I'm stuck in Beyond the Crescent. I am on the mission to destroy the council station but 20+ Azdara's and four cresecent warships blow me up in double quick time.

Does anybody have any suggestions for succeding at this. I am currently flying a UE cruiser with dospect and bronev armour and 5 phase turrets. I've tried dispersal rockets and space mines as secondaries but I can't fire them fast enough to stop being trashed in about 5 seconds. I tried it with 4 cresecent warships and a couple of lazira's as escorts and that didn't help much. So, any suggestions?

Has anyone managed to do this in 1.0.2? (I noticed in a search that somebody indicated they had destroyed the Azdara's using a ship with 5 phase turrets and 5 phase cannons - something that isn't possible in the current version in any ship I know of)

Any help would be appreciated, thanks.

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Its amazing how "tsk, tsik, nik" can mean anything from "There's a bomb in the bus, get help!" to "I'm hungry, feed me"
In case of ambiguity about anything I say - choose the nicest interpretation.

Max out on fuel and get an afterburner. Attack the station to get the Azdaras to come after you. Move AWAY from your enemy (your rear should be facing them), accelerating at top speed with the afterburner going. The warships & station should be left behind, but the Azdaras will catch up. Use the R key to select the closes incoming ship, and let loose with your phase turrets until its dead. Move on to the next, and the one after that, and so on as quickly as you can manage. Once the Azdaras are dead, you can take all the time you need to destroy the others. Use secondaries against the warships, monty pythoning while you can. If you run low on secondaries, launch your UE fighters and sick them on a single warship. They may all die, but you'll severely cripple or kill one of them off that way. This is all made MUCH easier if you have escorts with you.

When the warships are dead, taking down the station should be a simple task. The trick is to isolate your enemy and deal with it one group at a time.

If the Cruiser just doesn't seem to be working out, try the Crescent Warship with armor & speed upgrades, 4 phase turrets, fuel tanks/afterburner, and anything else that will fit. IMHO, the CW is probably a bit easier to win with here due to its greater agility. If you use the Cruiser, the speed upgrades are essential.

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(This message has been edited by UE Crusader (edited 08-06-2002).)

If you still have your cloaking device (which is unlikely in a UE Cruiser but possible if you're using a plug such as 'keep cloaking device'), this might help. You have plenty of armour, so depleting your shields might not bother you too much.

Escorts help a lot too, not least because the planetary defense fleets always go for you, and not your escorts. They can only be taken down by stray shots... so stay away from your friends. I always stay well away from stellars that can launch ships; this means that the defenders get strung out into a thin line, and have to come at you one at a time. You should have time to despatch each before the next comes.

You might consider pursuit missiles instead of dispersal rockets. Stock up on them, and just hold down the shift key whenever you are in combat. Don't waste thought on this, just keep pressing the 'R' key to retarget, and shoot, shoot, shoot. It's not elegant, but you should be at a stage in the game where you can afford the ammunition.

If you disable an enemy ship, leave it as a hulk and move away from it so it won't be destroyed by a stray shot. Eventually, the clutter will reduce the number of new attackers being spawned. This works particularly well around Emalgha, because everything in that sector can be disabled - even the fighters - and they often are.

I fully agree with Crusader's tactic of forcing Azdaras to make a slow, full pass. Flying away from them is the best way to sucker them into this. It's the only way you'll give your turrets enough time to write them off; otherwise they just fly away and recharge their shields before their next pass.

This battle can be won in 1.0.2... enjoy it!

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(url="http://"http://www.geocities.com/evodude2001/home.html")Old & Unimproved: Cerberus Station!(/url)

Thanks both for your advice.

I have managed to survive for longer but no actual success yet. I destroyed a first wave of Azdaras (about 20 give or take) and thought I'd almost made it (just the warships to go) but then was set upon by a flock of 20+ more Azdaras (don't know if they were new or had just been dealing with my two escorts). I couldn't tell where they came from but 40+ Azdara's is just a little beyond me at the moment. I'll try a few more tricks and tweaks but have low expectations at this stage. Maybe I'll switch back to a Crescent Warship for the speed (I started in one then traded it for the extra armour and shields of the cruiser)... Maybe I should try to get a banana and plasma siphon...

Slightly depressed in Sydney :frown:

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Its amazing how "tsk, tsik, nik" can mean anything from "There's a bomb in the bus, get help!" to "I'm hungry, feed me"
In case of ambiguity about anything I say - choose the nicest interpretation.

Guh....

Get a higher number of escorts, perhaps?

Funny, I don't remember the mission being that difficult....maybe I'll load up the plug and try it again.

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Well, despite my best efforts I believe this mission to be practically impossible (making a distinction with technically impossible) in EVO 1.0.2 with BTC 1.1.

