[Firartix]

I saw that some people had troubles with Darkest Hour on IRC
When i got to the mission, i played it on Insane and managed to save all but one rook on the first playthrough (i guess i had a lot luck, i ended to 1% hull at some moment..)
I replayed it to try the tactic i used again, and managed to save all of them on the 4th try.

It could be usefull to some other people, then i'm posting it here... and i guess some thread like that is going to pop later anyway.
Of course there are a lot of other ways to do this mission, this one is mostly defensive.
Feel free to add other ways of doing the mission and comment.


First, let's assume the following.
 - A frigate can take care of a corvette without prob
 - Having the rooks in a group is enough to have them stay alive
 - The station has plenty hp and is attacked mostly by bombs

Here's what i deduced:
 - You don't need to go anywhere close any capship
 - Having all rooks follow you (C-3-8 Cover me) will save them
 - You have to intercept bombs yourself


Overall strongpoints are :
 - All rooks (beta/gamma/delta) survive
 - You get to play mostly as space superiority, so you don't have to worry of AAA and Flaks
 - Bombs don't fire back

Weakpoints are:
 - Alpha wing will get uber-pwnd in no time
 - You have almost no chance to save the Vatican (but it's supposed to die anyway)
 - A lot of bomb intercepting to do



Weaponry Management
I personally played with gun energy reduced by a tick, therefore inecrasing shield and engine.
If you spam the Maul weapon, you might get low on energy, so better don't...
You get time between waves so don't hesitate to stop and put all energy on guns to recharge.

You can spam missiles any way you want since support ship is aviable.
Double javelin will get superiority fighters down in no time, and they can be used on bombers at long range
Use dual hellfires at close range, especially on bombers.

Vulcan is the best weapon for bomb interception IMO, because it is very fast and has high rate of fire.
From what i've seen it allows intercepting bombs from behind whereas you cannot with the Maul.



Initial Wave
Tell rooks  to follow you (C-2-1-8 or C-3-8).

Avoid the Redoutable and go straight for the station, then go on a kill streak and get rid of space superiority.
Get then rid of the Aquarius bomber wing.
Once fighters are down, wait. You might go attack the Redoutable along with Alpha, but you're then likely to get losses.

The Vatican will survive the fight regardless.
Alpha wing is likely to completely get downed during this, it's however important to have 1 or 2 figs remaining to help on the later waves.

When the Redoutable is around 30% hull it'll warp out, so hit your burners and rush toward it to intercept the upcoming Artemis bomber strike (2nd Aquarius wave).



Trebuchet strike avoiding
1/ You can just stay in the middle of nowhere, overclock engines and avoid incoming rebs with afterburners and countermeasures. Your rooks might however have difficulties avoiding them.
2/ Overclock your guns to recover energy and hide between the station.

As the Rea bombers close on the 5 clicks mark from the station, Aquarius wave 3 will jump in (Artemis bombers). Get rid of it.

When i played it, Rheza had around 75% hull left at that point.



Triple strike
At this point, 3 assault wings will jump in : 2 bomber wings, and a SSM Striking wing.

What i did is the following, but i don't think it's actually a good idea:
 - Intercepting space superiority as they close in real fast, but without staying on them for too long
 - Intercept as many of the SSM Strike wave as you can (hercs mk2 iirc)
 - Get on one of the bomber wing while priotizing incoming warheads
 - Continue shooting down warheads until the 2nd bomber wing warps out

When i used it Rheza was down to 10% hull after the assault, but i had taken Gamma and Delta with me thinking they were counted in rooks too. The_E suggest instead taking Beta with you to attack the SSM Strike wing / the AWACS, while Gamma and Delta would defend the station from bomber strikes.



The end
The Valerie then arrives, ignore it as ordered, as the Indus will take care of it (ending up around 20% hull)
Just sit down and watch the fireworks.



This surely isn't the best way of playing the mission but it did work well for me, and i guess it's almost imperative to use the Cover Me command to protect your rooks.
Post comments and suggestions/tips for this mission

[Dilmah G]

Sounds good to me, mate.

My preferred strategy however sits between uber-microing my wingmen (have them form on me and direct them to specific targets that I can't get to without losing sight of my target) or just c-3-9 the buggers and hope that they make it out.

