M04 - Gehenna Outskirts
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#1
M04 - Gehenna Outskirts
This mission can either be really hard or really easy all depending on whether you destroy those first 2 carriers near the hyperspace inhibitors. Kill them off early before they have much of a defense and things are so much nicer the rest of the mission. then strike and capture the left inhibitor. Send through your force with some marine frigates. Destroy the carriers but capture the destroyer. The rest is cake.
The three hyperspace inhibitors (the little things on the asteroids) are the primary triggers in this mission. If you go and wipe out all three in a hurry, you'll trigger events that will jump your mothership into a world of hurt. So, don't take out the last inhibitor until you've cleared the first area of hostiles (2 carriers, corvettes, fighters, etc). After you do that, get to harvesting and build up your forces.
Personally, I never triggered the mothership short jump. I had already sent my forces acrossed the map and destroyed the Vaygr station before I took out the last inhibitor. Slow, yes, but the fight was on MY terms.
There are two things to remember about the Vaygr.
First, they do not have effective anti-fighter weapondry. Their Assault Frigate is a support platform that can damage fighters, but doesn't massacre them like Flak Frigates do. Thus if you send your interceptors against their Assault craft and quickly eliminate them, you can achieve local superiority against the frigate fleet. Meanwhile, use Pulsar Corvettes against their own corvettes (which are more anti-cap and anti-vette platforms) and bombers focused initially against the Assault Frigates to wipe them out. Once the Assault Frigates are down (and they tend to have three or four per squadron) THEN focus your fire against the other frigates.
Do NOT bring in your own frigates to bear against them. Even the Destroyer will be destroyed fairly quickly by heavy missiles from the Vaygr frigates. (The Destroyer can be captured from the Vaygr if you capture a hyperspace gate, go through with a swarm of fighters to distract the Destroyer, and then send all four Marine Frigates against the Vaygr Destroyer - and while you're at it, blow up the three Carriers in there as well.)
Second, research and build Ion Platforms. For 300 RUs each, you have a fairly effective anti-frigate weapon. Build a half dozen or so of these and then group them. Focus fire from the Ion platforms will chew through Vaygr frigates. Unfortunately, these platforms are abandoned at the end of the mission (personally it would be nice if Resource Collectors could bring them back to the Mothership for refueling...), but it's well worth the investment, they are cheaper than frigates and do more damage.
*snarl* And they deleted my more in-depth report on how to prevail through this mission.
Okay. To sum up, there is a trick with Platforms. While Platforms do not hyperspace, if you do not destroy the final inhibitor and build around 10 Ion Platforms and 2 Gun Platforms, you can then send them to the enemy base (on Aggressive tactics to fire on the way). Wait until the Platforms are most of the way there. THEN destroy the last Inhibitor. You will hyperspace to the base and have a group of Platforms already there and attacking the enemy for you. It should work wonders in defeating them.
Addendum note: Having tried this technique, I must state for the record that timing is very important. It is best to either destroy the final inhibitor when the platforms are about 3/4ths the way there OR when they are at the relative position that the Mothership will hyperspace out to. Otherwise, your platforms will be attacked by the entire Vaygr attack force without any support, and you will not hyperspace out until they (or the enemy) are destroyed. Obviously... the enemy survived.
If you send in a full strikeforce of bombers, interceptors and corvettes along with the wall of Ion Platforms and Gun Platforms, then it should work better. Your forces will have some heavy hitting firepower while the enemy is forced to either concentrate on the platforms or your own strikeforce. The obvious problem with this is the fact that you can't send reinforcements easily, or easily repair damaged strikecraft. I will play with this in the future to see what else I can do with it.
Robert "Xellos" Howard
Last edited by Tangent; 24th Sep 03 at 10:20 PM.
I took the slow and methodical approach to beating this mission.
First off, I didn't build any Frigates, save 4 Marine Frigates to capture the Destroyer, but I'll get to that.
Every assault I made was backstopped by my Mothership and/or Carrier. My Resourcers stayed near the main fleet, cleaning up battle debris and any nearby roids.
I used 6 squadrons of Interceptors, 12 squadrons of Pulsar Corvettes, and the 2 Elite Gunship Squadrons to protect my main fleet, ordering them to guard my Mothership. I kept my Carrier close to my Mothership so that it was protected as well.
I started off by ordering my Resourcers to gather resources from the nearby roid fields, then immediately started my Mothership moving towards the left-most Hyperspace Inhibitor. The small waves of ships the Vaygr sent after me were easily dispatched by my guards.
As I neared the Hyperspace Inhibitor I took control of the guarding strike craft, ordering them to focus fire on the defenders, quickly dispatching them as well. I then sent my groups after the nearby Hyperspace Gate. By the time that was destroyed the first of the Vaygr Carriers came into view. I selected my Carrier and ordered it to launch the 8 squads of Bombers (6 Standards and 2 Elite) it had been keeping safe in it's docking bays. I targeted the Bomber groups on the Vaygr Carrier's launch bay (don't remember if it was a fighter, vette, or frigate Carrier) quickly destroying that, then had them destroy the Carrier. I did not destroy the inhibitor.
After that battle, I regrouped, checked for losses and repaired all my strike craft, again leaving my Bomber squads docked in the Carrier. Then I moved my Mothership to the second (middle) Hyperspace Inhibitor. This battle was pretty much a repeat of the first, including the destruction of the second Vaygr Carrier.
While en-route to the 3rd Hyperspace inhibitor I was attacked by a very large group of Vaygr Frigates. I canceled my Mothership's move orders, launched my bombers and took control of my defensive strike wing. I targeted each enemy frigate 1 at a time, starting with the Assault Frigates, attacking each in turn with all of my strike craft. The Frigates died fairly quickly leaving my fleet intact. I docked my Bombers, repaired the rest of my strike craft and got my Mothership moving to the 3rd Inhibitor.
