Here's the write-up for the 03:59 T0 run.

I started this run at the Battleship Missouri savegame of the T17 run after mission 2, because I wanted to use the Defender all the way to New Tokyo (Barracuda) without landing on Willard after mission 3 or hitting the Balboa wreck. So I bought the class 3 Lavablade turret and then I hit the DSE H-fuel depot near Baltimore Shipyard en route to Manhattan and California Minor as usual.

On California Minor I bought & equipped The Hammer (Adv. Stunpulse + Javelin + Slingshot) immediately because I wanted to minimize the time spent at equipment dealers for shuffling around equipment; in the T17 run I had used the more economical Bracket (Adv. Stunpulse + 2 x Javelin). Then I proceeded to New Tokyo (adding the Starkiller torpedo launcher while on the Hood) but I found that I had forgotten to plan the money for buying 39 units of Light Arms ... I was about $20k short. This was almost exactly the money I had spent on Starkiller launcher + torpedoes but going back and doing missions 6 + 7 without torpedoes was not an option, because that way I would have lost more time than I had gained by not going for the Balboa wreck in California.

So I went back to the California Minor savegame of mission 3 but this time I went straight for the Balboa when all hostiles were destroyed (shortly before 0:57:00). On the way to Manhattan I was lane-hacked twice but the New York jumpgate was completely clear, and so I counted my blessings and proceeded without flying the mission again, despite the loss of about one minute.

Mission 4 loadout: Adv. Stunpulse + Javelin + Slingshot + 2 x Lavablade Mk III + Lavablade Turret Mk II. After dispatching the initial wing of rogue Defenders I hammered Battleship Unity with my Lavablades, in order to speed things along. When I heard the 'code red' line I let off and amused myself by chasing Defenders until the tradelane was reactivated; at Benford I fried some more Defenders to while away the time. On the Magellan side I applied The Hammer to the Piranhas and cleared them away before the Lane Hackers even declared their intention to open fire.

On Mactan I bought two class 4 Hellflurries, since they match the Pyros turret from the Balboa wreck perfectly and I intended to do most damage via explosives (missiles, torpedoes) anyway. The Defender is not agile enough to handle the speed mismatch between the 500 m/s Lavablades and the 700 m/s turret + 750 m/s pulse gun in a furball; it has to shoot whenever it can and at higher angles only the fast guns or the slow ones will hit, but not both. After that I did not change the loadout of the Defender (The Hammer + Hellflurries + Pyros turret) until I sold it on Planet New Tokyo, except for adding the Starkiller torpedo launcher and replenishing missiles before mission 6. In order to conserve funds I used torpedoes only sparingly during the Bretonia phase, preferring the more economical Hammer (Javelin+Slingshot) in furballs. Basically, I used torpedoes only for sure kills on initial approach: 1 before the Glorious, 1 after, the 3 at the Leeds jumphole, 1 near Leeds, 2 at Stokes. But then my brother came and I had to demonstrate a couple of moves. Still, I used only 13 torps total and this had a beneficial effect on the funds. In particular, I did not spend any torps on the two gunboats in Tau-31 because the powerplant of the Defender is so weak and I had kept the fighter combat loadout with the energy-inefficient Hellflurries. Destroying these gunboats before the deadline in order to gain time would have taken about $10k in explosives, and I was not prepared to spend that kind of money to gain a couple of seconds. With the Crusader + Dublin Dusters + Pyros Type 2s the story would have been quite different, of course ...

On Shinkaku in Tau-29 I rummaged through the accumulated loot in order to see if somebody had finally gotten around to drop a CD for me because I did not want to head into the battle without countermeasures; somebody had, so I mounted the thing and bought flares (otherwise I would have bought the cheapest CD available). Before the fleet battle I deactivated one of the Hellflurries - leaving the Pyros turret and one Hellflurry as active guns - and switched to cockpit view; when the battle commenced I headed straight into the Achilles Hole of Battleship Schiller and pounded it with the the active guns until it blew up. After that I switched back to chase cam view, reactivated the second Hellflurry and concentrated on taking out any fighters and gunboats that were left.

