NukeIt - I always buy a Javelin launcher and missiles before mission 1. That knocks down Rogues faster than buying more/heavier Justice guns or a Lavablade. Especially if you get good with "fire & forget" missile tactics.

Sherlog - I knocked off H-Fuel depots at Norfolk after both missions 1 and 2 (and remember the Defender can hold 30 the second time). These are absolutely critical if you want to afford a Defender and good kit.

I did not ever buy mines until Drillers before mission 9. Given the difficulty of applying them and less damage/dollar than missiles, they aren't worth it. Besides, what are you going to attack with them? There's too much enemy heat to park and go after cruisers at Manhattan, Benford, or Tau-29, and you can get the Leeds cruiser without them. Without buying mines, I could afford the Crusader, Skyrails, and Starkillers. On Cali, I cashed out all my ammo and batts/bots to buy the Pyros guns, since there is no combat after Cali before cashing out the valuable cargo on New Tokyo before mission 7.


However, I could not find a Liberty loadout for the Defender that would match the combat value of the Patriot

3x Justice guns, Justice turret, Adv Stunpulse, Slingshot. Try it. If you're good, this can take out Outcast and Rheinland fighters in one head-on pass each - the Patriot can't kill them any faster than that.

Thanks for the info on the Arch mission - and yup, I went for the Musashi, not the Hissatsu. Oops.

Cali/Outcasts: I'm pretty sure the Outcasts are neutral before or when you land on Cali, but the rep is -20% which isn't enough for the Pyros 2. Sure, I would've taken them if available, but the Pyros 1s are decent as well (better than putting Lavablades on the Barracuda), and the Balboa supplies two Pyros 2s. If you had oodles of cash, you could probably bribe on Cali and buy Pyros 2s, but that seems a bit excessive. Also, I noticed that you can buy class-5 Adv.Skyrails on Leeds before missions 6 or 7; these do deliver more damage than Pyros 1s although at slightly less efficiency and higher cost.

Oh, and I have found a refinement to the level-up quirk rule. The total value of the transaction needs to be not the total difference between levels, but just the amount needed to level up. So on New Tokyo you can sell some gold first (at higher profit) to lower the networth needed, then sell diamonds in one big transaction to trigger the level-up. For a 30-cargo ship like the Cavalier, the math works out like this:
Sell 13 Gold for a networth increase of (1104 - 425)*13 = 8827, lowering the level-up requirement to $27173
Then sell 17 Diamonds for a total transaction of 1650*17 = 28050, which is greater than the current requirement and triggers the level-up.

P.S.: I am wondering why nobody has tried a T0 run so far.

Stay tuned. (Did I just mention the Cavalier? )

--

NukeIt, good idea! The class 2 kit is very good value for money: the Mk IIs do 25% more damage for just $360 more ($860 vs. $500). Compare this to the class 3 kit that is more than twice as expensive as the Mk IIs and does only 20% more damage ...

I have tried the loadout 1 x Justice Mk I plus 2 x Justice Mk II on the first leg of mission 1 and it performed well. Not quite on par with 3 x Lavablade Mk I but the difference is small enough not to worry about: 15..20s, should be less than one minute over the whole mission (compared to over two minutes for 3 x Justice Mk I).

The Justice Mk I could make way for a Mk III during mission 2, and the Defender could inherit the whole shebang as is, with other equipment (Adv. Stunpulse etc.) being added along the way. I think the purchase of the Mk III is justified since the Defender will be used for a very long time and it has three class 3 slots; Adv. Stunpulse + Slingshot take only two of them. And the Bretonia phase enemies don't have big enough shields to justify 2 Adv. Stunpulse. Or do they? ... Just thinking aloud.

T-Hawk, I have tried the Javelins as well and they blow up unshielded Rogues rather nicely. However, three Lavablade Mk I roast a whole Bloodhound (shield and all) faster than it takes two Justice Mk I to whittle down the shield ... The instant kill of the Javelin cannot make up for the lost time, unless you want to spend missiles on the shield as well. Starflier and Patriot can deliver Lavablade fire at all angles and speeds reliably, in all situations. This is not exactly true for the Javelins ...

As regards mines: how do you think does an small LF like the Patriot or Piranha take out cruisers quickly & reliably? No Starkillers here. Yes, mines have the worst bang/buck ratio of all ordnance (missiles are way too cheap - probably due to Microsoft QA) and they are the most difficult to deliver, but they are the only high-damage ordnance that you can use with a low-level LF. I guess He-Who-Slays-Sabres-In-A-Patriot (a.k.a. NukeIt) can tell this tale much better than I.

Of course, in a T0 run there is no need for mines before mission 12, except for an occasional Seeker to distract chasers for a second or two.

