Part 38: Mission #34: 27 June 2654, Vigrid System
Mission #34: 27 June 2654, Vigrid SystemPreviously on Wing Commander: Some final cleanups, but now... it's Sivar time!
Oh, hey look at that--there's Maniac!
In case I don't succeed... you'll have to take out that ship for me. I know that I'll be the one to do it. Just like in my dream... But if I die too quickly, then it's up to you, Maverick. 
Yeah, I don't think so...
Hey, he's sitting right there!
Mission Time!
Well, at least there is no need to guess what this mission will be about!
After our first strike launches, the Claw will move to a new vantage point... where we will launch the remaining wings. With any luck, the Sivar won't expect attack from two separate vectors. 
I certainly hope so, since he is flying with us!
They are NOT your main objective, though... that's the Sivar, at Nav Two. If you are able to destroy the Sivar, hit your afterburners and come home. Rendezvous with the Tiger's Claw at Nav 3. Questions? No? Good luck, Maverick. We'll see you at Nav 3. 
So. Objectives are very clear this time, let's go! Actually, before we go, here's what we need to destroy:
Sivar
Class: Dreadnought
Length: 550 Meters
Mass: 25000 tonnes
Max Velocity: 200 kps
Cruise Velocity: 150 kps
Acceleration: Poor
Maximum Yaw: 1 dps
Maximum Pitch: 1 dps
Maximum Roll: 1 dps
Weapons: Turreted lasers (6x), Image-recognition missiles
Shields: Fore: 27 cm equivalent; Aft: 17 cm equivalent.
Armour: Front: 28 cm; Right: 26 cm; Left: 26 cm; Rear: 14 cm.
Mostly on a par with other capital ships, not too different. Note it's very weak in the rear. And now, let's go.
That was kind of similar to the original Vega starbase mission, but with some differences also. The Fralthi that we encountered along the way is hardly even worth the mention, but the situation around Sivar was more interesting. I think this is probably the first time that the enemies had a bit more of a strategic positioning rather that having them all be gunning straight for us. Those two Krants that I mentioned will definitely not leave their position next to Sivar until you approach and start attacking, which is the kind of thing we haven't seen before. Due to this, the mission is perhaps a little easier than it may seem at first, because even if you get a lot of enemies at once, they will still be split into smaller groups, so in this case for example you get 4 Krants near you and the other 2 farther away that you can address later.
In fact, considering the number of enemies you find around the Sivar, this mission has a very well balanced difficulty in general, better than most so far. In fact, had Knight not decide to leave (but, that's no surprise, AI wingmen car rarely handle Jalthi, as we know), dealing with the third wave of enemies (6 Grathas), would probably have been well within the realm of possibility.
Really, the only major thing that can cause you to trip up in this mission is the fact that upon returning to Tiger's Claw you still have to defend it from the four Krants that are attacking. And the reason is, if you did end up fighting all waves around Sivar, you are likely to be out of fuel, which makes it difficult to dogfight efficiently. However, I am of the opinion that you aren't really expected to stick around the Sivar, but as the briefing said, get in, kill it and get out is the suggested strategy. In that case, you can do like we did with the star base a few missions ago, and simply leave one of 6 Krants alive to play with the wingman and you go and make a few runs at Sivar. This works as well as ever and will win you the mission. You are unlikely to even lose out on the medal if you do this as whether you get it or not hinges largely on whether you killed Sivar or not.
In another interesting change, unlike in Vega, where even if you don't blow up the star base you can't lose the game, this is not the case here. If you don't kill Sivar, you will most definitely fail and see the losing cutscene instead of winning (more on that below)!
A big contribution to our kill score...
And another Gold Star medal...
Bonus from the losing side
As I've explained before, Secret Missions 1 does not have a branching mission tree. If you fail a mission set, you are immediately shunted over to play two losing missions and then the game ends in failure without a chance for recovery. These two missions are themed around Tiger's Claw retreating from an unsuccessful mission and Sivar still alive. As expected, you fly them with Maniac in a Scimitar.
If you fail the game at any time, including not killing Sivar in the final mission, you get the losing cutscene. Unlike before, this one is not actually a "mirror-image" of the winning scene, but is completely different--however, it is just as awesome and you can see it here:
Next time on Wing Commander
As mentioned, this is the end of Operation: Thor's Hammer; but of course there are many more battles to be fought and the story continues in Secret Missions 2, which we'll get started on in next update in a couple of days. This one will introduce a number of changes to the game, but we'll cover that in time. For now let's say that the beginning of it finds Tiger's Claw witnessing the signing of a treaty bringing in a new planet into the Federation as its youngest member, and its crew looking forward to some shore leave...