PCPP Game Guide 2/PCPP_GG2.iso/PCPP/strategy/i-war.txt

Text File | 1998-06-02 | 17KB | 434 lines

Hints and Tips on playing the missions on CD 2--3
                          of I-War

NAV Basic

Set the speed to 1000m/s and adjust your speed between the rings with A
and Z. The belly thrusters are more powerful than the yaw thrusters so
keep the green line vertical for the fastest turns.

Try to line up with the ring after the ring that you're currently going
through.

Use the TRI system for maximum engine thrust, remember not to go too
fast between the rings though, or you won't make the next turn.

Remember to cancel the COM-Arm after the conversation with the
Instructor. Use shift-V to stow the COM-arm, or you will not be able to quit
the mission.

Best time at Particle Systems 1 minute 1 second. Email us if you get a
better time!

NAV Advanced

Keep track of the Instructor pilot by using the F7 formate autopilot.

NAV Docking

Dock with the each box in turn, then head toward the Hopper. Line the
HUD centre cursor up with the Hopper's entrance, get to a speed of
1000m/s then press U to undock and leave the box hurtling towards the
"bucket".

For the fastest time, don't hang around to watch your handiwork as the box
goes neatly into the hopper. Start docking with the next one straight away.

WEP Basic

Use rapid fire to plough through the targets as quickly as possible.

Work out the best path through the boxes and don't fly too fast.

WEP Advanced

Don't worry too much about the mines, go straight to the back of the hulk
(the weakest point) and inflict as much damage as possible. Move around
with the ship as it starts to spin, try and stay in the rear aspect.

When the hulk blows, mop up the rest of the mines in WEP view.

WEP Tactical

Don't forget to take your wingman, "Sword" with you. Study the manual for
instruction on the wingman commands. The most important are (key 2) -
join formation and (key 3) - attack my target.

The Infinity Battle

Take out smaller ships before larger ones.
Stay close to the Lagrange Point so enemies don't have time to get
orientated.
Gather wingmen into formation as soon as they appear.

Supply ships will appear from time to time. Dock with these to replenish
stocks of missiles.

Give the cruisers the respect they deserve. Attack cautiously and with
wingman support. Use disruptor missiles to cripple their systems as you
launch an attack.



                    MAIN MISSIONS

 Salvage

If you've already listened to the initial dialogue, you don't have to wait for
it to finish, just press U to undock and go to the debris field directly.

Stabilise the Dreadnaught hulk by remote linking on the CMD screen, then
use the dock autopilot.

Its best to go to the WEP screen to shoot the mines as they can come from
any angle.

Routine Patrol

Pay attention to the dialogue - you must dock with the stranded ship
(Emeric Pressburger) and rescue the crew.

For maximum points, you must destroy both Indies. The second one will try
and make a run for the Lagrange Point, if you're quick you can cut him off
as he gets there.

Gatekeeper

The safe place in this mission is behind the Lagrange Point, with the
GunStars in front of you. Always make sure after you destroy each wave of
Indies, you return to this position.

When a wave comes through, let the GunStars take as much damage as
possible off the Indies, then unleash a wave of missiles at the remaining
ships, taking the strongest first.

A New Force

Your main task here, after the fighter test is to stop any Indie spy ships
making the jump through the Lagrange Point, other ships will try and
distract you, but concentrate your attention on any that are near the point.

Broken Contact

As soon as you detect the unknown ships, make one your current target
and use F6 approach autopilot to track them to the FTL relay.

You must destroy the Indies around the relay, but be careful not to damage
the relay itself by crossfire.

To reboot the relay, launch one of the probes in your missile magazine,
then fly it manually through the aperture in the front of the relay, avoiding
any collision. Dock the probe with the protruding inner centre section of the
relay, using gentle A and Z thruster commands and judicious use of lateral
thrust mode. If the probe does not dock at once, roll the probe on its central
axis to make sure you're lined up.

The Siege

There are a lot of ships in this mission so take extreme care when combat
begins, it is all too easy to be concentrating on killing an Indie and plough
into the side of a Cruiser.

To ace the mission, track the third piece of debris - it could be vital!

Evacuation

Don't worry if Evac 3 gets destroyed, your primary objective is to get the
people off the Stealth Base. Make the area safe by destroying all Indies
before you dock with the Base.

Use any wingmen wisely, if you need practice, redo WEP Tactical in the
training missions.

Morgan

You need to be within 3-4 km of the pods to place a proximity mine on
them, and also nearly stationary. You don't need to mine all the pods, just
do as many as you can.

When you meet Morgan and his merry men, you may get captured and
forced to listen to his speech - if you've done this once and want to avoid it,
just get within range of the rogue, then go back to the cunningly mined
neutronium pods, and he should follow.

