official Strategy Guide: Technically, it's not impossible for a team of fighters to take out a cruiser, scout or carrier, but it's usually not worth the effort. If you're flying support for a friendly cap ship against one of these bad boys, concentrate on the escorts and let mama worry about the big nasty. If all the escorts are gone, you might want to make a quick strafing run against an enemy turret, if you feel particularly heroic, but don't worry about seriously trying to disable the enemy battle wagon all by yourself. If you do decide to join your cap ship in attacking an
enemy battle wagon, make sure and concentrate on the turrets on a side other than the one your cap ship is concentrating on, to divide the enemy's shield regeneration rate. If you're out on a patrol or mission, and you run into a ship this size, just run away if it's at all possible for you to do so.

I say: As always, the OSG massively overstates the threat posed by a capital ship. That said, the Fralthi II does have a lot of point-defense turrets and takes two solid torpedo hits before it goes down, so it is moderately dangerous - if you don't have any torpedoes, probably not worth the aggravation of how long it would take to kill. A Longbow, of course, just links torpedo tubes and lets fly - usually without taking out the escorts first, since that would bring in more waves and is more trouble than it's worth. In a T-bolt it's probably worth taking out the escorts since the cruiser will need some strafing after being torpedoed, but it's still not particularly difficult if you break away when you lose forward shields.

Total kills (Wing Commander III): 20 missions / 181 kills
Total kills (this thread): 46 missions / 546 kills
Total kills (including previous thread): 156 missions / 1463 kills

Next time on Let's Play Wing Commander:
Let's rock...