Before I destroyed the Hyperspace gate near the 3rd Inhibitor I took note of it's destination and started my Mothership moving towards it, building 4 Marine Frigates on the way. It was a long trip, but I found 3 Vaygr Carriers and a Destroyer at the other end. I quickly reformed my escort groups into a single strike wing and launched my Bombers. I targeted the escort wing on the enemy strike craft, drawing them and the enemy Frigates away from the enemy Carriers and Destroyer. I sent the 4 Marine Frigates to capture the Destroyer and my Bombers to neutralize the Carriers. Once the enemy strike craft were destroyed I used my escort wing to destroy the enemy Frigates 1 by 1 while the Bombers finished off the Carriers.
By this time all native resources in the sector had been used up, and the Vaygr were unable to build any more ships. While my fleet regrouped and repaired the escort wing, I sent my Bombers to destroy the Hyperspace Inhibitors I had left behind earlier, Triggering the cutscene and the jump to the enemy base.
The enemy had 1 Carrier and a Shipyard, as well as a few strike craft and Frigates guarding the main station. I launched Bombers and sent my escorts after the strike craft and Frigates. I targeted my Bombers on the Carrier, then the Shipyard, destroying both. Once the area was clear, my captured Destroyer made short work of the station, ending the mission.
Took the better part of 3 hours to play, but it was a lot of fun :catpilot:
I took the offensive approach to this mission.
Carrying over the fleet I hd from M03, same one listed in the M03 thread.
I moved the MS to the forward res spot and started massing torp frigs after I built 2 marines. With 4 refineries at the res spot I was collecting at I had no issues with fighter attacks. However I did have to send in support when the missle vettes showed up.
I sent all fighters and corvettes forward to the res spot central to the 3 inhibitor roids.
Just the other side of the field of res is a carrier with a fighter mod, it died in record time to 12 wings of fighters (corvettes took too long to join in on the fun). Once this carrier died another was seen to be heading in my direction, that one died too.
I sent the small stuff to each inhibitor area to clear out all but the HSG (hyperspace gates) I used a marine frigate to capture 2 of the 3 and took out the last.
Once the HSGs were mine I repaired all my small stuff and sent it all through one gate at the same time. I took out the mods on the carriers first then took out the destroyer (capturing it is likely to increase the final area dificulty not to mention I thought we could not capture any ships so I didn't even try). Once you use the HSGs to get there you have to use them to get back, problem is you have to send a marine frig through, so I did.
It is important to note that you can only capture 4 HSGs, so you can have only 2 working paths, destroy the last gate. Once I captured one of the gates my forces returned to the MS for repair and then took out all the inhibitors to jump ahead.
When I hyper in I see only a small detatchment of frigates, I don't even lose one of my own because I used workers for repair. This can be because I finish the first part so fast they do not have time to build up a fleet, it is also possible that because I don't capture the destie it doesn't scale up, don't know for sure, may have to find out.
I used my fighters to take out the workers that are found to be collecting at the res spot behind and above my MS's new location. It is important to realise that in the SP missions the AI only gets the res YOU let it collect, take out it's workers and you have cut off it's head.
Anyway back to the mission. After the workers are dead I repair my straike craft and send them around or above the station to attack and take out the SY and carrier there. Infact I take out all the defenders and leave the station so I can retrieve the debris.
Once all the debris is mine I destroy the station with torps.
Some key points to remember are that if you take your time to achieve some of the goals you are giving the CPU time to build up, sitting back to 'regroup' at the start of the mission gives the enemy time you do not have. Do not do that, take the initiative and attack first. Take out the carrier mods then the carriers ASAP. Capture a HSG to take the fight to the enemy, doing so will save you a ton of res because you can keep them from building up too much of a fleet.
There is power in words.
I struggled and struggled with this mission over the course of several days, and when I finally beat it, it was so easy I almost fell out of my chair.
The first thing I did, was start the game over. I didn't have to, but I felt like it. When I got to mission three, I killed everything but one carrier so that I could harvest and build up my fleet at my leisure. Using this, I filled all 14 of the fighter slots with bombers. As for the 12 corvette slots, I built them half pulsar, and half gun. During the time I was doing this I used one Marine frig to capture myself 3 more infiltrator frigs. I also took the time to research every single upgrade available to me. Once I had all that out of the way, and felt comfortable to move on, I dispatched with the last carrier and moved into 4 ready to rock. As SOON as I could get all my bombers and vetts out, I sent them after the 2 carriers that prowl around the center and right inhibitors. The vettes made short work of any strike craft that were sent my way (which were very few as this is a huge rush) I used the 14 bombers to dispatch the carriers, and the hyperspace gates. I DIDN'T touch any of the inhibitors.
After I done this, I moved my strike craft, and my 4 capture frigs to the left gate. I dealt with the token resitance I found there (and managed to pick up a heavy missle frig in the process.) After I had captured this gate, I sent my strike craft, and frigs through. At the other end you'll find 3 carriers and a Destroyer. I use the pause key to micro manage, but it was hardly needed here. I started from the right carrier and went left using my bombers to cut them apart. I sent the vettes to harrass the destroyer while my marine / infil frigs captured it. After I had dealt with this group I was able to take a breather in a way similar to how I described at the end of 3. No new ships were sent against me, and I was able to rebuild, resource, and research to my heart's content. During this time I sent probes toward the station, being mindful not to get too close, so that I could see if anything was coming my way. Nothing ever did. I still didn't destroy the inhibitors. I instead drove the fleet the long way around the left and hit the station from the back. I started with the carrier there, then the shipyard. By then the frigates (18+) arrived. The bombers combined with the destroyer and pause key micromanagement, made quick work of them.
Only after that did I hit the inhibitors, and finish the mission with my full fleet. ( I think I lost 2 bomber squads was all)
Ok, this isn't an entire walkthrough, but a tip on how to defeat the Infamous Frigate Horde. I haven't seen this mentioned yet, so here it is.
The first time I did this mission, I did fine until a large group of Assault and Heavy Missle Frigates arrived. This horde has caused problems for many players. They slaughtered me also. However, they do have on pretty big weakness: Both of them are absolutely HIDEOUS at destroying Gunships.
