Trench Run, Tour of Duty 3, Mission 14

[fluffyducks]

Any tips on how to finish off the Death Star? I have tried just about everything. It's hard to know what to shoot in the trench, since there is so much stuff in it. Am I supposed to hit all the guns? What energy settings work best? I already configured my gamepad so I have an easy button to transfer from laser to sheilds.

I've seen all the you tube videos, but still, I can't do this level (without invincibility).

Thanks all!

[Khorzho]

First off, no matter what you do... spend the time killing all the Tie Fighters and Tie Advanced that are sent after you BEFORE starting the trench run. If you just try and out run the Ties, you'll eat more damage as they will hound you through the run. The Tie Advanced start towards the Exhaust Port, so you will run into them in the trench anyway if you don't engage them first.

Past that, there's a couple ways to handle this:

Staying in the trench:
Set Cannon Recharge to full. Leave Shields Recharge at normal. Go full throttle. Keep pumping Cannon energy to the shields. Stay low... the trench is lined with towers that will tear into you if you stay near the top of the trench. Keeping as low as you can will prevent them from getting shots on you. SHOOT EVERYTHING... it only takes one laser blast (even on low power) to destroy turrets and gun emplacements. If you're killing turrets, they aren't blasting you. Be aggressive about killing them. If you start taking too much damage, don't hesitate to pull out of the trench and fly straight up and out of the range of the surface towers to recharge.

Avoid the trench:
This method is more time consuming. Entering the trench gives you a huge speed boost, but you don't really HAVE to stay in the trench. If you fly about 2 clicks above the surface of the Death Star, you'll be out of range of the turrets and towers. You can follow the trench at that range all the way down to the port, then dive bomb it with your torpedos. This requires a little bit of awareness though, because if you aren't watching, you can overshoot the exhaust port (which is no problem, you can turn around and make a run at it again, but it just takes more time).

Anyhow, ususally in any run I've done successfully, I've almost always had to pull up out of the trench at least once to rebuild my shield/laser charge. Be flexible in your approach. Adapt to the current situation. Be aggressive, and manage your shields.

[lostness]

You could always adjust the Death Star detail level, which would reduce the amount of clutter in the trench. Having it set at about "half" would still make it difficult. Interestingly--setting the detail to minimal would have the trench appear more or less as it does in the movie.

I've done the mission both with and without destroying all the TIEs.

As for power management--I run in the trench with my lasers at 100% recharge, shield at normal (no recharge/decharge), and use the laser power to recharge the shields. You will be moving faster than the TIE Advance, while also moving fast enough to be missed by a fair amount of the laser fire. Your lasers will charge fast enough to allow you to shoot a fair number of objects that may be in your way, while offering you enough energy to keep your shields stable.

At 100% recharge for both, you are slow enough to be an easy target in the trench for the surface based lasers, while also unable to outrun the TIE Advance.
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Technically, you should aim to finish the mission before the timer runs out---as that would signify that the Death Star has opened fire (thus, you may destroy the Death Star, but consider that Yavin base destroyed). This is hard to accomplish if you dogfight and try to kill all the TIE Advance and fly above the trench.

And, of course... STAY ON TARGET!