The Great Preservers
| Previous Mission
|
Campaign Walkthrough | Next Mission
|
MISSION 16
Fighter squadron: Vishnu
Description: With his unification with the Vishnans, Samuel Bei makes a charge through the Shivan blockades, towards Delta Serpentis.
Contents
Background
Merging with Vishnu was quite an experience.
After the merger, you penned down your discoveries in your personal log. Your body is intact, but it no longer functions as a vessel for your thoughts. The Vishnans themselves, unlike their supposed counterparts, the Shivans, do not exist on this plane. Rather, they command their ships from another dimension; the ships that represent them on this plane are crewed by no one. As for your body, it was placed into suspension inside the Vishnan Sacred Keeper where you merged with the Great Preservers. Much like how cryopreservation and cryoprotectant preserves the state of the body, so does this suspension. Your conscience and psyche, on the other hand, has been detached from it and transferred onto one of the many Vishnan ships in the fleet. Which ship this is is up to your choosing.
An additional side-effect of this merger is the knowledge the Vishnans themselves gained from it. Prior to the merger, they were, to put it bluntly, ignorant to the experiences that one gains through being a physical entity in this reality. After the merger, however, they learned about the danger that surrounds your father, the GTVA, and how the 14th Battlegroup winded up here. More significantly, they now have a connection to everyone you have met and known throughout your lifetime.
With your guidance, the Vishnan Sacred Keeper and its fleet are now ready to carve a path through the Shivan forces that stretch from the Knossos at N362 to the subspace portal linking to Delta Serpentis, where the other half of the 14th Battlegroup, under the command of your father on board the GTD Orestes, is. A small, but nonetheless formidable, Shivan detachment consisting of a cruiser and corvette gathered at the Knossos in N362 is your first obstacle. Flying space superiority, you must jump through the Knossos, ahead of the Keeper and its escorting Arbiters, and reduce the threat level of this detachment so that they can continue their push into Laramis without risking any losses to the Shivans.
Walkthrough
Your primary objective in this mission is to destroy all Shivan fighters and de-beam as many warships as you can in order to provide safe passage for the Vishnan Sacred Keeper and its four escorting Vishnan Arbiters. While the Keeper is strong enough to ward off a concentrated attack from this Shivan detachment at full strength, the Arbiters will be in considerable danger if you do not weaken this Shivan force before their arrival.
The Shivans will already have the Gusion, a Cain-class cruiser, and the Abalam, a Moloch-class corvette, as well as several wings of fighters and bombers idling around by the time you arrive. De-beam or destroy the Gusion first, then de-beam the Abalam. You won't be able to destroy the Abalam on your own, so once you have de-beamed it, pull back to the Vishnan Protectors and destroy all Shivan fighters so that Arbiter 1 and Arbiter 2 can jump in and level the Abalam.
When the first two Arbiters arrive, the Shivans will deploy a Lilith-class cruiser, designated Malfas, in response. Arbiter 1 is the closer of the two Arbiters to the Shivan cruiser, so the Malfas will attack it first. Immediately order what's left of Alpha and Beta wings to protect the Arbiters, while you alone de-beam the Malfas. Once that is done, continue de-beaming the Gusion and Abalam. If you have already done that, you can either choose to provide escort for the Arbiters or engage Shivan fighters and bombers.
The Keeper, along with the other two Arbiters, will arrive once the Abalam is destroyed. Prioritise Shivan bombers targeting the Arbiters; even without any enemy beams to threaten them, the two Arbiters can take quite a beating if they are ganged up on by the various Taurvi, Nahema and Seraphim bombers still on the field. On the other hand, if you have been keeping check on everything and there are no Shivan vessels left by the time the Keeper arrives, order all your wingmen to protect the Keeper as the bombers that the Shivans deploy in response to the Keeper's arrival are not concerned with either Arbiter.
Once all three ships have departed, disengage and jump out.
Notes
- Your "transfer" from Terran to Vishnan is similar to how the GTVA Officer Exchange Program introduces a new ball game to Terran and Vasudan pilots in the form of different species-made ship specifications. Vishnan strikecraft are more agile and much stronger than Terran and Vasudan ships in regard to both hull and shielding and recover from hull damage over time. However, the Vishnans lack diversity in armaments, although the ones that you can employ against your foes are some of the strongest in the universe.
- The Vishnans need Sam to bring them focus, direction, and understanding, as much as Sam needs the Vishnans to save his father.
- There are some scannable cargo pods located about 18 000 m from your starting point. The Shivans will send in a Dis-class freighter 25 seconds after the start of the mission, loaded with another cargo pod. The Dis will eventually unload its cargo pod and leave. If you act fast, you should be able to get to the Dis and destroy it before it leaves, or even before it unloads its pod (although destroying it with the cargo pod still attached will cause the pod to be destroyed along with it). Killing the Dis and scanning/destroying the cargo pods is not a bonus objective.
- Arbiter 1 and Arbiter 2 travel towards a distant waypoint and will not actively pursue the Abalam, only opening fire on the Shivan corvette for as long as it remains in their firing arc. On occasion, they may not do enough damage to destroy it. Without employing the alternative method to destroy the Abalam (see the second point in the Tips section for a hint), the Vishnan Sacred Keeper, Arbiter 3 and Arbiter 4 will never jump in, as their arrival cue is linked to the destruction of the Abalam, and the mission will be impossible to complete legitimately.
- Scanning all the cargo will reveal a poem. This is a motif that ties in later in the series.
Tips
- By ordering a concentrated attack on the Gusion right at the start of this mission, you can destroy it very quickly and make the mission considerably easier.
- If you have problems destroying the Abalam, remember how the Alliance dealt with the Lucifer during the Great War.
- If you feel brave enough, you can hang back for as long as you like after the Keeper and its escorting Arbiters have left and continue engaging the remaining Shivan forces for some extra kills.
Total number of forces
| Forces involved | |
| Belligerents | |
| Ships | |
|
|
| Strikecraft | |
|
|
| Casualties | |
|
|
Videos
QuantumDelta