On Cali I sold all surplus equipment & ammo except for 4 Starkiller torpedoes that I intended to use during mission 8; as always since mission 1 I left the nanos/batts alone since they were about okay already (5 nanos, 6 batts); then I bought 3 Pyros Type 4s. On Planet New Tokyo I executed level-up trick 'Adv. T-Hawk Mk III' and it worked as advertised. IOW, I sold 17 gold, bought 17 H-fuel, sold 13 diamonds, sold H-fuel. After that I was able to afford 45 units of Light Arms and so I was home-free since it was clear that I would be able to meet the 4-hour deadline unless I lost lots of time compared to the other runs. I did lose some time (2 minutes alone in mission 12) but as I was still on track I did not care ...

Here's the time table:

<pre><font size=1 face=Courier>T-HawkT0 ori.T6 curr.T0 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 0:44:35 Defender 25,314 36 41 - M03: Cal. Minor, California
1:02:46 1:01:22 0:55:08 Defender 25,891 2,580 52 - M03: Respond to Station Willard
1:13:54 1:15:16 1:04:34 Defender 48,732 5,580 62 - M04: Manhattan, New York
1:37:28 1:41:08 1:26:49 Defender 60,506 18,275 93 - M05: Cambridge, Cambridge
2:04:00 2:09:03 1:51:16 Defender 94,756 21,502 107 - M06: Hood, Dublin
2:15:21 2:22:02 2:00:43 Defender 99,793 28,502 118 - M07: Leeds, Leeds
2:30:32 2:38:28 2:14:58 Defender 97,920 27,138 127 - M07: Engage the Rheinland Fleet
2:48:19 2:55:37 2:30:56 Barracuda 84,533 1,031 133 - M08: Shinagawa, New Tokyo
3:00:18 3:09:11 2:43:00 Barracuda 91,998 60 141 - M09: Kyoto, Chugoku
3:11:15 3:22:17 2:54:45 Barracuda 111,175 10,654 153 - M10: Kyoto Chugoku (sic)
3:21:58 3:33:15 3:03:47 Barracuda 184,324 69,696 159 - M10: After Meeting Von Claussen
3:30:08 3:43:05 3:12:14 Barracuda 207,388 95,806 167 - M11: Osiris, Texas
3:50:16 4:05:43 3:33:06 Anubis 176,372 81,819 192 - M12: Osiris, Omicron Beta
3:59:44 4:16:49 3:44:06 Anubis 154,562 87,874 205 - M13: Toledo, Omicron Alpha
4:14:14 4:32:53 3:58:30 Anubis 123,362 71,590 209 - (Manhattan, after mission 13) </font></pre>

Conclusion: the Defender is a bit slower than the Patriot during missions 3 and 4 but during the Bretonia phase it beats the light fighters because it can mount The Hammer (Adv.Stunpulse+Javelin+Slingshot) and a torpedo launcher in addition to a decent set of hull guns. The Crusader has a very strong powerplant and it can utilize the Pyros Type 2 guns from the Balboa wreck, but buying & equipping the Crusader would have taken at least one minute longer and the only place were it could have saved time is Tau-31 (the scene with the two lane-hacking gunboats). In Tau-29 the Crusader can take out Battleship Schiller clearly faster but the Defender is more manoeuvrable and so it has an advantage for taking out fighters quickly.

Wow! I'd thought under 4 hours would be possible, but I didn't think you'd get it done so soon or so easily. I was going to try skipping the Balboa too, but it seems that the wreck is critically important to affording the level-up Light Arms, and the Pyros guns also make up a good portion of the time required.

I think you've done it all now; I don't think I'll bother challenging that T0 time. I might be able to beat it by a minute or two but I think we've already worked out all the significant ways to speed it up. As I noted before, you gained seven minutes on my T0 run even before California Minor, and now you gained another four minutes in the Tau-29 fleet battle. Those plus spending less time in the equipment dealers account for the time difference.

Also, I used the Cavalier for the Bretonia missions while you used the Defender. I guess the latter is indeed better. The former lets you use the Patriot for mission 3, gaining a minute or so, and might be slightly better for mission 5 with the Pyros guns and a better powerplant, but the Defender's torpedoes more than make up for that time in missions 6 and 7.


Oh, and in starting a Tmax run myself I discovered yet another trick for extra cash. If you blow up a DSE H-Fuel depot on the way back from Pittsburgh in mission 1, the area goes hostile, and stays hostile when you fly through there on your way to mission 2. IF you do mission 2 quickly - wasting no more than a minute or so - the Fort Bush area is still hostile when you come back through it carrying Ashcroft. Because the H-Fuel storage depots are hostile, you can actually go blow up more of them during the "jailbreak wing" battle without failing the mission! That's an extra 25*336 = 8400 credits on BS Mizzou at the cost of 12-15 seconds.

