Part 43: Mission #39: 10 July 2654, Firekka system

Mission #39: 10 July 2654, Firekka system

Previously on Wing Commander: While on a mission with Angel, Bossman was shot down. Other than that, diplomats are being evacuated because of an escalating situation that is still largely a mystery to us.


Oh, Angel is here. Wonder how she's doing.





I'm just glad I'm not Colonel Halcyon... how do you explain to a woman with a young baby that she's a widow?










It seems everybody wants me to talk to her today...




















And there you go... I think with this the days of Angel the statistician are definitely over and won't be returning.










I guess we can leave her alone for now, we'll catch up with her later on. To be continued, obviously.



Mission Time!






Really? How interesting.


A defector? This is getting stranger by the minute! Maybe he will be able to explain what is going on here?


I hope this one doesn't get stored in a government warehouse right next to that Ralari from Kurasawa!



The TCS Austin pilots have already rendezvoused with the stolen Fralthi. So there's a Human crew aboard as well, just in case those cats change their minds. Most of you will be escorting the individual Kilrathi starfighters, but I need someone to bring in the Fralthi.







...checking your route for enemy fighters. The Kilrathi don't know that Ralgha is defecting, but we can't take any chances. You'll meet the Fralthi at Nav 1, and escort him home.





Well, things are for sure getting interesting--now we are escorting a defecting Kilrathi commander and his carrier over!

• Mission Video (Youtube)
  

That was actually quite fun (except the annoying Hhriss). It's great when you are assigned to protect a ship not actually made of cardboard--so if you though that this was going to be a repeat of Kurasawa 2, you thought wrong.

The first battle with the Krants is not too much of an issue, but too bad we don't get to see big ships shooting at each other! Although, there will be something along those lines in WC2 at some point.

The Dralthis are not TOO dangerous, but can be a little bit due to sheer numbers (there's 5 of them) and again the fact that they have mass driver cannons--but you saw how many hits it took me to destroy a Fralthi using just mass drivers, so there is quite a bit of wiggle room there. A Fralthi is not like a transport that dies in 5 hits or something.

I mentioned in the video that destroying a Drakhai pilot may send the rest of them running; this is true, but it doesn't happen every time, there is just a probability that it will happen. In fact in our battle with Krants, I destroyed a Drakhai first and the rest didn't go running, unlike what happened with Dralthis.

On a general note I just wanted to mention this--somehow it seems to me that SM2 has a lot better balanced difficulty than WC1 or SM1; the annoyance factor even in harder missions is not that high at all. The next mission is actually quite a bit harder, but still can be done in a couple of tries.

And finally, what happens if you don't save the Fralthi and it gets destroyed by the enemy? Well, it's quite simple. You fail the game and get to fly the two losing missions.

There was also a medal in this mission, but we didn't get it because that one Dralthi escaped us.

So here is the kill board.






Next time on Wing Commander
The face of an Angel, part two: the reality.