Originally posted by WMCoolmon
So, every single fighter obediently took up position right in front of the beam cannon and began firing away.
Then the Diablo fired.
Heh, that happened to me as well the first two times I played the mission, even though I believe I was pretty speedy in taking out the shivan fighters. On the 3rd go I tried something else: Every time I felt the Diablo was about to fire, I ordered all fighters to form on my wing, waited for the shot, then told them to kill the beam cannon again. Cut it a bit close on the Independence's hull since they took longer to destroy the beam than they might otherwise have - was at 26% when it was over - but it did get the job done. First wave of bombers still got vaporised because my timing was off though
So the AI can be trusted to do it, as long as you make sure to do all the thinking for them. My personal 'Inferno moment' would have to be in the very first mission, with the friendly corvette and two EA cruisers. Figured if I ordered my wing to guard the corvette, then bolted off to quickly take out the front beams on the cruisers, I'd do a better job protecting my warship than if I just chased bombs all day. So there I go, full afterburner towards the nearest cruiser, when at the same time the corvette and both cruisers open fire. I had like 6 beams zapping by on all sides of my fighter, while I was just sitting there thinking "oh ****... this wasn't a good plan". I survived somehow, and afterwards all I could think was "cooool...". Those silver beams look awesome by the way