Sun Aug 10, 2003 2:16 am
Bloodhound Campaign
In the thread covering T-Hawk's Startracker Campaign it was observed that so far nobody seems to have chosen the good old Bloodhound for beating the campaign. So I set out to rectify this ...
Since the Bloodhound can be gotten at level 2 - that is, immediately after the end of mission 1 - it seems only fair to conclude that it should be gotten at that point of a Bloodhound Campaign. So I flew mission 1 in the usual Starflier with 3 x Lavablade Mk I but this time I did not fill my hold with Boron while on Pittsburgh; instead, I filled it with H-fuel from one of the DSE depots near Baltimore Shipyard right after the end of the mission (the Bloodhound is a pirate ship, innit?
). Then I set sail for Rochester where I sold the H-fuel and picked up the Bloodhound; I returned to Manhattan by way of Baltimore Shipyard to pick up some more of the H-fuel ... I also vandalized two pods of the scrap metal depot, upping the count of smashed DSE depots to six.
Since the Bloodhound has a forward-firing turret slot and since most interesting turrets have 700 m/s speed, I wanted Xenos Adv. Scorpions for the Bloodhound. But I did not want to spend an hour shooting Startrackers in the Silverton Asteroid field yet again, that is why I opted to buy the guns instead and this requires rep adjustment on the order of 8 police depots plus 6 DSE ones.
Then I decided that I needed to be rich during mission 3, so that the Outcasts would drop some decent guns for me. Therefore I did a grand tour of the wrecks after mission 2 ended on Battleship Missouri: Aggressor, Patrol 27, Prudhoe, Avenger. I docked with Beaumont Base in order to trade the 20 diamonds from the Prudhoe for 15 cardamine (Bloodhound has 35 cargo space) and also to replenish nanos; then I returned to Manhattan via the Flint to pick up the 20 cardamine. After launching from Manhattan with marching orders for California Minor I immediately turned right, where I vandalized the two police depots in order to show the Xenos that Trent is a guy worthy of buying nice guns. Then I proceeded to Ouray Base by way of the Colorado jumphole, returning to New York via tradelanes and the jumpgate in order to drop off the polymers at Baltimore Shipyard. When I launched from Baltimore the Bloodhound immediately turned towards the H-fuel depot and started firing; I took the hint and tractored the H-fuel for sale on Willard.
During these missions the Bloodhound performed pretty badly compared to the Starflier and the Patriot - being unable to dodge well it took quite a bit of fire, especially from the Patriots at the depots (this did not bode well for mission 11). From then on the campaign was pretty normal; I picked up various equipment pieces as they became available (Heavy Thruster, Slingshot launcher, Rowlett's Revenge, Adv. Stunpulse, class 3 graviton shield, Razor mines). The Outcasts dropped one Dragoon gun and one Dragoon turret - I would have preferred two guns instead since I was going to pick up the Pyros Turret Type 1 from the Balboa anyway ...
The campaign was pretty uneventful during missions 4 through 8 since the Bloodhound is adequate for this portion of the campaign and I had decent equipment. I got one cruiser near Manhattan, the cruiser blocking the exit out of Leeds (pure luck since I was still working on it when Tobias showed up) plus Battleship Schiller and one cruiser in Tau-29. When Battleship Schiller failed to register yet again, just like in earlier campaigns, I looked into the .ini file and guess what I found ... Yes, it is a mission solar, not a ship. And so far there has been no case of a 'solar' battleship registering as a kill, ever.
During this part of the campaign one of the Bloodhound's biggest disadvantages compared to the Dagger showed clearly: on the Bloodhound you can have either a Slingshot launcher or an Adv. Stunpulse in addition to a decent set of hull guns - on the Dagger you can have both at the same time. With the Adv. Stunpulse you can hammer shields pretty fast but the hull takes quite a bit of time without Slingshots; without Adv. Stunpulse the shields of the Valkyries/Dragons take very long to beat down. Also, the Bloodhound seemed to take more damage than the Dagger, which is probably due to its size and lack of punch (manoeuvrability parameters are exactly equal).
On Kyoto I had to take a freelance mission in order to level up but I did not mind since I welcomed the chance to get a bit of combat experience against Naval Dragons. I loaded Dragoons into the class 4 gun slots (more damage + range than the Adv. Scorpions, but less efficient) to see how they work in combat. The result was discouraging - after taking out the first two ships the powerplant was depleted during the whole skirmish, and I had to use shield batteries even though the random mission Dragon encounters are easier than mission 9. In dogfights the 600 m/s Pyros Type 1s that I had bought on Cali do not mix well with the 700 m/s turret and the 750 m/s pulse gun, and so I equipped Adv. Scorpions before setting sail for Tekagi's Arch.
The first time I managed to get past the initial patrol with 14 batts and 12 nanos. When I still had 14 batts after taking out 3 gennies I thought this was a good time to investigate the spot above the Kusari battleship that NukeIt had mentioned. Bad move. The area was swarming with fighters and when I flew past the battleship one moment I had almost full shields and the next moment I was a fireball - when I heard 'shield failed' message I was already looking at the 'you are dead' screen. The second time I had to use batts during the patrol encounter but I did not stray away at the Arch and so the rest was uneventful.
