Bridge of Sighs. To capture or not to capture?

[Firewalk]

*sighs* (no pun intended)

I hate this mission ever since I came across it many years ago. Going head on with the fleet charging was generally a very unhealthy thing to do in the classic version.

Instead I went frigate shopping with a carrier for a few hours.

However, here are my concerns now for the remaster:

Frigates are paper thin and die seconds after getting as much as strafed by ion cannons.

If I do capture those 100+ ion frigates, odds are the game is gonna mass spam me to death in the last few missions.

So I question is this:

Should I try the simple approach and overpower the sphere of ion death? Based on how weak frigates are, my duo of Heavy cruisers supported by 4 destroyers should at them for breakfast.
Is that possible or am I being as overconfident as I was 10+ years ago?

Or should I waste hours capping them all only to retire them so I don't screw up the enemy count in the final missions?

Mind you I have just arrived at this mission and haven't attempted it yet.

[United_Strafes]

I captured about 14 of em and as far as I could tell the AI didn't upscale it's forces at all for the last mission.

[Peter Griffin]

I've just started this mission and it looks like it's the same number of frigates (150!). Even with 30+ salvage corvettes and a full load of carriers for conversion it would take hours if you wanted to get them all.

Now though you only have 14 max and as far as I can tell frigates are hauled back to the mothership and not the nearest carrier so it'll take even longer.

As far as the upscaling thing goes, once I got a sensors array up and running I clocked no less than ELEVEN destroyers all in a line in front of the inhibitor! I'm going to have to find some way of splitting them into smaller groups if I'm going to capture any of them.

[Sammi79]

People are vastly overstating the effect of increasing enemy numbers relative to your fleet numbers - which was present in both original games. I capped all the frigates, mission 15 was basically a walkover, mission 16 was only tricky in the very first few minutes because of the proximity of enemy fleets and positioning, after the end of the game I still had my 12 destroyers, 4 heavy cruisers and about 50 ion frigates.

[Firewalk]

Can the missions following this one be done without those frigates though? I never got past the mission in the past without salvaging all those ships. I do have a ton of RU so I could max out my unit count if I have to.

[Sammi79]

It's probably only slightly more difficult having a fleet maxed to support capacity, because of the scaling. There are 150 of them, I got 148 after a couple foolishly wandered into a destroyer squadron I had positioned a bit too close. The thing was the scaling didn't appear to give the enemy any more heavy cruisers in the last mission (but if it had in the initial wave there would be simply no way to save the mothership)

When I played through the original, I never capped a single ion frigate. I destroyed every single one, leading a few off at a time into the sights of a destroyer squadron, repair, rinse/repeat.

It took a lot longer than capping them all with 14 salvage frigates as well, probably played it over about 3-4 several hour sessions.

[Damocles66]

You can at least capture the destoyers and heavy cruiser. They also use the ion cannons "follow one lone scout to capture ai"

[Sammi79]

Originally posted by Damocles66:

You can at least capture the destoyers and heavy cruiser. They also use the ion cannons "follow one lone scout to capture ai"

I capped them too, but they all fought with my salvage corvettes, and chased after the ships I was capping. Wouldn't be distracted by scouts/heavy corvettes or any other strike craft I tried to help my salvagers with.

[Damocles66]

Maybe they use a different ai when they are close to their staging area? I first lured them slowly out of the sphere.

[Farlion]

I tried to avoid capturing because it's fairly lame and used to be easy mode in the original. Given how fast frigates die, you can just lure them to your Heavy Cruisers and pick them off.

[Sammi79]

Originally posted by Damocles66:

Maybe they use a different ai when they are close to their staging area? I first lured them slowly out of the sphere.

Nope they chased all the way back to mothership. (as I capped them one by one frantically building salvaging corvettes to replace the losses)

[Firewalk]

Reporting in. Just made it to the final mission. The sphere of frigates was an utter joke compared to how it was in the past. My destroyers and cruisers mowed em down before they could even open fire. I steamrolled all the way to the end with only 2 cruisers, 4 regular destroyers and 2 missile destroyers XD

[Armorken]

I just "finished" Bridge. By finished I mean I captured everything in sight, finished up the objective, then found I couldn't hyperspace. I checked my objectives and nothing was listed. So I either replay it, or I hope I can edit my save file to show that the objectives are complete.

Also, I had nowhere near the number of frigates from the classic game. Probably only about 40 or so. I capped all 9 destroyers, the carrier and the HC, but to my suprise there were so few frigates!

[EspressoWhisky]

Originally posted by Armorken:

By finished I mean I captured everything in sight, finished up the objective, then found I couldn't hyperspace. I checked my objectives and nothing was listed.

I had a similar problem some levels before this one. In the end I had to kill three of the newly captured vessels. I could not even scrap those three. So, give it try and blow em all up - if it works, you might narrow it down to only a few if you're lucky. Capturing seems to need a bit of "refinement" (decals, colour and scrap order not updating correctly). good luck.

[dbrower]

Originally posted by Xeno:

Can the missions following this one be done without those frigates though? I never got past the mission in the past without salvaging all those ships. I do have a ton of RU so I could max out my unit count if I have to.

Yes, you really never need ions if you have destroyers. If you play "kill em all", then the destroyer limit hurts, and you might want some ions.

[dbrower]

Originally posted by Xeno:

Reporting in. Just made it to the final mission. The sphere of frigates was an utter joke compared to how it was in the past. My destroyers and cruisers mowed em down before they could even open fire. I steamrolled all the way to the end with only 2 cruisers, 4 regular destroyers and 2 missile destroyers XD

I believe that, HCs and destroyers R001 over frigates, making the sphere menace mostly psychological. Two HCs on the one in the sphere isn't much of a challenge either.

Anyone else noticed that cloaking doesn't really do beans for either side?