Wing Commander Part #89 - Mission #85: TCS Concordia, Pembroke system

Part 89: Mission #85: TCS Concordia, Pembroke system

Mission #85: TCS Concordia, Pembroke system

Previously on Wing Commander: We had front row seats for a big battle between the Concordia and two Fralthras. Other than that, some unsuspecting Imperial guard pilots met a quick death.

But now, it's time for a card game!

That would be the fake R&R that everybody is supposed to think he is going on.

I would have thought that's a good thing!

But anyway...

You'll jump out to Rigel, clear the immediate area, fly to your Nav 1, and then return to the Concordia. At the same time, other Broadswords will launch to escort the Concordia to the jump point. Because of the losses taken during the last campaign, we have a shortage of top gunnery officers for bomber missions. The gunnery stations will be manned by a pilot in addition to the gunnery teams.

What, no lovey-dovey on this mission?

Guess not.

Since there is a jump point involved, of course it means Broadsword, nothing to be done about that, unfortunately. Let's hope we don't run into anything too fast then.

Mission Video (YouTube)

Well, now, that was interesting.

But first... if you were wondering what could possibly the most annoying task in any of these missions, here it is: fighting a bunch of Jalkehi in a minefield in a Broadsword. It really doesn't get much more annoying than that. The only thing that helps is that your armour and shields can withstand a few mines and also the fact that, as always, enemy ships are being way too cautious and slow in a hazard area. For already slow Jalkehi that means that they almost barely even move--they still run into mines on a regular basis though. So this part is annoying, but not really hard.

And the main event of course is the fight against a bunch of Ferrets, flown, surprisingly, by human pilots--what's that all about! In any case, as you know (since we just flew a Ferret two missions ago), they are super fast and have a mass driver with a very high rate of fire. What that means in this mission is that as soon as you arrive they will try to get behind you and literally shred you to pieces from the back. It takes so little time to die here if you are not careful. What you CAN do against this is mainly to use the full complement of FF missiles that you are carrying--these ships will be recognised as enemy by them and they die of one hit! As you saw in the video, I fired off a missile as soon as I came out of the autopilot and one of the Ferrets died pretty much instantly. For what the missiles don't catch, use your rear turret, but you have to be REALLY quick about it as even one Ferret can absolutely destroy you due to their speed!

Oh and hey, before I forget... you have to kill ALL Ferrets! As in, you will be going on to the losing branch if you don't, it's a victory condition for Pembroke system. None can escape. Luckily, they are not particularly prone to running away so as long as you can actually stay alive in that battle (harder than it looks), this is not normally a problem. Since I am on the subject of losing branches, let me just say briefly how it works in SO1 (and indeed SO2 too). Unlike SM1/2 where losing a system meant losing the game, here if you lose a system, you get one extra mission (that's right, just one mission!) to set things right. If you fail that one (which is not that hard since all these make-up missions tend to be relatively difficult), the game ends; otherwise you continue down the normal path.

And now, let's talk to the admiral and maybe he has more info about this strange turn of events.