Bah, on my first try it was very easy. Commander Snipes did not depart, so I had an invincible Alpha 2 helping me!
I had 106 kills before I bailed (Snipes doesn't actually kill anything, and all my wingmen had only Circes, so they were only stripping shields). I expected a Shivan Genocide medal but I didn't get anything.
IIRC, I had sent the order to All Fighters to Depart, but Alpha 2 did not leave.
Now, I can't get Snipes to stay. Even if I issue an order to protect me, he still departs. What a jerk!
Yes, I even tried Reverse Psychology on him.
"Depart!", and he leaves; "Cover me!" and he still leaves.
I wish I could figure out how I got the invincible Alpha 2 to help me on my first attempt.
On another note, the Morning Star + Subach seems to be an excellent combination. The Morning Star helps pin the target, which is very useful to avoid friendly fire when my HUD keeps blinking, and strips their shields while the Subach rips the hull without adding to the weapon drain from the Morning Star. I barely needed to use Tempests - I only used them when I ran out of weapon energy.
The most damage early on seems to occur when drunk-driving Shivans ram into my vessel. Later on, I seem to be the one ramming into enemy ships. Whenever I'm about to finish off a target, another Shivan jerk fires annoying missiles at me, so to quickly finish off the target I use my afterburners which sometimes results in my ramming enemy ships. The Morning Star helps avoid frontal collisions when I have enough energy to fire it. I'll need to figure out something for side and rear collisions.
The Nehema bombers seem freakishly fast. Even with afterburners I often struggle to catch up unless I put all energy into engines.