As regards Patriot vs. Defender: the Patriot can mount Adv. Stunpulse, Slingshot and Lavablade Mk III (Adv. Scorpion outside FLDQ) in any mix that you might find pleasing for the problem at hand. I see your 1 head-on bogie and raise to 1.5; on top of that I'll put 5 Valkyries before Walker even mentions gunboats (the fighters after the 3 gunboats, of course) and a completely cleaned stable before the Rheinland bombers show up. That's in an FLDQ run, on a tight budget. The Piranhas during mission 4 are also a good measure since there is not a whole lot of time, with all those Lane Hackers after your prey. (8)

Thank you for working out the refined details of the H-fuel level-up quirk. This should be very helpful in managing finances during an FLDQ run.

Edited by - Sherlog on 12-08-2003 21:46:37

Sure, I spend Javelins on the shields of the Rogues. One for the shield and one for the hull. Javelins are dirt cheap. The Bloodhounds barely maneuver at all, so the missiles deliver damage just as reliably as guns. To get the fastest total kills, you have to use fire-&-forget tactics: I can launch a Javelin and have the next target in my sights before the previous one even blows up. Bet you can't do that with Lavablades.

I do that with Starkillers too. The timing is tricky to get down but is very satisfying and fast when you do. Launch the torpedo at 1000m distance, pulse the shields, then kill the engine and turn to acquire another target while the torpedo is still en route . You need to kill the engine so that you keep flying directly towards the target, so that it keeps flying directly towards you instead of turning and dodging the torpedo. At the last fight of mission 6, I've nailed all three fighters in one head-on pass this way.

As regards mines: I don't go for cruisers in LFs. If you want battleship kills, get a HF and Starkillers.

And I've cleaned the Rheinland stable before the bombers showed up as well, in the Defender, with the Justice loadout. It seems that we're agreed that Stunpulse and Slingshot are the way to go for shooting down fighters in missions 3-5 (and I'd say 6 if flying a LF without torpedoes). If you have those to deal the heavy damage, I still think either the Patriot or Defender does the whole job faster with fast accurate Justice guns to mop up (especially if the Defender has 4 including the turret) than with ponderous Lavablades. Still, I doubt the difference between any of the combinations of Patriot/Justice, Patriot/Lavablade, Defender/Justice, and Defender/Lavablade is more than a minute or so over all of missions 3 and 4.

--

T-Hawk, I can see your point. With the DSE H-fuel the cost of the Javelins matters only insofar as you need enough of them to last from Manhattan to Pittsburgh (which restricts the choice for the two gun slots), and so it matters only that they do in fact help kill the shield faster than the lasers alone could.

I am still learning how to use missiles and so far I had used them more like poor man's torpedoes than like the cheap, expendable resource they are ... And I guess I am still a light fighter guy at heart, despite having gotten a taste for torping thanks to your maximum-fun exploits. That is why I feel more comfortable in a fighter that can hold out indefinitely on the strength of its guns alone ... Of course, that attitude is wrong for FLDQ since there the number of enemies is exactly known beforehand and ammo expenditure can be calculated precisely.

I guess in fairness to the others we two should restrict ourselves to T0 runs or T13+ ones. It is possible to get at least half a dozen battleship kills in the 'latency shadow' of the game scenes during a maximum-speed run, but a 4:00 hour T7 run would probably have a devastating effect on the morale of other FLDQers ...

P.S.: T13 may look a bit high but I think it is justified.

Latency shadow kills:
- Mission 04: 2, plus BS Unity with a bit of luck
- Mission 07: 4 (unless bad luck)
- Mission 10: 1 in Sigma-13, 1 in Frankfurt
Total: 9 with a bit of luck

Mission 9, 10 and 11 offer opportunities to up the battleship kills quite a bit (I guess not more than 1..2 min per kill), so a limit of 10 would not have been much of a challenge.

Edited by - Sherlog on 13-08-2003 00:19:22

I always cart around the biggest missile launcher I can(even if it's not mounted)...later on, when torpedoes become available, the catapult type in particular becomes very useful-two catapults are the approximate equal of a starkiller, so with an appropriately loaded HF/VHF, you can potentially take down capital ships and other slow-moving/stationary objects much faster. A quick ride out to Omicron Alpha could yield some possibilities for faster leveling-up(with the viking wreck's sellable class 10 goodies), and more importantly, ripper mines, which make short work out of just about anything in the campaign. This has become my favorite approach to missions 9-13, and if you do it right, takes very little time to accomplish(since everything between you and the loot is neutral/friendly when you reach kusari).

I loved lavablades at one point- until I realized that the slow speed completely counteracted the high damage potential. Even an AI can easily evade them. They might have an anti-capital advantage though, especially later on because they wouldn't drain the powerplant as much as class 5/6 weapons.

----------------------------------------
Reaper: $200,000,000.
Rockets: $100,000
The look on that pilot's face when you launch a full pod of screamers up his tailpipe: priceless
----------------------------------------
You're not just beating the dead horse, you're cutting down trees to do it with!