I have now failed multiple times with 2 Azdgari warships and 4 Azdgari Aradas as escorts - although once I managed to destroy everything but the station. My Crescent Warship is equipped with Dospect, Bronev, thrust, turn, engine mods, afterburner, fuel tanks, and 15 heavy rockets (reasoning for this is given below) and 4 phase turrets (plus other stuff that isn't really important now, I think I have 4 shield upgrades as well for the marginal difference it makes)
My reasoning is as follows (to forestall questions about my skill and whatnot):

You have to load up on phase cannon turrets to have any chance against the Azdaras.
Assuming you survive the 4 warships with their 24 Azdaras plus the 20 Azdara bays (I am not sure if the numbers in ResEdit mean 20 Azdaras or 120 Azdaras - its kind of moot)
phase turrets cannot overcome the high recharge rate of the armour on the Crescent station: It takes about 5 minutes of constant fire for me to bring the shields down to 0 on the station. After that I make no dent in the armour because of the reduced effectiveness of phase cannon and the high recharge rate of the armour (I continued firing for 10 minutes and it just stuck at 0% shields throughout). I cannot get different primaries (or I won't survive the Azdaras) so have to load up on secondaries to have some chance against the armour. The rate of fire of the heavy rockets (my choice as most damaging against armour) is not high enough to get the armour down at all. Escorts are all toast by the time you get to the station itself but I imagine they wouldn't change the equation because the AI can't concentrate its fire by remaining stationary outside the stations weapons fire radius.

Thus, destroying the station itself is not a question of flying skill it is a question of having enough weapons to overcome its defences. Maybe, if I could mount extra guns, as was possible in earlier versions of EVO, it might be technically possible but I am dubious.

So, I welcome information that would show it is technically possible to destroy the station but have great doubts that it exists.

I have great sympathy with (url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/webboard/Forum8/HTML/004623.html#")Ronald McFinkleberg(/url) even though I know his mission is possible.

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Its amazing how "tsk, tsik, nik" can mean anything from "There's a bomb in the bus, get help!" to "I'm hungry, feed me"
In case of ambiguity about anything I say - choose the nicest interpretation.

I think capturing voinians is best. I once had a frigate and around twenty voinian heavy fighters and I killed a crescent warship bounty hunter in two seconds.
Even so, heavy fighters die in no time at all so you better have a good stock.

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Cooldude

Azdaras are just a whole different kettle of fish. Most of the time I don't bother noticing attacking cresecent fighters and just land wherever I'm going without returning fire. Azdgari warships and their Azdara's make you take notice.

To get through this mission as written you need a ship that has some decent speed so you can string out the Azdara's (which I suspect is much harder to do in 1.0.2 than in previous versions given the afterburners that most AI ships now have). That's why Vonian ships probably won't be very effective (but I'll give it a go at some stage when I decide to go back to this). While the phase cannons Azdaras carry aren't that good against armour 40 of them turn armour into swiss cheese in 2 seconds regardless of how much you have (as noted above, I have Bronev and Dospect on my Crescent warship - I have tried this with a UE cruiser which has more base armour but its just too slow and doesn't last quite as long)

I gave up on this mission. I can believe that it was very tough but possible in EVO 1.0 - but in 1.0.2... :frown:

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Its amazing how "tsk, tsik, nik" can mean anything from "There's a bomb in the bus, get help!" to "I'm hungry, feed me"
In case of ambiguity about anything I say - choose the nicest interpretation.

Azdara fighters look cool and quick, but they might have a weakness with Voinians (I never Tried) Voinians send rockets. Azdari fighters always attack together in groups so they can make some big target!

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Cooldude

Hey, I just thought of something! Phase canons and turrets might be weak against voinian armor and the voinians will take care of everytjhing.

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Cooldude

I really thought i had done everything in Overide but apparently not. I have never even heard of bronev armor, where do i get it? and where do i get this beyond the cresent mission? i am really interested in finding out what that council port thing is and why it rates me as galactic scourge. i hope i don't get this from the azdari cause they are all majorly pissed at me for stealing all there warships.

There is 2000 Crescent Warships protecting Council Station. In BTC, there is 10. You get Galactic Scourge when you have decided to help one of the strands

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Beyond the Cresecent is an expansion plug that you can get from the Add-Ons page (url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/cgi-bin/vftp/dl-redirect.pl/BeyondTheCrescent11.sit.hqx?path=evo/plugins&file;=BeyondTheCrescent11.sit.hqx")here(/url).

At the top I said Council Station but really meant Crescent Station - which is the relevant one for the plug. Nonetheless, it expands on the Council teasers left in the original game. It is defended by 4 Azdgari Warships (with their 24 Azdaras) and 20 Azdaras. The station itself has a phenomenally high shield/armour recharge rate which was part of the reason I gave up on the plug at this point - I couldn't mount enough weapons on my Cresecent Warship to destroy the station and still survive the Azdaras.

Anyway, best of luck and if you succeed in 1.0.2 let me know how you did it...

(Edit: Curses the fact that there is a difference between forward slash and backward) slash)

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Its amazing how "tsk, tsik, nik" can mean anything from "There's a bomb in the bus, get help!" to "I'm hungry, feed me"
In case of ambiguity about anything I say - choose the nicest interpretation.

(This message has been edited by Skippy the bush kangaroo (edited 08-18-2002).)