Part 85: Mission #81: TCS Concordia, K'Tithrak Mang system
Mission #81: TCS Concordia, K'Tithrak Mang systemPreviously on Wing Commander: Turns out, Jazz is the traitor who has been sabotaging us all this time! But we managed to bring him in after a one to one fight. There's one bit of unfinished business in this system though, from ten years ago!
So Jazz is not actually in the brig, but is instead allowed to play the piano under armed guard? Ok then.
Interestingly, they both seem to be wearing dress uniforms for some reason.
He's not lying about this, actually. Check mission #20 if you need a reminder!
And believe it or not, we'll actually get to see that later in the game!
I always get jumpy with a no-name wingman like this.
You should know by now that no matter what she says, there's no way we're NOT flying this mission!
Five minutes later...
Well, of course WE are going to be attacking the K'Tithrak Mang base, who else! But unlike before, we'll have to go at it solo this time.
Here is what we will be going against:
K'Tithrak Mang Base
Class: Starbase
Length: 1100 Meters
Mass: 240000 tonnes
Weapons: Flak cannons (2x), Anti-matter guns (2x)
Shields: Phase shields
Armour: Front: 700 cm; Right: 700 cm; Left: 700 cm; Rear: 700 cm.
Fighter complement: 110
So, time to go, before they realise what we're doing.
You know, I think that the Kilrathi should learn at some point that if Maverick is in the system, their starbase WILL be destroyed sooner or later. But anyway. Those stealth fighters are more aggressive than usual and won't really bother to stay hidden for very long. Still they are just as weak as always so shouldn't pose much trouble. Except if you, like me, get hit by something and have exactly your shield generator damaged! But like I said, who needs shields, right?
The one-on-one with Prince Thrakhath is really not substantially different from the one with Jazz, except for one thing. I have noticed that he is very trigger happy on the missiles and since you are fighting at close range they tend to pose a bit more threat than usual--hence this is one of the few missions where you really want to make sure to use your missile decoys. Other than that, he should go down easily; his ship isn't anything super-spectacular as you can see. This is his ride:
Bloodfang
Class: Superfighter
Max Velocity: 460 kps
Cruise Velocity: 280 kps
Acceleration: Excellent
Maximum Yaw: 8 dps
Maximum Pitch: 8 dps
Maximum Roll: 8 dps
Weapons: Particle cannon (4x), Image recognition missile (5x), Dumb fire missile (3x)
Shields: Fore: 9.5 cm equivalent; Aft: 9.5 cm equivalent.
Armour: Front: 8.5 cm; Right: 8 cm; Left: 8 cm; Rear: 8.5 cm.
Sure, he has four particle cannons in front, but not like he's going to be able to land a hit on you, is it? Or, rather, if he does, you need to rethink what you are doing.
And finally the Imperial guard Sarthas are far less of an issue when you are not in a Broadsword so while they are nothing to sneeze at, you should be able to deal with them efficiently. Since you are flying a strike-loadout version of a Sabre, you have 6 torpedoes which only leaves two slots for missiles (IR)--I would suggest leaving the missiles for these guys, just to speed things up a little.
The base is really no different from any other base, so nothing much to be said about that. In general I prefer doing torpedo runs in a Sabre because afterburners make it a lot easier to avoid flak damage.
Before anybody asks... yes that was Khasra in the cutscene, apparently he somehow survived that encounter we had with him. How annoying.
And now, let's celebrate. Wonder what the Admiral is going to say...
Yes, just like that, in front of everybody!
Uh-oh, now we're in trouble!
Ha ha, he's just kidding! Oh, and yay promotion!
Roll credits!
You didn't think that's how it ends, did you?
Actually, there is one small post-credits cutscene! Check it out...
I guess he survived somehow too. That's definitely not good, but we'll deal with it in good time, of course.
So, what happens if you fail?
As I've already explained, unlike Wing Commander 1, just getting to K'Tithrak Mang doesn't automatically mean success, you still have to destroy the base and defeat Thrakhath for that to happen. Also, on the other side, if you fall back to Gwynedd, last mission will instead be the defence of Caernarvon base, which is also possible to fail, e.g. by ejecting. The successful ending after Caernarvon defence is exactly the same as this one, but in both cases if you fail, you get a different ending, and it's a pretty grim one:
Next time on Wing Commander
This is the end of Wing Commander 2, of course. But the story isn't exactly over, in fact there are still a few loose ends such as the Ghorah Khar rebellion, the whole Mandarin business and of course the trial of "Jazz" Colson. Those things and others, we will have a chance to experience in the two "Special Operations" mission expansions that have been published for WC2; and the storyline of "Special Operations 1" picks up exactly at the same spot where we left it here. This, however, will be the subject of the next update.