Part 52: Mission #48: 7 August 2654, Corsair system

Mission #48: 7 August 2654, Corsair system

Previously on Wing Commander: We were helping in evacuation of surviving Marine transport ships after their mission on Firekka. Also, good riddance to Dralthi.


Seriously, where IS Paladin? He's not here, he's not on the killboard any more, what gives?










Yeah, well, let's hope so.











Julia's not... herself right now - she can't talk or take care of herself - but I'll see her as soon as we're back in Vega.




That's great news, I guess.











I reprogrammed his ship sensors so he thought he was bein' attacked by a thousand Kilrathi. Fortunately, the Colonel had disabled the self-destructs on Maniac's ship...


And that's his idea of a 'small practical joke'? Is this guy 12 years old?






Makes sense... you need to be nuts to keep from going bonkers. Of course.



Mission Time!














Well then, let's help them do it!







Our goal is to inflict as much damage as possible on the Kilrathi on our way out-system. If we can kill enough of their ships, they won't have enough troops to remain near Firekka and defend their borders. Our plan: the Tiger's Claw will make several mini-jumps to lure individual Kilrathi capital ships into ambush points. Your assignment is to destroy as many of them as you can.







They may not look like us, but they're just as human. Measure your own lives against that, pilots, and make your own decision. Maverick! You're teamed with Angel again, as Omega Wing. Follow your programmed Nav course. You'll rejoin the Claw at the rendezvous point.





So it's search and destroy time once more! And we are in a Rapier after quite a while. Those who don't believe in the power of Rapier should definitely have a look at this mission--it proves beyond a doubt how well suited it is of this kind of task.

• Mission Video (Youtube)
  

Yes, this mission is totally awesome fun! I'm of a firm opinion that this mission wouldn't have been nearly so relaxing if we had been doing it in a Raptor. Raptor has its good points, but I'm becoming more and more of a Rapier convert as far as WC1 goes. I still don't like the missile loadout, but what can you do.

So anyway, on to the actual mission. There is in fact a metric ton of enemies in it, but you are never actually seriously outnumbered which makes it non-frustrating to do. In fact, if you invoke all the enemy waves, you'll face a total of 29 enemies here, but in reality you'll probably miss a few due to not all waves being invoked after some of the enemies escape. In particular that lone Salthi at the beginning (what's up with that?) is almost 100% likely to escape which means you'll avoid fighting the 3 Hhriss there. I would almost recommend to simply let the Salthi go as fighting Hhriss isn't that much fun honestly.

The rest of the mission is just a matter of going from one stop to another and killing everything in sight. You are unlikely to have much trouble here because you have a good ship and a pretty good wingperson. Yes, she tends to get in front of you a bit more than she should, but at least you get to see the awesome dogfight choreography in this game! Seriously, the sight of a missile launching from a fighter just never gets old.

Despite lots of enemies, and especially if you skip the Hhriss, conserving fuel surprisingly isn't a huge issue--you are mostly fighting slower enemies so can go very easy on the afterburner; I did and I came back to TC with almost half the tank still full. So the fact that you still have to defend TC upon return isn't really a 'screw you' to any great extent--you are likely to be in good shape for this fight.

But anyway, some interesting announcements... apparently after Angel, Colonel Halcyon is also leaving us and wants Maverick to take his place! Well, we'll see how this will pan out. In the meantime we need to finish our 'tactical retreat' while causing as much damage as possible in hopes that this will make Kilrathi abandon their mission here and leave Firekka alone. Also, next time we are back in Raptor for one last mission in it.

I'm actually disappointed with just 17 kills in this mission...





Next time on Wing Commander
Maniacal laughter!