Hard Light Productions Forums
Hosted Projects - FS2 Required => Blue Planet => Topic started by: karajorma on February 13, 2016, 09:18:21 pm
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Must have played that mission about 10 times now. And the Carthage either jumps out before my bombers can take down her engines, or the bombers get killed by the huge amount of AAA or the engines are repaired and the ship jumps out even if I do manage to disable it or the Toutatis gets killed.
Basically I'm at the point where I skip the mission unless there is something I'm missing.
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It's one of the more extensively studied missions, there's a lot of viable tactics on YouTube — although it's harder in the DC release.
Following the suggestions on the HUD gauge at top center should be helpful, but for a more detailed plan:
At mission start, have your wingmen guard the Serenity. Have your artillery kill the Radhanite and the tankers. Use Grimlers and your ammo pack to take out the Mjolnir beams.
Once that's all done, switch your artillery to hitting the minelayers. Rearm and fly 'up' wayyy above the Carthage. Keep moving constantly as you snipe the AWACS domes and all three Auroras. (Wingmen may be very helpful here).
Once the AWACS and Auroras are gone, fly to Neptune HQ, put the virus into all major subsystems, and get out once you get the message about the sentries self-destructing. If you've got spare time, consider sniping a few Carthage radar dishes to improve your artillery accuracy.
Position yourself under the Carthage maybe 2000-2500 meters out. Call in gunships, anti-turret teams, and bombers. Have them all disable engines, then let them go nuts.
Tell your artillery to pound the Carthage. If the Toutatis shows up, you can keep it alive by keeping air wing losses low and making sure to take out all 4 Mjolnirs.
If the Carthage is running away early, keep your artillery in slave mode and make sure none of them are firing at the Carthage.
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Yeah, I figured that the solution was something along those lines but I could never get it to work.
I'm just going edit the mission to skip it.
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(If on the highest difficulty, start with the two Deimos on the right. Get your artillery to pound one, and disable the front Big Green Beams of the other.)
Immediately order the wingmen to protect the serenity. Get the artillery to pound the Radhanite and the tankers.
Speed toward the Serenity and the Big Green Beams (1 on Carthage starboard, 2 Mjolnirs). When you get 8000 away from a Mjolnir, call in a support ship. After the wingmen save the Serenity, get them to clean up fighters or the tankers.
I would suggest using the Shrike over the Grimler. Pack your ammo pack too. Keep near the support ship - stay near the Narayanas, snipe the Mjolnir/Carthage beams. It takes 2 Shrike (ie 1 dual-missile shot) to snipe targets 7000m away, so rearm and repeat for 2-3 times.
Rearm. Then move above the Carthage in a arc, to avoid turrets. Snipe the AWACS domes from high up, or at least 60 degrees above their horizontal. Then order wingmen to kill the Auroras.
Now rotate your arc down toward Neptune HQ. By now, the artillery should be hitting the two Deimos. Watch the Kulas. Scan the subsystems to kill the turrets. Watch those fighters getting too close!
Now place yourself 2500 m below the Carthage. Order wingmen to disable the belly of the Carthage or fighters.
Order all the bombers and maybe an anti turret wing at once. Order fire all on the engines. Then get the artillery to hit the Carthage.
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Summary:
Use the Shrike. Maintain distance as you curve around, up and over the Carthage to Neptune HQ, then under the Carthage.
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The Grimler is much, much better at the crucial job of eliminating the AWACS behind the Carthage than the Shrike; for that reason alone it's the better choice.
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A small tip, setting your radar range to 2000m will make the initial part of the mission much easier. This mission has too many ships so 10k or infinite will just look like a mess and won't let you see if a fighter is dangerously close to spotting you.
You can also try using the UX accelerator over the ammo pack and dogfight with the auroras instead of sniping them, might actually be easier now that they have OP flares. There's also a pretty cool trick with how fighters aggro you, if you leash them in and leave their detection range they'll turn around and ignore you for some time, enough to get right back on their asses and pop them with a UX or Sidhe.