Pulsar Gunships, on the other hand, are pretty decent at destroying Frigates, especially if they focus on one Frigate at a time. So make sure you have a decent group of Gunships with plenty of Pulsars in it, assign them to a hotgroup for easy access, and have them focus on one Frigate at a time when the horde arrives. It should help you defeat them with little losses.
I hope I've been some help.
#9
This mission becomes much easier if you show patience in the first part of the mission. Destroy all of the hyperspace inhibitors except one. Wipe out its escort, keep the inhibitor alive, and post a few bomber squadrons near it. This gives you time to build up your fleet and get organized. The infamous frigate hordes will, for some reason, come at the Mothership. When they enter sensor range, hit the last inhibitor and you'll jump right to the now defenseless command center.
You still need to destroy the frigate hordes, but they are marked on the map, they have no further production, and YOU will be the one on the offensive. You can send your strike craft to slaughter them without endangering your own frigates.
I think the advance of the Golden Horde may be triggered by your assault on the vaygr resource op once you capture a hyperspace gate. I took out all three carriers there and captured the destroyer, then zoom back to the Banana to find it being pummeled by the horde.
I'm beginnging to hate Prima's strat guide. It says nothing about the horde going after the banana, tells me I could get Ion platforms in mission three, and says I need nothing more than a few flak frigs and interceptors while my main group handles things. :mad: That thing would be worthless w/o the sweet, sweet historical info...
Some tips:
- As said before, max out fighter class and corvette class ships. If you stick to them the mission becomes fairly easy.
- Don't use any frigates. Vaygr frigates are more specialized then yours which means they will chew up your frigates. Besides that there are too many of them.
- Lay a 3D minefield in front of your MS! Surprisingly effective against frigate waves. Press N, hold left mouse button for hight and length and hold Ctrl for depth of the field.
- Take out the 2 carriers just ahead immedately. It will put off a lot of initial pressure.
- Work from right to left. Also gives less pressure.
This mission was awfully hard for me at first, but was very easy after I tried using the minelayers. Here's the lowdown:
Started level with:
8 ints., 3 bombers, 2 elite bombers, 2 elite gunships, 8 pulsars, 4 marine/infil. frigs, 1 heavy missile frig, 1 torp frig, 1 assault frig, 2 carriers (dumb choice), couple k of resources, and -all- research available completed.
I killed off the two carriers and their escorts at both the beginning and at the mid-point hyperspace depot, leaving only one inhibitor left. The enemy minelayers oddly laid no mines, and I suffered no losses, though the first waves were the toughest. While this was happening, I moved my 2 carriers and MS to the middle inbihitor asteroid. After getting this mess cleaned up, jumping to carrier/destroyer spot to kill and steal, I retired 2 regular gunships I built earlier in level (another mistake) and three of the pulsars, building full 5 minelayers in their place. Also built 2 torps, 2 flak in anticipation of onslaught.
Here is where I reloaded multiple times. If you don't kill the last inhibitor soon enough, you won't auto-jump across the level even after you do, leaving the frigate death squad at your door with no escape. I put one scout group out north a little, and killed the last inhibitors with my 5 bombers as soon as sensonrs showed the frigate group. At this point, -everything- auto-docks and jumps, no matter how far it is from a carrier or the MS. By the station, there was the shipyard with resourcers, a carrier, and two assault frigs and a few laser vette escorts, I think. Killed the carrier, vettes, and frigs with strike craft. At the same time, I laid a 4 high x 8 wide x 2 deep mine patch behind my MS.
When the frigate squad showed up (10 assault, 8 heavy missile, 4 or 5 assorted vettes), it decimated them. It seemed like 3 or four mine hits will kill a frig, and the homing range is quite large. The frigates started a wide turn around my patch when they approached, but about half the patch connected and the other mines to the side that the layers were then placing. I kept the escort vettes occupied with the (now damaged) pulsars, losing one wing. I then sent back the vettes to spam-bomb the yard and station to death. Note: the point defense gun range of yard is almost equal to mine range, so beware, and the station will die extraordinarily fast from mining from the top. Mining from side will hit antenna, which seems damn near invincible.
All in all, suffered one loss in entire level and harvested every carrier wreckage before leaving the level. Moral of the story? Against a group of frigs coming from a known direction with little strike craft escort, a combination of pre-deployed mines and active mining is absolutely lethal. Hope this helps somebody.
To answer the question about the Frigate horde:
The Vaygr Frigates will chew through your fleet if you allow your ships to engage them all at once. When you see the horde comming your way, take control of your strike craft and focus fire on the frigates 1 at a time. Especially usefull are Pulsar Gunships, as they love fresh Frigate for breakfast.
The same tactic can be applied to platforms. Don't let your platforms spread out thier fire. Instead focus on one target at a time.
Your own frigates are pretty much useless against the frigate horde and should be kept out of the battle.
Interceptors and Pulsar Gunships should be your craft of choice for this engagement. Platforms can be used to supplement or backstop your strike wing, but Bombers should be held back, at least untill the Assult Frigates have been destroyed.
Whoops. Didn't hit the Destroyer, didn't even run into it. I started the mission with 7 wings of bombers, 6 Inties, 4 Gunships & 4 Pulsars. I had a Marine frigate & 2 flak frigates left over as well, plus a minelayer. I hit the 2 carriers as soon as I probed them, taking out both of their production facilities before diverting the bombers to take care of the first few frigates. My flakkers helped defend the MS and resource operations. After the frigates are dead and the carriers are cripped, I repaired the bombers and finished off the carriers. My corvettes escorted the marine frigate, and I ended up capturing all of the gates. Incoming "trickles" of frigates often targetted the gates, which made them good distractions. I built a second minelayer, and replaced any losses before instructing my bombers to take out the inhibitors. I *didn't* go through the HS gates. When the MS made the short-jump, I was jumped by 6 frigates, mainly missile Frigates which decimated the marine frigate and nearly killed one flakker before the info B.S. was done. I pulled off the 2nd flakker, and let my carrier take a few of the hits while the bombers dispatched the frigates. I immediately started building platforms and instructed my Mine Layers to lay a large field a short distance behind the MS. The bombers and interceptor escort then moved to the base taking out the couple guarding frigates, then the Shipyard and carrier production facilites. They then destroyed the carrier and targetted the main base. Meahwhile I recycled the last flakker when the Frigate wall appeared behind the MS. The 4 ions and minefield, plus harassment from my corvettes completely decimated this impressive array of frigates. The bombers took a while to finish off the base and shipyard, but they did it rather unmolested.