Edited by - NukeIt on 13-08-2003 17:22:37

Ah yes, Rippers. Had a lot of fun with those in the Sigma-13 battle, during the maximum-fun campaign ...

Unfortunately, there are only 20 mines total and that makes the long hike to Omicron Alpha much less appealing during an FLDQ run. Those 20 mines represent about 78k damage, just 25k more than a full set of Drillers (which can be bought along the path of the campaign). Even a Barracuda with budget equipment (2 x Pyros Type 2, 2 x Magma Hammer Mk I, 2 x Lavablade Mk III) can produce these 25k damage with guns alone in just 15 seconds from a depleted powerplant; with a fully charged plant it is just 10 seconds. It takes much longer than 15 s to fetch the Rippers. Things would be different if you could get a full complement of mines, or if you were allowed to buy the ammo ...

As regards the Lavablades, the Starflier and the Patriot are agile enough to use the guns against the hostiles in missions 1 and 2 without missing a single beat. I'll believe that lasers are better for these missions if and when I see some evidence. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, innit? Here's my info for 3 x Lavablade Mk I from the end of mission 1 (just load the automatic savegame "Mission 01: Criminal Base Destroyed" and hit F8 to get the player info screen):

00:16:55 total time, 27 kills

The kills were 3 Order ships and the rest Rogues, including the 3 bounty guys. Usually I get all baddies when I use Lavablades, except near Manhattan and at the Rogue base, of course. But during this run I lost one of the six at the tradelane to NPCs and one of the eight at Prison Ship XT-19. I have removed all savegames except for the current run, so these are the only figures I can give at the moment.

I have tried several different loadouts because I wanted equipment for missions 1 and 2 that could be reused on a Defender later (to save money), but it always came down to the fact the lasers do very little damage, and even less against graviton shields.

T0 - 4:14:14.

Mission 1 - Starflier, with two Justice Mk 1 and a Javelin launcher with 38 missiles. Didn't buy cargo either on Manhattan or Pittsburgh. After destroying the criminal base, flew straight to Norfolk Shipyard and knocked off an H-Fuel depot for instant level-up, and sold that on Manhattan.

Mission 2 - Patriot, 2x Justice Mk III, 1x Justice Mk I, Javelin launcher. Flew from the Missouri to the Norfolk and knocked off two H-Fuel depots this time (actually three because I accidentally blew up the loot from one.) Acquiring the H-Fuel was enough to level up.

Mission 3 - Did nothing on Manhattan. Got hacked in both lanes in New York and one in California costing an extra minute or so (at least the rogues were neutral towards me.) On Cal Minor, swapped the Justice Mk I for an Adv.Stunpulse and the Javelin for a Slingshot, and bought the class-2 shield. A Stunpulse/Slingshot combination can kill the Outcast fighters in a second each - an all-Lavablade loadout can't do that. On Willard, bought class-3 shield and Heavy Thruster.

At the Rheinland fight at Willard, I knocked off five fighters before the allies finished chattering on the way in (Juni's "This is gonna get rough", and every Rheinland ship was destroyed before the bombers spawned. Pudding enough for you with the laser guns, Sherlog?

Got the Balboa, but forgot to first empty my hold of debris from the Willard fight so came away with only 17 Cardamine. Oops.

Mission 4 - still 2x Justice Mk III, 1x Adv.Stunpulse, and Slingshot. Didn't go for the cruisers, but went for fighters instead, racking up 7 kills at Manhattan and 9 at Benford. Bet you can't do that with Lavablades. :p Also got 7 of the 8 Bounty Hunters. Total weapon loot from all this: one stinkin' Vengeance. Firing $91 at each ship does drain the networth a bit.

Mission 5 - Cavalier, 2x Pyros Type 2, 1x Adv.Stunpulse, Slingshot. Rheinland fighters generally took two Slingshots, so when flying head-on passes I started firing a missile at 1000m away from the target and followed it up with a second one before reaching the target.

Mission 6 - Same loadout and tactics as mission 5.

Mission 7 - Same loadout. I was still using the class-3 graviton shield at this point; since I'd be swapping to the Barracuda soon I opted not to spent the cash on a class-5 LF shield earlier, and opted not to buy a class-5 graviton on Shinkaku for only one battle.

In the big battles in Leeds and Tau-29, I went only for fighters. The allied ships are better at shooting big stationary targets, and with the Stunpulse I was better at shooting the fighters. Of course, I took out the fighters before they got done, and then I took down the gunboats with more Slingshots. The last target to die was the Schiller, which of course meant an extra 10 seconds wasted while the battleship exploded and played its comms.

Bought four Pyros Type 1s on Cali, and leveled up on New Tokyo by selling 13 Gold then 17 Diamonds. Got lane hacked twice on the way to New Tokyo costing more time.

