Part 106: Torgo System, Epsilon Sector, Mission 3 (Gameplay)

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

The Victory launches fighters to interdict a Kilrathi tanker convoy, in order to capture fuel for the Behemoth without alerting the Kilrathi to its existence through increased Confed fuel shipments to the Torgo system.

There are no pre-mission conversations.


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



Mission Video (Youtube) Mission Video (Gamerstube/Polsy)
(Pictured: the main element of this mission - an asteroid fighter dropping a mine in a futile attempt to get me off its tail)

Kills this mission: 6, being all the enemies there are in this mission that you're actually allowed to kill. The game does not count disabling tankers as kills (this might be related to why I arranged things so that Vagabond did it). Time from arriving at the nav point to the last fighter going down was 02m 9.53s, or 21.59 seconds per fighter. Maybe I could have got below 20 seconds per with a bit more experimentation, but part of the problem is the interface; the match speed function is rather clunky.


Ship of the day:
This new Kilrathi design rocks.

K'ha'haf

Class: Heavy Fighter
Length: 31 m
Mass: 31 tonnes
Max Velocity: 380 kps
Afterburner Velocity: 950 kps
Maximum Yaw/Pitch/Roll: 50/40/40 degrees\second
Weapons: 4x Reaper cannon, 2x Meson gun, 16x Missile hardpoint (default loadout: 16x Mine)
Shields: Fore: 25 cm durasteel equivalent; Aft: 20 cm
Armour: 50 cm durasteel equivalent all sides
(Image from CIC. It's a rock with engines. I'm not really sure how many angles you really need to view a rock from.)

Official Strategy Guide: An Asteroid fighter is basically a heavy fighter covered in a few thousand tonnes of rock. They're usually used to mine and patrol approaches to secret Kilrathi bases hidden in asteroid fields. These rock fighters have lots of armor, not much shield. Missiles are mostly good against Asteroid Fighters if you have to take one out quickly, but don't expect anything to happen on the first one. Do not, under any circumstances, collide with the asteroid fighter in a lighter ship. Also watch out for the large chunks of solid rock debris they throw off as
they take damage.

I say: Like the OSG says, you pretty much only ever encounter the asteroid fighter (it was given the Kilrathi name K'ha'haf in later publications) in asteroid fields. The great shields and armour and powerful armament (it's pretty close to the Excalibur in raw gun power, though it doesn't have autotracking weapons) would make this a very dangerous foe if it wasn't for the fact that a) it has no homing missiles and b) it's slow, and not very manoeuverable. It's pretty close to being a Paktahn without the rear turret, and since the rear turret is the thing which makes the Paktahn worthy of respect that makes it fairly worthless. It does drop mines when you're on its tail (which is almost certainly where you will be), and take a sustained period of blasting before it goes down, but that's about the limit of the challenge here.

Total kills (Wing Commander III): 21 missions / 187 kills
Total kills (this thread): 47 missions / 553 kills
Total kills (including previous thread): 157 missions / 1470 kills

Next time on Let's Play Wing Commander:
Forgive me sir, but why am I not suprised?