As a result I never even saw the DD or other 2 carriers. I guess capturing the DD might have been useful, but I'm sure I would have sustained fairly heavy losses, and the time needed might have allowed that frigate fleet to reach my starting position.
Sok.
12 pulsar squadrons, plus some bombers and about 12 ion platforms will make the horde your bitch. Place the ion plats in the firagtes' line of approach, and while they chew through the firgs have the pulsars dominate the missile/laser corvettes (whcih are no match for your pulsars). Oncet he corvs are out of commission, take down the assault frigs. Then throw in the bombers and eliminate the Heavy Missile frigs. And thus is your suffereing ended
If, when you jump out for the center, you leave 5-10 ion plats THAT YOU HAVENT MOVED behind, they will take care ot the frigate horde and still be able to move
i got the frigate horde in 2 waves. 1 before i went after the station (which was for some strange reason at 50% health or so) and another wave after i had pounded the station into the ground. i then had to run my fighters back as fast as their engines would take them to defend my resource op and ms.
the first wave (and largest wave probably 13 or so frigs) blasted my fighters but fell to my corvs. the second wave was about 7 frigs. it killed a whole frigate and some various fighters, but didn't kill off any squads.
I only had to try this mission twice, and it still remains my favorite mission. The first time, I hypered in, tried attacking, and ended up getting shot up and i got frustrated and left.
The second time I came back, I decided to attack en masse. I did not waste my time with frigates, they get torn to shreds always. Instead, I maxxed out on 2 interceptors and the rest bombers, and pulsar gunships. with that setup, i did not have any problem with the mission. i band boxed the stuff hanging around the leftmost warp gate with my pulsars, and ordered the bombers to hit the carrier's fighter facility. the carrier was put down pretty fast, and i spent a little time just clearing out the rest of the the fighters. then i stole the hypergate and sent all my pulsars/bombers through. they didnt really have much left. i had the pulsars take care of whatever they had while my bombers methodically got rid of each of the carriers.
this is where i had trouble. I wanted to steal the destroyer. It took me three tries, and eventually I had to use the max of four marines to get it, and i lost 3 because some bug let the destroyer keep missiling my frigates even while they were attatched. now, at this point i pretty much though i had wiped everything out except for the facility at the far end, so i went about leisurely collecting resources. I was kinda suprised when this huge fleet of frigates comes and ambushes my lone MS (i had send my carriers and stuff to where the destroyer was, and the MS got stuck in an asteroid cluster and i didnt notice until a bit later) and my resourcing operation at the same time. i kept having my ms make ion plats to distract them. i had my destroyer make its way to the enemy space station while i had my bombers and pulsars save my fleet. my MS took a bit of a beating but never went into the red, cuz i scrambled collectors to repair it. then i sent my flet against the sapce station, and they arrived almost simultaneously with "my" destroyer. there was another fleet of frigs waiting for me, but bombers+destroyer+pulsars=dead frigs.
i wiped out the station, and then got the command to take out the rest of the fleet. the AI had moved its shipyard to the resource cluster around the middle. i sent all my pulsars and bombers back to repair and replenish, while my destroyer (with 1 collector permanantly tasked to repair it) make its way there. once again i got the attacks to coincide, and my destroyer made short work of their shipyard. after mopping up, the only enemy units left on the map were 2 scout units and the gravity things. i ignored the scouts, smashed the gravity wells, and voila. i got whupped on the next mission tho.
On my first try : fail.
On my second try, killed all Vaygr ships with only a few bombers and corvettes left.
Now I'm playing all over again and my strategy is this :
Max your strike craft and send them on a hunting spree after you've build 4 flaks and 4 torps frigate.
Fighters & Bombers (60/40)
Gun & Beam corvettes ( 60/40)
Light up the map with all your probes.
When you can see where all the Vaygrs are send all strike craft after the two carriers. Dock the injured, see any red blibs, just go after them.
After all Vaygrs are destroyed around the Hyperspaced inhibitors, send your strike craft to the centre asteroid patch. The Vaygr resource collectors will be there. Kill them.
Heal your ships and wait for the frigate fleet. They'll arrive in two groups on the same plane. I devided fighters and bombers for the smaller fleet and Corvettes for the bigger fleet.
Mix them all up and the Vaygr will be destroy. Micromanage is needed during the battle and fighters and bombers are particularly hard hit.
After all are done, kill additional 3 carriers with strike craft and capture the destroyer. Now go back and destroy the hyperspace inhibitors.
All this while you should be building up your frigates but not maxing them. They'll be jeolous of not invited to the party.
when you jump to the station location, you can blow them up at your leisure.
beware of building your fleet too much before hyperspacing out, as the reactive fleet will punish you dearly.
I beat this one with a pure offensive start.
You must finish up mission 3 with a full squadren of 10 bombers and 4 ints., hopefully some pulsar vettes.
Mission starts: Build a couple flak frigates to gaurd the MS. If you dont have them already, start pumping out pulsars. I send all the bombers straight back (all the way back) towards their base., escorted by the ints. By the time you get there, there shouldn't be but 1 or 2 frigs that you can quickly kill with bombers. Then take out the facilities on the Shipyard, then bomb and destroy the carrier. After you kill the carrier, move back to destroy the shipyard, taking out any rebuilt subsystems first.
