Part 15: Family Reunion, Oxford System, Gemini Sector (Gameplay)

21st December 2668, Oxford System, Gemini Sector
Episode 2, Mission 1 - Family Reunion

The Firekka sends out a fighter sweep to bring in several flights of reinforcement fighters safely; long-range Kilrathi fighter patrols attempt to intercept them. Meanwhile, Retros attempt to blockade a jump point and the Firekka decides to sortie a wing to break through.

Yep, that's right, THERE ARE RETROS IN THIS MISSION .

Also, I disagree with myself as to the correct plural of "Gladius".

Mission Briefing:

Briefing Video (Youtube)


Mission Video (Youtube)
Video is arguably due to Spoons being told to fuck off towards the end, but why are you watching LP videos at work anyway?

Kills this mission: 10

Not some of my best flying, really. I'm normally a fairly defensive pilot, but I've been trying to rack up kills somewhat in these missions, since I'm feeling a bit compettitive in terms of how many kills I get vs how many ivantod got. Still, hanging back and letting my wingmen and the Gladiuses do the bulk of the dangerous stuff in the region of a Gothri's rear turret would probably have made for a less interesting video.

I also tried a few attempts to get the Retros to be a bit more varied; I wanted one of them to say "forced to use the Satanic jump drive again!" but they all died too fast for that...this is, unfortunately, the only Retro encounter in Standoff. To be fair, I think their taunts would get old fairly fast.

Tactics Corner
Nav 1 -> Nav 2
Friendly forces
3x Stiletto light fighter
2x Gladius fighter/bomber (reinforcements, join at nav 1)

Enemy forces - Kilrathi Empire
3x Gothri heavy fighter

This is an extremely simple fight, your five fighters against their three better ones. Probably best to hang a bit back from the initial head-to-head pass to avoid getting shot up by your wingmen, other than that, no real tactics required.

Nav 2
Friendly forces
3x Stiletto light fighter
2x Gladius fighter/bomber
2x Gladius fighter/bomber (reinforcements, join at this nav)

Enemy forces - Kilrathi Empire
3x Gothri heavy fighter
A similar idea, except that the two Gladiuses that join you here are far closer to the enemy than your group:


All this really means though is that liberal use of afterburners and taunts to distract the Kilrathi's attention is merited; once you've broken up the Gothri superior numbers will carry the day. It's rare to lose any fighters here unless you get careless. Probably the best place to use your missiles, though a Gothri's shields need to be battered first before a missile into the rear armour will kill it.

Jump Point
Friendly forces:
3x Stiletto light fighter
4x Gladius fighter/bomber

Enemy forces - Church of Man ("Retros")
10x Talon medium fighter

Now this:

This is a shooting gallery. I don't think the AI is turned as high for these retro Talons as it was for the pirates, and basically here the job is to get as many kills as you can while there's still enemies to shoot at. Risks can freely be taken because the enemy can't shoot straight, so it's pure turkey shoot. Fun, if not very challenging. Also, everybody loves Retros.

Nav 3 -> Firekka
Friendly forces
3x Stiletto light fighter
4x Gladius fighter/bomber
2x Gladius fighter/bomber (reinforcements, join at nav 3)

Enemy forces - Kilrathi Empire
3x Gothri heavy fighter

You outnumber them three to one; sitting back and letting everyone else take care of the Gothri is the most sensible course of action. If you're not sensible, like me (for "not sensible" read "trying to make an interesting video and rack up as many kills as possible"), then firing cannon in short bursts so as to prevent being tagged by friendlies is the best bet. Soon we will have a Rapier, and this ceases to be so much of a concern. I'd actually forgotten this mission and the next one were in Stilettos, I thought we got to fly the Rapier straight off.

