Sat Aug 02, 2003 9:22 pm by Sherlog
I think it is reasonable to assume that the point of the question is to elicit information that might be helpful for beating the mission.
Using proper equipment can make the mission easier and using bad equipment can make it a little harder, but on the whole the 'hardware' is much less important than the 'software' (skill, right tactics/approaches). People have managed to die flying this mission in Anubises, Hawks and Drakes, but people have also flown it in Starfliers without any problems whatsoever.
One unrelated case that might illustrate the importance of using the right approach ... One fine day in the Dublin system I noticed the red cross of a ship wreck on the nav map. I navigated my ship close to the location by way of setting a nav point, and it turned out that the spot was in the middle of a mined asteroid field patrolled by wings of Mollys. So I battled the Wolfhounds, and after each wing there would be a few seconds where I could scrutinize my surroundings in turret view to find the wreck, before the next Molly patrol arrived. I had to kill more than 40 of the Wolfhounds before I found the wreck ... Not the easiest of things to do for a newbie, especially in a mine field. You see, I simply did not know that I could have had the ship computer point the wreck out for me, by right-clicking the red cross on the nav map and using the finger icon, or by selecting the wreck in the solars list once I was near enough.
A similar case is mission 4. It is dead easy, even in a Starflier, if you know how to dock with a tradelane quickly. On the other hand, it can be very tough if you don't even know that it is possible to dock without any delay whatsoever ... If you let the ship computer do the docking from far away then it is likely that even a full supply of nanos/batts cannot save you.