As for the 2nd part, you can try clearing out the fighters when you call in the strike to make it easier for your bombers. Make sure you clear out any remaining Alastors too, those things will mess up your slow Durgas.
The best place to call in the strike would be right below the Carthage, looking at the engines.
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This mission was a lot of fun! One I had was an element of (perceived) chance; long-range missiles might destroy Mjolnirs or AWACS on the first salvo, or they might do partial damage. I'm sure it has something to do with the angle of fire, but I've never quite figured it out reliably. Ammo pack or not, having to spend time rearming makes the difference between victory and defeat.
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Here's how I ended up beating it:
Step zero: Arm your fighter with quad Sidhes, an ammo pack, and Shrikes. Make sure your wingmen have Sidhes, UX Accelerators, and any good dog-fighting missile.
Step 1: Order your wingmen to protect the Serenity. Although it's under heavy beam fire at the start of the mission, it does get clear of the beams with plenty of time. It's the bombers and heavy assault fighters closing in on the serenity that are the problem, full of evil cyclopses and maxims.
Step 2: Switch artillery from free fire to slaved mode and designate targets. Start with the closest Tev corvette, and also go ahead and mark the four gas miners too.
Step 3: Target said Tev corvette and kill the beam on the side facing the serenity with a Shrike. Without that bit of extra damage pouring into the Serenity, you will almost assuredly save the ship. Probably with a lot of hull left over.
Step 4: Fly forward, to the Serenity, following your wingmen. Lock onto the Carthage, and take out the beam that it's using to bombard the fleet, again with a Shrike.
Step 5: Call in for a rearm. Take careful note of the warp-in point for your repair ship; it's about 45 degrees to the right and 30 degrees up, facing the orion, from the Serenity's location.
Step 6: Reload with your ammo pack. Switch to dual-fire mode. Lock a Mjolnir's beam cannon and give it a pair of Shrikes.
Step 7: Your wingmen should be tearing the Serenity's pursuers to shreds by now. Use the Sidhe to blow up any bombs they missed while your support ship reloads your Shrikes. If you feel the need after reloading, you can go blow up some unwitting Tev pilots.
Step 8: You should be just behind the Serenity now. Stay there. This is an excellent position from which to claim a HUGE advantage in the coming firefight. Your support ship is right next to you, with unlimited Shrikes for you. Blast the second Mjolnir, which reduces the number of beam cannons pointed at your fleet to zero.
Step 9: Target each of the two corvettes near the Carthage. Give their lateral beam cannons one Shrike apiece. They're not pointed at your fleet yet - but they will be soon. Deny the GTVA every beam you can. When the Serenity jumps to safety, order your wingmen to cover you.
Step 10: Next blow up all of the Carthage's radar dishes with Shrikes. They take two apiece. Yes, just keep rearming.
Step 11: Order your artillery frigates to bombard the two minelayers into oblivion.
Step 12: Begin your 'attack run'. Make sure you have at least two Shrikes aboard for this. Fly up at approximately a 45 degree angle, over the Carthage and over the AWACS. Once you are above the two AWACS ships, target their radomes and give them one Shrike apiece.
Step 13: Ready yourself for a dogfight and scan the station's communication, weapons, and sensor subsystems. There will be Aurora, Kulas, Nyx, and Atalanta defenders. Your wingmen are good at slaughtering them, but if something gets close enough to you to take out with your Sidhe, take the shot.
Step 14: Order your artillery frigates to bombard the two corvettes near the Carthage. Fly up and over, back to your frigates, exactly the way you came.
Step 15: Once the corvettes are blown up, you should have nearly every objective on your list complete, with plenty of time to spare. Now it's time to sit back, relax, and call the attack. Even if you didn't blow up all the Auroras, you should have points to spare. Order your frigates to bombard the Carthage.