On New Tokyo, bought the Barracuda of course. However, I couldn't afford Starkillers because I needed all the rest of my cash (had to sell nanobots too) to afford 39 Light Arms required for leveling on Kyoto. Of course, if you take a ship with 35 cargo, you can take all Gold for much more profit and have Starkillers for the Transport mission. Another plus for the Crusader actually.

Mission 8 - Barracuda, 4x Pyros Type 1, 2x Pyros Type 2. This set of guns is powerful enough to take out the weapons platforms in two passes each, and several of the fighters in one pass if it started far away and I didn't use the thruster when approaching. Due to having only the class-4 shield that came with the Barracuda, and no nanobots, I had quite a scare from some missile fire, with 2 bars of hull left. But fortunately that fighter dropped nanobots, and thankfully I didn't lose any wings or weapons.

Leveled up by selling light arms. On Kyoto, I finally bought a Starkiller launcher, but could only afford the class-5 graviton shield and even so could not afford a full load of ammo and batteries and nanobots (launched with about 25 of each.)

Mission 9 - Barracuda, 4x Pyros Type 1, 2x Pyros Type 2, Starkillers. Nothing unusual.

Mission 10 - same loadout; bought Driller mines on Bruchsal after selling the stuff from Imperial Navy fighter. Killed fighters instead of capital ships in the Sigma-13 battle, and picked up $8k worth of commodities from them, mostly niobium and pharmaceuticals. Took a death (dangit!) trying to cruise through the minefield on the way in and pulled a Molly. Made it in cruise the second try.

The experimental battleship took 28 seconds to kill, based on the fact that I flew right up to it and started banging on the torpedo and mine buttons and used 14 Starkillers. It took forever after that for everybody to get done chattering and decide to leave. I hit cruise when the first "let's leave" comm started, but even then it failed with a "fled the battle" when I was halfway through the minefield. Reloaded, and padded my fighter kill count by 4 while waiting after killing the battleship.

Mission 11 - Anubis, 6x Reaper Mk II, Reaper Turret Mk I, Starkillers, Drillers. Took two deaths (double dangit!) on my own torpedoes at the satellite battle. The uber-Patriots are definitely tougher to torpedo than slower ships; I missed with several in both battles.

Mission 12 - same loadout, no surprises except getting cruise disrupted three times on the way out. Went for gunboats in the last battle because that's where the torpedoes could do the most good. It's almost impossible to torpedo Nomad interceptors reliably; I think one Catapult might be a good idea for this fight.

Mission 13 - Bought a Catapult launcher and actually ran out of credits. Hit the 4:00:00 mark just after the first launch from Toledo.

At the jump gate, I flew right up to the Nomad battleship and unloaded the heavy artillery (Starkillers, Catapults, Drillers) into it. Killed it before the allies polished off the fighters - and discovered that the fighters don't have to die, just the battleship. Against the Barrier, used torpedoes and Catapults on the way in to each generator and switched to Drillers and Catapults once I reached it. Unloaded all the artillery into the last generators, died once when I got too close to my own torp blasts.

Back on Manhattan, 4:14:14 of game time passed.

Here's a table comparing my record with Sherlog's T6 times:

<pre><font size=1 face=Courier>
time T6 time ship worth credits kills savepoint name
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
0:18:30 0:19:03 Starflier 9,489 1,704 27 Mission 01: Criminal Base Destroyed
0:24:06 0:22:50 Patriot 14,792 4,614 27 Mission 02: Manhattan, New York
0:35:34 0:34:25 Patriot 18,237 4,614 37 Mission 02: Return Ashcroft
0:51:39 0:47:37 Patriot 23,349 811 39 Mission 03: Cal. Minor, California
1:02:46 1:01:22 Patriot 23,952 6,917 49 Mission 03: Respond to Station Willard
1:13:54 1:15:16 Patriot 45,477 9,917 56 Mission 04: Manhattan, New York
1:37:28 1:41:08 Cavalier 85,437 27,900 80 Mission 05: Cambridge, Cambridge
2:04:00 2:09:03 Cavalier 94,296 38,209 96 Mission 06: Hood, Dublin
2:15:21 2:22:02 Cavalier 98,361 42,369 107 Mission 07: Leeds, Leeds
2:30:32 2:38:28 Cavalier 96,959 41,208 116 Mission 07: Engage the Rheinland Fleet
2:48:19 2:55:37 Barracuda 80,792 58 123 Mission 08: Shinagawa, New Tokyo
3:00:18 3:09:11 Barracuda 90,156 98 129 Mission 09: Kyoto, Chugoku
3:11:15 3:22:17 Barracuda 88,119 165 140 Mission 10: Kyoto Chugoku (sic)
3:21:58 3:33:15 Barracuda 165,242 66,658 147 Mission 10: After Meeting Von Claussen
3:30:08 3:43:05 Barracuda 142,018 19,774 155 Mission 11: Osiris, Texas
3:50:16 4:05:43 Anubis 139,203 85,977 171 Mission 12: Osiris, Omicron Beta
3:59:44 4:16:49 Anubis 120,662 70,850 186 Mission 13: Toledo, Omicron Alpha
4:14:14 4:32:53 Anubis 54,523 21,362 191 (Manhattan, after talking to Orillion)
</font></pre>