T-Hawk, that is very clever. I have experienced hostile Ft. Bush area during mission 2 several times, and one time the extra fire from the tradelane turrets and Ft. Bush almost killed me. But I never made the simple connection hostile < neutral, therefore hostile == lootable during mission. And an extra $8400 without any time overhead whatsoever is extremely good news.

During my T0 run I had equipped Javelin+Slingshot on California Minor before mission 3 but I could afford only 10 missile pairs (used 9); also, this opens other interesting equipment options especially for the Defender. The cardamine profit from the Balboa is not available before landing on Manhattan after mission 3 but then the rep does not allow buying things like Justice Mk III etc. With this extra money you can afford the stuff already when you buy the Defender, or at the latest during mission 3, on Willard. And if you don't need extra cash in Liberty then you have more money to spend on Starkillers or other things while in Bretonia.

I was a bit surprised myself that I managed to beat the 4-hour mark on this run - I only wanted to try out a Defender plan, to see how things would work out money-wise and also to experiment with new approaches a bit. You can see that I was clearly slower than you in many missions, especially the later ones. Sometimes even one or two minutes.

There is quite a bit of potential left. We have come up with a couple of good plans, and especially your pioneering work with regard to sources for extra funds and refined level-up techniques has opened several interesting possibilities. But overall plans are only one part of the equation - the other parts things like good loadouts (balance between three factors: necessary funds, time to obtain+equip, and time gained during mission) and also details of execution.

I just flew mission 1 again in order to make some notes for a detailed walk-through, the odd screenshot, and also to try approaches that are easier to explain than 'enter cruise and point your ship at the right spot in the sky'. This was completely cold - first flight of the day, had not flown Starflier this week at all. Criminal Base Destroyed at 0:16:20 and docked with Planet Manhattan at 0:20:07 (including the bounty and also the DSE H-fuel, which a Junker tried to take off me while I was hammering the second pod to fill the rest of the hold ).

And with all the cash sources you have opened up we can pour all of the starting cash into equipment for the first two missions without worrying whether the equipment can be reused later. Lavablade Mk II + 2 x Lavablade Mk I for mission 1, perhaps Javelin + 3 x Lavablade Mk III (or 3 x Justice Mk III) for mission 2.

Also, getting the $750 bounty is not necessary anymore - so it might be a good thing to find out whether there is a time overhead and if so, how much.

The Defender loses very little time in Liberty if you use The Hammer from the beginning (just the few seconds from buying it, plus an odd second here and there), and I think it pretty much owns Bretonia. It is a bit weaker against gunboats than the Crusader but there aren't that many gunboats before mission 7 and if you have money for explosives then difference to the Crusader is probably marginal before Tau-31. And Defender + Hammer + Pyros turret + 2 x Hellflurry/Ripper is the only really convincing option for mission 5 that I have been able to find so far (no second pair of Pyros Type 2s and no Catapult missiles during a T0 run). The mixed gun/missile/torpedo combat is quite fun, once you have gotten used to it.

Also, using the Defender up to mission 5 does not preclude getting the Crusader on Battleship Essex. Add a good Bretonian Skyrail to the Pyroses and keep The Hammer in addition to the torps (more economical & more reliable in a furball). Theory is one thing but the subject matter is very complex - and you know where the proof of the pudding is.

And look at all the money that was left after my T0 run. That money should have blown up things instead of padding the stats.

P.S.: just repeated the run from the Criminal Base Destroyed savepoint to Manhattan and was docked at 0:20:10 (probably lost a second when I collided with the depot, and another while dodging the evil Patriots en route to the tradelane). This is good news - normally you get thrown way back when you load a savepoint since you usually are up to 10 km away from the savepoint location already if you race ahead (e.g. almost all savepoints in mission 2, Respond to Willard savepoint in mission 3).

