[JaredFrost95]

On freespace 1 i can't beat playing judas. even when i was little i had to have my dad do it but hes not around... so someone should tell me some tricks.

[Luis Dias]

that's the mission where you fly the shivan fighter, right?

it aint easy, but I don't recall ever failing it... check the walkthrough in the wiki, I'm sure they have some tricks for you.

[JaredFrost95]

yes thats the one. ill check it out.

[Timerlane]

http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Playing_Judas

That is pretty much the order of how I do it(I also put all power to engines for the top speed boost), and IME, as long as you move quickly and stay near the ships you're supposed to be scanning, Arjuna won't be much of a problem.

I like to hide under the 'arches' on the Lucifer's back while waiting for the jump drive to come back up. Don't wait for them to start shooting; as soon as the "Enter Docking Bay" objective is complete, head for cover.

[JaredFrost95]

i beat it a while ago, thanks. but i only barely beat it. its harder than the last level... have you played silent threat? not from the disc but as a mod?

[Dark Hunter]

I never understood what people found so hard about this mission, nor why it was so hated. The orders are straightforward enough, and as long as you keep your distance from the fighters, everything's peachy.

Personally, I found it an interesting and welcome change of pace.

[JaredFrost95]

if u could target all arjunas at once it would be a breeze. just because the orders are straightforward doesnt mean theyre easy. what difficulty do u play on?

[Timerlane]

Well, you could target and put them on your escort list(Alt-E), so when you get a warning, all you'd have to do is hit 'E' a few times to find the offending Dragon(admittedly, FS1's training missions were a lot less helpful in learning the targeting functions than FS2's, so I'd never have known about that at the time).

[Mongoose]

I never understood what people found so hard about this mission, nor why it was so hated. The orders are straightforward enough, and as long as you keep your distance from the fighters, everything's peachy.

Personally, I found it an interesting and welcome change of pace.

Pretty much this.  I usually had to try to get too close to Arjuna and fail the mission.  All you should have to do is fly in a fairly straight line from your starting point towards the node, and provided you keep tabs on where Arjuna is on the way and avoid them accordingly, it's not hard to get there without being spotted.  After that, just stick around the "front" of the node, scanning the ships as they warp in.

[JaredFrost95]

maybe they start in different places when you restart cuz sometimes theyd find me and sometimes they wouldnt on the way to the first cargo boxes. do you play multiplayer?

[Dark Hunter]

I don't play multi. My internet connection makes online gaming difficult at best, lags too much.

I play on Medium difficulty generally.

[Goober5000]

if u could target all arjunas at once it would be a breeze.

Press F12.

[Macfie]

One of the key things for this mission is in the previous mission where you capture the dragon fighter.  If you make sure that no ships escape there will only be three fighters in Arjuna wing making them easier to avoid.

[Satellight]

Check your radar. When it was no 3D radar, I remember checking it very often to be sure that the Arjuna were in the outer ring (and then, increasing the distance with them). In fact, I came back to the good old 2D one now. 

Press F12.

And this, obviously. 

EDIT : And this mission was one of my all-time favorite (aaaaah, flying a Shivan ship.... souvenir...)

[Snail]

if u could target all arjunas at once it would be a breeze.

Press F12.

In retail though the hotkey brackets didn't give you distances.

[Goober5000]

Yeah, but pressing F12 repeatedly would cycle through all of them.  Holding it down would cycle so fast that it provided almost the same effect.

And pressing F11 targets the sentries, but those are not as critical.

[Mongoose]

I seem to remember using the sentries as a cue as to where to stop in front of the node.  If I got the "You're getting too close!" message for them, that was about where I wanted to be.

[JaredFrost95]

lol whenever i got that messaged i used that as a clue that i was ****ed.

[Mongoose]

Well, the key is to stop when you hear it, not keep flying until the sentries actually discover you.

[bigchunk1]

I never really understood Arjuna's patrol pattern. I would generally make a straight line for the objective in question and if I heard "Arjuna X is dangerously close" I would start franticly pressing 'H' to target the nearest hostile ship. 9 times out of 10 the ship that's about to spot you is the ship you will be targeting. If not, just keep pressing H to get a sense of nearby hostiles.

I would imagine this mission would be easier with fsport mediavps and maxed/tweaked graphics settings, where you would clearly be able to see the dragons at long distances without even targeting them.

And like others said, I liked this mission if for no other reason than you get to fly a shivan fighter. Kinda reminds me of the movie 'Independence Day' where Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum are flying into the mother ship, but that might be drifting off topic.