Interesting to note that I usually visit the equipment dealer before accepting the missions, while Sherlog does it after (look at the ship choice for the Manhattan save.) I think my way is a touch faster, since the mission scenes usually automatically reposition you to the launch pad saving a click or two.

Based on this information, I would conclude that the Lavablade guns are better for missions 1 and 2, where the targets move slowly, but the Justice guns are better for the fast enemies in missions 3 and 4. At California Minor, I was a full four minutes behind Sherlog (thanks to getting lane hacked.) But I made up three minutes in the Outcast and first Valkyrie battle, and another three minutes in the big Rheinland fight. Both runs were with the Patriot so we're comparing apples to apples. Is that sufficient pudding for you for the Justice guns, Sherlog?

Having the Cavalier instead of the Piranha through Bretonia gained another five minutes. And I gained a couple of minutes each on the Transport and Arch missions, because I had Pyros guns instead of Lavablades on the Barracuda. Also gained a couple minutes in missions 11 and 12, probably due to accuracy with torpedoes.

En garde, Sherlog - your turn now Many thanks for the competition idea, and for the info and results you've posted to inspire and help the rest of us.

Edited by - T-hawk on 14-08-2003 03:30:00

T-Hawk, nice job! That puts the hurdle a bit higher for the young whipper-snappers - they are bracketed on one end by your T0 time, and on the other by the T6/T9 entries that we have produced. So either they have to be faster than 04:14, or they have to get at least one cruiser kill on the way (but there are quite a number that can be gotten without expending extra time, like Manhattan, Leeds, Tau-29, even in a light ship like the Patriot or Piranha).

And thanks for sharing your insights with us - the diamonds-to-New-Tokyo trick in particular opened new possibilities for different ships during the Bretonia phase. And before you mentioned it I did not realize that hitting the DSE H-fuel is both very fast and provides a much-needed cash infusion for an FLDQ run of the higher categories. I did the depots during my Bloodhound campaign but I simply did not think to use them for FLDQ. Without your reminder I'd still try to figure out how to get decent equipment for the Defender while in Liberty ... (Speaking of funds, you can hit the Othori wreck in Kyushu on the way from Cali to Planet Kyushu during mission 7 - just be very, very fast or you'll get a timeout). BTW, sometimes I go to accept a mission when I want a savepoint to be made - saves a click or two.

In the upcoming weeks I won't be able to play much, but rest assured that I will give you a run for your money.

After farting around with the Defender a bit I concluded that it really wasn't made for hostile environments - even though it is fairly agile for a HF it consumes batts/nanos like there's no tomorrow in a scene like after Benford blows up (Act_PlayerEnemyClamp = 6, 9 for you .ini students). I managed to roast one of the cruisers but I was extremely lucky to get away with the ship completely intact - no way I was going to get both of the killable station cruisers in this sitting duck.

The only other cruiser-killers for mission 4 are the Dagger (better, but takes a looong time to get) and the Patriot. So I went back to the drawing board and when I had found the perfect cruiser-munching loadout for the Patriot I saw that missions 1 through 3 would be pretty much identical between a T0 run (fastest time) and a Tmax run (most cruisers, maximum funds for ammo later on). On a T0 run it would not be necessary to hit the DSE depot but that takes just a few seconds each time and even a T0 run can profit from extra money for equipment and ammo ... So I decided to hit it anyway and pursued the combined T0/Tmax run until the last leg of mission 3.

In order to make up for the lost time from hitting the DSE depot twice I decided to use The Bracket for the first two skirmishes of mission 3 (Adv. Stunpulse + 2 x Javelin) and The Hammer for the Willard battle (Adv. Stunpulse + Javelin + Slingshot); for the supporting role I chose the Lavablade Mk III. Near Willard I completely cleaned the stable before Walker mentioned gunboats, and I was a bit apprehensive before the Rheinland Bombers spawned eventually. But they did spawn and so they got first the Wasp and then the Hammer. All hostiles destroyed before 0:59:00 ...

But then the fun ended, because nothing happened. When nothing continued to happen for a long time I turned on Walker with the rest of my ammo, but of course he was invulnerable and did not blink an eye ... The second time I left one of the gunboats until I had fried the bombers, but the same thing happened (or rather failed to happen). I was not pleased. I guess it's back to the drawing board and studying triggers ... The most likely guess is that I should not have Wasp'ed the bombers, or that I should have let one of them get near Walker (orders were to intercept them before they get near Walker, though).

