Part 31: Torpedo Delivery, Sirius System, Sol Sector (Gameplay only, no story)
We apologise for the delay.28th December 2668, Sirius System, Sol Sector
Episode 4, Mission 2 - Torpedo Delivery
Fighters from the Firekka and the Concordia launch a follow-up strike in an attempt to destroy two older Kilrathi fleet carriers and one of the new Hakaga supercarriers.
Mission Briefing:
See previously. The vote chose to fly a Crossbow heavy bomber in this mission, something which means that once again you've picked the fighter I would have chosen. I cordially hate the Crossbow because it has no afterburners, but it really is the best choice for this mission.
Mission Video (Youtube)
Kills this mission: 4 (including the Hakaga-class supercarrier KIS Tar'vakh, which I think I can claim with six of nine torpedo hits including the killing blow)
Well, that went pretty well. It seems that in a Crossbow, you either get all three carriers or you get killed, pretty much. There's not a huge amount you can do about the Drakhai Sartha with their dumbfires, and not all that much more you can do against the Drakhri, though the Hhriss can be outflown unless you're being ganged up on, and Jalkehi can be dealt with though it's very frustrating. So if your escorts win the fighter battle, everything goes boom, if they don't, you get swarmed and killed.
If there's a Hakaga involved, there will be Imperial Guard pilots. You can tell the Drakhai apart from regular Kilrathi pilots because their taunts are the ones that have bits of (or are entirely) Kilrathi in. Well, that and the fact that they show up as Drakhai when targeted.
I am, naturally, sad enough that I know what these comms mean (Kilrathi has never been fleshed out as a conlang; but all of these lines are taken from various WC games and novels). A quick run-through for posterity of the ones we've heard so far:
Va ka garga ka naru ha garga - "Those who are not of the blood must have their blood spilled". Kilrathi proverb.
Ek'rah skabak erg Thrak'Kilraaaaaah... - OK, I'm not entirely sure about this one, but "skabak" is "the will to die for the glory of (whatever the sentence is about)", and the syllable "Thrak" probably means "Great". And this is a death message, so the gist of it is clearly "I give my live for the glory of Great Kilrah"
With those carriers killed, we're now doing rather a lot better than "history", though the practical upshot is the same. The Confederation landed five torpedo hits on the Hakaga, crippling but not killing it, and Thrakath ordered it to retreat to friendly space taking the two Snakeirs here as escort. So we're currently evening out number of carriers, the Third Fleet having four and the Kilrathi having five - but four of the Kilrathi ships are Hakagas, about 3 times the size of the Terran ships. Also, Tolwyn got his punch in first - vital, given the numbers, but it does mean that our strike has gone in whereas their bombers have yet to go out.
Finally, if you like spotting plotholes, there's sort of problem with this mission as a reflection of the Third Fleet's defense of Sirius. Anyone who's quicker on the uptake than me and actually noticed it without having to play the mission about fifteen times? (It's not actually that hard, I'd guess about half of those fifteen were successes, but they tended to be successes with me getting lost looking for the back of the Hakaga for a while).
Tactics Corner
Friendly forces:
11x Rapier medium fighter
5x Sabre heavy fighter
5x Morningstar heavy fighter
6x Crossbow torpedo bomber
Enemy forces:
Target Area NAV:
1x Hakaga-class supercarrier KIS Tar'vakh
2x Snakeir-class heavy carrier
Any capships you left alive in the previous mission (none, if you're me
)6x Sartha light fighter (Drakhai pilots)
12x Drakhri medium fighter
3x Hhriss heavy figher (Drakhai pilots)
The reinforcements depend on which carriers are still active. Each active carrier launches a wave every minute for three minutes, provided the Kilrathi don't already outnumber Confed forces 2:1. The Hakaga launches 6 Drakhai Sartha, followed by 6 Drakhri and then 6 Drakhai Hhriss. The normal-sized carriers launch six Jalkehi and three Drakhri in the first wave, three Jalkehi and three Krants in the second one, then three Krants each in the third.