P.P.S.: did mission 1 again in order to see if the 0:16:20 was just a fluke; this time with 1 x Lavablade Mk II + 2 x Lavablade Mk I. Got all 5 Anubises near Manhattan (had never managed that so far) and was back on Manhattan at 0:20:02 with 31 kills (+ $750 bounty + DSE H-fuel), despite losing 1 kill to the XT-19 and running into a difficult situation in the debris field because the Rogues were first flying at an angle and then fleeing away from me, towards King and Beta-4, instead of heading straight towards me as usual. Of course, I've tried different things again this time. Criminal Base Destroyed was 0:16:22. The Lavablade Mk II did have a noticable effect - there were no Rogues getting away with the ship just barely held together by paint and rust, and with 3 x Mk I I'd probably clocked a slower time for this run. And I guess I now have all the bits needed for an FLDQ mission 1 cookbook article. Fly mission 1 in under 0:17:00 or you'll get your money back! If there is interest, that is.

P.P.P.S.: the difference between flying the mission in one pass and reloading the Criminal Base Destroyed savepoint is that you wait a couple of seconds longer at the second tradelane ring counted from Pittsburgh until Juni stops chatting if you fly without reloading. Perhaps one should aim for the third ring instead ...

Edited by - Sherlog on 20-08-2003 23:23:22

Now I have to wonder if buying a Rhino on Pittsburgh might not be a bad idea for a Tmax run. It can loot all 64 H-Fuel from the depots three times: after mission 1, during mission 2, and after mission 2. Of course, fighting the first half of mission 1 with the Justice guns (to afford the Rhino after) and fighting from Pittsburgh to Missouri in the freighter will take a few minutes. But get this: after selling all the H-Fuel on Manhattan, Missouri, and California Minor, we're talking a jackpot of $73,472 ! You can buy a Patriot on California Minor for mission 3, and after nabbing the Balboa you can stop off at BS Yukon by Los Angeles to buy a Defender in less than a minute extra. And of course all that extra networth will result in more loot drops later on. Who wants some Class-6 Stealthblade guns for free?

I call dibs on that idea - I get to try it before you do.


On another topic, I flew mission 1 several times yesterday, to practice and try different loadouts. I agree, the fastest loadout is indeed one Lavablade II and two Lavablade Is. The fastest time I could achieve for Criminal Base Destroyed was about 17:25 (including the bounty), more than a minute worse than you. I know where all the waypoints are; the rogues spawn within 1.5k of me each time consistently, and I consistently nail both weapon platforms before King's done talking about them. Maybe it's my PC, which takes a good ten seconds of loading after the FP7 intro and at launch from both Manhattan and Pittsburgh, and I'm pretty sure that time is counted.


The $750 bounty does take extra time - my best is about 8 seconds from the transport entering the tradelane until I killed the third pirate and entered myself; and the chatter at Pittsburgh isn't as much as 8 seconds shorter with the "conquering hero" speech. If we're looting that much H-Fuel, better to skip it, I think.


If you want to keep chasing every available second of time, feel free, and I'll cheer you on, but I don't have much interest in doing it myself.

==========

EDIT: Okay, I tried that Rhino plan. Had to get max cash fast to buy the Rhino, so on Manhattan, I sold botts/bats and bought Pharmaceuticals. Went for the bonus rogue bounty although it took a good 20 seconds extra with only the starting Justice guns. On Pittsburgh, sold pharms, bought the Rhino and could afford an Adv.Starbeam and a Stunpulse turret to add to the Justice guns. Stunpulse turret - that's a neat advantage for the Rhino. Stunpulse guns aren't available on any of the bases you visit in New York, but that Stunpulse turret is available on Pittsburgh.

Criminal Base Destroyed at 18:53 with the Rhino; a cost of 2:30 over your best Starflier run, not too terrible. Proceeded to loot my 64 H-Fuel and sell it on Manhattan.

Then I noticed that Manhattan doesn't sell Lavablade turrets, only Justice! So I loaded the Rhino up with 2x Lavablade Mk III, a Javelin launcher, and kept the Stunpulse turret. Proceeded through mission 2, looted another 64 H-Fuel at the return to Fort Bush, and on to the Missouri. But that went slower than I would've liked - the Rhino is really terrible at targeting with Lavablades, especially considering the speed mismatch between them and the Stunpulse turret.

So I reloaded from Criminal Base Destroyed (you need to go back that far to have the Fort Bush area hostile when you need it to be.) This time on Manhattan, I bought two Javelin launchers, kept the Adv.Starbeam gun and Stunpulse turret from Pittsburgh, and bought four cheap Justice Turret Mk I (didn't want to spend $5k extra for the Mk IIs for just this one mission.) That worked out much better - even the Rhino can kill quite quickly in mission 2 using a modified Bracket (Stunpulse turret / dual Javelins) thanks to fire-and-forget tactics.