Eric's pirates are a seperate group - don't expect them to help out Morgan,
if you let them they might even start killing each other.

Neutronium Galore

When you and the Kato meet up with the Frisian Tapestry, remember you
only have to frighten him enough to make him talk, so be careful.

The easiest way to collect the Neutronium is to release the captured
Corvettes first. Do this by carefully shooting off the "pseudo-bridge"
attached to each Corvette, wait for the ship to turn back to Navy allegiance
(HUD goes blue) then recruiting the ship as a wingman (key 2).

Its easiest to start with the captured ships away from the main group, then
you'll have some forces to deal with the main group.

When you think you have enough, head for the Neutronium and have some
fun!

Asteroids Dellox

The main tip here is to make sure to stay close to the asteroids as they
disintegrate, use rapid fire to destroy the fragments before they get too far
apart.

Completely destroy the first asteroid before attempting the second.
Remember time is of the essence, you can't take too long or the asteroids
will hit the moon's surface. Or you will.

Test Pilot

When you get to the target system, you'll find that one of your pilots is
incapacitated. Take control of the fighter with the REM function on the
CMD screen and take the fighter into battle against the base.

Use rapid fire on the fighter, and attack in sweeping passes, taking out the
guns on the station first. If you switch to free-flight mode as you pass (;
key) you can turn the fighter sideways and strafe along the length of the
station.

When in REM mode, don't forget the Dreadnaught is unprotected, so be
aware of any Indies approaching the Corvette.

The Indies will attempt to capture one of the fighters if they can. If this
happens and one of the Indie ships is dragging it to the Lagrange Points,
try and save him before the jump. Be careful not to kill both of them in the
attempt.

With Extreme Prejudice

When the Indies ambush, remember that your top priority is to keep the
President safe, don't get sidetracked into a seperate duel and taken away
from the battle. With the Excalibur's course as it is, the cruiser can easily
be disabled and crash into the asteroid Phobos.

When you're fighting an Indie, take time out to periodically check on the
Excalibur's health.

A New Frontier

You can't defeat the Indies at their first appearance, your guns have been
modified and are not powerful enough to take them out.

For maximum points take back both fighters from the STC base, and fly
them in remote control to destroy the Indies.

WEP Advanced II

As soon as the Indie carrier appears, don't get too close, keep your
distance until the Indie force breaks into seperate groups.

Always try and keep the fighters in front of you, fly backwards and
concentrate on one at a time.

Don't stray too far from the station, they will destroy it if they can and
come after you.

Surgery

Use similar tactics from WEP Advanced II. The only way to stop the EAD
producing fighters is to take out its CPU. Try and get a breathing space in
the battle, subtarget the correct region and carefully fire at the area. The
CPU is right next to the antimatter store so do not fire more than necessary
or the whole EAD will be destroyed.

Finally wait for the engineers to show up and dock to the Biobomber

Venturi

Once you've done the mission once, you don't have to meet up with the San
Francisco, go straight to the Lagrange Point.

There are two ways of going about the business of defeating the Indie
attack. The first way is to wade in and try and destroy the entire fleet
single-handed. The smart way is to wait for the fuel-thirsty Indies to dock
on to the fuel-base, then take the lot of them out with a few carefully placed
shots to the main fuel reservoir.

Under New Ownership

The UNO will try to get back to its base without you following. Attach one
of the reconnaissance probes to the UNO to extend your scanning range
three-fold. Follow the UNO at a safe distance - if you get to close McDuff
will get suspicious and attack you. He will also call on reinforcements to
attack you if possible.
Hints and Tips on playing the missions on CD 3
                          of I-War



Metallake

There's only one way out of this system once your jump drive is damaged:

When the carrier is about to leave - fly into its inner bay, being careful not
to hit the edges of the door, then deck the Dreadnaught on the carrier
deck. It will then take you home.

Stay as long as you can to collect maximum kill bonus.

The Artifact

When you get to the battle between the Nairn and Chaos, you must break
the Chaos beam to free the Nairn ship. Fly across the beam with the
Dreadnaught, then you should be able to destroy the Chaos ship in the
usual way.

To operate the stargate, shoot the lights until they are all the same colour.
Which colour should be fairly obvious - just look at the planet in the centre
before flying through.

The Precision Factor

When the antimatter pod is jettisoned, do not try and dock with it, shoot it
or disturb it in any other way or disaster will result. Go back to the main
station and retrieve the Container Bucket by docking to it. Fly back to the
vicinity of the pod - be careful, the greater inertia of the Bucket will
adversely affect your ability to change course and accelerate/decelerate.
Using the external views (TAB/KEY ABOVE TAB) match velocities with
the pod (Use the Match Velocity autopilot F9). Then approach the pod
carefully until it is safely pouched. You'll get a yellow flash when you're
successful.

