Slaying Ravana

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ACT 1, MISSION 7

Fighter squadron:

Description:


Background

Walkthrough

This mission tests your abilities in bombing runs. This one is quite difficult for the first run, so pay attention at anything you are doing. You have to choose a bomber all the way, I suggest you the GTB Medusa, because it has the best survival chance, and it is able to carry a quite good amount of GTM Cyclops warheads. Arm yourself full of Cyclops. Hit your burners, but do not attack the SD Ravana right at the beginning. There are SF Basilisk-class fighters coming in front of you. Take them out with your lasers. After they are gone, go against the Ravana.


Order you wingmen to disarm her. Have a bank of GTM Cyclops selected, target one of the closest subsystems of the Ravana. Wait until your computer acquires a lock, and shoot out your bombs. Making sure your warhead won't be hit by the lasers of the Ravana, you have to destroy the Weapons subsystem of this ship. It makes it far more inaccurate. If she fires at you with her anti-fighter beams, press R and hopefully, your attacker will be targeted. Head against it and fire the next salvo of GTM Cyclops at it. Change to another bank as soon as you fired a pair of bombs from another one. You only have to target the ship again without waiting for the 15 penalty seconds of the same bank. It is the mania of the game to prevent you from shooting powerful bombs quickly after each other. By changing the secondary bank, you can avoid this penalty.

Tips

I played this mission countless times using the "brute force" method of fire your bombs, lean on your afterburner, and hope you don't get shot at before I realized how much easier the mission can be if you think intelligently. Just use the Sobek! It provides excellent flak and beam cover for you to recharge and rearm between bombing runs. You can even just park there and wait for the Sobek to take out the Ravana itself, if that's your thing - just be sure to take out any beam turrets or fighters targeting it.

There is another way to slay this beast. Enemy fighters jump one after another, so having an escort is a good thing. However, Ravana can eat Vasudan fighters in a matter of seconds if they get in range of her anti-fighter defences. Not all hope is lost, though, at the beginning of the mission order all fighters to cover you, then go all around Ravana and attack her directly from the front. There's only a couple of blob turrets there to care about, so when you are in position, order Alpha wing to destroy Ravana, unload your own cargo and watch the fireworks. This is, in my opinion, the only way you can put GTB Boanerges to any use, as otherwise you won't have time to shoot all 14 Cyclops on board.

Notable ships present

  • SD Ravana
  • GVCv Khenmu
  • GTC Heisenberg
  • GVC Somtus
  • GTCv Yakiba

New equipment