Looted another 64 H-Fuel at Fort Bush, and also got a class-4 Raphael gun as loot in that battle. Reached the Missouri 90 seconds ahead of the Lavablade try.

Sold the H-Fuel and went to loot yet another 64 of them. Unfortunately, the Patriots were waiting for me on the way in and blew me up. I reloaded - which resets the Fort Bust area hostility status so I don't get attacked until starting to attack the depots - and completed the plan.

So, now I'm on California Minor at 49:10. Almost five minutes behind your T17 run, but I've got a massive $76,000 in the bank to play with now.

Edited by - T-hawk on 21-08-2003 07:34:13

I had also observed that only Stunpulse turrets are available before California Minor, but for mission 2 I thought more on the lines of Stunpulse + plenty of explosives (2 x Javelin, 2 x Stunpulse turret). With the shield busters you don't have to spend missiles on shields, so you can hammer the bogies with the Bracket (there are only 16 = 1 + 6 + 4 + 1 + 4 hostiles that need to be shot at).

BTW, both sets of Rogues in the Pittsburgh debris field seem to spawn at the same distance and angle relative to you, every time. So you have to fly towards the particle cloud when you hear the Beta-4 SOS, in order to get the Rogues to spawn in a convenient location. Found that out yesterday. After dealing with the five Rogues continue cruising towards the cloud; when King is finished talking then the next mission way point will spawn 3 km or less away from you. At the waypoint deactivate cruise and wait for tail-turner squad. Shoot one of them; base & platforms will spawn within gun range, so just turn a bit to hammer the weapon platforms. They are still indestructible but you can take out most of the hitpoints so that they require only a single shot later. Start chasing Rogues until King has said his piece ("I see two weapon platforms "... "Over" ), finish off the two platforms pronto, then continue chasing Rogues. The base continuously launches pairs of Rogues, so it is normal when two of them are left after the cutscene. Delta wing will take care of them, so activate cruise immediately after the cutscene and head towards Pittsburgh (solars list) until you have cleared the cloud and you can navigate visually. Of course, if you want to aim for the middle of the tradelane then another solar (Baltimore Shipyard?) may be more appropriate.

As regards the computer speed problems, perhaps this can be improved by defragging, freeing as much core as possible (make sure no unneeded tasks/processes are running), and turning down graphics resolution + detail. Here are some times I noted for the walk-through:
<pre><font size=1 face=Courier>0:01:25 savepoint "Mission 01: Manhattan, Manhattan"
0:01:45 Starflier equipped & ready to launch
0:03:10 savepoint "Mission 01: Avenge the Donau"
0:04:10 hostiles destroyed
0:05:15 savepoint "Mission 01: Join the Convoy"
0:06:10 convoy passes first tradelane ring </font></pre>
These times are conservative and easily repeatable on my system.

If the 3 space-based cutscenes before mission 4 (FP7, Donau, Benford) turn out to be problematic despite system tuning then I'll have a stab at removing them. There are savepoints after two of these cutscenes and a clear 'cut' after FP7, so it might be doable. Also, this would give aspiring FLDQers a tiny edge for beating our times.

Edited by - Sherlog on 21-08-2003 13:19:14

I am currently trying to finish the unmodded game and kill as many battle ships as I can. It is probably going to be somewhere around 15 hours...

But my question is, when I get the screenshot at the end, do I have to have a web site in order to post the screenie here?

"On this ship you are to refer to me as Idiot, not you Captain. I mean... you know what I mean."

topher, if you want to post screenies in this forum then you need to put them on the web yourself. But you can send your victory screen to my email account (please JPEG it to make it smaller and add the word 'Freelancer' to the email subject - this account gets hit by up to 100 spam per day). If I have some spare bytes left on my site than I'll host it and send you the link but I will add your entry to the score list in any case. Anyway, an article about your campaign will probably more interesting to more readers than a plain player info screen ...

Good luck with the cruiser-frying business! There are a couple of tricks that have not been posted yet as far as I can see, but this thread is getting a bit longish already and so it might be a good idea to make a separate thread for the discussion of battleship killing. Remember, the rules require that T-Hawk and I lay open all our tricks and techniques if you ask.