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Author Topic: The "Red planet" mission  (Read 3078 times)

Alliostra

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The "Red planet" mission
« on: August 31, 2020, 11:57:16 AM »

Just yesterday, I completed the "red planet" mission after quite a few shamelessly save-scummed attempts.
I think its a really great idea to make the player face a threat that is (probably) a  whole lot  stronger than anything else encountered before, and really forces the player to step up their game from a state of "good enough, no need to further improve it" and I wanted to share the story of how I completed the red planet.

After paying for the information, I headed towards the star system with a rather small exploration fleet, and I immediately knew I wouldnt stand a chance against such a massive fleet.
I returned to the core worlds, and as I had battled some sub-ordos before I was pretty confident in myself and the good old tactic of drowning the enemy in an overwhelming mass of ships. I assembled my fleet- a rather standard Onslaught, an XIV legion with Xyphoses, hurricanes and needlers, 2 Moras with sparks, 2 XIV Eagles, 3 XIV Falcons and 3 pirate Falcons, and a doom. Needless to say, I got my *** handed to me thoroughly.
Through the glory of savescumming, I returned to the core worlds once again. I made some improvements in the loadouts- previously, my long-ranged eagles and falcons died very easily, so I thought giving them low-range weaponry would be smarter.This attempt went better, and I sometimes even managed to kill the radiant, but most of my eagles and falcons died just as quickly as during the previous attempt and the brilliants from their reserve completely annihilated the rest of my forces, just like before.

After this defeat, I decided to spend over 4 million credits, and soon found myself with two conquests added into the mix, 2 herons replacing the moras, One restored doom and a bunch of other ships I ended up never using. The conquests were built to snipe with gauss cannons and squalls, followed up by fighter strikes from the herons. I also removed almost all but the most basic PD from my ships, as the few missiles and spark wings the [REDACTED] deployed didn't call for heavy PD. I ended up being defeated once again, the conquests couldnt make use of their range, and if they did they left the legion and the onslaught on the frontline behind, which resulted in them being destroyed alongside the falcons and eagles.

This failure made be somewhat frustrated, and it caused me to change the composition and tactics of my fleet quite radically, and finally developed an actual Idea of what I was trying to accomplish- prevent the frigates from harassing my capitals and cruisers while they kill the hostile capitals and cruisers through concentrated firepower. But how was I going to accomplish this task?

- - - - - - - -

It is the cycle 217 post-collapse. Near the world of Hyrm in the distant Tartarus system, a single Harbinger-class phase destroyer approaches a massive warfleet of [REDACTED] fitted with alpha cores at full burn.
  • Shutting down its burn systems, the phase ship does not engage the hostile fleet, but starts to move towards the left, heading to the central left edge of the battlespace in an arc.
    The [REDACTED] start to pursue the ship, and even the Radiant- and Brilliant-class vessels do not lag behind significantly. Harassed by spark fighters, the Harbinger starts to move towards the upper edge of the battlespace at a much higher speed than before, and just as the Radiant- and Brilliant-class ships reach the western edge of the battlespace, a heavy detachment consisting of two Conquests, a Legion, Two Eagles, Three Herons, One Doom, a Medusa and a Tempest burns into the battlespace.

  • Shutting down its burn systems, the phase ship does not engage the hostile fleet, but starts to move towards the left, heading to the central left edge of the battlespace in an arc.
    The [REDACTED] start to pursue the ship, and even the Radiant- and Brilliant-class vessels do not lag behind significantly. Harassed by spark fighters, the Harbinger starts to move towards the upper edge of the battlespace at a much higher speed than before, and just as the Radiant- and Brilliant-class ships reach the western edge of the battlespace, a heavy detachment consisting of two Conquests, a Legion, Two Eagles, Three Herons, One Doom, a Medusa and a Tempest burns into the battlespace.

  • The detachment accelerates directly towards the hostile fleet, and the alpha cores, in their infinite wisdom decide to send the entirety of their destroyers and frigates after the harbinger, which lays in a circling course towards the lower right edge of the battlefield.

  • The first Brilliant is greeted by a barrage of autocannon fire from the conquests, followed by a large volume of Hurricane MIRVs and fighter strikes ensuring its destruction. The next two Brilliants are escorted by a Radiant-class battleship, but through the generous usage of Hurricanes and Mine strikes, as well as the tendency of the Radiant to raise their own flux to ludicrous levels because they insist on firing those five tachyon lances at raised shields. The Radiant retreats using its phase skimmer, leaving the brilliants defenseless against the heavy strike weapons employed by the detachment.
    After the destruction of the brilliants, the fleet engages the radiant and ultimately manages to disable it, even though the bulkhead strength of the doom-class phase cruiser is reduced to a sliver in the process.

  • While the heavy detachment proceeds to move towards the upper edge of the battlefield, the Harbinger slowly leads the [REDACTED] task-force chasing it towards the lower left edge of the battlespace, where it engages full burn and retreats.

  • En-route the heavy detachment encounters another four radiant-class battleships which they are able to quickly deal with due to them approaching the detachment in smaller groups or alone.
    The detachment rallies it's forces near the upper edge of the battlespace, with their (figurative) backs against the (figurative) wall. As the remainder of the [REDACTED] forces heads towards the heavy detachment, a second detachment consisting of tempests and safety-overridden brawlers enter the battlespace and arrives just in time to attack the [REDACTED] forces from behind as they are engaging the heavy detachment. The Fulgent-class destroyers are rapidly taken care of through strike weapons, and the Glimmer- and Lumen-class frigates are relentlessly hunted down by the fast attack ships of the detachments, ensuring another overwhelming victory for the Hegemony!
- - - - - - - -


TLDR I won against the red planet by distracting all of their frigates and destroyers with a phase ship and I feel no shame.

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Wyvern

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Re: The "Red planet" mission
« Reply #1 on: August 31, 2020, 12:04:54 PM »

Nice job!  Always interesting to hear the stories of this.  Red Planet is a bit of dice roll, actually; I've seen it come up with defense fleets that top out at a cruiser or two, while it sounds like you got to face off against five battleships!  That's certainly an epic fight, there.
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Wyvern is 100% correct about the math.

Mondaymonkey

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Re: The "Red planet" mission
« Reply #2 on: September 01, 2020, 07:46:05 AM »

Once I was boring, so I just soloed "Red Planet" with a single Paragon. First attempt was already successful. Lots of dirty tricks was abused, tho'.

I am a shameless cheater and regret nothing.  :P
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I dislike human beings... or I just do not know how to cook them well.

Locklave

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Re: The "Red planet" mission
« Reply #3 on: September 07, 2020, 06:25:47 AM »

OP should feel great shame, but not for the tactics.

History is written by the winners and you wrote this...
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Daynen

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Re: The "Red planet" mission
« Reply #4 on: September 09, 2020, 07:27:58 AM »

There's no shame in being smarter than a computer. ;D
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SaberCherry

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Re: The "Red planet" mission
« Reply #5 on: September 12, 2020, 10:35:05 PM »

Canonically, Remnants should not pursue you.  Fleeing the system is totally legit.
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