[MP-Ryan]

I had all of them saved until the last 30 seconds of the mission when one (Beta 4, actually) decided to ignore my orders to stay on my wing, charged off into the destroyer, and was blown to pieces.

I couldn't be bothered to replay the mission for one wingman who was stupid.  However, I was slightly perturbed at the debrief... "some" of my wingmen saved my ass, I saved all but the one idiot... come on!

[-Sara-]

I had them on follow and kept them away from most of the chaos. I'd casually check if an enemy fight would fly near and order a C-3-1 on them, to make sure each of these craft would die rapidly thus quickly diminishing the threat to my wingmen. Bombers we approached as a group, letting the whole group destroye one bomber while I'd take the rest. I ignored the final order to group up with the frigate and let other fighters not under my wing do the work. They all made it out, which seemed to get me a short compliment (or maybe you get that anyway) in the debrief.

[General Battuta]

I had all of them saved until the last 30 seconds of the mission when one (Beta 4, actually) decided to ignore my orders to stay on my wing, charged off into the destroyer, and was blown to pieces.

I couldn't be bothered to replay the mission for one wingman who was stupid.  However, I was slightly perturbed at the debrief... "some" of my wingmen saved my ass, I saved all but the one idiot... come on!

He was overcome by courage after the Indus' inspirational speech. He will be missed. 

[Scotty]

Am I the only one who managed to save the Vatican?

[Ravenholme]

Am I the only one who managed to save the Vatican?

It died for me just as the Valerie went down. Was so close to saving it. However, I'd got all of Alpha and the rooks through, so wasn't going to replay it.

[MP-Ryan]

Am I the only one who managed to save the Vatican?

Nope.

Ironically, Beta 4 may have died but the Vatican lived to fight another day (with 11% hull)... which also counted for squat in the debrief.  I'd like to kick that squadron commander square in the junk.

[General Battuta]

Am I the only one who managed to save the Vatican?

Nope.

Ironically, Beta 4 may have died but the Vatican lived to fight another day (with 11% hull)... which also counted for squat in the debrief.  I'd like to kick that squadron commander square in the junk.

There's definitely a mention of the Vatican surviving in the debrief.

[MP-Ryan]

Am I the only one who managed to save the Vatican?

Nope.

Ironically, Beta 4 may have died but the Vatican lived to fight another day (with 11% hull)... which also counted for squat in the debrief.  I'd like to kick that squadron commander square in the junk.

There's definitely a mention of the Vatican surviving in the debrief.

Hrmmm... either it didn't fire for me (possible), or more likely I was still too busy cursing Beta 4 and skimmed over the debrief too quickly.  Seriously, that fellow did some emotional damage to this wing leader 

[Androgeos Exeunt]

What I do is use C-2-1-1 on each target. Once the target's destroyed, I send C-2-1-7. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I play on Very Easy, though.

[Nnexxus]

I keep failing the mission (like, three or four times in a row  ) just near the end, during the Valerie fight. The Indus takes it down, which is great and triggers joy among my wingmen, but right after that the Indus itself explodes, mission failed .
I find it a bit strange since in your walkthrough, you explicitely mention that the Valerie should be ignored. And I agree with you : I tried two different times to take down beam turrets on the Valerie, in order to save the Indus, but I got blown out of the sky by the Valerie's point defenses in a matter of seconds... (must admit, my ship was in pretty bad shape at that point).

Am I missing something ? I'm currently playing on medium difficulty, but I might end up lowering it a bit for this mission. It's getting a bit tiring to fail this pretty lengthy (and nicely designed, by the way  ) mission time after time  .

[General Battuta]

I keep failing the mission (like, three or four times in a row  ) just near the end, during the Valerie fight. The Indus takes it down, which is great and triggers joy among my wingmen, but right after that the Indus itself explodes, mission failed .
I find it a bit strange since in your walkthrough, you explicitely mention that the Valerie should be ignored. And I agree with you : I tried two different times to take down beam turrets on the Valerie, in order to save the Indus, but I got blown out of the sky by the Valerie's point defenses in a matter of seconds... (must admit, my ship was in pretty bad shape at that point).

Am I missing something ? I'm currently playing on medium difficulty, but I might end up lowering it a bit for this mission. It's getting a bit tiring to fail this pretty lengthy (and nicely designed, by the way  ) mission time after time  .

