My strike craft complement is turning out to be quite heroic in HW:C.
I started out the game quickly, making two squadrons of 20 acolytes, because 10 is simply not enough, and tends to get outnumbered and outgunned really quickly in battles. I didn't lose a single proximity sensor, because I played the game before and knew it was going to happen. Only 3 acolytes lost this mission. Two lost to the multi-gun corvettes at the proximity sensors, one to the defenders at the hostile recourse location.
The next mission went a lot better, I managed to locate and repair the Bushan-Re with first squadron, and when I was supposed to do the next objective, I rotated them out for second squadron. No losses this mission, everything went really smoothly. Pretty boring, actually.
The next mission I sent out first squadron to destroy the first layer of minefields while I sent second squadron out in front of them to cover them from enemy fighters. I repeated this for the second minefield. About then, though, second squadron had some pretty roughed up ships, so I sent them back for a repair and sent first squadron up to draw out enemy ships. I managed to to take all of the enemy ships out a distance away from the minefield, but now first squad was pretty roughed up. The only baddies left were the mines though, so I called second squadron back to escort the Clee-san while first squadron made a hole in the minefield for the research ship, and then went back for repairs. I lost two fighters when first squadron took down the baddies surrounding the Clee-san, but that was it.
For the third mission, all I lost was the obligatory 10 acolytes that were scripted to die. It made me really sad.
I rebuilt and temporarily combined first and second squad into a 40 fighter group to fend off the beast's attacks.
The fourth mission made up for it easily. I sent a throw-away recon to the bentusi, and I just sat back at harvested resources and built support modules. I made two more squadrons, bringing my total to four squadrons of 20 acolytes, or 80 fighters (A decent fighter complement for a carrier). When the bentusi asploded, I scrambled first squadron to protect the allied carrier, and second squadron to take care of an incoming frigate flotilla. Second squadron used its missiles and took care of the fighters, but was pretty damaged so I had to resupply them. Meanwhile, I was under somewhat heavy assault from my other flank, the direction of the beast's carrier. I moved fourth squadron over there and kept third on my front right side in case any more frigates popped up. After a while of fighting, second squad was resupplied, so I let them take third squad's spot, let fourth squadron repair and rearm, and I moved foward upon the enemy with third squad, first squad still being at the allied carrier on the enemies flank. A few ion array frigates appeared unescorted near third, so I had them take em down with missiles. I continued moving foward with third, and once third had the enemy carrier in range, I took replaced first squadron with fourth and moved first on the attack at the carrier. (I didn't move fourth directly to the enemy carrier because this way the attack would be quicker, less time for third squad to be exposed). I had third squad assault the carrier dead on and distract the enemy fighters and corvettes, but they already used their missiles, so I had them draw the strike craft out leaving the carrier exposed for first squad to deliver their missiles. Then it was just mop up of workers and stuff. No losses this mission, except for that stupid recon unit, which doesn't really count because I hate recons.
The next mission is that really annoying nebula escort mission. Anyway, I had one recon with my main battlegroup, one on foward operations with first squadron. Second, Third, and Fourth squadrons were all escorting the command ship and the carrier. Whenever I saw an enemy patrol, I immediately had second squad move out and take them down. Things actually went quite smoothly. I never had to repair first squadron or second squadron, which were the only squads that actually saw combat at this point in the mission. Once we got to the end of the route with the Imperial Heavy Cruiser, I moved two leeches up along with 5 workers and third squad. I sent the leeches in, and two minutes later, I assaulted the enemy position with first and third squad, first squad taking the brunt of the enemy defender's guns. Then I had third squad deliver their missile payload on the HC, which brought it within capturable range. I moved my 5 workers in and "salvaged" the heavy cruiser. I would've stayed to nab some enemy destroyers, but I didn't have enough SU, and I didn't want to retire any squadrons yet. Total losses for this mission was two acolytes from first squadron, which as I said killed like 15 enemy defenders around a heavy crusier.
I didn't play any farther, so
I'm quite proud of my fighter craft.
