sorry if this is the wrong place to ask this...

How do I defeat the aliens on the mission "Defeat Alien Cruiser"?

@tom_shade, on May 13 2007, 12:35 PM, said in How to defeat aliens?:

How do I defeat the aliens on the mission "Defeat Alien Cruiser"?

First I'd suggest having a heavy capital ship. At this time the kestrel is probably the best you can get. Load it up with proton turrets/cannons. When you jump into the system try to get your cruiser escorts the mission gave you to engage the fighters, and focus on the alien cruiser itself. First avoid the seeker drones, and wait till it's out of that ammo, then try to get behind the alien cruiser and just keep blasting. Try to stay behind it as much as you can, and eventually you'll wear it down enough to destroy it. The fighters are much harder to kill, luckily you don't have to destroy them to beat the mission.

Also if you're doing the rebel missions, you might have the tractor beam, this will make it much easier to stay behind the cruiser, but it isn't required.

Hope this helps.

Cham

First I would like to congratulate you. You're one of the few to actually post on the correct forum!

But basically do what Cham said. Additionally, be careful with the fighters and the seeker drones. Usually the Rebel Cruisers that are with you will only take on one of the fighters, leaving the other two to pound you. As for the seekers, if you see a stray one and see little harm in letting it hit you, be sure that it is only one. They tend to clump together and only appear as one drone.

Also as Cham said, tractor beam is a great weapon for this mission. If you're on the Rebel string and haven't gotten it, don't worry. It's a separate string, not a part of the Alien string. But with it, you can hold the cruiser and pound him with your primaries (it takes a while though).

If you are feeling ambitious, I'd suggest picking up some space bombs. It's fun. (Just be really careful, because that can really backfire.)

You know, there are much much easier ways to defeat the alien ship than this, but when I was first given the mission I did the following: I got the cloaking device through the Rebel string (I guess you can ignore this if you got it through the Confeds,) stocked up on space bombs, then flew back and forth over the ship, decloaking just long enough to drop a space bomb on it. I died quite often doing this - mostly by space bombs that blew up in my face - but I eventually did it. Cham's method is much easier, though.

A Corvette, stripped to the metal and then loaded with one torpedo launcher and as many torpedos as it can carry, will just be able to take out the Alien Cruiser. Ensure that your torpedos don't hit any asteroids while they're onscreen (offscreen, they'll never hit asteroids), and aside from that, just stay out of the way of the Cruiser's weaponry.

Alternatively, the corvette's capable of executing Chamrin's strategy as well, and the extra maneuverability over the Kestrel will stand it in good stead. That way you won't have spent 10M credits on a ship you'll probably be replacing once you finish the mission anyway.

@derakon, on May 13 2007, 09:35 PM, said in How to defeat aliens?:

A Corvette, stripped to the metal and then loaded with one torpedo launcher and as many torpedos as it can carry, will just be able to take out the Alien Cruiser. Ensure that your torpedos don't hit any asteroids while they're onscreen (offscreen, they'll never hit asteroids), and aside from that, just stay out of the way of the Cruiser's weaponry.

Alternatively, the corvette's capable of executing Chamrin's strategy as well, and the extra maneuverability over the Kestrel will stand it in good stead. That way you won't have spent 10M credits on a ship you'll probably be replacing once you finish the mission anyway.

I already have a kestrel, so I'll try it with that. (also, I take it from your post that after this I can get Rebel Ships)

It isn't that hard to beat the alien cruiser with a light fighter if you've practiced your combat skills.

Here is what you'll need to be able to do:

1: Know where the alien cruiser is at all times. You would assume that all of it's weapons will be somewhere between the red radar dot and your ship.

2: Keep moving away from where you know it's weapons are. Basic combat: the more you move, the less shot you get.

3: Stay away from the front of the alien cruiser - that's where the beam weapon comes out of.

4: Flee if the fighters attack you. You can't win if you've got three ships aiming at you all at the same time, so just fly away and swing back again later.

5: Weapons: turrets are better than forward-pointing cannons. You want to be able to flee in a direction that doesn't take you straight into it's beam.

This post has been edited by Madman : 14 May 2007 - 01:43 PM

aliens..mmmm..

This post has been edited by WickTownEV : 19 September 2007 - 05:09 PM

While we're discussing other ways of killing the alien cruiser. If you're playing the original EV (as opposed to a Nova port), killing the alien cruiser (or even an alien fighter) is quite easy in a defender with a tractor beam. In the original EV, tractor beams were more effective on ships with high acceleration. So if you tractored the ship with a kestrel it'd still be able to turn some what, but with a defender it can't turn at all. You can just drag it along at a speed faster than the other fighters can keep up with, and pound it with your maxed out laser cannons. It will take a while, but it will eventually kill it.

Cham

Defenders FTW!

Heh, I did it with the neutron blaster bug. I would buy a neutron blaster, equip it, make sure it shows in the secondary weapon window, land, sell it, and take off. I have the neutron blaster, but it would shoot a lot more than just one at a time and it shoots a lot faster.

What version of EV were you using? I could swear that bug got taken out early on...

I used a Corvette, captured some escorts and they focused on the fighters while I fought the cruiser.

I had the tractor beam, plus lots of shields and turrets and cannons.

If you haven't gotten it by now, you could always cheat with a forklift.

I just keep circling the Crusier and shooting it with my turrets. Very skillful technique.

@the-apple-c-re, on May 15 2007, 10:05 PM, said in How to defeat aliens?:

What version of EV were you using? I could swear that bug got taken out early on...

I am not sure. I believe I had the version where when the shields go down in the bar, it would replace with how much armor is on it. Don't know what version that was.

I always ran away pounding forklifts everywhere I go but if you don't want to cheat space bombs, the Kestrel, and what Chamrin said are the best.

@boris-yetskins, on May 25 2007, 01:49 PM, said in How to defeat aliens?:

I am not sure. I believe I had the version where when the shields go down in the bar, it would replace with how much armor is on it. Don't know what version that was.

That happened in every EV game and every patch until Nova.

Sadly, I haven't played all of the patches since it was only a demo on a mac magazine disc. I wouldn't really know then. The only other version I had was without the bar turning to armor and leaving just a blank shields bar when I ran out of shields.

The first time I did the mission I did it in a corvette, loaded up with proton turrets and cannons and maybe some missiles, and just circlestrafed the alien cruiser and burned him down. He would hit me ith a few of his homing weapons from time to time, but almost never with his beam.

This was maybe 10 years ago though, so my memory might be a wee bit rusty on the specifics.

I've always found that long-range weapons work very well against the Alien Cruiser. Close range combat is difficult because the armor and weapons available on the human ships aren't at the level of the Alien Cruiser, or even the alien fighter, but a cloud of missiles or torperdoes can, however, be a whole other story. If you've ever tried the Alien Cruiser as your own ship (only possible through plug-ins), you'll know that seeker drones actually aren't the best long-range weapons, so whenever I have an Alien Cruiser, or any alien ship, I outfit it with human long-range weapons.