P.S.: response to Station Willard was 0:55:40.

Edited by - Sherlog on 15-08-2003 01:21:56

Hmm - multiple missile launchers. I didn't even think of that. I do have to wonder if superior to a Patriot for mission-4 cruiser killing might not be a Defender with four Magma Hammers including the turret plus a Slingshot and Javelin. (Dual Slingshots would run out of ammo.) I'll try it on a Tmax run sometime soon, likely next week.

As for wrecks - there are a few more accessible. One can get the Flint before or after mission 3 at the cost of not much more time than the Balboa, although you won't be able to hold all the Cardamine in addition to the Balboa's. On one of my FLDQ runs, I tried to get the San Vicente (nice Dragoon guns and turret) in Leeds on the last leg of mission 6. I got it but got timed out before getting back to the tradelane; this wreck might just be barely possible to get if done perfectly. Finally, according to the map in Lancerthing, the Shoki is near the jumphole when you arrive in Kyushu, and Wakizashi guns from it are just about as good (and sell for as much) as Suncannon Bs from the Ohtori.

And here's yet one more refinement to leveling up on New Tokyo. Buying H-Fuel increases your networth by $180 per unit (local is $120 and nominal is $300). This means a 30-cargo ship can actually level up in this sequence: Sell 17 Gold, buy 17 H-Fuel, sell 13 Diamonds. (4 more Gold/less Diamonds than the other way for more profit.) Caveat: I have not actually tried this but the math does work out.

Edit: Found one more wreck that should be grabbable at the cost of under a minute. The Vanguard in New London is right by the Dublin jump hole, and that actually lands you 10k closer to the Hood on the Dublin side than going through the jump gate does. The goodies aren't that great - two class-5 lousy Dublin Dusters, 20 gold which is cheap here (though still saves $6k), and an Angelito turret (decent but you can't put it on any ship you'd want to be using.)

Edited by - T-hawk on 15-08-2003 04:22:51

Sorry, the wreck in Kyushu that I meant must be the Shoki - anyway, it's the one near to the Tau-23 jumphole (I have removed all the old savegames and so I could not verify the name). The loot is not very valuable but it could help with purchasing light arms in New Tokyo.

Yes, the Defender loadout that you suggested works very well, even if you use Lavablade Mk IIIs instead of the Magma Hammers (so that you can bypass Willard). However, the Defender does not last very long if a dozen Navy fighters and three cruisers are gunning for it.

P.S.: there are only 18 fighters total and no infinite wing-spawning as far as I can see, so the Defender could secure the workplace in the traditional manner ... As regards mission 3, it could be that there were hostiles left on the far side of the Harmony, outside of scanner range (I did not go all the way to the ship when I checked). Also, the triggers indicate that the mission ends if you destroy all hostiles before the Rheinland bombers spawn @ 60 seconds after the rendezvous with Walker (the gunboat warning seems to be @ 45 seconds), so there must have been a Valk somewhere that I had overlooked. IIRC there are 9 Valkyries - 2 wings near Willard and 1 wing near BS Harmony.

P.P.S.: it works! Flew the last leg of the mission again but this time I cleared the fighters near Battleship Harmony first, before taking on the rest. Toasted 9 Valks and 2 gunboats (Walker's cruisers and Defenders destroyed one gunboat) and the fight was over at about 0:57:30. Walker commented the destruction of all gunboats as usual but a while later - the fight was already over - he complained that they were too fast for his turrets, also as usual. Shortly before Juni was done with her chatter the bombers spawned but they were no longer part of the mission. Levelled up at about 0:58:00 and the savegame I made after docking shows 0:58:45.

Edited by - Sherlog on 15-08-2003 13:26:28

Went back to the Battleship Missouri savegame, bought the Defender and executed the same strategy as with the Patriot (but changed to The Hammer on Willard already since it is more difficult to deliver the Javelin pairs well in a Defender). I decided to land on Willard after the mission so that I could experiment with mission 4 loadouts involving class 4 guns and Razors without having to fly the last leg of the mission again; this time I bought a pair of Magma Hammers and for mines I chose the economy-class Seekers. Then I went to see Juni on Manhattan about a couple of Navy Cruisers.



P.S.: in case anyone wonders, the equipment on the missing wing (H-key accident) was a Javelin launcher, and the LNS Freedom (visible in the target list) is indestructible - it stops taking damage when hitpoints are down to 60%. If I would do this again then I would bypass Willard and use Lavablade Mk III instead of the Magma Hammers; I also would buy something like H-fuel or Consumer Goods on Planet Manhattan.

