Mission 5, Destroyers bone me sideways...

[CommanderCody1138]

The mission where I locate the fleet that destroyed my world, I started with over 15x fighters, 12x light corvettes, 12x heavy corvettes, and a whole squad of 6x ion frigates. I thought this would be a fairly heavy fight (but still a victory).... NOPE... in come the Destroyers (which I can't build)... and there they go popping my only anti-capital ships in a matter of 20secs each... ion frigates are listed as good against capital killers... so... why the balls could they not even bring down ONE destroyer?

Are there difficulty settings for this game? I could care less about challange but want to progress the story because its interesting. if not im probably moving on to something else sadly ... im not the kind of gamer that can sit there and replay the same mission over and over and over.

[TVMAN]

Consider using salvage corvettes to capture the destroyers? You should only need five each, and capturing just one or two of them will bolster your fleet immensely. Destroyers are the hard counter for frigates, but they don't have the tracking speed to fire reliably on smaller craft. Use your strike craft to overwhelm the destroyers PD, and then send in your salvage corvettes.

If you don't want to try capturing the destroyers, then this might help: Ion frigates are glass cannons. They're great at doing damage, but they can't trade shots with a destroyer. They're meant more to act as a hammer, with heavier ships acting as the anvil. Heavy ships take more damage when fired upon from the rear and the sides. You could try disabling the destroyers engines with bombers, and then firing on the destroyer from the sides with your ion cannons while it can't maneuver.

[fat rambo]

Attack move is good too. Fleet intel drops a hint during mission 4 or 5 that capital ships are less armored on their dorsal and ventral hulls, so attack move is a great way to dodge a little bit of the destroyers' fire and deal extra damage to them at the same time. If you're having more trouble, try replaying the previous mission, and capture all of the enemy ion frigates, which is very easy once you know where they appear, then build 4-6 more of your own.

[SievertChaser]

You will always encounter Taiidan ships that outclass you.

You will always have salvettes. Destroyers and heavy cruisers will take out no more than 1-2 of them per capture op, and the AI is bad at escorting them.

[bravo]

Use salvage corvettes throughout the game, max them out and go for any/all destroyers and cruisers.