Wing Commander Part #80 - Mission #76: TCS Concordia, Enigma system

Part 80: Mission #76: TCS Concordia, Enigma system

Mission #76: TCS Concordia, Enigma system

Previously on Wing Commander: We secured the jump point into Enigma system, thus allowing us to soon slip in undetected into Kilrathi space. Also, Downtown got killed and the William Tell destroyed, both off-screen.

As you can see, the Concordia is currently hiding in an asteroid belt! And you know what that means--yes, launching straight into asteroids!

You COULD try looking through that window behind you, it may provide a clue!

Ah, so they finally decided to try and put a stop to the leaks!

It's time for another mission with Angel!

I already don't like the sound of this...

Oh, so I get to shoot torpedoes at a star base? Ok, that's pretty cool.

I guess that was the shortest briefing ever. However, unlike some of the longer ones, this one did in fact explain exactly what we will need to do. We'll fly around through the asteroids and hope for a bit of surprise in order to be able to destroy that listening post (Khorah Pakh is the name, btw.).

Mission Video (Youtube)

So, yeah. If you had no issue with a Broadsword so far, this mission will make you hate them with a passion. You wouldn't necessarily be expecting it, but this is certainly one of the hardest missions in the entire game, definitely on a par with that nasty fight against the Grikaths in a Rapier! In fact, I am quite surprised that I took so little damage as it normally goes a lot worse.

First of all, just a quick note about the launch... it's kind of fun not knowing whether you'll survive the launch fine or get hit by an asteroid immediately. Due to randomness, it happens a lot more often that you'd think!

Main issue are of course the three Imperial guard Drakhri, for which the Broadsword is just about as inappropriate a ship to fight against as it can possibly be. The biggest problem with them is that they will not generally come close to you unless baited (either by taunting or otherwise). Instead they will prefer to try and lure you towards the base so you will take damage from flak. As a matter of fact, one of the three Drakhri will not leave the immediate base area, period! Luckily you can simply leave him for last, so that's not such a big deal. As for the other two... well, in my opinion, using the rear turret is probably the easiest option. Just get them to attack and then immediately switch to the rear turret as they will in almost 100% of cases try to get behind you and shoot you from there. Actually I think that not using your turrets and trying to track the targets with your front facing guns only is probably the quickest way to death in this one. You can try to use also your friend or foe missiles, but they aren't super useful against Drakhri due to their evasiveness.

The subsequent Jalkehi aren't worth too many words as you are evenly matched against them in a Broadsword so just be careful to not be too damaged going into that battle (remember, flak!) and you'll be fine. As usual, missiles are VERY effective against Jalkehi as they can't evade them well due to slowness. Oh, btw, did you know that 'flak' is actually a German word? It's an abbreviation from "Fliegerabwehrkanone".

The starbase can be dealt with in the usual way, it doesn't have anti-matter guns, so Broadsword will not be in too much danger from it once the fighters protecting it are gone.

So... we have one more mission with Angel in a Broadsword (which kind of wastes her abilities as a good marksman as it is impossible to track the target efficiently), and then it's on to the final set!

Note: this video may seem like it cuts off a bit prematurely at the end as the landing sequence doesn't go all the way like it normally does. This is not an editing error, for some reason this mission features slightly different takeoff and landing animations (because of asteroids I guess) and the landing bit ends exactly where the video ends.