The Darkness and the Light

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ACT 1 MISSION 9

Fighter squadron:
Description:

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Background

The radical splinter group known as the Hammer of Light has been conducting many suprise attacks on convoys throughout Beta Cygni. These attacks must be stopped. The Hammer of Light presence is to be eliminated from this system once and for all.

A Hammer of Light cargo depot which is believed to be the primary supply center for all Hammer of Light activities in this system has been located.

This depot is guarded by a wing of Seth class fighters as well as an Aten class cruiser, the Ramses. The Hammer of Light does not have shielding technology, so this operation should be simple.

Your primary objective is to capture the Aten cruiser Ramses. You are to disable and disarm it with Disruptor cannons, then protect the Omega transports while they capture it.

Do not destroy the Ramses. The crew will be interrogated to learn more about the Hammer of Light.

Once the Ramses has been disabled and disarmed, destroy all cargo in the area. The Hammer of Light can not be permitted to resupply. The containers store Vasudan supplies useless to the GTA.

You are to lead Alpha wing on this operation. Your ships are equipped with our new shielding system. In case of any unforeseen problems, await further orders from Command.

Walkthrough

Once you arrive, order your wingmen to ignore the Ramses. Avoid the HoL fighters and pass around their flank to destroy one of the "Turtle" wing Satis freighters for a bonus objective. Although the four Satises will put up a lot of flak if attacked while together, one of the freighters breaks from formation and is an easy target. You get nothing special for destroying all four, and your chances of disabling are slim, so bug out and start attacking the cargo.

By the time you've destroyed the cargo, unless you are a speed demon, the Taranis should have jumped in. Order your wingmen to depart if they aren't dead already. You now have a choice to make, you can either jump out now, or choose to destroy the Shivan fighters and bombers. Scorpion wing has a 45 to 60 second delay between waves, which is enough for you to finish off the cargo if you need more time. Once the Ramses is at 4% hull or around there, proceed to kill it yourself. Your resume looks better with an Aten kill on it.

Note that the HoL crew of the Ramses apparently "embraces their fate" with the Shivans; the Taranis is set at ship-protect and the Aten will not fire at it. If you do manage to maul the Taranis, however, the Ramses will self-destruct anyway. If the Taranis is disarmed, has less than 30 points left on her engine system or gets her hull below 20% integrity, the Ramses will auto-destruct. Furthermore, there is an empty when/is-destroyed-delay/Taranis event sitting around in the events list, suggesting that there was to be events occurring in the mission triggered by the Taranis's destruction.

Hard/Insane

This mission is incredibly frustrating on higher difficulty levels. Even the freighters and ML-16 fighters can easily vaporize your interceptors. Swap out for Apollos, and don't bother with Disruptors. Keep your distance from the Ramses to about 3km, and just pick off what charges at you until the Taranis has warped out. After, kill whatever fighters are left first, then go for the cargo.

Notes

The briefing and the mission objectives are bogus. The Ramses must be destroyed in the mission. If you manage to eliminate all hostiles and disable the Taranis—and the Ramses has a reasonable hull strength left—you're up the creek. The mission will not end before the Ramses is destroyed. In the preceeding scenario, you'd be forced to destroy the Ramses yourself. In such a case you must just hope that you're not declared traitor before the Ramses goes down.

Notable ships present

• PVC Ramses (Hammer of Light)
• SC Taranis