[fierceeffect]

 
Hey so I managed to beat this mission after a bunch of tries, but I feel my strategy is severely lacking.  First off, I had no idea how to save the frigate in the beginning.  Also what is the Toutatis and how do I involve that ship in the battle, and what do I have to look out for so it doesnt get destroyed.

I normally start by having my wingman go straight for awac like fighters (forgot their name), frigates kill the fuel tankers and ship near them and I try and take out the awac radars which is tough.  Any suggestions?

Thanks

[niffiwan]

I saved the frigate (Serenity?) just by telling my wingmen to protect it, while I go after the AWACS ships.

The Toutatis is the 3rd fleet destroyer.  I think you get it in the battle by having your artillery frigates withdraw - but I've never got this to happen myself.

[Kolgena]

I also got seriously raped in this mission. I could not keep my durga's alive for disabling.

Getting the field set up was relatively straight-forward after 2-3 tries.
c38 the retreating frigate.
Set artillery onto the gas miners, then the mine-layer cruisers.
Bee-line to within 4.5km of the AWACS. A pair of grimlers oneshots the dishes.
Your wingmen have killed all the fighters. Tell them to nuke the Mjolnirs. They're god-moded, so they tank sentry fire no problem.
Reload your grimlers, snipe 2 auroras with 2 pairs of grimlers. Tell your wingmen to kill the 3rd.
Run for the station, scan all 3 subsystems.

At this point, I call in interceptors and stealth fighters to cover the wing of durgas that I use to try and disable the Carthage. For some reason, the bombers vaporize in 3 seconds, and I had to use cheats to kill the engine subsystem. I'd be more arsed to beat the mission properly if I wasn't running the thing on 3-5 fps when I'm close to cap-ships, but that'll have to wait until the mod is playable for me.

Edit: With the new build, framerates are in the healthy 30s with no stuttering. Also, I forgot that "gunship" meant archers. Archers are good against subsystems.

[Droid803]

You don't need to save the frigate in the beginning, I'm not entirely convinced it's a worthy pursuit of your wingmen's time. Also, I've usually seen it die to random beam fire moreso than anything you could really respond to (short of expending time/munitions on the Deimos/Carthage turrets which don't play much of a role afterwards)
You can pull the whole thing off without firing primaries (aside from the missile-reload) - that's how I beat the mission.\

I just used the plot-invul wingmen to clear objectives. Frigates start off going after the gas miners, then minelayers. Wingmen after the AWACs dishes, then the Auroras when they spawned. Since the wingmen are plotarmored they'll accomplish everything with ease, so after those tasks tell them to help out with the gas miners, then mine layers because the artillery is kind of poor at doing that. Grimler the Mjolnir emitters, and after the Auroras are dead go scan the subsystems on the installation, and the corvettes, and grimler the Carthage's radar dishes.

From this point just hand around near the Naras and pick off fighters with Grimlers as they present themselves. When time starts running low, call in a whole bunch of bombers and gunships at the same time and c34 (destroy my subsystem) he Carthage's engine subsystem. Most of the reinforcement wings will die but the Carthage will be disabled. After the Carthage is disabled the remaining friendly wings will die but who cares. Just wait for the artillery to slowly chip at the carthage, which will take ~5 minutes or so, and then call in the Toutatis to speed things up.

that's basically how it went for me.
I probably could have saved the frigate if I c38'd it at the start but it looked like it was going to die from random beam fire I could do nothing about anyway.

[MatthTheGeek]

The Serenity is supposed to get beam protected when it reached 10%, at which point the wing of Rhea bombers are its only threat.

[Kolgena]

I've consistently saved the frigate (12/12 times, or however many times I played the mission) simply by c38ing in the first 3 seconds of the mission. This was across medium and insane difficulties.

[Doko]

Tag everything for artillery, tell wingmen to protect retreating frigate, kill awacs + auroras while wingmen kill mjolnirs, scan corvettes then station, order attack.

That was my strategy, after that I just ordered everything to warp in at once and overwhelm whatever was left, wingmen and gunships on the radar dishes. Unfortunately I still got a debriefing that 30 ships had gone down (not sure how that is even possible considering the only thing left where 2 crippled corvetes and a destroyer) but got me through it just fine.