I use vettes to handle the other two carriers floating around out by the hyperspace inhibitors and anything they send my way. Do not worry about the gates or inhibitors, just get the carriers and their friends. After the bombers destroy their base, dock them and then have them help with any clean up up towards the front.
Its just that easy!
What a lot of people dont realize is, that the reason there is so many frigs when you finnaly reach that base is because the carrier and ship yard are back their pumping them out the whole time. If you hit them at the very beggining, they will be dead, those no mass army of frigs.
Last edited by Demigorgon; 10th Oct 03 at 7:46 AM.
Am I correct in assuming that there are only 2 waves of frigates? The first wave(rather large) was decimated by my mine field.
I haven't yet seen a second wave.
I'm replaying this mission and have already destroyed the 2 first carriers and the first wave of frigates.
Right now I'm preparing to head to the first hypergate and take over the DD. I think the 3 carriers in that area are generating the massive frigate wings. So I will make sure to make short work of them.
i don't think those carriers make those frigs. if you actually take out all the inhibitors, your ms jumps right into the midst of the frig. horde i think. since it seems like no one kills all the inhibitors before they kill the station i'm not sure if this is correct.
I know at least one of the carriers makes heavy missile frigs, I've seen them popping out of there before.
Oh well. Guess I'd just better be ready when I jump over there. That Destroyer is mine!
An exploit if you will...
This mission is a real cakewalk. Seriously.
It doesn't take a lot. At the beginning, be sure
to have a few torp frigs, maybe a couple of flaks
a good mix of fighters. Mostly bombers though.
And a small mix of vets, 50/50. Go after the carriers
right away! This shouldn't be much of a problem, I lost
around 3 squads of fighters was about it. The cariers
are in front of your MS and just to the right a little.
After this fight I lose absolutely nothing else.
Heres how..
Ok, so you have wiped out the carriers and its fighters
and frigs. Now capture both Hyper gates, and start massing
your fleets equally at both gates. Its not needed to
build much more than what you took out the carriers with,
maybe an extra torp frig or 2.
NOTE: Do not destroy all the inhibitors!
If you want, you can try to capture the destoryer thats
with the carriers waiting around the Hyper gates jump point.
But I elimiated all! Jump though the gates, take out all
enemies. Have your carrier headed in this direction to
collect the debris field and roids in the area.
You shouldn't lose any ships if you have all your ships target
destroyer first.
Start building a few ION plats. Once you have the debris field
collected bring the carrier a little closer to the station.
Send 1 ION plat to the station so that its just out of range
of its sensor sphere. Bring it in so that its exactly inline with
the sensor grid lines between your MS and station.
You may or may not see enemy fighters and frigs. If you do,
good set the plat to aggressive and have it target boxed around
what you see. Send in more plats, bringing them in on different
planes and a little closer if needed.
Do NOT send probes! Or get to close to the station! If you do
all hell breaks lose! With about 5 or 6 ION plats near enough
to the station, they will elliminate all the enemies. You may
have to tell them to target a time or two though.
While all this is happening, bring your frigs down the far left
side of the station as possible, then slowly head toward just
behind the station. You will find either, a shipyard and a
carrier. Or just the carrier. If you find just the carrier,
the shipyard will be back toward your MS, but not far. Don't
worry. Now start some bombers attacking the inhibitors.
Start attacking the only carrier, then the Station and
shipyard at the same time. If you did well with your plats,
you will only have a few fighters come out of the shipyard.
You should destroy the inhibitors before the station.
Also, have your fighters and vetts dock after each fight,
makes sure they are healthy.
This tactic is long and a little time consuming. But, you
will have minimal losses and lots of RUs!
What I did in mission 4 was to put a mine field (better with a 3d one) in front of your mothership, it will deal a great amount of damage, and then build 5 to 10 ion platforms. Then send in something to attract the attention from the frigate armada. You should see them coming on your sensor soon after you attacked the enemy carriers. Then using the heavy missles and assults captured from the last mission and the ion and the mines, I took them out without any frigate losses! Before this, you will have some time and take out the first and second (left and middle) hyper space gate because the third one will be light guarded and will not be destroyed. Another thing fighting the frigate armada is to get some of your marines sitting on top of the heavy missles so they won't do any damage, and you might capture them too!
After all, the frigate armada is the hard part, so you won't get much more trouble after you cleared that and captured the destroy and attacked the command center.
Once the mission has started, send the fighter and corvettes toward the two carriers around the inhibitors in the front. They will send out fighters and corvettes. Use your bombers to finish one carrier at a time. Use your corvettes to protect your bombers by killing their fighters and missile corvettes but to avoid lance fighter. Use your intercepter against lance fighters. Bombers also works pretty well against laser corvettes.
Build minelayer corvettes (around 4)
Once two carriers have been destroyers, they will send in a few HMFs. They can be easily be finished by bombers and minelayer corvettes.
Get a few marine frig ready and capture the first hyper gate on the left. Always protect them by your fighters. Use you tropedo and flak frigs against any fighter and corvettes that try to attack teh marine frigs.
Capture the hyper gate and send in the fighters to finish those carriers on the other side. Once all the carrier are gone, the fighter will start attacking the destroyer. Now this is the time to send in the marine frig. Hyper the marine frig into the area and try to capture the destroyer. I have lost two marine but doesn't matter.
Send everything back to the MS.
Now you should send out at least five proximity sensor around the area. If you can see the frigs are coming, send out minelayer corvettes start laying mines. The best position for laying mines should be a bit far from the MS but not too close to the incoming frigs. Move your recovered fleet towards the frigs group to distract and attack them. The mines should finish them off very quickly. You may encounter a second group of frigs coming on the other direction. Just use the same strategy.
Now, the enemy will try to send in resource collectors to collect resources, lay mines to kill them all. Mines are very effective against resource collectors.
Finish off the rest of the inhabitiors should not be a problem. If the script does not hyper the MS near the Command station. Then move the fighters to command station in order to stop the recovery process.
Then send you entire fleet toward the station.
