Part 51: Fleet Action, Sol System, Sol Sector (Gameplay only, no story)

Nobody had anything to say about the last update? Oh well - this one, at least, ought to provoke some kind of comment, given that we finally find out what the General Staff's mad plan not to all die is and we've got a fighter choice. For those of you just waiting for WC3, well, there's two more missions until the end of Standoff, but I'm going to do the losing path because those missions happened as well (and I really want to show the Arrow off because that mission is so much fun). So we're talking probably eight updates total.

No story update, we're literally going straight back out, and in any case, the briefing pretty much tells you all you need to know.

1st January 2669, Sol System, Sol Sector
Episode 5, Mission 5 - Fleet Action

The Firekka's participation in Admiral Tolwyn and Duke Grecko's last-chance assault on the Kilrathi fleet is briefly delayed by a Kilrathi counterstrike.

Mission Briefing:

Briefing Video (Youtube)
(shown: literally the only image during the briefing video. I could just have uploaded a sound file really)

Yes, we're launching a boarding action. Landing marines armed with detonation charges on enemy carriers is approximately the only thing that Fortschen came up with that didn't happen during World War II, but I guess in terms of ideas it's at least a pretty good one (more on grounds than plausibility ones, but I suppose when nobody's done it for centuries and you've already established you're throwing every ship you've got at the cats to draw fire away from the bombers, it might work).

Any of those who didn't know the plot see that coming?


Mission Video (Youtube)
Kills this mission: 19

Which is not to say it actually happens in this mission, because Kilrathi. The first time I played through this, I was completely expecting to have to do the escort part of the mission after defending the Firekka, with sod-all afterburner fuel and no dumbfire missiles. For once the mission designers actually took pity on the player (after Wild Weasel most of Episode 5 is actually relatively tame by comparison, except for the finale).

Tactics Corner
We're not going anywhere in this mission, just staying put and defending the Firekka and the Saratoga. And, frankly, ourselves - there's not many bombers, but there's a bunch of Vatari who mostly seem out for our hides.

Friendly forces:
1x Concordia-class fleet carrier TCS Saratoga
1x Waterloo-class cruiser TCS Grunwald
1x Wake-class escort carrier TCS Firekka
4x Rapier medium fighter
4x Sabre heavy fighter (player's wing)
9x Rapier medium fighter (reinforcements, arrive after 4 minutes 30 seconds)
12x Sabre heavy fighter (reinforcements, arrive after 4 minutes 30 seconds)

Enemy forces:
2x Targu II-class frigate
3x Kamekh-class corvette
10x Sartha light fighter
4x Drakhai Vatari superheavy fighter
8x Sartha light fighter (reinforcements, arrive after 2 minutes 30 seconds)
2x Krant medium fighter (reinforcements, arrive after 2 minutes 30 seconds)
2x Gothri heavy bomber (reinforcements, arrive after 2 minutes 30 seconds)
4x Drakhri medium fighter (reinforcements, arrive after 3 minutes 50 seconds)
6x Drakhai Sartha light fighter (reinforcements, arrive after 5 minutes)
2x Drakhai Vatari superheavy fighter (reinforcements, arrive after 5 minutes)
2x Gothri heavy bomber (reinforcements, arrive after 5 minutes)

Yeah, that's 45 Kilrathi. Fortunately they don't all arrive at once. Equally fortunately you get a metric fuckton of reinforcements if you survive for four and a half minutes, which is really the mission objective since the cats only have four bombers and the corvettes never get close enough to threaten the Saratoga.

Deployment:


14 against 8 (since the capital ships won't be involved in the initial clash of fighters which happens in the middle) at the start is OK odds except for the Vataris. Fortunately, this is a fighter loadout Sabre and it has four dumbfires, which is very conveniently one for each Vatari. Use them and thereby preserve the remainder of your fighter force, who won't last long against Imperial Guard in their latest superfighter. Killing Sartha in a Sabre is difficult, and normally the easiest way is to let them turn and come at you, since the Sabre's shields can take a couple of neutron hits (though not much more), or alternatively to get them as they break away from you after a pass. If you kill the fighters the frigates and corvettes will almost certainly be taken down by the other Sabres.

There's three waves of roughly the same size which come at you in this mission, so provided you get a few kills in quickly and preserve your force then things will go OK, but if you start to lose fighters and the enemies:friendlies ratio gets north of 2:1, things do start going downhill quickly. There's a slight problem with deployment when the second wave arrives, since you'll likely have been finishing off the frigates and corvettes:


Fortunately, the two Gothri bombers seem to be very cautious, and if you just afterburner after them they give up on torpedo runs once you close in far enough, or at least they did on the run that produced that map. If they don't, image recognition missiles will force them to, so it may be worth holding on to those until at least this point (though they're excellent anti-Sartha weapons). Once they're down, the middle wave contains no Vatari and is relatively easy to deal with; killing the nearest fighter works just fine. If you're in trouble, it's worth trying to fight in the shadow of the Grunwald, Firekka and Saratoga, all of whom have a decent number of turrets which can help you out. It's also worth it because that's the direction your ridiculous number of reinforcements come from, if you survive for 4.5 miuntes:


Once these fighters have arrived, you're more or less safe - you outnumber the final Kilrathi wave somewhere in the region of 2:1, so it's only really the Vatari that might give any cause for concern, especially since by this point you're probably out of missiles (well, except for the torpedoes. You cannot torpedo a Vatari). With the odds so strongly in favour of the Confed forces here though, it's probably easiest to try and rack up Sartha kills, and hope that the Vatari get stuck facing off against four Rapiers at the other end of the battle. My approach to dealing with them was only to go after them if they went after me - chasing danger when you've got numbers seems a bit daft.

Likewise, once there's only one or two enemies left, hang back. Friendly fire from 20 fighters is a bad thing.

Ship of the day:
Drakhri

Class: Medium Fighter (Kilrathi)
Length: 11.70 m
Mass: 14 tonnes
Max Velocity: 400 kps
Afterburner Velocity: 1220 kps
Maximum Yaw/Pitch/Roll: 60 degrees/second
Weapons: 3x Laser Cannon, 4x Dumbfire missile
Shields: Front: 55 Rear: 55
Armour: Front: 40 Left: 35 Right: 35 Rear: 40


Game says: Introduced in 2659, the Drakhri is adequately armed, but rather slow and unwieldy for a medium fighter. In many ways inferior to its predecessor, the Dralthi Mark II, it is significantly smaller - a huge advantage on cramped Kilrathi cruisers.

I say: The Kilrathi medium fighter is somewhat of a respectable opponent in Standoff, since laser cannon recycle so fast that the triple laser arrangement actually provides OK firepower to go with the traditional excellent range - and in addition, of course, they've got dumbfire missiles and the AI is an excellent shot with those. Still, they lack manueverability and are a little slow at afterburner, especially by comparison with a Rapier, so easy enough to tail and kill if you avoid getting tagged in the first head-to-head pass. Also, ugliest fighter in the game. Gah. This is unrelated to complaints about the particular model, the Drakhri is just ugly.

Total kills (Standoff): 25 missions / 323 kills
Total kills (including previous thread): 137 missions / 1249 kills

Next time on Standoff:
A fighter choice! You already know what's happening - we finally get our on. But should we escort the marine boarding shuttles in a Rapier or a Sabre?

This is the last choice in Standoff - for what it's worth, in the remaining missions we'll see the Sabre and Rapier three times each (and also the Crossbow and the Arrow once each).