Part 49: Mission #45: 30 July 2654, Corsair system

Mission #45: 30 July 2654, Corsair system

Previously on Wing Commander: Another sneaking mission in a Dralthi, but we found that missing transport and escorted it safely home.


Hey, there they are both of them!


Eh, it wouldn't be Tiger's Claw without the rumours now, would it?


Ugh, not good!




Ah, so I guess those two guys came to say goodbye then.

An' I'm hopin' we'll follow them, as soon as the marines are off the planet. There's a huge enemy fleet near Firekka. Sooner or later, they'll find us hidin' here. An' then what? We can't win against those odds.




You and me both, you and me both.




Well I'm sorry to see you go, but I think I'll manage without Jazz.




Eh, you never know.




He CAN be just a LITTLE annoying sometimes, though!





I've learned a lot here. And I've been doing a lot of thinking 'bout what I'm going to do when I'm back on the Austin. I think my experience here is going to change my entire career.




I guess, that's that for these two then. At least for now.



Mission Time!




Is this a good news/bad news kind of thing?




Yep, sure enough.















Alrighty then, this is a Tiger's Claw defence mission plus a patrol/kill-everything-in-sight thing; and all that in a Raptor--sure feels like old times, doesn't it! With all the Dralthi business, it's actually been a while since last 'normal' mission. This one has a particularly nasty trick up its sleeve, though! If you don't do it right, it may even end up seeming like your Nav computer is for some reason having trouble correctly selecting the next Nav point in order! There is nothing wrong with it, this mission has a slightly unique feature and it's not to your advantage!

• Mission Video (Youtube)
  

Oh yeah, definitely feels like old times! But first, let me expand a bit on that funny Nav point arrangement business. In a typical mission it goes like this: launch -> Nav 1 -> Nav 2 etc. -> Tiger's Claw. Therefore even if there is a TC defence after launch and some enemies escape they won't be there when you return at the end. However, this mission goes like this: launch -> TC -> Nav 1 -> Nav 2 etc -> TC (same nav again). Due to the fact that when you revisit a nav point any escaped enemies will return, if anybody escapes from the defence part at start, they will be there happily greeting you upon your return after fighting all those Jalthi and Grathas. Good luck with that. In fact it can get even worse; if you don't 'check off' TC at the beginning, i.e. not come within 1500m of it (it's not likely but possible), you'll end up having to keep manually resetting your nav computer to the next correct nav point and you won't know what's gone wrong. But, easy solution to all of this mess: simply do not let anybody escape while defending TC. It's not that hard and it helps you leave the Imperial guard pilot for last so that his destruction doesn't trigger others to run away. It's kind of funny after all those mission where you specifically avoid fighting or have everybody running away, you get a mission where you MUST NOT let anybody escape for best results.

But anyway, the TC isn't so bad, but can be a bit of an issue due to sheer numbers really. One annoying aspect is that fighting the Dralthis may take you a bit farther away from TC, but then all the Salthi materialise right next to it so you have to hurry back quickly. Other than keeping TC alive (not really an issue), your main objective here should be to keep Hunter from taking too much damage as you will need a wingman in the rest of the mission for as long as possible.

If he is undamaged, chances are good he'll survive the Gratha fight; but make sure that he doesn't go for the Ralari and also to order him to pull back every once in a while and especially if he's asking for help. We've already done this with him before in Venice and it worked just as well there. In missions with lots of harder enemies, it's simply a good way of managing him.

As for the Jalthis, he'll probably leave at some point, but due to the fact that Jalthis seem to be in two groups of two rather than all four together, it's a little more manageable for a lone Raptor than it may seem at first. Still, the whole mission is definitely harder than it looks and it will take a few tries for sure.

I would really be upset if there wasn't a medal for this one!



Well, we have a new record, 22 kills in one mission (actually there are 23 enemies in it, but one Salthi was killed by the TC's defensive fire--you can see this clearly in the video).





Next time on Wing Commander
Providing aerial support from space!