We've had one other report of this issue, and it's really bemusing us, because in every one of our tests the Indus takes the Valerie down fine on Medium.

Make sure you don't give any disarm, disable, or ignore orders to your wingmen. Due to a very old FreeSpace 'feature', this will cause the Indus to ignore the Valerie.

[Nnexxus]

Thanks for the quick reply. I'm pretty sure I did not give any ignore or disable order. I might have told my wingmen to disarm the Valerie though ("go ahead rookies, I'll cover you !"  ). I'll try again tonight with your advice in mind, and report back here.

[-Sara-]

Can the reason also be that the Indus dies of 'hostile debris'? I have on occasion in other mods failed missions because a destroyed Ravana or Sathy decided to hurl it's debris with speeds of 200mps or more into a capital ship.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

It is possible. I've seen the Colossus losing 20% hull from the stray debris of the Sathanas in High Noon. Given how close the Indus is to the Valerie, and the fact that it has a lot less hitpoints than the Colossus, it's definitely possible.

[Nnexxus]

OK, so I played through The Darkest Hour three times yesterday, here's what happened for each playthrough :

• First one :

Medium skill setting. I have been very careful not to give any ignore/disarm/disable order to my wingmen. Actually, once the Valerie jumped into the engagement zone, I did not give any order. I just sat near Rheza station enjoying the fireworks. The Indus warped in and attacked the Valerie (if I remember well, using both torpedoes and mass drivers). It definately did not ignore the Valerie. However, the Valerie fought back using its beams, and the hull integrity of both ships went down at roughly the same rate. A few seconds before reaching 0, the Valerie got disabled and stopped. Then it exploded, and something weird happened. The Indus was at only 1 or 2% hull integrity at this point, and while the Valerie was exploding (it definately had reached 0 hull integrity and the explosion effect was rolling), it still managed to send a few extra beams before the explosion reached its beam canons. That was enough to destroy the crippled Indus. I'm pretty sure the Indus got destroyed before any fragment from the Valerie came close to it.

• Second playthrough :

I lowered the difficulty to "easy". Same strategy on my side : just sitting and enjoying the capital ships fight. The Indus just got kicked this time, it did not even destroy the Valerie before being teared apart. It still attacked it though, but the Valerie ended up with something like 10% hull integrity after the engagement.

• Third playthrough :

Back to medium skill level. This time, I ordered all my rookies to attack the Valerie as soon as the Indus jumped in. I personnaly made two attack runs on the Valerie, pumping out Hellfires. I had to break at mid-range before being torn apart by the ship's defenses, but still managed to deal some non-negligible damage. With this strategy, the Indus managed to destroy the Valerie and survived, though badly damaged (maybe 10-15% hull integrity, something like that). However, I got 70% casualties among my rooks, even if they were all alive and "green" when the Valerie jumped in. I should also mention that on this playthrough, the Vatican had survived (I'm not sure what happened to it for the first two playthroughs), it might have helped a bit. I continued the campaign from here : after all, they were just rooks  . It's just a bit frustrating to have kept them all alive through the mission, only to see them die against overwhelming odds at the end.


Hope this can help. From my experience, ordering the wingmen to attack the Valerie at the end makes the fight go as expected, so the mission is not broken. However, I find it weird that other players can just sit and watch the Indus take down the Valerie without outside intervention.

[General Battuta]

I find it weird that Valerie/Indus behavior is deviating from our multiple playtests at all. Something must have happened here that we're not aware of. We need to look at this more closely.

[Nnexxus]

If I can help you pinpoint the problem, just let me know.

My FS2 install is not very fresh (I'd say, about 2 years old), from the original CDs. I used 3.6.10 mediaVPs before, installed using the Java automated installer (maybe even 3.6.8 before that). I installed 3.6.12 and WiH manually this last week-end (I also downloaded the updated version of AoA DC for compatibility).

I used a dedicated pilot for WiH, that I cloned from my existing AoA pilot to avoid entering all my settings again. If you think that could be the problem, I can restart the campaign using a fresh new pilot to see if it makes any difference.

[Snail]

I find it weird that Valerie/Indus behavior is deviating from our multiple playtests at all. Something must have happened here that we're not aware of. We need to look at this more closely.

I can verify that the Indus and Valerie kill each other.