Since the Bloodhound can be gotten at level 2 - that is, immediately after the end of mission 1 - it seems only fair to conclude that it should be gotten at that point of a Bloodhound Campaign. So I flew mission 1 in the usual Starflier with 3 x Lavablade Mk I but this time I did not fill my hold with Boron while on Pittsburgh; instead, I filled it with H-fuel from one of the DSE depots near Baltimore Shipyard right after the end of the mission (the Bloodhound is a pirate ship, innit?
). Then I set sail for Rochester where I sold the H-fuel and picked up the Bloodhound; I returned to Manhattan by way of Baltimore Shipyard to pick up some more of the H-fuel ... I also vandalized two pods of the scrap metal depot, upping the count of smashed DSE depots to six.
Since the Bloodhound has a forward-firing turret slot and since most interesting turrets have 700 m/s speed, I wanted Xenos Adv. Scorpions for the Bloodhound. But I did not want to spend an hour shooting Startrackers in the Silverton Asteroid field yet again, that is why I opted to buy the guns instead and this requires rep adjustment on the order of 8 police depots plus 6 DSE ones.
Then I decided that I needed to be rich during mission 3, so that the Outcasts would drop some decent guns for me. Therefore I did a grand tour of the wrecks after mission 2 ended on Battleship Missouri: Aggressor, Patrol 27, Prudhoe, Avenger. I docked with Beaumont Base in order to trade the 20 diamonds from the Prudhoe for 15 cardamine (Bloodhound has 35 cargo space) and also to replenish nanos; then I returned to Manhattan via the Flint to pick up the 20 cardamine. After launching from Manhattan with marching orders for California Minor I immediately turned right, where I vandalized the two police depots in order to show the Xenos that Trent is a guy worthy of buying nice guns. Then I proceeded to Ouray Base by way of the Colorado jumphole, returning to New York via tradelanes and the jumpgate in order to drop off the polymers at Baltimore Shipyard. When I launched from Baltimore the Bloodhound immediately turned towards the H-fuel depot and started firing; I took the hint and tractored the H-fuel for sale on Willard.
During these missions the Bloodhound performed pretty badly compared to the Starflier and the Patriot - being unable to dodge well it took quite a bit of fire, especially from the Patriots at the depots (this did not bode well for mission 11). From then on the campaign was pretty normal; I picked up various equipment pieces as they became available (Heavy Thruster, Slingshot launcher, Rowlett's Revenge, Adv. Stunpulse, class 3 graviton shield, Razor mines). The Outcasts dropped one Dragoon gun and one Dragoon turret - I would have preferred two guns instead since I was going to pick up the Pyros Turret Type 1 from the Balboa anyway ...
The campaign was pretty uneventful during missions 4 through 8 since the Bloodhound is adequate for this portion of the campaign and I had decent equipment. I got one cruiser near Manhattan, the cruiser blocking the exit out of Leeds (pure luck since I was still working on it when Tobias showed up) plus Battleship Schiller and one cruiser in Tau-29. When Battleship Schiller failed to register yet again, just like in earlier campaigns, I looked into the .ini file and guess what I found ... Yes, it is a mission solar, not a ship. And so far there has been no case of a 'solar' battleship registering as a kill, ever.
During this part of the campaign one of the Bloodhound's biggest disadvantages compared to the Dagger showed clearly: on the Bloodhound you can have either a Slingshot launcher or an Adv. Stunpulse in addition to a decent set of hull guns - on the Dagger you can have both at the same time. With the Adv. Stunpulse you can hammer shields pretty fast but the hull takes quite a bit of time without Slingshots; without Adv. Stunpulse the shields of the Valkyries/Dragons take very long to beat down. Also, the Bloodhound seemed to take more damage than the Dagger, which is probably due to its size and lack of punch (manoeuvrability parameters are exactly equal).
On Kyoto I had to take a freelance mission in order to level up but I did not mind since I welcomed the chance to get a bit of combat experience against Naval Dragons. I loaded Dragoons into the class 4 gun slots (more damage + range than the Adv. Scorpions, but less efficient) to see how they work in combat. The result was discouraging - after taking out the first two ships the powerplant was depleted during the whole skirmish, and I had to use shield batteries even though the random mission Dragon encounters are easier than mission 9. In dogfights the 600 m/s Pyros Type 1s that I had bought on Cali do not mix well with the 700 m/s turret and the 750 m/s pulse gun, and so I equipped Adv. Scorpions before setting sail for Tekagi's Arch.
The first time I managed to get past the initial patrol with 14 batts and 12 nanos. When I still had 14 batts after taking out 3 gennies I thought this was a good time to investigate the spot above the Kusari battleship that NukeIt had mentioned. Bad move. The area was swarming with fighters and when I flew past the battleship one moment I had almost full shields and the next moment I was a fireball - when I heard 'shield failed' message I was already looking at the 'you are dead' screen.
The second time I had to use batts during the patrol encounter but I did not stray away at the Arch and so the rest was uneventful.