You can finish off the shipyard carrier by your trops or destroyer bombers.
Station can be finish off by trops or destroyer.
There will be no resistance at all at this stage.
Last edited by CrazyWolfHW2; 28th Oct 03 at 12:13 AM.
ok guys. i know this thread is probably pretty old, but i just got HW2. i was looking for a new rts, because i hate command and conquer generals. i am a hardcore C&C fan, and was really really dissapointed in Generals. But, i absolutly LOVE Homeworld 2. I've been stuck on mission 4 for THREE FREEKING DAYS. Wow, i dont even know what to do. Well, actually i DO know what to do cuz all the advice you guys have given will help me a LOT. But, where do you get the resources to build all these ships?!?!? I run out of recourses in a few minutes into the mission. And... i have only a few slots to build ship! It is physically impossible to build enough ships to kill that "massive Vaygr horde." also... when i kill all the inhibitors.... NOTHING HAPPENS!!! in my objectives box it doesnt have the "destroy inhibitors" box checked! i think something may be wrong with my game.......
well, either way i would like to know how to get a lot of resources, or a way to be able to build enough ships. thanks a lot
There's a distroyer in this mission? I've played through it three times and I've never had to fight the destroyer.
Destroying the Frigate swarm is easy. A mine feild and Ion platforms will make short work of them.
One more little tip. Once your MS jumps to the station, builda few Ion platforms and send them up to the station to take it down fast. just makesure you move them up slightly so that they are level with the station so they can fire all four ions at it.
hello?
Unless you really blew through ships in the last mission, RUs souldn't be a problem.
As for production limits, those are hard set and cannot be changed in game. IE, you cannot build a module to provide for more ships. Next time you play, press "i" to bring up the fleet population information and see what it says.
Also, HW2 is not like other RTS games. To beat you enemy, you don't need to have more ships than him. You need to know what ships counter what ships. Often, it's best not to fight ships with like ships. At this point in the game, fighter and corvettes are better at killing frigs then your frigs are. For example, five Ion platforms and five minelayers will seriously mess up that frigate fleet. Toss in ~eight bomber squads and whatever pulsars and gunships you have, with a few flak and torpedo frigs and you should be able to take the fleet.
Last edited by Artimus; 9th Nov 03 at 10:41 PM.
If you don't have enough RUs in this mission then you should replay the first missions. You can go through them without losses for the most part - just remember to dock craft when they turn yellow rather than fight to the last man.
This mission is all about attacking from the start. Stay put to gather resources and you will die.
You should enter this mission with a number of bomber squads (preferrably 6 or more) and some gunship/pulsar squads as well as a few interceptors, maybe a few flak frigs and AT LEAST 3-4 collectors and a rmobile efinery
right off the bat go hunting for the 2 carriers that prowl between the center and right inhibitors. If you don't take them out they will kill you with swarms of craft. after killing the carriers you can mop up the rest or head back for reapirs and do that later. killing the inhibitors/capturing hypergates should be no problem after that.
build flak frigates and some torps to support your group and send them after your guys as they are finished but buidling strike craft has priority here! ALWAYS upgrade everything as soon as the upgrades become available. especially fighter speed and vette armor
when you get to the station and the enemy frigate fleet you should have mostly bombers - having 14 bomber squads is not wrong. ints and gunships become less and less usefull in following missions - your flak frigates (many) should take the role of anti-fighter escort, while the torps take care of corvettes. a split of 2/3 flak to 1/3 torps works well. you need your strike craft to be bombers and pulsars, because you need to take down enemy heavies in future missions quickly without losing your own craft. pitching your own heavies (ion frigs) against enemy fleets of heavies results in a war of attrition, and since the enemy is usually better equipped than you you can't afford that. always use craft the enemy can't handle - or kill off one key group of enemy craft (e.g. assault frigates) so that your craft (in this case bombers) can wreak havoc with impunity.
back to the mission: when engaging the frigates keep your own frigates out of it. torps and flaks are not good against enemy frigs - they get shreddered by the enemy heavy missile frigs. instead go in with your bombers and pulsar corvettes. target enemy assault frigs first (focus fire!). use the pause key to retarget as soon as one goes down. as soon as the assults are out of comission the heavie missile frigs will be a cinch - they couldn't hit a vette or fighter in 100years. sit back and watch the fireworks while your strike craft make minced meat of them.
go kill the shipyard (modules first) and the rest is easy.
Last edited by antialias; 10th Nov 03 at 6:41 AM.
All I did was kill the carriers, then the rest, get the hyper gates, kill the hyper inhibitors EXCEPT ONE!
Then move on to the 3 carriers with the DD MANUALLY no hyper. Use my 14 bombers and 12 gunships to take out the collectors that weren't stuck. Kill the engine on the DD that folowed me, bring the frigates and refineries to take out the carriers with the bombers and gunships and then capture the DD. Then move manually next to the shipyard and set up minefields. The CPU sent about 10 collectors from the SY to the RU patch unescorted which I easily killed with my bombers while my slow ships were getting into position. When my whole fleet arrives I attack to bait the frigates and then return behind the minefield. Kill their SC and bait them again if they run away. Then kill them all. Finally rebuild and retire what you want to screw with the dynamic AI difficulty and then destroy the remaining hyper inhibitor to end the mission.
When I left I had 4 MR, 20 Collectors, 13 bombers, 1 scout, 12 gunships, 4 infiltrator frigates, 1 assault frigate (too bad I can't retire them), 5 Torp Frigs, 1 DD and 4 Carriers with all modules and all research complete. Also 5(x2) Torp Frigates in build queues paused ready to be completed for next mission. Have fun!
PS: just clearing the misonception that pulsar are better than gunships at killing frigates. They are worse actually. Pulsars are only good against corvettes and are worse against anything else compared to gunships.
Pause what do you mean PAUSE I cant assign any key to pause please tell me how!!! Also how do I use the hyperspace gate to capture the destroyer in mission four. I'm a newbie and the manual is not that great. Any help would be appreciated!