[crizza]

I allways saved the Serenity while I killed the Mjolnirs, from then on it's easy going.

[Leeko]

If you order your wingmen to protect the Serenity, they afterburn straight for the wing of Rhea bombers and kill them before they can get off two salvos of torpedoes. Might need to swoop past and do a bit of intercept to make sure they don't actually bomb it, but a single shot from the Sidhe at 800m will take out half a dozen torpedoes.

[Buckshee Rounds]

I've only tried this on hard so far (not played fs2 in a while), but I was able to consistently destroy the AWACS domes and Auroras with only one Grimmler each. For the AWACS you have to fly slightly above them, something like a 30-45 degree angle so you can guarantee a one shot kill on the dome.

Have your artillery kill the corvette escorting the miners first or it'll keep shooting your torpedoes down.

Once the AWACS are down have your wingmen nail the mjolnirs then the gas miners. You can have the Naras lick the minelayers then the corvettes (which only works 50% of the time for me cos of the artillery bug, I set them to 'free' if it happens cos it keeps them firing). I usually infect the station then the corvettes after. When you call for reinforcements get interceptors then saturation strike to take care of the enemy fighters. Your bombers should have an easy time of it if everything goes right, even with the minelayers and corvettes still around. I always, always jump the bombers out once the Carthage is disabled, just in case. By this point she should be pretty hammered, gunboats should finish the job or the Naras if you can still designate targets.

Got the 'light casaulties' debrief for the first time today which was great.

[crizza]

Just replayed it...lost less than ten spaceframes, captured one Deimos, so as you can tell, I accepted Lopez surrender, again.
But encountered the artillery bug once...

[Kobrar44]

Artillery slaved, transports targetted. Wingmen protect Serenity. I grimmler AWACS. Wingmen disarm mjolnirs. I scan HQ subsystems. Wingmen pursuit auroras. Artillery take down mine layers, then corvettes. I call in some gunships to take down engines[you need to be under engines at some distance iirc, because strike force jumps in near you?]. Then you can pull back and wait, you have always time to call in full strike force. Since losses are meant to matter here, I'm curious what **** will happen if you lose all craft[only 40% seems to matter though]. Toutatis seems to jump in when time-passed, haven't checked that in mission file carefully, but I had both narayanas when it arrived.

[Kolgena]

Tag everything for artillery, tell wingmen to protect retreating frigate, kill awacs + auroras while wingmen kill mjolnirs, scan corvettes then station, order attack.

That was my strategy, after that I just ordered everything to warp in at once and overwhelm whatever was left, wingmen and gunships on the radar dishes. Unfortunately I still got a debriefing that 30 ships had gone down (not sure how that is even possible considering the only thing left where 2 crippled corvettes and a destroyer) but got me through it just fine.

The corvettes have AAA and flak turrets, and the surviving sentries all have ridiculous DPS and accuracy. I tried this mission a few more times with all conditions met, and still lose 15 of 21 craft or something within 20 seconds.

[fierceeffect]

I've played this a couple times successfully now but I still don't understand what brings in the Toutatis

[General Battuta]

Tag everything for artillery, tell wingmen to protect retreating frigate, kill awacs + auroras while wingmen kill mjolnirs, scan corvettes then station, order attack.

That was my strategy, after that I just ordered everything to warp in at once and overwhelm whatever was left, wingmen and gunships on the radar dishes. Unfortunately I still got a debriefing that 30 ships had gone down (not sure how that is even possible considering the only thing left where 2 crippled corvettes and a destroyer) but got me through it just fine.

The corvettes have AAA and flak turrets, and the surviving sentries all have ridiculous DPS and accuracy. I tried this mission a few more times with all conditions met, and still lose 15 of 21 craft or something within 20 seconds.

Unless something got ****ed in the tables the sentries should have awful DPS vs shields.

[Kolgena]

Really? I am unable to pay much attention to what the sentries are doing when I'm microing wings everywhere, but all I know is that I get essentially instagibbed if I lose stealth within firing arcs of 3-4 uncompromised turrets. Maybe I'm just really bad though.