Power Extreme

The main key here is once you get to the enemy system - conserve your
shots on the Heavy Cannon. The shots are extremely powerful and will
shoot through several ships at once. Use that capability to line up several
big enemies before firing. Kill fast-moving enemies in the normal way.

Rebus

The hardest bit here is to find the missing relay. Use the FTL signal
strength meter - you are trying to fly in a direction which *increases* the
signal strength by the highest rate. Set your ship to LDS at a reasonable
speed, then fly in a slow horizontal circle to find the direction where the
meter increases fastest. Then pitch into a vertical circle and do the same
thing. The relay should soon register on your contacts list.

Conspiracy

At the later stages of this mission, you get a decision to make - whether to
follow a COSA or an Indie vessel.

In Rebus, you are given an alien device which sits, like a spider, on the top
right of your CMD panel (F1). If you click on this with the mouse, it will
activate and pulse slowly. If you then follow any ship through a Lagrange
point you will be automatically taken to their destination.

Use this capability to follow either the COSA ship or the Indie ship to its
destination.

Nexus

Stay close to the big freighter as it comes through the Lagrange point at
the start of the mission. The signal from the freighter will mask yours and
enable you to get closer to the COSA base without detection.

Detach the command module from the main body of the Dreadnaught to
perform the spy mission around the COSA base. Switch the module to
free-flight mode to minimise the use of thrusters and keep emissions to a
minimum.

Crusade

The group of freighters are marked as neutral and should be easy to find.
Remote linking will not work due to protocol problems. Dock with one of
them and fly it manually into collision with the COSA base. It is
recommended to detach from the freighter just before collision if survival is
of importance:-)

Throughout this mission be aware of the need to protect the cruiser Sword
Of Vengeance. Periodically check its damage status and join the fight if
necessary.

New wingmen will become available throughout the mission. Press key 1 to
check if any new wingmen are around.

Division

The key to success here is to stay close to whichever ship you should be
protecting - pay close attention to the dialogue here - it's important to
consider your actions carefully.

Justifiable Homicide

Here you have a critical choice to make - will you stay with the Navy or join
the New Alliance. Its up to you.

The Gift

When you encounter the Megatransporter, fly within its LDS field using
your own LDS drive. Once you're there, disable the LDS drive and the
Megatranporter's field will carry you along within it. Dodge the guns and
destroy the field generator control unit at the rear of the massive ship.

When you destroy the main body of the transporter, many cargo pods will
be left. All the pods on the transporter carry Indie ships. If you take too
long to destroy them, the Indies will get the ships going and outnumber you
severely. Destroy them as fast as possible using rapid-fire PBC blasts.

Wild Weasel

As you go in to the first assault, clean up any Indie ships in the first wave,
or they will harass you and the Marines later.

Keep on destroying the communication relays, but once enough asteroid
guns have been crippled by the marines, join the main battle and destroy all
Indie ships.

At all Costs

The key here is to stay around the asteroid guns and destroy anything that
is approaching them. Don't get distracted and chase ships many kilometers
away from the base. Use wingmen to pursue them instead.

If the Excalibur tries to escape let it go. You are not powerful enough to
destroy it yet.

Remember to use your remote missiles, and use them wisely. Deploy them
against the larger ships, and from a relatively short distance to minimise
the time that the Dreadnaught is left unprotected.

Don't forget your key objective is to protect the base. If that means
sacrificing the asteroid guns to prevent Navy ships getting within range
then so be it.

Retribution

Don't destroy the Indie representative PatComs that come through the
point first straight away. If you do, they'll put the bomb on a short fuse and
give you no chance to escape.

Be sure to destroy the PatComs after the bomb comes through, you can
leave the tugs if you don't have enough time. Call all your wingmen to dock
with the bomb along with you otherwise you won't have enough power to
shift it far enough in time.

Get extra points by saving your wingmen rather than abandoning them to
their fate.

Impeachment

In the final battle with the Excalibur and King, the only way left to you to
destroy the President's cruiser is ramming. This is a particularly tricky
maneuver, given that you must attain enough speed (>1000m/s) to achieve
destruction, yet leave enough time to detach the command module and get
clear.

Try and start the procedure before the Excalibur moves off towards the
Lagrange point. Aim at the cruiser and crank up the engines using the
space bar key. Don't forget to set the Dreadnaught to free-flight mode. Get
ready to detach the command module - leave the mouse pointer on the
detach icon and click it once so you only have to click it once more to
detach. When you're about 2.5 km from the Excalibur, detach, pitch 90
degrees up and hit the space bar for maximum thrust.

If all goes well you should see the final CGI movies - well done!

If it doesn't, practice the maneuver in one of the training missions to get
used to the sequence involved.