P.P.S.: I do not think that any other ship than the Defender could have pulled this stunt so easily (had to reload only once, because of a timeout after frying the first Benford Cruiser). The Defender has the right mixture of power and hardpoints - the Dagger is more powerful but the lacking hardpoint is vital.

Blast it - I cannot figure out how to make the black-eye smiley via Forum Codes ...

Edited by - Sherlog on 15-08-2003 21:37:57

T-Hawk, your Vanguard find is very useful. For a pure Defender path the time overhead is marginal but the $13k loot value helps a lot, and you can make up the lost time by spending a fraction of the money on Starkillers.

However, where your find really shines is the Crusader path. The Dublin Dusters do just 5% more damage than Magma Hammers but they have much better projectile speed & refire (perfect match for the Pyros Type 2s) and they are even slightly more efficient. Perfect for a cruiser-killing Crusader setup.

It is interesting that the 5 units of extra cargo space that Crusader and Piranha have over the Defender are more than enough to compensate the purchase cost for these ships. The Crusader costs $31400 and loses $6280 value, but buying it makes it possible to realize the full diamonds profit in Leeds ($6732 more) and still earn about $15k more on the gold trade from Dublin to New Tokyo. Similar considerations apply for upgrading a light fighter to the Piranha on a T0 run.

If you mix Crusader and Vanguard then it is hard to justify taking any other path at all ... (except for a T0 run, of course).

Well, getting the Vanguard means you have to double-back to the Essex in Dublin to get the Crusader, taking slightly longer. Or you could go to BS Suffolk for it instead, although it's a bit of a long way to fly directly from Suffolk to the Vanguard. Given this extra time expenditure, I wonder if it might not be faster to go buy the Crusader at the Norfolk instead before mission 5. The time is probably about equal, and then of course you get the more powerful ship for mission 5.


On another note, I'm trying to figure out if the Legionnaire can fit in any useful manner. It combines the advantages of the Piranha (35 cargo) and the Cavalier (class 5), although the Crusader also has those and is faster to get. I guess if you were going for maximum fighter kills this might be the ship to have for missions 5-7; it's obviously slower to get than the Cavalier and not as powerful as the Crusader.

The distance from Battleship Suffolk to the Vanguard wreck is 33k, just 7k more than the shortest distance from the tradelane to the wreck; the Suffolk itself is less than 3k from the tradelane. I went this route in my current Tmax campaign because I needed the extra cash badly - I had forgotten to buy something to trade from Manhattan to Leeds or Mactan during mission 4, and buying the Magma Hammers instead of using Lavablade Mk IIIs had cost not only several minutes but also quite a few bucks. Another reason for me was that the class 5 Dublin Dusters from the Vanguard are good enough to be used instead of class 4 Pyros Type 1s (saving a few credits by not purchasing them on Cali).

The time lost for purchasing + equipping the Crusader and hitting the Vanguard was less than two minutes, compared to zipping straight through to the Hood as one would do on a light fighter path. I think this is quite acceptable. Having the Crusader for mission 5 might be more of a liability than an advantage, because the Crusader moves like a cow and at that point in an FLDQ campaign you cannot have torpedos, Catapult missiles or even really good guns except for the two Pyros Type 2s from the Balboa wreck. The Defender has the same number of hardpoints and it is much more agile than the Bretonian bruiser. Also, the Barracuda feels positively zippy if you get it after the Crusader.

I also hit the Shoki wreck in Kyushu during mission 7 and the Fugaki in Honshu after the last skirmish of mission 8. As you can see in the comparison table below, the time overhead is insignificant. The Fugaki was dead easy because you can use the end of the Kansei tradelane for navigation (just head straight towards it until the wreck shows up on the nav map) but you have to steer towards the Shoki from memory or by consulting a pencil+paper map.

The table also gives some numbers for 'comparing apples and apples' - in my T6 run I had used 3 x Justice Mk I for mission 1, in my current run it was 3 x Lavablade Mk I (I had to fly the mission again anyway because I wanted to hit the DSE H-fuel depot on the way back to Manhattan and the T6 Starflier had its hold full with boron). Mission 2 was 1 x Lavablade Mk I and 3 x Lavablade Mk III this time since one possible Defender loadout for mission 4 contains three of the class 3 Lavablades. Adv. Stunpulse + plasma guns also worked very well against the Piranhas in mission 4: I had spent all missiles in New York but with this gun combo I was able to roast the eight Piranhas in Magellan quickly, seven of them before the Lane Hackers even started shooting.