[Crybertrance]

My latest and greatest strategy so far, which avoids the artillery bug and the "i didnt loose so many fighters wtfomgbbq" bug completely (consistent victory with less than 10 spaceframes lost). [NOOB Friendly!]

1a. As soon as the mission starts, Target the Tankers (F8); Slave Artillery (1), Assign Target (2) (do this for all the four tankers [just keep pressing F8 till you target all tankers]

1b. Select the Minelayers (F11) do the same as 1a (Assign targets to the artillery)

1c. Select the two Deimos Corvettes (F10) and assign them to the artillery (same as above) (DO NOT assign Neptune HQ though)

--> Doing this sets up a que for the artillery right at the start of the mission (they target Tankers->Minelayers->Two Corvettes), so this way you avoid the artillery bug altogether...and you can completely forget about the Artillery; as they pursue their "kill list".

2. Select the Serenity through the Escort list, Tell your wing to protect it (C-3-5).

3. Select the first Mjolnir (F6).
3b. Target its sole beam cannon (press K).
3c. Fire 4 grimmlers at it when in range (about 4,200 meters...don't get too close)
3d. Use your ammo pack. (you should be back to 4 grimmlers now)

4. Target the second AWACs (Press F9 twice) and select its radar dome subsystem (Press S)
4a. Fire 2 grimmlers when in range (dont get too close!)

5. By now the Serenity should have warped clear...Order your wing to kill the second Mjolnir (F6)
5b. When they are done, select the Radar Dome of the other awacs, and tell them to kill the subsystem (C-3-4)

6. Assign 1 fighter from your wing to kill 1 Aurora each. (F9)(C-1-2-1)(F9)(C-1-3-1)(F9)(C-1-4-1).

By now, Serenity=saved, all the tankers should be toast, probably about 1 minelayer left (or none), awacs and aurora targeting fried.

-> All the hard stuff is done now...you're almost there!

7. Now go ahead and scan the Comms, Nav, and Sensors of Neptune HQ.
7b. By now if your fighters finished killing the Auroras...give them free reign to engage at will (or disarm the Carthage).

-> By now you should probably have around 480 seconds until the Carthage leaves. Take a deep breath...you earned it!

Now the fun part!

8. Get to a nice cozy space around 2~3 clicks, below the Engine subsystem of the Carthage.
8a. Wait for the Artillery to finish off the two Corvettes (their point defenses will shred your incoming gunships, etc)
-> This should happen in around a minute or so.

9. After the Two corvettes are toast, CALL IN DA FORCES!!!!1!1!11!1! 
9a. Call in EVERYTHING you can find on the reinforcements list (just C-4-1 till you run out of options)...
9b. Once they have arrived...tell all of them to disable the Carthage (C-3-2) or (C-3-4) (<- this while selecting the Carthage's engines)

9c. Watch as the Carthage's engines drop from 100% to 0% before you can yell CARTHAAAAAGE!

10. Free the artillery (1)...They should commence their attack on the Carthage now.
10a. Tell all your wings to attack it (C-3-1).

11. (THIS IS A MOST!) Accept the Carthage surrender (because you are a good person)

-> Since the strike force is in-mission when you depart, you don't enounter that other bug aswell!
So, there you have it! The greatest strategy for HFH evah! 

[Pred the Penguin]

That's similar to what I did on my most successful run, except I didn't even get a chance to tell all wings to go for the engines, they just bombed the hull of Carthage down to 5% before it could finish all its dialogue!

[Buckshee Rounds]

Good strat, but it doesn't quite work out that way for me. I can't seem to queue targets for artillery, when I hit 2 it just switches from whatever it was firing at before to what I've just designated, it won't finish off the previous designated target. Personally I prefer it this way, to each his own I guess.

You can take out the AWACS domes with just one Grimmler apiece, which is handy if you want to save ammo.

[Crybertrance]

You can take out the AWACS domes with just one Grimmler apiece, which is handy if you want to save ammo.

Hmm, which difficulty are you playing at? Because Medium and above, you definitely need 2 grimmlers.