"Chapel perilous" second from last level, pointers how to do it!

[PIEMAN109]

I've tried this level with a small fleet, medium fleet and mahoosive fleet, and no matter I do I find it impossible to get through the enemy fleet to the asteroid to destroy it without losing virtually all my craft. I know about the scaling of the AI, but the sheer size of the enemy is overwhelming. It got so bad at one point, me pc crashed due to the amount of craft on the screen and beforehand the frame rate dropped to single figures rendering the game nearly unplayable.
So, my question is, any pointers from the experts would be appreciated as I really don't have the available time to try out various tactics, and as has been stated in another post, this level has become a chore and isn't "fun" anymore, so any help here would be appreciate.
Cheers in advance.

[[TFB] The Pink Gentleman]

I take it you have Heavy Cruisers and Destroyers?

What I did was keep the fleet at the MS and fight the Taiidan as they attack me and wait for the asteroid. The asteroid it's self has little HP when fire is focused from 6+ capital ships.

So; instead of trying to sally forth and kill the asteroid; try just waiting for it to come close to you.

[PIEMAN109]

Cheers mate, I'll give that a go

[TVMAN]

Get your destroyers to focus on the frigates. Destroyers chew through frigates like a bad joke. Leave the enemy destroyers to your heavy cruisers, and try to set up your own frigates behind the HCs so the enemy destroyers can't immediately kill them.

I won this mission by dividing my fleet into two. One group was just a bunch of destroyers (IIRC 7, five regular and two missiles), and the other group was everything else (Mix of HCs, destroyers, frigates, and corvettes). I had the destroyer group focus solely on enemy frigates, and the other group handled everything else.

[[TFB] The Pink Gentleman]

I actually found the enemy destroyers just sit out of range and ignore you until you get too close; they don't come and attack you like the rest of the fleet.

[Gotcha!]

Keep in mind to save the asteroid for last. I dunno about the remaster, but in the original enemy ships would kamikaze into the mothership after the asteroid is gone.

In my experience the asteroid popped really easy in the remaster, so I wouldn't worry about it much. In the classic this mission is definitely much harder.

[PIEMAN109]

Ha, just got through the level. I sat back as originally suggested, pulled the entire fleet in front o the MS in various groups and waited, The countdown continued right down to zeroand....nothing happened, enemy fleet stayed well out of range, no asteroid impact, nothing, then the Hyperspace option appeared, so I waited a bit longer and waited a bit more and the opposing fleet just sat there, without moving, so I hyperspaced to the next level and had my butt handed to me then instead!.

[Lord_Zath]

... and people say this game is perfect...

[sieur_metz]

Originally posted by PIEMAN109:

Ha, just got through the level. I sat back as originally suggested, pulled the entire fleet in front o the MS in various groups and waited, The countdown continued right down to zeroand....nothing happened, enemy fleet stayed well out of range, no asteroid impact, nothing, then the Hyperspace option appeared, so I waited a bit longer and waited a bit more and the opposing fleet just sat there, without moving, so I hyperspaced to the next level and had my butt handed to me then instead!.

I experienced this too. BuggyRemaster@Work.

[TVMAN]

Originally posted by Lord_Zath:

... and people say this game is perfect...

The classic version definitely is a masterpiece of gaming. Porting HW1 to the HW2 engine for the remastered edition has introduced a wide variety of bugs though.

[Firewalk]

Before I started this mission, I maxed out on frigates by building a ton of Ion cannon frigates (I didn't nick any from the Taiidan before btw). When the mission started, I immediately told those to go after the asteriod. My destroyer/cruiser wing took out the majority of capital ships and by the time the asteriod reached them, they blew it so smithereens within moments. I considered the Ion frigates expandable.

[PIEMAN109]

Well, finally completed the game. Last level took about half a dozen goes at it but finally got through it by building a few more support vttes, seemd to provide just that bit more healing so the MS lasted a bit longer so the cap ships could do their thing with the oncoming fleet straight in front of the MS. After that it was as easy as pie.
Will I play it again? certainly not until they fix the formations, I had a couple of CTDs but they were down to running MSI after burner in the background (known issue apparently). The only problems I had were with the last two levels, but now I have a better idea what needs to be done, I'll wait and see what patches are forth coming....sayibng taht, I probably will have another bash at it as I know what to expect now.

[crainsrn]

I tried Sir Arthur's approach with using three gravwells in succession. Worked great. Stalls your vettes but stops the enemy small craft as well and gives you time to thin them out until the frigates arrive and you can get to work on them. You'll have some small craft clean-up to do once the larger frigate and destroyer class are taken care of but they never made it to my MS and the asteroid was a piece of cake.