Last Hope

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ACT 3 MISSION 2

Fighter squadron:
Description:

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Background

The PVD Hope is leaving the Antares system after an intense battle. It has sustained moderate damage and will be jumping to the Beta Aquilae system.

We are sending two wings to help cover the Hope while it is being repaired. The Vasudans are sending their own fighters to stand guard over the Hope, but it will be some time before they arrive.

The Hope should be in the system when you arrive. We do not believe the Shivans have enough forces in the system to mount a serious attack, but their strategies are difficult to predict.

Walkthrough

Don't be fooled by the number of directives in this mission, this is a relatively tough one. The strategy is very simple though. Focus on the Nephilim or Shaitan bombers. This is your number one priority. The Hope will jump in pretty soon after you jump in. It will be at 36% hull integrity. Three Nephilim bombers will jump in at nearly the same time as the Hope. After just a short time five more Nephilim bombers will jump in to entertain you. Two more will attack once the rest are down. Your wingmen will do a fine job of handling the bombers, although note that the Hope's weapon subsystem and turrets are mostly broken so you will have to shoot down bombs yourself. The Interceptor works great for this.

The Isis Repair should have arrived by now. One single Dragon will jump in, shortly followed by two Shaitans accompanied by two Manticores attacking the Hope. Soon the Cain class Lightning will arrive. You will be suprised how quickly it goes down if you order everyone to attack it. Then the Cain class Thunder will jump in with two Manticores as escort. After a short while the Mecross will arrive to aid you. A wing of three Dragon-class fighters will attack after this. Two rounds of four Nephilim and two Scorpions will finally test you. The Vasudan reinforcements should arrive after this and you should be alright.

Alternate Missions

If the Mecross did not survive the previous mission, then the Mecross will not be in this mission to assist you in attacking the Thunder.

Notes

Don't hang around waiting for the Hope to be fully repaired. She won't. Further, if you're in luck, you can see the Isis Repair appearing at the opposite side of the Hope and you'll have the pleasure of watching the reefer crazed Isis pilot commit suicide against the hull of the Hope. It'll take a long time, but with serious time compression and strong drink, this can be fun to watch.

Your worst nightmare. The PVD Hope is pretty much dead in the water from the word go, and this mission will stretch your intercept skills to the limit as you prevent Shivan bombers from tearing her apart. If any mission makes your heart race and your throat dry, this one will do it. It's a toss-up between this and Tenderizer for the hardest mission in FS1.

The Isis Repair is very slow repairing the subsystems. A Centaur can do it in 0.3 seconds. If you want to try it out, play on mission simulator, enable cheats, disable the Hope by removing the remaining 20% of her engines, call in a support ship, abort rearm for yourself, and hold "r" while targeting the Hope. The Centaur will dock and repair everything. The reason why I said to disable is because rearming a capital ship usually causes them to move around and you might be used as a baseball.

Notable ships present

• PVD Hope
  
• PVT Isis Repair
  
• PVC Mecross
  
• SC Lightning, SC Thunder