Push the Pause/Break key on your keyboard. Game pauses.
It took me for freaking ever to beat this level. I didn't start so great, only 5 Pulsar Corvettes, 3 Flak and 2 gunship squads.
Tally Ho to the carriers and nip their production in the bud.. if you don't stop them from building reinforcements, you're toast. Also helps to launch a probe or two so you can see what's coming.
After the carriers are gone, build up a little and prepare for the onslaught. Corvettes are best used against their Frigates, you'll only waste RU's building frigates.
By the time it was done, I have retired a couple collectors and the platform component of the carrier to get enough RUs to build some more vettes to finish off the remainder of their fleet.
retire collectors? are you insane? and the platform module? you'll need that in most EVERY mission from now on to minimize losses.
there's plenty of resources around in mission 4 to end up with a maxed out fleet (or at least maxed out bombers, gunships and about 15 frigates.)
before i finally discovered that there was a POINT to destroying the inhibitors :Slap: i built lines of defense against the frigate onslaught. i was SO proud of myself when i finally defeated it, only to realize that the station was repaired :steam: i felt like such an idiot when i discovered that killing the inhibitors gave you a tactical hyperspace jump. never could manage to capture that dessy tho.. always killed my mar. frigs....
why did i tell this to everyone?
Ravenhart
:iws:
just go in with 4 marine frigs right AFTER you have sent another frig. this way the destroyer will waste its initial salvo of missiles on the torp or flak frig and at least one of your 4 marine frigs will be able to capture the destroyer. IMO it's not worth it, though.
Well unless im playing on super easy level or something I dont know what you guys are on about.
Started out with the remanents from M03 wich was about 4 bomber squadrons 2 flak frigs and 2 pulsar 2 gunship 2 elite gunship + carrier etc
Immediatly sent the bombers off to the left most gate and the rest of the force to the right most gate.
Bombers started attacking the inhibitors and some baddies warpped in. bombers fled managing to out run the enemy force and leave it floating in the middle of no where without a target.
The other group proceded to the inhibitors and started shoting at them, enemy fleet gated in and was promptly hammered. Second enemy force (I suspect from the middle gate) arrived just as I was finishing off the first lot of baddies and also got promptly hammered (lost a total of 1 flak frig)
During the middle of this the enemy carrier slid into view at the right most gate. I sent the bomber squadrons after it. During all of that I sent the marines into capture the right most gate while the bombers attcked the carrier and the other group finished off the enemy and then assisted in finishing it off.
Captured gate destroyed inhibs and moved onto the middle gate. Sent the marines in ahead no resistance at the gate and it was captured quickly destroyed inhibs and moved on again.
Came acros the second carrier just as I was leaving the middle inhibs bombers went in aloing with everything else and nailed it, marines proceded to last gate during all of this (forgot about them actually) and started getting a bit hammerd by the force the bombers had left behind, luckily my foce arrived intime to kill em before the marines were destoyed all gate captured and then destroyed the last of the inhibs for the tatical jump.
The moment I finsihed jumping I sent my whole force fowards, bypassed the station and laid into the enemy forces (not a hell of a lot a carrier and the huge thing along with few frigs and strike craft laid wast to them and then the station which wasnt even half way repaired by then.
Never saw this horde or destroyer that everyone keeps mentioning.
There is one destroyer, and it doesn't do anything unless you jump to it through one of the captured hypergates. It just sits there with a couple of carriers which produce the 'baddies' that keep showing up from that direction (mostly frigs). If you want you can ignore them easily, they do not come to the stations' aid.
Note that they seem to vanish after you make the tactical hyperjump with the MS next to the station. If you want them you have to go through the hypergates before the last inhibitor is destroyed.
If you feel like capturing an early destroyer: here's your chance. (It's nice to have on the next mission, especially for easy plat-busting). I think that is about the only resaon it got put in the mission anyways.
From what I read you are making the mission uneccesarily hard on yourself. Probe the two carriers prowling between the inhibitors and take them out first. After that the fight is essentially over.
i beat this level on totally defensive tactics. i dont mean to boast ,but my screenrate is terrible low on this computer (well, actually it was on the other computer, but that one is even worse) so i cant react very quickly to ANYTHING. i make excessive use of the pause button :bandit:
anyway, i think i had about 6-8 ints, a handful of bombers (like 4-6, i htink) 4 flaks, a carrier, a mothership (duh) and a bunch of torps. i just waited and let the vaygr harvest. and waited.
and waited...
eventually, (id spent all this time maximizing my build caps) i attacked the left-most inhibitor. boom, i killed everyhting ( a few strikecraft and on frigate, i htink.) i found a carrier on my wan to the second inhibitor, middle one. boom. at the second one i captured the gate. then i attacked the third, and killed everything except a few hyperspace inhibitors and the gate. then i captured the gates. then, i built 2 marine frigates. now, i just waited.
and waited...
all the time repairing and stuff. then i went through the hypergate, which i had just captured, and found 3 idle carriers and a DD. the DD, for whatever reason, just sat and stared at my bunches of strikecraft. so did the carriers. then, i sent in my 2 marines. the DD noticd THEM (gee, wonder why...) and started shooting. i dont know how, but the first shot missed! so, i latched them both, and one was destroted by them swooping missiles (hardest part). but i got it, and by now all the carriers were dead. also, in this center area, all the RU pockets were used up. i then returned back, and scuttled the gates. all this time, the vaygr were wasting their RUs on various corvettes and strikecraft and sending them 1-by-1 after my force. no threat. now, i was ready to go with a fully operational DD on my side. i blew up the inhibitors, and jumped in. now, nothing happened. the battle music started, but there wasnt a battle. i ordered everyone to protect the MS, and ordered it to move toward the station, and then sent all my bombers toward the station. there was an idle carrier, so i blew it up. the shipyard was likewise useless, but i left it. i tried targeting the bombers on the antenna array, but they refused to attack, they just kinda cirlced around it. it was really irritating. when everyone else arrived, i just pummeled the station. all this time, i didnt see a single frigate. then i just won. that was that.
i think that the vaygr made the 'logical' choice for speedy corvettes rather than big, USEFUL frigates, so they retired them and made all those corvettes that i killed. in this entire mission, i only lost 1 marine and possibly 1 int. it was still so funny... i mean, what kind of idiot commander retires his entire fleet to make corvettes to send 1-by-1 at a superior force? *sigh* its so sad...
anyway, thats what i did. actually, thats what i always do, on HW1, as well. it works great, and you get off with more RUs in the long run. you lose less, thus have to spend less. although the vaygrs get lots more RUs, they friltter them away.
now, at lvl 15 in HW1, (i havnt finished it because my fleet is too big, the computer cant handle it! it can since i just upgraded it, though,i hope!) i have 15000 RUs and a capped fleet. you see what i mean? it works great.