<pre><font size=1 face=Courier><font size=1 face=Courier>
T-HawkT0 ori.T6 curr.T? ship worth cred. kills BS savepoint name
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
0:18:30 0:19:03 0:16:55 Starflier 10,771 3,704 27 - M01: Criminal Base Destroyed
0:24:06 0:22:50 0:21:33 Patriot 16,294 8,617 27 - M02: Manhattan, New York
0:35:34 0:34:25 0:31:30 Patriot 17,929 8,617 37 - M02: Return Ashcroft
0:51:39 0:47:37 0:44:20 Defender 29,147 6,947 41 - M03: Cal. Minor, California
1:02:46 1:01:22 0:56:09 Defender 26,853 2,870 50 - M03: Respond to Station Willard
1:13:54 1:15:16 1:08:32 Defender 59,281 21,562 57 - M04: Manhattan, New York
1:37:28 1:41:08 1:40:43 Defender 69,532 24,045 88 4 M05: Cambridge, Cambridge
2:04:00 2:09:03 2:08:54 Crusader 94,960 30,100 103 4 M06: Hood, Dublin
2:15:21 2:22:02 2:19:04 Crusader 101,416 12,620 115 4 M07: Leeds, Leeds
2:30:32 2:38:28 2:34:14 Crusader 95,499 4,263 125 5 M07: Engage the Rheinland Fleet
2:48:19 2:55:37 2:50:48 Barracuda 92,791 2 135 7 M08: Shinagawa, New Tokyo
3:00:18 3:09:11 3:02:57 Barracuda 132,476 44,652 143 7 M09: Kyoto, Chugoku
3:11:15 3:22:17 3:16:19 Barracuda 123,801 16,631 154 8 M10: Kyoto Chugoku (sic)
</font> </font></pre>

Of course, Sigma-13 shall be the proving ground. The remaining opportunities are just a repeat from the maximum-fun campaign and can be funded via the Sigma-13 wreck hit that you have pioneered; it may be possible to get all 3 cruisers at the experimental shipyard but Zone 21 is even worse than Tau-29 - you could probably kill all cruisers and the Omaha without getting any credit at all.

Sidenote: during mission 9 I noticed that the Naval Dragons seemed to hit quite a bit harder than I remembered, but I still had full nanos/batts after destroying three and a half generator. Then I went to search for the Kusari destroyer as planned; however, the destroyer and its fighter protection toasted me in short order. Yes, I had forgotten to buy the class 6 shield and so I was sticking my neck out much farther than advisable with a class 4 shield. One could probably use the class 4 shield all the way to the Osiris during a T0 run, using the funds for Starkillers or other speed-up kit.

UPDATE: Here is the rest of the table for the T17 run:

<pre><font size=1 face=Courier>T-HawkT0 ori.T6 curr.T? ship worth credits kills BS savepoint name
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3:21:58 3:33:15 3:31:45 Barracuda 171,752 34,255 158 12 M10: After Meeting Von Claussen
3:30:08 3:43:05 3:42:49 Barracuda 159,051 38,915 167 15 M11: Osiris, Texas
3:50:16 4:05:43 4:05:46 Anubis 146,342 59,289 188 17 M12: Osiris, Omicron Beta
3:59:44 4:16:49 4:15:09 Anubis 142,221 39,269 201 17 M13: Toledo, Omicron Alpha
4:14:14 4:32:53 4:29:43 Anubis 106,969 29,453 205 17 (Manhattan, after mission 13) </font></pre>

On Kyoto after mission 9 I sold all surplus equipment so that I could buy a Catapult launcher and 30 missiles in addition to full complements of Starkillers, countermeasures, nanos and batts. If I had hit the San Vicente as suggested by T-Hawk then I would have been able to afford 50 Catapults ... The Sigma-13 battle did not go as expected: the main problem were not the dozens of Valkyries and Banshees escorting the cap ships, it was competing with the Order ships because they hit the cruisers/battleships fast and hard. I got credit for 4 out of 7 kills and counted myself lucky to get even that much (there are at least 8 cap ships, 9 if the reserve cruisers are spawned, 10 if the LNS Aachen respawns as a reserve but I don't think it does). The wreck of the Imperial Fighter near the New Berlin jumphole provided more than sufficient funds for the rest of the campaign.

At the experimental shipyard I went straight for the farthest cruiser but was failed for 'fleeing the battle' when I got a few meters beyond it during a pass. The second time I fried the two nearest cruisers first and got the third about half done before I ran out of batts and shield, then I went to one of the experimental ships in order to blow it up while the shield recharged. The waypoint out of there was activated while I was finishing off the last cruiser so that there were no undue delays.

Zone 21 was not quite as bad as I had expected - one cruiser did a Molly at about the same time as the 'Osiris uncloaks' cutscene but I had the other two cruisers for myself and got credit for them. After that I was very low on nanos (batts long gone) and Juni had been nagging several times already, so I just docked without engaging the Omaha. It is possible to get the suicidal cruiser but probably only before the Osiris appears, so you have to 'park + go' with everything you have - guns, missiles, torpedos and mines - in order to meet the deadline.

Edited by - Sherlog on 17-08-2003 23:56:29