New characters:

Commodore Hans Reismann


As a destroyer captain, Reismann distinguished himself in two ways: firstly, the fact that on average, half of the crewmen assigned to his ship requested a transfer within a month, and secondly, that casualties were far lower than fleetwide norms despite the Roland having been put in several positions that a typical fleet destroyer would not have been able to escape from. Reismann's skill and daring as a captain is unquestioned, and his training methods are certainly effective, but he rides his crew very hard in order to achieve what he does. Regarding him as too talented an officer to waste, when Reismann's destroyer was mothballed Admiral Terrell promoted him to Commodore and appointed him to command Gemini's only carrier scheduled to remain fully operational after the armistice, the TCS Firekka.

Reismann's mostly just someone to read the mission briefings out. I mean, yes, he's well enough established as a firebreathing sort of CO, but I'm not sure that particularly creates any interesting conflict. He shouts at Bradshaw sometimes, praises him sometimes, but there's no real feeling of a need to prove yourself as in WC2 or of the bond between two experienced veterans as in WC3, so Reismann doesn't seem to matter as much as perhaps he should - possibly because unlike Blair, Bradshaw never really seems to care much about how his career's progressing. It's probably unfair to judge Standoff by those standards; the focus is mostly on the game here rather than the story, but that's what you get for putting "Wing Commander" in front of your game's name.

Ship of the day:
Gothri

Class: Heavy Fighter (Kilrathi)
Length: 27.14 Meters
Mass: 28 tonnes
Max Velocity: 400 kps
Afterburner Velocity: 1200 kps
Maximum Yaw: 70 dps
Maximum Pitch: 70 dps
Maximum Roll: 70 dps
Weapons: Particle Cannon (2x), Mass Drivers (2x), Image Recognition Missiles (2x), Torpedoes (6x)
Shields: Fore: 200; Aft: 200
Armour: Front: 180; Right: 150; Left: 150; Rear: 150.

Game says: The Gothri only entered service a few years ago, and it's already one of the top-scoring capital ship killers of the war. The rear turret and numerous torpedoes make this one of the deadliest Kilrathi bombers.

I say: Basically a Kilrathi Sabre. A bit less manueverable, a bit thinner armour, but double the shield strength which is the Sabre's primary weakness, so probably overall a better fighter, especially given that the low profile any direction except side-on makes it hard to hit. Gothri are generally a high-priority target since they're torpedo carrying craft, but the strong shields make them hard to kill. Like all Kilrathi craft, not flyable.

Meet the Firekka:

On the outside:
TCS Firekka - Wake-Class Escort Carrier

Length: 405.75m
Mass: 17,050 tonnes
Max Velocity: 240 kps
Weapons: Seven turrets, types not listed. In End Run there is a neutron turret, two mass driver turrets and at least one laser turret on the TCS Tarawa.
Shields: Phase Shields
Armour: Not listed. It takes three torpedoes to down the Firekka.
Fighter complement: Three squadrons

Game says: The Escort Carriers of this class had their hulls adapted from heavy transports, and have restricted room for fighter storage. However, they are faster than any other ship of their size, and can easily sneak in and out of enemy territory.

I say: You spend very little time actually defending the Firekka (especially on the winning path), for all of Reismann's gung-ho reputation, so it's hard to be definitive about how fragile a ship it is. It's not a ship I'd generally tend to hide behind, like the Lionheart, which actually has pretty good firing arcs and I've had report a couple of kills in runs you guys haven't seen, but then the Kilrathi in Standoff are a bit more competent at attacking capships with actual torpedo bombers than enemies we've met to date or in previous WC games. All in all it does feel like a light carrier I guess; built to be expendable, not great at defending itself.

On the inside:

We've got a new interface (well, somewhat new - the similarities to the WC2 interface in terms of colours and shapes probably weren't accidental) to reflect the new ship. The options are all the same, they've just been shuffled around. The airlock is once again the slightly disturbing exit game option; next to it we have the killboard, and above that the load, save and mission history functions, with the craft database and the e-mail terminal in the wall-mounted computer to their right. Next on the right is the door to (usually) the briefing room, and on the left-hand side is the simulator.

Total kills (Standoff): 7 missions / 60 kills
Total kills (including previous thread): 120 missions / 982 kills

Next time on Standoff:
A dog of a mission