I kill the two carriers, jump over ONLY MY FIGHTERS AND CORVS and kill thier 3 cariers over there. This stops that huge army of heavy missile frigs from being made in the first place, and if theres nothing left i also capture the destroyer.
@grimloq:
try the mission pre-patch. then you get a nice group of enemy frigates lurking near the station for the final battle.
of course these are helpless against a corvette raid, but if you go in point-blank with just torps and flaks you might be in for a big surprise (unless you have that captured DD with you, of course).
when I first played (pre patch) there were a sizable number of assault and HMF frigates there. I sent in my bombers (full 14 wings) which got nearly butt-raped before I could pull them out, and sending in my torps would have been extremely costly (HMFs do a nice number on those). I hadn't captured the DD, so I sent in my pulsars to take out the assault frigates. after they were gone the bombers had an HMF-turkey-shoot :bandit:
Last edited by antialias; 5th Sep 04 at 6:15 PM.
mmmmm... turkey.... turkey= :duck:
huh? what? oh, ya, the thread:
well, HW2 wouldnt run without the patch. it just couldnt start. so, i didnt really have a choice, did i?
ditto with cataclysm, no patch = no game.
but it works now, although i lack the computer power to continue on to mission 5. my fleet is too big and the dust clouds kill my compy.
I have the same problem, the game would not run without the patch in WinXP. Fortunately, I have a Win ME alternate boot on my PC, and the game runs unpatched in ME. I rerun the SP campaign with a prepatch game, and was surprised how different the game was!!!! The patched game did not have this horde of frigates guarding the command station, the unpatched game does.
Wait till you see the differnece in mission 12.
Pre-patch it's just loads more nail-biting fun (I faced more than 20 BCs and in excess of 30 Destroyers, and any pre-emptive strike strategy will get you clobbered quicker than you can say "What the F..." :argh: )
grimloq: lower the resolution and turn off some features (shadows take up a lot of CPU power). at 640*480 it should run smoothly on even low end machines
I struggled with this mission for some time, and stumbled on a quick resolution when I was just playing a round to test where I would be jumped to when I destroy the Inhibitors.
I started of destroying the first two carriers and taking/destroying the hyperspace gates. In the mean time I built 7 interceptors and 7 bombers, a couple of torpedo frigates, and some other stuff that seemed nice. I didn't use the hyperspace gates, sent nothing at the 3 carriers and the destroyer, and destroyed the inhibitors. I was jumped to the station and started hammering away at the carrier. At the same time I had a couple of bombers and a torpedo frigate calmly reducing the station. After the carrier, I took on the shipyard. I micro-managed using F12 to send damaged stuff to safety. Eventually, the sky was clear and the level finished.
I had ignored the carriers/destroyer and never saw the frigate horde. Nobody Expects the Spanish Inquisition!
[fore-warning, there is some serious anger venting here]
OK. I'm ready to take this game and throw it in the microwave. I do not understand how you people could have finished this mission. No matter what I do my entire fleet gets smothered, and then they turn on the mothership. It just builds too DAMN SLOW. In the time it takes me to build one squad of gunships from either the mothership or the carriier, TWO TO THREE squads have been destoryed. I'm not even talking about this big fleet you seem to have mentioned. I'm just talking about the basic guard fleet that hyperspaces in around the hyperspace inhibitors (and WHY is it that we cannot hyperspace past the inhibitors, but THEY CAN!?!?!?!?). I've tried every ship combo I can think of. I've been playing this mission for FIVE HOURS! I HAVE NOT SURVIVED ONCE! It's all a speed issue. The mothership is so #%()*@#%!(@%&* !#(% &!#% SLOW at building that I don't have a snowball's chance in hell of coming out alive.
WHAT THE !%!% do I need to do to get past this mission? I need SPECIFIC STEP BY STEP instructions please. No generalities like "build 5 of this type of ship and send it here, then you're fine". NO. NO, NO. I need to know EXACTLY what people have done to solve this seeminlly impossible mission. WHERE IS THE DIFFICULTY CONTROLS? Is it HARD ONLY?
Novatron, I recognize your frustration. I've been there too and will probably be there again.
I finished this level as I described above, and don't know if I was just lucky, or very quick.
My main tool is the Pause button, F12, and then I micro-manage.
Reading the detailed solutions on this forum, I was first afraid that a mission had to be a very precise step-by-step sequential event. But then I realized that there were many solutions published here. Many roads lead to Rome. I consider it one of the strengths of this game. It can be done simpler than some of the solutions given here. Or more complicated.
It'll be quite some time before I finish level 5...
I'm sorry I can't give you a precise solution to this level, apart from my previous posting, but maybe some tips: Pause with F12 often, check your ships, and send damaged stuff to carriers/repair by resource collectors.
Match your ships to their favourite enemies (they're mentioned in the manual and in the panel, as 'Role').
Don't follow every step 'Fleet Intelligence' tells you, but do what seems sensible (in this mission, I managed to ignore FOUR Vaygr capital ships and won - didn't use the captured jump gates).
Build the ships you like and have fun with them. Capturing things is fun, but blasting them to bits with bombers is too.
Happy hunting!
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