Battle Advice Thread

[Lt Anders]

So, I'm trying the Far Port Bonus mission and...Nightmares are evil. What is the best strategy for nightmares?

[76561198147594135]

vanguard cannon, never miss good amount of flat damage and they kinda stick together, snipe them till you think you can Blast them

[Lt Anders]

argh rage quit. Can I save this mission for after Ongess? I totally think I borked all my upgrades.

[samsonium]

No, unfortunately, after Ongess, the mission disappears. I basically gave up on fighting the Nightmares after 3 brutally brief and unsuccessful tries in strategy (playing on Hard).

[JohnSmith]

First and foremost keep one of them constantly disabled. For the other two, you should destroy at least one right away. The vanguard cannon can't miss and will hit several at once if you position yourself with short range warp. Sola should be able to hurt them badly, at least when awakened. Icari + Claude can deal heavy damage as well (melee + counterattacks ftw). I don't know what you've upgraded, but you can probably also adapt your standard tactics to work here to some degree.

[Lt Anders]

Hm...I can't knock out the Crusiers either.I can kill 2 maybe 3 at the starrt

[JohnSmith]

They have no flak defenses, so missiles work well against those.

[Lt Anders]

I beat it. Had 12k Command points and ate 7k worth in that battle. Lost 1 ryder, Icaris. Boy, that battle actually tested me hard.

[DroopingPuppy]

Personally, I set Phoenix at front to lure the enemy attack, keep Aim Down to them by Bianka, shut down one of them by Liberty, then take them out by Seraphim one by one. You will not able to beat them without Sola, because Awaken increases accuracy greately enough to hit them and you will not have any other source to make the better damage output. She have to wait one turns after shoot two turns though, but it is worth enough.

If they are too close and if you can able to shut down one of it, it is better to get it in melee with Phoenix and Black jack. Both Asaga and Icari can cause much better damage in close combat than in distance against them. But you must make sure that the charge target is either shut down or you can surely destroy it in that turn, or at least one of your ryder will be retreat.

Also, do not forget to keep running All Guard order.

Originally posted by JohnSmith:

They have no flak defenses, so missiles work well against those.

Only for cruisers. Nightmare has good FLAK stat.

[Lt Anders]

My Tactic: Hide in (top left) corner. Buff Sunrider first round with attack up, aim up. Awaken Sola. Warp +Vangaurd 3 Cruisers right near there. Missle the 3 weakened curisers for the kills and maybe kill the 4th.

Second Round: Warp Behind all flak capable units+full guard. Deactivate 1 nightmare and try to pick off targets that I can via kinetics, etc. Repeat this until Nightmares get relatively close. Also: Save new save each round, and save scum bad rounds.

Once the jerks get close, vanguard + flack disable+Torpedos. Use Phonex as a sponge where possible. And...SAVE SCUM, a lot.

[DroopingPuppy]

Didn't you ever Aim Down them? With long range, Aim Down and All Guard leads to evade many of missiles. At least Icari can do that. Well, it is better to use Attack Up in first turn because cruiserd ard not that powerful tgan Nightmares.

[Purple Library Guy]

Every time people talk about what tactics they use in this game, one big thing I like is how quite different strategies can work. Says something positive about the design.

My memory is getting a bit hazy but . . . I've never used full guard, almost always on Full Forward. Don't think I used vanguard cannon on these things either. Basically I wiped the floor with the cruisers using missiles and rockets as fast as I possibly could, taking advantage of their lack of flak. So then when the nightmares showed up I was mostly finished with the cruisers. As others have said, keep one of the blighters disabled at all times, and hit them with Aim Down as much as possible. Sola is important, but I got probably more than half my damage output from Icari. I like Icari, so I've tended to improve her a fair amount. On Full Forward, with her sword attack down around 30% energy, plus saving her energy by using Gravity to pull one into her so she can move less and doesn't have to use stealth, she can hack 3 times for like 600 points each time and still retreat some after. Black Jack is harder to use for this stuff because she uses more energy with both movement and striking so if you want her to move in, strike, and retreat we're looking at a single attack probably. She's probably better off just shooting. With a bit of luck, at short range Sunrider might be able to connect with a shot or two, maybe a laser say. Every little bit helps.

Avoid attacking the disabled one--you want to kill one that's going to attack you if you don't, not the one that isn't going to attack you. Actually, it's probably best to attack first, disable later.

[DroopingPuppy]

It is not that bad to switch disable targets unless it has some stocks of missiles. Sometimes it is better to disable the closest targert rather than constantly disable one target.

Also it is not that bad to disable one which you are shoot at if it will survives during your turn. An enemy with 1 HP can fights equally as an enemy with full HP. It is no more than a waste to disable and destroy the target in the same turn, buf it you can't destroy it by one turn it will be better to disable it.

If you can do that in two turns and you will needs some lasers, then it is better to disable your primary target in the first turn before anyone shoots. Then its shield will be shut downed about two turns, and you can switch disable to the another target next turn.