[Euth]

Hello

All Caps title was just to get your attention----I enjoy your campaign, but what is the trick to this mission?

It seems impossible to defeat this mission otherwise, with no engines, and ruining an otherwise great download.  I don't mind replaying missions 5+ times to figure out the trick (e.g., slamming TAB during He Who Rides the Tiger), but I've replayed the prior mission (destroying the Demon), kept most of my wingmen alive, etc., and still can't beat this mission.

1) I keep ordering all my guys to "cover me", but 4 enemies warp in near me and I can't soak up that many missiles.
2) I put shields at 100%, and use my entire Gun Energy reserve to repower shields
3) I start Betrayed with 100% hull strength (from having replayed prior mission until I never get hurt).
4) I am on "VERY EASY" at this point.
5) I keep hitting Shift-R, but no support ship is deployed.
5) I have downloaded the fsport core VP files from 3 different sources, trying each one separately, and nothing changes.

Is another option to destroy the science vessel in the prior mission?  But it is a friendly target and it seems absurd that you'd be expected to destroy a ship you think is friendly at that time.  I'm not sure if this is the trick or not, I am loathe to Replay Mission and try to redo the Demon raid mission and keep 100% hull strength and most of my wingmen again since that took many tries.

Please tell me the hint to passing this mission.

Thank you,

- Euth

[General Battuta]

You're hitting a bug. You're not supposed to be disabled.

Did you jump out before the EMP at the end of the previous mission?

In any case, simple redownloading the Core VP from the release thread and replacing your current ST:R Core VP will fix the issue (you currently have an outdated version). You may then resume your progress in the campaign from where you left off.

Thread title edited. You can rest assured you'll get an answer even without shouting. 

[Euth]

First thank you so much for a quick reply

Re: the prior mission's science vessel, it blows up rather quickly just after one of my wingmen says, "Alpha 1, we should consider getting out of here", but the EMP occurs pretty quickly after that.  Maybe I should just warp out as soon as all primary and secondary objectives are completed.

I'll try Alt-J once the wingman says that, but what happens each time is typically, it blows up pretty quick, I get disabled, then a Red Alert message pops up and places me in the next mission (Betrayed).  I worry it might fail the mission if I hit Alt-J too soon, but I'll definitely try it.

I am staring at the VP file in a text editor and am tempted to just remove the line that essentially says "set-engine-subsystem of alpha 1 to zero" lol.

[General Battuta]

See previous post for a solution.

Warping out as soon as your wingman says you should warp out should also do the trick. That's what the designers intended you to do on this mission.

Why is the science cruiser blowing up? I don't remember that being an important part of the mission. You don't have to kill it yourself, that's for sure.

[Euth]

Hey I think you're exactly right about this.  In the VP file it says if you hit Alt-J, you automatically get the Red Alert screen (and thus avoid the EMP blast, etc.)

I should listen to my wingmen more often  

And thank you for such a quick reply so late at night.

[Jeff Vader]

And thank you for such a quick reply so late at night.

It is night only in certain parts of the world.

Edit:

I am staring at the VP file in a text editor and am tempted to just remove the line that essentially says "set-engine-subsystem of alpha 1 to zero"

If you end up in this situation again, please don't. Unless you're using a hex editor(?) that can preserve the structure of the .vp. The correct way is to open the .vp with a tool such as VPView, QuickVP or Maja, and then extract the files you want to edit (in this case the mission file). After that, you just edit the extracted file and then get acquainted with the directory structure of FS2/FSO. In this case, you'd place the edited file to \freespace2\str\data\missions\ . NOT back to the .vp.

[MatthTheGeek]

The problem is probably that the mission trigger the red alert as soon as you hit Alt-J. But you don't jump instantaneously, and there is a few seconds between the red alert trigger and the actual end of the mission. So if you end up disabled during those few seconds, it'll probably carry up to the next mission.

[Galemp]

Really? That sucks. I'll take a look at that in the next release.

[MatthTheGeek]

I think (but my freding skills are low) that it could be easily fixed by making the player ship invulnerable during the same event as the red alert one, so your are invulnerable during the few seconds after you pressed Alt-J.

However Euth description states that only his ship was disabled, which is strange given that all friendly ships should be disabled at the same time and that it should carry up to the next mission as well...

[Goober5000]

Euth had to have been playing an out-of-date version of the mission.  In the mission file I'm looking at, the red-alert will not happen if the EMP has gone off, and the EMP will not happen if the red-alert is active.

Furthermore, in the latest version, the delay between "we should get out of here" and the EMP effect was increased.

EDIT: This is odd.  Somewhat surprisingly, it looks like we never released those mission tweaks.  I've done so, and bumped the version to 1.1 so that the FSO Installer will see it.