Step 16: Wing by wing, give them orders. Tell the bombers and gunships to disable the Carthage. Tell everyone else to 'engage the enemy'. Although you did scan the subsystems on the station and upload the virus to all the sentry guns, and they're mostly busy shooting down missiles, the 'engage enemy' order should sweep everything off of the battlefield that can possibly hurt your reinforcements. You can even order Falcata to help them if you want.
Step 17: Once the Carthage is disabled, re-order the bomber wings to destroy the Carthage, and re-order the gunships to disarm the Carthage. Sit back and wait for Lopez to beg for surrender. Accept if you feel forgiving & think a spare Ubuntu Orion would be useful later in the story. Vaporize her if you feel vengeful.
...Did someone say that the Toutatis got BLOWN UP in this mission?! I did not think the Toutatis made an appearance in Her Finest Hour.
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...Did someone say that the Toutatis got BLOWN UP in this mission?! I did not think the Toutatis made an appearance in Her Finest Hour.
It does, under a very specific set of circumstances.
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How does that work? Do you have to do really good in the mission or really bad to get the Toutatis to show up?
"Hey Admiral Calder, we got this. We own the battlefield completely right now. You're probably safer here bombarding the Carthage than you are sitting...wherever it is you are. Come on in, the water's great!" ...and then stuff goes terribly wrong? Like Imperiuse/Wargods wrong?
Or...
"HELP US, we're all going to DIIIIIEEEEEEEE! No, this isn't a repeat of the Wargods incident at Saturn. No, I promise. No, even though I'm the common denominator. No, I know that we initially intended to put Lopez in exactly the position you're in right now. Of course it will work, I'm Fedayeen! Our computer, um...said that you have to bring in the Toutatis, or something."
Still, it's kind of cool that the BP team included such a spectacular way of losing the mission. Most of the times I lost, it was from breaking stealth right next to the sentry guns and dying miserably. It wasn't nearly as cool as getting the Toutatis blown up.
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Having the Toutatis show up is a sign you're doing really badly.
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AFAIK the Big T shows up if your attack takes too long which will happen if you lose you durgas. I think it's perfectly safe to call it in as long as you still have your arty frigs and cleared out the enemy corvettes. Otherwise, the Serkr team will jump in(with guardianed beams, of course) and beam it to death.
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As The E said, it's a sign you're not doing so well. However, it's arrival doesn't indicate an immediate mission-fail by any means, it's quite possible to still complete the mission at this point. I think your "performance review" in the mission debriefing reflects this as well?
I seem to recall somewhere--wasn't there a notion that the fighter/bomber losses from this mission would somehow affect future missions in BP Act 4?
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Hmmm, do you have to get the Durgas blown up? Or can you summon the Toutatis by doing really well, but waiting to call the attack super-late? Part of me wants to see how quickly a destroyer can be brought down by two Narayanas, a Solaris, and all its strikecraft.
I wonder if that is how the Atreus gets blown up in the future.
Also, if we had Shrikes available during Delenda Est, the Imperiuse beams would not have stood a chance. Are they a Fedayeen-only weapon? Because if so, and if Calder and the Fedayeen are working together now, then the UEF now has the almost infinite capacity to blow up beam weapons.
No wonder Steele is desperate to attack Earth, he probably knows he is about to lose.
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Idk, it usually happens if you call the attack, manage to disable the engines, but the Carthage isn't losing HP quickly enough. You can just not call in the Durgas and just call in the gunships to disable the engines.
And no, Shrikes don't really mean that much with beam shutters and similar defences coming into play in act 4. The beams in Delenda Est are also heavily uparmored and guardianed so you wouldn't be able to disable them even if you had Shrikes. Could be explained in-universe as some special experimental active armour made to protect forward beams.
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The biggest problem Shrikes/Grimlers will face against beams is capship launched countermeasures.