Part 63: Armageddon, Sol System, Sol Sector (Gameplay only, no story)

I always underestimate how long audio takes me to edit.

1st Janurary 2669, Sol System, Sol Sector
Episode 5, Mission 7 - Armageddon

The Landreich force launches its strike fighters in a desperate attempt to stop the Kilrathi cruisers from launching missiles at Earth.

Mission Briefing:

Briefing Video (Youtube)

As on the winning path, Reismann briefs the pilots personally for the last mission (and we have a cutscene briefing). Normally I add some commentary to these, but Reismann's briefing here is so accurate I don't really see the point - he's got everything that happens covered. Also, once again Bradshaw ruins the mood. He's kind of anti-inspirational.

: At ease, everyone. I wanted to brief you all personally for this one.
: It seems we're late. The main battle is coming to an end. Our fleet has dealt a very heavy blow to the Kilrathi.
: They've dealt even more damage to us, but they're the ones retreating.
: Yeah, we did it!
: We won, we really won.
: Pay attention, it's not over yet. Look on the nav map. A squadron of enemy cruisers has gotten past all our defences.
: And it's headed for Earth. It won't be long before they get within missile range.
: Damm it! If they deliver their missiles...
: That'll be the end of it.
: There's nobody else out there that can respond in time. It's only you, and the pilots from the Landreich ships.
: You're our last line of defence. Get out there, destroy those cruisers. The enemy might send their fighter escorts to counterattack us here.
: Ignore them. The Firekka, the Tarawa, we're all expendable. But you have to destroy those cruisers.
: Best of luck to you all. Make us proud.
: You heard the man, let's get to it.



Pictured: the last Kilrathi in Earth Orbit, and some of the swarm of fighters who took over a minute to kill him. My excuse for not joining in is the amount of afterburner fuel remaining (right gauge)

Mission Video (Youtube)
Kills this mission: 26, including a Rigakh-class cruiser.

The reason this update took longer than usual to get out is because I was under the impression that it wasn't actually possible to chase down the missiles, so I recorded a video where I didn't and made the relevant cuts and so on, then discovered that you in fact could hunt them down while I was playing the mission a couple more times in an attempt to work out how the events worked, so obviously then I had to go back and do that. I don't understand why I only got 94% on intercepting missiles - I've gone through the video frame-by-frame and can't see where any escaped. Except:


Here's another yellow dot on my radar - it's only visible for four frames - nowhere near any of the cruisers that theoretically launch them. Needless to say, I didn't kill this one, so it might have been the one that got away. Presumably you're not supposed to be able to get every missile. I've asked on the Standoff forum about this one, but no response yet. I'm sure someone will be along with the appropriate image shortly...

Tactics Corner
Intercept Nav:
Friendly Forces:
Confed:
3x Arrow light fighter
3x Rapier medium fighter
6x Sabre heavy fighter
Landreich:
3x Hornet light fighter
3x Sabre heavy fighter

Enemy Forces:
1x Rigakh light cruiser
3x Kamekh corvette
5x Sartha light fighter
4x Krant medium fighter

We've got numbers on this enemy force, so this would be a trivial engagement if it weren't for the fact that we don't just have to win this battle but win it quickly, at least if you want to get the secondary mission objective since the AI wingmen won't need that long to destroy the enemy fighters (though it's closer to two minutes than the one Bradshaw suggests). A Rigakh cruiser takes three torpdoes, and you need at least two of your four for the next nav point. Fortunately only one is usually necessary here (sometimes two).

Deployment:


Not an angle I usually use, but the point here is to emphasise that the Rigakh is quite a long way separated from the fighters and the corvettes. That gives you basically a free torpedo run, which I generally use to hit the engines on the side of the cruiser facing towards where the melee is about to kick off - both because it's the most dangerous one for your wingmen to line up on and because it places you closer to the enemy fighters and corvettes once you're done. Once the torpedo hits I generally check the map and look for a fighter within 10000 km; if there's one around then I'll go after it (if it's within 5000 then it's probably got me targeted anyway and I need to go after it, because both missiles and flak turrets hurt, practically every fighter in this mission fires missiles and the Rigakhs are crawling with turrets. Otherwise I'll help with the corvettes which do take quite a while to go down otherwise or torpedo the other engine on the cruiser (your wingmen will almost always hit the bridge quite easily). Basically you need to keep an eye out for anything trying to kill you because damage tends to come in large chunks in this mission, and everything ought to go down inside two minutes, ideally 90 seconds.

Second Intercept Nav:
Enemy Forces:
2x Rigakh light cruiser
8x Drakhri medium fighter
6x Jalkehi heavy fighter
20x Antimatter missile (10 launch from each cruiser, in pairs every five seconds from your arrival at this nav)
16x Sr-90 tipped nuclear missile (begin to launch, or when you kill one of the cruisers)

There's not much you can do about the first round of missiles - with extreme good luck it's possible to intercept (most of) them but some are almost always going to get through because you're not fast enough to catch them if you have to dodge fighters too, and don't have the capability to order Trigger's Arrow wing (which is) to go after them. That's because this is the losing path so doing better than on the winning path (where we already know the Earth took some hits) isn't allowed. Psion will presumably have something to say about this. The only reason I can think of why this wouldn't be the winning path is that its much harder to construct a logical story to get from Sirius to here as the result of a victory than it is as the result of a defeat.

Deployment:


It's a similar situation to the first nav point in that the cruisers aren't really covered by their fighters, so once again you have a free torpedo run. The best target this time is the bridge of the nearest cruiser, since that's the end where the missiles come out of, meaning if you're not under attack (or only under attack from Jalkehi who you can usually outrun) by the time you finish you can go after the antimatter missiles that have just finished launching - but it's much easier just to ignore them, since you don't need to stop these missiles in order to win (I do in the video because well, why not?).