The battle has three phases. The start looks something like this. It's a chaotic fighter melee and a bomber like the Crossbow has no real place in it:
In a Crossbow, your job is to stay alive for a couple of minutes while the Rapiers and Sabres gain the upper hand. Keep checking to see if any fighters might be coming about to attack you; if they are, the Crossbow outguns them head-to-head or, in the case of a Hhriss, you can get on its tail. If you get multiple attackers, call for help and dump FF missiles. This is very boring, but doing nothing for a while is the key to victory. If you go straight in on the carriers, you'll outrun your fighter escorts and be easy prey for any new launches. After a minute or so - normally just after when the first torpedo strike reports come in from Concordia's Morningstars - you can make your first torpedo run, probably against the Hakaga's underside bridge.
The next phase is the struggle to clear the space behind the Hakaga (where you need to be in order to hit the engines) for torpedo runs. This is usually where you get killed in a Crossbow if you get killed at all, because Confederation fighters approach from in front of the Hakaga whereas new waves of Kilrathi fighters spawn behind it.
It's generally the part where you have to do most of your fighting (except in the video where it wasn't because the escorts kept everyone busy and were extremely on the ball), and it's generally best to go for head to heads and trust to the Crossbow's strong shields against anything Drakhri or lighter. In general, the best approach is to spam the U key (target nearest), and if anything's range number is decreasing quickly, it's probably attacking you. As far as I'm aware the Vision engine lacks anything so useful as a 'target threat' key. The other big challenge is just navigation - it's important to check the map to make sure you keep flying in the right direction after evading or fighting an interceptor. It's easy to get lost against the Hakaga's bulk.
The final phase is torpedo runs against the Hakaga's engines. Don't miss - make sure you can see the engine exhaust when you release the torpedo, and keep an eye out for dumbfire-armed Kilrathi fighters before you turn to make a run (equally, break off if you come under heavy repeated fire, but ignore turret fire).
Your allies will almost certainly have finished off the Snakeirs by the time you down the Hakaga. The mop-up is quite easy, many fighters will come straight for you and be picked off or damaged by Rapiers, allowing you to finish them.
Ship of the day:
You were expecting the Hakaga here, right? Yeah, that was my plan, too. But it doesn't seem to be in the ship database, and I don't know why, because other ships we've not met yet are. Have a Crossbow instead.
Crossbow
Class: Torpedo Bomber
Length: 24.00 m
Mass: 40 tonnes
Max Velocity: 370 kps (no afterburners)
Maximum Yaw/Pitch/Roll: 80 degrees/sec
Weapons: Mass Driver Cannons (3x), Neutron Guns (2x), Rear Neutron Turret, Friend or Foe missiles (3x), Shipkiller Torpedoes (6x)
Shields: Front: 500 Rear: 5000
Armour: Front: 400 Left: 300 Right: 300 Rear: 400
Game says: The Crossbow is powerful enough to take out most capital ships, and is also much more manueverable than the Broadsword. Most importantly, it is smaller, and can even be carried on cruisers and escort carriers.
I say: Standoff's heavy bomber because, as the game says, the Broadsword wouldn't fit into an escort carrier. The Crossbow carries enough torpedoes to down anything short of a Hakaga, though it's rare that you're only faced with one capital ship on the missions it shows up. Lacks an afterburner so you can't really get out of trouble, though in general you do have enough firepower to turn and shoot back at it, and strong enough shields to survive that. This makes it much better than the Gladius, less fun than the Rapier or the ship we'll see once in the Ep5 losing path, and a bit of an open question with the Sabre depending on how much you want to spend time dogfighting. The strong shields and armament make it great for turretwhacking should this ever come up. Ugly as sin, though.
Total kills (Standoff): 16 missions / 187 kills
Total kills (including previous thread): 129 missions / 1109 kills
Next time on Standoff:
Two choices in a row! The TCS Moskva has come under heavy attack and needs our help, but do we fly over there in a Rapier or a Sabre? Here's the briefing (Youtube).
