Part 20: Ralatha Strike, Mastif System, Sol Sector (Story and Gameplay)

22nd December 2668, Mastif System, Sol Sector
Episode 2, Mission 4 - Ralatha Strike

With a Kilrathi destroyer having emerged from the jump point, the Firekka sorties bombers to take it out. Meanwhile, the annual Rapier wing kill-stealing contest is held.

Since there are no pre-mission cutscenes, nor are there any e-mails other than the fighter update, (I think the idea is you land, rest up while your fighter refuels, plan the strike with Reismanna and then brief your wing) I've decided to dispense with the storyline post for this mission (it's the last mission of Episode 2 anyway, so we'll be getting plenty of story in the end-of-episode wrapup).

Here's the fighter count, for those who just can't live without it.

Yes, I do appear to have lost four Stilettos out of nowhere from the previous mission. This is due to the fact that Standoff keeps trying to revert me to the "didn't pick up Sparrow" path and I'm ending up reverting to savegames to get back on the right one; in the saved version of the meeting engagement with the Gothri I apparently lost four pilots. This will have literally no effect on the path of the game since we get restored to a full complement at the start of Episode 3. I have a total disregard for fighter losses in this mission for similar reasons.

Mission Briefing:

Briefing Video (Youtube)


Mission Video (Youtube)

Kills this mission: 5 (the debrief screen says four, but I'm pretty certain it didn't count the Ralatha, since I reckon I got four fighters, and I'm claiming it since both the torpedoes that hit it were mine). Also, seriously, the Rapier squadron are a bunch of kill-stealing assholes. That was ridiculous. None of those guys are getting good officer fitness reports this tour. I decided I had to show you the kill-stealathon, it's kind of silly how many times a Rapier swoops in on something I've half-killed.

It's much safer (and would probably end up with more kills as well) to hang back and help take out all the fighters first, but it's dull, so fuck that. We're going down right down their throat at full burners, baby.

(I've realised that I need to stop caring about my killscore and care more about how interesting the video is, and this approach is more exciting).

I should probably take this time to explain (although I also do this in the video) that destroying a capital ship in the Vision engine means destroying all the components labelled "Bridge" or "Engine". A Ralatha has one of each so that's two torpedoes (which is coincidentally what we're carrying). Many ships have more than two critical components (the Firekka has two engines and a bridge for three).

Tactics Corner
Friendly Forces:
6x Rapier medium fighter
3x Gladius fighter-bomber

Enemy forces:
In transit:
6x Sartha light fighter

Expect to lose a wingman here despite having numbers on the enemy because, as you've seen with the AI Rapiers already, the dumbfire missiles the Sartha carry are pretty deadly in Standoff. Equally, it's not advisable to keep flying in a straight line, but given that Sartha are light fighters armed with short range weapons you won't be doing that anyway if you're trying to keep one in your gunsights.

Jump Point:
1x Ralatha-class destroyer
1x Gothri heavy fighter
3x Jalekhi heavy fighter
3x Drakhri medium fighter
3x Sartha light fighter (first launches from destroyer ~15 seconds and one every 20 seconds after that)
3x Drakhri medium fighter (continued launches of one fighter at 20 second intervals)
1x Sartha light fighter (continued launches of one fighter at 20 second intervals)
1x Drakhri medium fighter (continued launches of one fighter at 20 second intervals)
1x Sartha light fighter (continued launches of one fighter at 20 second intervals)

At this point I think the Ralatha stops launching; at least it didn't launch any fighters in my recon run for about a minute after which I got bored and torpedoed it.

Initial Deployment:


Conventional wisdom in capship busting in the Wing Commander series is that you should destroy the enemy fighters first before setting up for torpedo runs on the capital ships. That more or less works here - I did it to get the list of enemy fighters that launch, after all - but it's really no harder, if you're not trying to maximise your kills, to go more or less straight in on the Ralatha. If you hang back a bit at the start the first wave of enemy fighters will be engaged with the Rapiers and your wingmen, so all you'll have to deal with is any of the fighters that launch. You should be able to jink around the fighter that launches on your first torpedo run at the bridge, turn around, hit it with a heat-seeking missile or sufficient cannon fire, and then set up for the second torpedo run on the engines by the time the second fighter launches; everything after that is mop-up, and it's pretty easy mop-up at that. This approach can clear that nav in under two minutes, and is more fun (it's probably slightly harder/riskier, especially on Nightmare with a reduced ship damage capacity).

New characters:
I guess I should actually do one of these for Trigger at some point. I was waiting for him to show up in an actual cutscene. It happens eventually. Other than that we've got a full cast, though there'll be some cameos from old friends.

Ship of the day:
Ralatha-class destroyer

Class: Destroyer (Kilrathi)
Length: 394.2m
Mass: 11,000 tonnes
Max Velocity: 250 kps
Cruise Velocity: 150 kps
Maximum Yaw: 1 degrees/second
Maximum Pitch: 1 degrees/second
Maximum Roll: 1 degrees/second
Weapons (as designed): Flak Cannon (2), Anti-Matter Guns (2)
Weapons (2668 refit): Flak Cannon (4), Anti-Matter Guns (2)
Shields: Phase Shields
Armour: 5000 all sides

Game says: The Ralatha is a well-balanced destroyer, and the most widely used in the Kilrathi fleet. Despite the limited hangar space, this class has been reported to carry most types of Kilrathi fighters, always in small quantities.

I say: The Ralatha is probably not quite as good a destroyer as the Confed Gilgamesh; it's larger and the shape prevents the turrets from covering as much of the ship as the human equivalent which is actually pretty good at dealing with fighters. Two torpedoes suffice to destroy it, and neither are particularly hard in terms of angle; the Bridge will go down to anything more-or-less head on and the Engine is a similarly wide angle from the rear.

Total kills (Standoff): 10 missions / 77 kills
Total kills (including previous thread): 123 missions / 999 kills

Next time on Standoff:
A real artist's ship!