If you're under attack from Drakhri, take a minute or so out to deal with them and then get set to torpedo the other Rigakh's bridge. Now is a good time to deploy at least a couple of IR missiles and if necessary call for help from your wingmen (which will make them target fighters attacking you). Once you've cleared out any immediate threat (if you hit "target nearest" and there's nothing within 5000 "km", that's a good sign), switch back to torpedoes and go after the surviving cruiser's bridge. Intermittent afterburner from about 13000 km out and a sort of corkscrew flight path (not a straight line, anyway) is generally thr best way to make an approach to a heavily defended target like a Rigakh in a Sabre. Alternatively, you'll be chasing missiles down, making sure not to get too close - breaking off at a 90 degree angle as soon as you hear the proximity warning siren normally suffices for survival, since you can only line up on the tail of one of the missile streams, the second one will be a colossal pain. Usually you'll have a Hornet or something for company which will make things a bit (usually a very small bit) less difficult.

Wherever you are at this point, either wiping out the missiles or torpedoing a cruiser will have attracted more fighter attention, so get rid of that (saving your dumbfires and maybe one ImRec for the next nav point), and then you've either got to begin the long slow trek back to hit the other Rigakh (or hope your wingmen can kill both of them, which rarely happens) in order to torpedo it - all the fighters around it will almost certainly be dead by the time you get back. You can't use burners to speed this up because you're going to need them.

After which, it's back to the Firekka, because despite what Bradshaw implies if you get things done rapidly here, you're not done yet. If you've not left this nav point by six minutes into the mission, Freyers will radio that the Firekka is coming under attack from six corvettes and thirty fighters (don't worry, he got distracted and counted most of them twice), and that attack still happens even if you have - as far as I can tell, the only difference is that if you wait until you hear this, then the Firekka will lose an engine as soon as you re-appear - which doesn't actually make things much harder. I'm guessing if you take even longer at this nav point you might lose the Firekka, but if that's true it doesn't happen before 12 minutes, and it's quite hard to spend that long on the rest of this mission even if you do chase antimatter missiles all over the place (which is definitely the suboptimal way to win the mission though it does get you a higher score).

Firekka Nav:
Friendly forces:
Confed:
Survivors plus:
1x Wake class escort carrier TCS Firekka
Landreich:
Survivors plus:
2x Wake class escort carrier FRLS Guadacanal, Tarawa
12x Hornet light fighter

Enemy forces:
3x Kamekh corvette
8x Krant medium fighter
6x Grikath torpedo bomber

Deployment:


Bad news: The Kilrathi got here first. The Grikaths are in on the carriers, and the Krants and Kamekhs have turned back to stop the Confed fighters breaking through.
Good news: Freyers can't count. There aren't enough Krants to stop all of you, and even better, most of the bombers are going after the Guadacanal and the Tarawa, leaving you with usually only two that you need to kill (the Firekka is the only ship mentioned in your mission objectives).
Not actually news: You can (as always) ignore the corvettes.

Use the map to find out which bombers are targeting the Firekka, afterburn towards them (this requires some conservation of burner fuel at the previous nav points, and then you'll not have much left for the rest of the fight), and dumbfire them. Try not to miss like I did in the video, it's not good for your afterburner fuel conservation. There aren't usually more than two of them so your dumbfire complement should be sufficient. After that, you'll probably be able to finish up the other Grikaths because the Krants will have their hands full with the AI wingmen who do after all substantially outnumber them, and since this is the last mission, one or even two torpedo hits into any of the carriers doesn't matter all that much - so if you absolutely need to switch to an attacking fighter in order to not die (quite possible as you will have more or less no burners if you chased the missiles), the bombers will wait a bit. You have numbers here (unless your strike force got absolutely shredded at the other two nav points), so strike true with the two dumbfires and then the rest of this engagement ought to fall into place.

Ship of the day:
Confederation-class

Class: Dreadnaught
Length: 983.72 m
Mass: 73,000 tonnes
Max Velocity: 100 kps
Maximum Yaw/Pitch/Roll: 1 degree\second
Weapons: 1x Phase-Transit Cannon, 3x Flak Cannon, 8x Anti-Matter Guns
Shields: Phase Shields
Armour: Front: 5000 Left: 4000 Right: 4000 Rear: 5000
Fighter complement: 120

Game says: The only operational ship of this class, the TCS Concordia, is the flagship of 3rd Fleet. This dreadnaught packs a full wing of fighters and a heavy weapons loadout which includes the Phase-Transit Cannon.

I say: The Concordia only really enters battle once, in Episode 5's winning path, where it Phase-Transit Cannons a Fralthra in a somewhat unsatisfying manner, and she's not really in any danger in that mission since there are no torpedo-armed fighters around and the Fralthra itself is somewhat outgunned. Concordia is generally considered the best of the various home bases throughout the Wing Commander games; she's obviously much heavier than Standoff's Firekka and her Phase Shields make her far easier to protect than the Claw, though she never really seems to have the heavy turreted armament of some of the Kilrathi ships.

Total kills (Standoff): 27 missions / 367 kills
Total kills (including previous thread): 138 missions / 1293 kills
(since these missions didn't happen - the Firekka was "actually" on the winning path - I don't get to count the kills in them in the kill tally.)
Losing path kills: 110

Next time on Let's Play Wing Commander:
Standoff wrapup, ending cutscenes and probably some Wing III organisation.