... otherwise know as “ I got the Corvette but failed the mission”.
Yesterday Oboal had been doing some space missions in Kashyyyk, on my way to getting the Advanced X-Wing (same as the normal X-Wing except it has 180k mass instead of 100k odd mass).
I was finally sent out to the Rebel Outpost in Wookiee World space and got to the last mission, which was to recapture a stolen Alliance Corellian Corvette. Filthy Ghargs!
Naturally I didn’t think I stood a chance against it on my own, but that didn’t stop me from charging out in my lovely X-Wing and getting my self killed. It was such a lovely death!
I cleared out its fighter escort with no problem, but I knew little about the Corvette other than the fact that it had eight guns and it could really, really hurt you if you got in it’s way. Well I got in its way and it really, really hurt me. I tried to get out of range doing spiralling evasive manoeuvres, but I wasn’t good enough.
But I did manage to get off one shot at one of it’s guns, which is where I noticed the difference between the ‘vette and every other ship in the game (with the probable exception of the Star Destroyer).
With the ‘vette you don’t have to take down it’s shields and armour before you can damage its components. You can directly target and damage the guns right off the bat. In fact you have to take out all the guns and then the two shields first before you can take out the rest in turn (engines, reactor, bridge). But the real difference is you have to directly shoot the component itself if you are using lasers, like in the X-wings games. None of that shoot the bridge and destroy the engines stuff; although missiles will still home in on the target of course, but will pass through the ship to get there
.
After failing miserably the first time, I went and reconfigured my ship to stand a better chance. I changed my front armour from Mk III to Mk IV (from a damaged 611 to 1894) and used the front shields adjust droid program to change my front shields from 1950 to 3414 (but dropping my read shield down to 415). I also loaded up 10 Mk III proton torpedoes.
And off I went again in my more tank-ish X-Wing.
Again I dispensed with the fighter escort and moved onto the corvette. I decided to come in from behind (pity there’s no engine wash in this game) and below to target the only turret that covers the bottom of the ship. When I got in range I fired off a missile and then turned to get out of range again, this time getting my spiralling escape right as I watched the blaster bolts flying past my ship.
I started back on another run and eventually took out the bottom turret with a total of about three or four missiles, so it was now safe to approach from beneath or behind.
I then moved up behind using the engines as a shield and slowly inched to the edge so I could get a line of sight on the side mounted fixed-forward blasters.
I took out those two and then targeted one of the top-mounted turrets, firing off a few more missiles. I made the mistake of getting within its line of sight and it singed me a bit, but I got back under cover and managed to recharge my shields.
When I took out that turret, I felt quite good about my progress. Four weapons down four to go, I only had three missiles left, but hey I ‘d figure out
something to take out the rest
.
Then the bloody thing jumped into Hyperspace.
AAAGGGHHHHhhhhhggggggg
I was being way too cautious on how to handle this thing, although thoroughly justified
. I took too much time hanging back to recharge my shields when hit and the like.
But I also realised that I would need a lot more missiles, which meant more ships. But there were cowards in chat yesterday, so I called it a day
.
But today I was determined to not let that beast beat me!
I decided there was some room for improvement in my setup, so Obbo was sent out to search for some better High Grade Polymetric Radioactive to make some better missiles. I found 75k of the second best spawn in the Galaxy for a mere 4cpu. That allowed me to make packs with comparable damage as before but with 15 charges instead of 10.
But I then decided to go with a Mk III Concussion launcher instead of a Mk III Proton, as there is a higher damage for the same charges, although I wasn’t sure if they would be useful as they are only supposed to be effective against shields.
I also had a look through the ships I was cert’d for and noticed that the Y-Wing Longprobe has two ordnance slots. That meant I could pack 30 missiles where I figured I’d need at least 24 to take out all of the Corvettes weapons.
So I went ahead and built... the “Vette Hunter”!
Needless to say, off I went again in search of fortune and glory.
I was a bit slower in dealing with the escorts this time as the Y-Wing, especially the Longprobe, is an absolute brick. I found you need to get down near 40-30% speed before you can make a decent turn. And the escort are a Tier 5 bomber, a Tier 5 fighter and a Tier 4 fighter, so fighting them is all about turning fast.
I finally got them out of the way and moved on to the ‘vette and switched “all power to front deflector screens”
.
Anyway, looong story short (at least this part), in the battle of the Vette Hunter Vs the Vette, the Hunter won
. The missiles worked nicely (I even had eight to spare afterwards), I disabled the ship and the rebel engineers on board regained control. But that’s only half the mission.
The next part was to escort the Corvette to its jump point, and that’s where it started to go wrong!
Time to “stabilise rear deflectors and watch for enemy fighters”
Two waves of fighters, the same as the escorts, came at us.
Although my Super Brick can carefully kick the crap out of a Corvette, it’s still a brick and took a while to deal with those Tier 5’s. All the while I saw missile trails ominously heading for the Corvette.
We eventually dealt with the fighters (it’s nice to fight along side the Corvette for a change
), but I wasn’t sure what damage they had done.
I hadn’t checked before but the only component I could target on the ‘vette was the Bridge (the last item before the big bang) and it was at 100%. I wasn’t sure if there were anything before that since I had recaptured it, but I think I had heard some nasty explosions.
The next wave of fighters were five Tier 2’s. Now to me a Tier 2 ship is easy, they are 3-4 hits max and they are slow at that, so they would be no problem to my Brick-wing. But, of course, as soon as they get in range they
all fire off a missile at the ‘vette.
I took them out pretty quick, but the damage was already done. Bridge down to 53%.
Another wave like that and it would be touch and go if I could finish the mission.
Of course it wasn’t another wave like that, it was much, much worse.
A Tier 5 Gunboat, and what I can only assume were two Tier 5 fighters appeared. Eight seconds later the Corvette was destroyed. Nine seconds after that I got over my shock and tried in vein to adjust my shield to front to take on the Gunboat, but of course that probably made it easier for the fighters coming in behind me and 23 seconds after that I was at the station asking for repairs
The point of that whole story... the Corvette (at least the one in Kashyyyk) is not invincible but I am going to need some
heeeellllpppp to deal with those fighters and maybe another bomber setup along side me to take on the Gunboat.