Stuck, need tips

[SacredDatura]

So, I'm stuck at this part where the Mercury folds right into the path of a Black Fleet carrier, and the fighters just shred the Mercury within thirty seconds of contact, no matter what I do. Am I missing something here? Previous engagements have been tough but managable until I hit this brick wall.

Any tips would be helpful. I am enjoying the heck out of SSZ, but replaying the same two minutes over and over again isn't much fun.

[HunterAnubis]

Personaly I did that on a first try but maybe your mercury is way to dmged might want to try restart the mission
Also personaly I focused quite a lot of fire on carrier disarming as many guns as possible since lets be honests fighters do very little dmg even to you

[REVENANT]

What mission number?

[SacredDatura]

Ohhh. I kinda assumed only the fighters were pounding on the Mercury.

And yeah. My Mercury was down to the last ~10% HP. I barely survived the previous segment too. Thanks, I'll try replaying the mission from start.

EDIT @ Patrick Swayze: Mission 8, I think?

[Baldrickk]

You don't need to damage the carrier, I found that it was the fighters that did the damage (I think they slow the mercury and bring it in range of the guns?) Place yourself between the fighters and the mercury and you should be fine - you aggro them into shooting at you instead.

That said, if you take down the carrier, you win the level instantly too

[港一GAY根]

İlk olarak Baldrickk tarafından gönderildi:

You don't need to damage the carrier, I found that it was the fighters that did the damage (I think they slow the mercury and bring it in range of the guns?) Place yourself between the fighters and the mercury and you should be fine - you aggro them into shooting at you instead.

That said, if you take down the carrier, you win the level instantly too

Which is barely able to make it unless you done perfectly well in Phase 1. Normally, a common / new player unable to keep Mercury more than somethings like 30% HP. (It is the case that you killed all the tornapo already, but don't forget those freaking Beam Cannon and Heavy Fighter that damaging your Mercury in the Phase 1, which making your Mercury close to the Death)

[Baldrickk]

If you aggro the fighters, and keep on taking them out, the mercury will keep moving and take no damage. If the fighters slow her down, then the carrier takes her out, this happens with lots of health or not (i.e. after checkpoint restart so at 10%)

As for taking out the carrier... I used a bomber on that mission once, used torpedoes to take out the black fleet cruiser, then my entire complement of seekers on the fighters of section 2. Didn't fancy dogfighting every fighter the carrier sent out, so got behind it and torpedoed it until it broke apart. I'd reccommend the easy way though.

[ajburges]

Torpedoing capital ships isn't the easy way?

[Baldrickk]

the easy way is to leave it alone and take out fighters with the strike suit

[ajburges]

I don't know. Despite claims otherwise, I find using a bomber for missions where capital ships influence the scenario makes it easier (on Normal at least).

[Baldrickk]

Do you know the weakspots? some linked plasma shots or titans really ruin them when applied to the right areas... Granted, you can also shoot them with torpedoes in the weak spots, but with enemy capital ships, you are usually either: removing their guns, removing their escorts. It's easier and quicker to take out their big guns rather than the entire ship, unless it's distruction is a mission objective, then rendering it usless is easy enough to do, and I prefer the abilities of the strike suit when countering fighters, the bomber gets a very large amount of missiles, but it is still a finite amount and I have been able to burn through them.

[Apocalypse]

Heavy fighters deal a good amount of damage, so take them down.
The strike mode can make fast work of any close packed fighters early one with its massive missile barrages or you can use fire and forgot missiles to decimate them very fast without locking each of them first.

Taking out the capital afterwards is a nice bonus, but does not give you even much score as it takes lots of time to do so, which could be spend on more "important" things.