<Mild plot Spoiler> Calling all tacticians/fighters/....well anyone that might help!

jonbuttle · Post by **jonbuttle** » Mon, 28. Feb 11, 19:57

Hello everyone

I have a rather big problem!
I've just restarted after "completing" my previous game, so im now doing a DiD based game and so far im not doing too bad! I've just started the

Spoiler

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terran plot and im doing the patrol mission after the pirate base bit

"CLICK HERE" Yes that mission and its marked as "easy"

Basically im in a patrol mission when this happened....

http://s760.photobucket.com/albums/xx24 ... n00407.jpg

For some reason i don't think its related to the mission?! I reckon its more a coincidence!

Im stuck in the sector with no jumpdrive and i doubt i'll make it to the gates! I might make the North one but the M5's are a little close and my Skate Proto isnt all that fast! and then im stuck up there with nothing to do - and nowhere to go! I've never been a huge fan of the RSLG maneuver anyway...

I've about 600,000 credits in the bank and access to the PTNI HQ Shipyard via satelite link! and i've the starting ship - M4 elite(?) somewhere down by bright profit that might be of some use? but it'll take ages to get to me! Also got 3 or 4 TS class "acquisitions" from the Hatikvahs faith area limping slowly to family pride shipyard, all with very little stuff on board and quite likely going to take till mid-August to arrive....

Obviously if i can shoot a couple of those cursed khaak and gain some money it'd help - Oh and the rep to repair my argon rank wouldnt do any harm! They dont like it when they're freighters "go missing"

Well Good luck coming up with some ideas guys!
JonButtle

And yes the Skate Prototype was a freebie that i went and "found" at the start of the game...

StarSword · Post by **StarSword** » Mon, 28. Feb 11, 20:01

I've never seen that many Kha'ak in one place before (and hope I never do).

My only advice is reload to an earlier save, because if it were me in your place, I'd be screwed. I lost a Chimera from my one of my fighter squadrons recently to a single Kha'ak Cluster.

jonbuttle · Post by **jonbuttle** » Mon, 28. Feb 11, 20:05

I saw it a few times in my old game but then it was never an issue! It was simply call in a few support fighters and i'd simply wipe them out from my own destroyer!

DiD = Dead is Dead

VincentTH · Post by **VincentTH** » Mon, 28. Feb 11, 20:08

jonbuttle wrote:I saw it a few times in my old game but then it was never an issue! It was simply call in a few support fighters and i'd simply wipe them out from my own destroyer!

DiD = Dead is Dead

Oh Boy, in a DiD game, that is very unfortunate!!

I hope you have a M7M with plenty of Flail/Hammers, cuz I believe that's the only way you can get out of it.

imperium3 · Post by **imperium3** » Mon, 28. Feb 11, 20:09

This is going to be tricky.

The usual advice in such situations is to send in an M8. However you certainly can't afford to buy and supply one this early in the game, and Kyons would probably manage to shoot most of the missiles down anyway. So missile spam is not an option.

All I can think of is to load up a TS full of as many SQUASH mines as you can find (you may need hundred or more per capship), drop them in clumps and try to lure the capitals into them. This is a lot easier said than done though.

In short I think your best option is to flee the sector - thee Khaak fighter swarms are bad enough but I've never heard of anyone at all defeating Khaak capitals in a fighter. Some guy did it in a Springblossom but even that takes hard work and careful positioning to stay out of the Kyon field of fire. But in general anything smaller than an M7 stands no chance because of those instahit weapons.

jonbuttle · Post by **jonbuttle** » Mon, 28. Feb 11, 20:15

@VincentTH

All i have is what it says in the OP

I've about 600,000 credits in the bank and access to the PTNI HQ Shipyard via satelite link! and i've the starting ship - M4 elite(?) somewhere down by bright profit that might be of some use? but it'll take ages to get to me! Also got 3 or 4 TS class "acquisitions" from the Hatikvahs faith area limping slowly to family pride shipyard, all with very little stuff on board and quite likely going to take till mid-August to arrive....

@imperium3

Hmm like in Nuclear slugs DiD story? (if you havent read it then do so! Its epic!) Yeah i doubt i can scramble that many squash mines together or get them onto a freighter and flown to me before the Khaak have turned me into as much pea soup as there is in the sectors fog!

EDIT: NUKLEAR-SLUG's stories if anyones interested:

http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php? ... highlight=

http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php? ... highlight=

http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php? ... highlight=

Skip to the last posts and look for the compilations for easier reading!

/EDIT

ObadiahtheSlim · Post by **ObadiahtheSlim** » Mon, 28. Feb 11, 20:41

Ouch, a full Kha'ak sector invasion. Not much you can do about it if you are stuck in a fighter. Heck, even in a M6 you'd need a whole lot of ordinance and a lot of luck to engage a single Kha'ak destroyer let alone a pair of them with escorts.

