[IcyScythe]

This mission is irritating me to say the least. I've yet to get find beacon 3 out of 8 (!!). How the heck do you do it? I try to scan the radar for other gray blips but I see nothing. Are the beacons arranged in a straight line? Can someone please give me advice!

[Talhoe]

That mission is far from easy. It is supposed to be frustrating. Going through a nebula with no AWACS and in a storm, where you get EMPed every few seconds. Beacon four is annoying to find, and no the beacons are not in a straight line. Fly slow, try to line with the prior two beacons, look for hostiles and try not to lose your aspect point. Beacon 4 is nearly at the limit of your sensor range from Beacon 3. Usually, if you end up in a fight, you are going the right way. BTW, it took me 2 hours to beat this mission.

[Kie99]

This mission is very easy if you want to cheat

Spoiler:

just fly in a straight line, your ship is pointed towards the ship you are looking for from the start of the mission.

[Hippo]

just fly straight

[Talhoe]

It's not always easy to fly straight, with hostiles shooting at you, and the constant EMP ... but there is the invincibility cheat...

[IcyScythe]

Thanks for the advice about flying straight. I'll try that (I'll just let my wingmen take care of the enemy fighters).

[S-99]

One great way to avoid enemy fighters while making that emping straight line to the ship is A: yes let your wingmen deal with them, and B: put your engines on maximum energy and afterburn you're way there and past the shivans.

Keep in mind that you will need to keep your wingmen alive for when you're rescuing snipe's ship though.

I wish fs2 had more gripping missions like the last SOC loop, those were some of the best.

[TrashMan]

I allways tought it rather easy as long as you remeber your heading.

I generraly head towards the nav bouy, and stop right in front of it
I don't move, I jsut dump all energy to shields nad gun and kill all shivans.
Then I face towards the bouy again and continue ahead slowly till another blip appear, usually allmsot directly infront.

rinse and repeat.

[Hades]

What I did was look around when I reach a buoy, and when I find it I fly to it.Any Shivan with a death wish gets infront of me is dead.

[Agent_Koopa]

Oh, and turn off the 3D radar if you have it. It just makes things harder here.

[foolfromhell]

Oh, and turn off the 3D radar if you have it. It just makes things harder here.

Not true.
On the radar, you see the next beacon on a different hemisphere than the others.
Makes the mission MUCH easier.

[Fang_Taichou]

The thing is buoy 1 is IFF-tagged friendly so you always have a reference point to check with in between EMP bursts.  Just use the [Y] targetting key while pointing at a buoy to check if you're headed in the right direction.  If you are pointed at buoy 1, flip 180 degrees around and head for the blips you see (the other buoys are IFF-unknown, colour purple).

[Hippo]

on the radar they're gray. they're only purple when you target them

[Gamma_Draconis]

OMG.... Are you serious? You can just fly straight foward and find Snipes?!?! It took me like 30 minutes of following each buoy and I got lost twice, having to start over again from buoy 1.

[Hippo]

yeah, your ship is initially pointed directly at where the ntt grall appears

[Excalibur]

The Shivan AI wandering around the bouys are sooo crap.

First time I played that mission - I sat around for 10 minutes waiting for something to happen, then quit and didn't play FS2 for sometime because is was too hard

[S-99]

Ummmmm, aside from the emp, when i first played the mission, i actually did what they said because i didn't get frustrated although i did take 45 mins of doing what they said. FOLLOW THE BUOYS Derderder!!!!!

You start out real close to the first one, you reach it, then in the instinct of looking around for another one the only other thing on your radar is a gray blip. Believe me, this mission is not for those who get angry easily. I've seen my friend throw his computer across  his room when i got him this game because he didn't know how to follow gray blips. For many people this mission seems to be a test of wits and bad attitude. Now i spent 45 mins myself when first playing, i had to go back to the first buoy and restart a couple of times but i still beat the mission.

After that.....it's not like the buoys are hard to figure out that you can target them once you passed them as the emp's will be doing that for you too

[AlphaOne]

It took me 30 or so minutes to complete the mission firt try! Altough I must say i found beacon 4 by accident! i never even knew what i was suposed to look for since i never ever read the mission briefings near the end of the game! I usualy expected to see what command was telling me i had to do! Big mistake! But i was damn lucky on this one!

[Vip]

I guess I'm an exception then - the first time I flew it, I went through all the buoys without a single mistake. Beaten the mission in 15 minutes. Noob instinct, I guess. I got lost once in a second try only, later I just used the technique - a)kill all the Shivans as soon as you see them b)park near the buoy, find grey bleep c)go to it and repeat. Works just fine