My advice, build a hammer/flail complex to churn out enough ordinance to take care of the bug problem. Then "acquire" a M7M to apply the metaphorical can of Raid

ComedianGR · Post by **ComedianGR** » Mon, 28. Feb 11, 20:41

I believe that's crearly a RSLG case.

jonbuttle · Post by **jonbuttle** » Mon, 28. Feb 11, 20:57

ObadiahtheSlim wrote:...My advice, build a hammer/flail complex to churn out enough ordinance to take care of the bug problem. Then "acquire" a M7M to apply the metaphorical can of Raid

Sure right after i get out of this minor issue

ComedianGR wrote:I believe that's crearly a RSLG case.

I think you might be right, options are running short now!

Any idea how long it'll be before i can return to the sector (if i make it out!!) and continue the mission?

StarSword · Post by **StarSword** » Mon, 28. Feb 11, 20:59

One other trick I found useful in my fighter jockey days (mostly in a Rapier) was corkscrewing. Basically, I point the ship at the gate and throw the throttle wide open. Then I rotate the rudder all the way to one side and bank in that direction. Your ship will fly in a corkscrew path, making you harder to hit, but at the same time you'll be headed for the gate.

AgamemnonArgon · Post by **AgamemnonArgon** » Mon, 28. Feb 11, 21:06

The only time I caught a Kh'aak Corvette on radar it jumped away before I got there darn it, you are sooo lucky to have an entire Sector of Kh'aak ships....

Jonzac · Post by **Jonzac** » Mon, 28. Feb 11, 21:10

buy a kestral with a jumpdrive...tuned to full speed...race it in and around the outside of the sector uses nav-->move to position commands until you can get it close enough to transfer the jumpdrive.

Jump out and wait for the ka'ack to leave.

sjones25 · Post by **sjones25** » Mon, 28. Feb 11, 21:13

StarSword wrote:One other trick I found useful in my fighter jockey days (mostly in a Rapier) was corkscrewing.

No amount of maneuvering will be of much help against those Kyons!

I second the Kestral idea. You can't beat them, you can't avoid them, you've gotta outrun them!

StarSword · Post by **StarSword** » Mon, 28. Feb 11, 21:19

AgamemnonArgon wrote:The only time I caught a Kh'aak Corvette on radar it jumped away before I got there darn it, you are sooo lucky to have an entire Sector of Kh'aak ships....

Lucky?

He'll be lucky if he can get clear without his ass being toasted!

And you've obviously not done enough patrol missions in the Argon Prime area. Yesterday I took one and blew up ten Kha'ak Corvettes in four sectors, two at a time.

As for corkscrewing, I'm serious: it helped. Even the AI can't always hit you with the kyon emitters. Remember, I was flying a Rapier, which has 5 megs of shielding, tops. His Skate Prototype can carry up to 75 megs, and once I survived one of the big Clusters in a Mamba Sentinel (which is slower) by corkscrewing to the gate.

Carlo the Curious · Post by **Carlo the Curious** » Mon, 28. Feb 11, 21:20

Yep, run away seems like a good plan

.

iirc, your wingmen for that mission are actually invincible, so if you can stay out of trouble they should clean up most of them (eventually). The capitals might be a problem though, unless the Argon show up in force.

Rive · Post by **Rive** » Mon, 28. Feb 11, 21:38

Nice Kha'ak invasion... Don't mess with them.
Just buy a FAST scout somewhere and slip through, staying out of range/problem.

jonbuttle · Post by **jonbuttle** » Mon, 28. Feb 11, 22:09

OK then,

Im going to run away ASAP in the skate and then get a Kestrel flown up to me. Then im going to nip back into the sector, lure the fighters apart, fly away from them leading them behind me (like the pied piper!), then spin round blast a couple of the fastest M5's then run away rinse and repeat, while (fingers crossed) leaving the bigger ships to my "invincible" allies (@Carlo i hope your right!)

When i run out of M5's to shoot i'll take a break till the storm blows over!

Only issue i can see here is getting out the sector in the first place! I hope my Skate can do it!

Wish me luck guys!
JonButtle

Post by **Alan Phipps** » Mon, 28. Feb 11, 22:21

Don't forget to use two adjacent strafe buttons along with your max forward speed for the Skate Prototype and thus sort of crab your way faster out of the sector. You can add a lot to your vector speed that way (212.6 m/s max vector if I have it right). You can also more or less look where you are going by changing the direction of view with the numberpad keys.

jlehtone · Post by **jlehtone** » Mon, 28. Feb 11, 22:42

@jonbuttle: Have the Kha'ak already picked you as target? If not, chances do improve. If yes (or if the X3TC AI logic always offers "special treatment" to the player), then I wish you Godspeed.

StarSword wrote:I've never seen that many Kha'ak in one place before (and hope I never do).

A mere decent Kha'ak Invasion. Or are the X3TC Kha'ak mostly harmless?

garv222 · Post by **garv222** » Mon, 28. Feb 11, 23:03

I've seen this happen many times and it's always happened during the beginning to a new game for me. I don't believe that khaak can do any permanent damage to the sector in the long run so the best option is to just run. If there are any plot essential nps or stations in there, the game will protect them with invincibility.