Retaking Ceres tips?

[Darth Dinkerino]

I seem to be getting continuously raped by the drones that are immediately dispatched by the enemy in Retaking Ceres.

The provided texts seem to suggest performing lots of unnecessary burns to make the drones expend dV in correcting their course, but this hasn't mattered thus far. The drones absolutely ♥♥♥♥ on me in their first pass, and as far as I can tell I have no countermeasures against them.

Intercepting with other drones/missiles hasn't done me any good, either.

[Mobscene]

I launched all my Beam Drones to deal with those. Added them to the main 2 ships as a Fleet. Seemed to be the only way to get past them for me.

After that I just launched multiple barrages of missiles at the enemy fleet and eventually mopped up the last 2 ships with the cannons on the missile ship(I lost the support ship).

[Zavoniki]

I launch all my Flak missile at the enemy fleet and all my Drones into the same Orbit as their fleet. Then my fleet executes random evasive manuevers at extreme angles(I think I burned 1/2-2/3s of my delta v). If you keep switching angles about 2-4 hours before the drones come in, after 3-4 switches you should get the message Drone fleet is out of Delta-v. Then use the Flak to kill the Laser ship and the Drones kill the rest.

[jukebox]

I solved this mission by launching 5 FLAK missiles (because thats what they are for arent they?) at enemy drones at collision course (intercept), this caused them to use their %delta V for evasive maneuvers, after they evaded I ordered my missiles to adjust their course to intercept so enemy drones had to evade and so on and so on.. My missiles run out of %delta V before enemy drones so I launched second wave of 5. This did it and after enemy drones run out of %delta V I evaded with my fleet just to be sure.

[SquallTemnov]

My solution was to plot maneuvers for cap fleet every few hours, sharp enough to avoid intercept. Missiles first, then drones just spent all Delta-V and were disabled. While doing so, sent 3 volleys of 20 flak+5 nukes at enemy. First tafget is Laser frigate. The construction of the ship is poor, the reactor seems to be in between the thruster and radiators. I mean - that`s the hottest part of the ship, where missiles home to. First or secons volley of flak completely "disarm" the frigate, taking out the power sourse. What is left, goes for orbital defence ships.
Allso, try to activate nukes manually, while passing close to orbital defenders. There is a high chance, that you will bust their thrusters.
After the first three volleys, the enemy got perfectly intact carrier, dead frigate and 2 immobilised defenders, drifting from orbit slowly. All is left to carefully plot my own drones route to intercept, and try to steer back to orbit by my cap fleet after wild maneuvers.

[dracogeno]

I used my evasion turns to establish an intercept course to the enemy fleet and launch missiles without using their Dv. Once launched, I would return to my original course. I tried to waste 200 or 300m/s in each burn. In that way I saved the Dv of my missiles, ensuring a good engagement, while I depleted the enemy missiles’ Dv.

[NeoG]

How do you make sure your missiles hit the enemy drones?

[Zarincos]

I accomplished this with somewhat unorthodox methods. Noting the pwnage bestowed upon my fleet by the enemy drones and wary of the enemy laser frigate, I immediately launched all drones and missiles on a direct course with the enemy. Enemy missiles intercepted this fleet en route but leaving everyone one "no orders" meant that only a small handful of my missiles were taken out each time. The drone fleet came and went past this one and obliterated my main fleet, one ship destroyed and the other one left without thrusters, but their role was already done.

Cut to intercept and my death fleet encounters the enemy while the game slows to around 2 seconds per frame (not exaggeration) and I'm pretty sure my missiles tank the laser shots (I assume that's all they did since I wouldn't put money on them hitting the broad side of the sun) while my drones wreak havoc on the enemy. I wish I could've seen any of it but the frame rate went even lower during combat. In the end all but one enemy was destroyed and the remaining one was disabled and on a collision course with ceres.

I'm writing this half to provide an evidently brutishly effective method for dealing with the enemy to anyone that was having as much trouble as I was with the mission, and half because I'm just generally proud/surprised that my suicide fleet worked.

[spudcosmic]

I ran the missiles and drones out of Dv by just perfoming two 1.5 km/s burns, then fired missiles at the laser frigate, and drones and the carrier.

[ulzgoroth]

I launched my entire drone squadron and boosted it in to intercept the enemy drones just short of their attack on my fleet. With more than 2:1 numerical superiority and lasers on my side, it was a quick massacre followed by a drawn-out missile massacre of the enemy capital ships.

[Elroy Scout]

My strategy was to heroicly launch every missile and drone I had into orbit and have my capital ships bug out and head for deep space, so when the missiles hit the level would have ended. Then sent fourty flack missiles to give that F***ing laser friggate two new sunroofs and one one less reactor core, then sent all the drones at them and they just mopped everything up. If anything doesn't die... a hundred nukes should take care of them being alive.

[Ferigad]

Shot down the incoming drones with 10x nuclear missile vollys (needed 3 of them) and used my leftovers of non-nuclear and nuclear warheads to serious damage the enemy and gave him the rest with a drone strike.

[Darth Dinkerino]

Thanks for all the help guys. I beat the level a few days ago, and thought I'd post what I did just in case anyone else is struggling.

I launched all missiles and drones, and split them into separate fleets. Launched the missile fleet towards an intercept with enemy fleet, launched drones into an orbital match. Used lots of dV to burn the enemy drones' fuel, but ensured I had enough to match the enemy fleet orbit once the drones died.

Missiles intercepted, sent in the flaks first, they destroyed the laser frigate. The nukes were second, sent em in waves of five, quick succession. They ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up the orbital defense frigate, sent it careening into Ceres. Other ships were destroyed when my drones got there.

[Laiders72]

For me personally, I just completed gold on Ceres using all my flak missiles, all stinger drones and 5 beam drones.

The first 20 flak missiles (all flak missile volleys were 20 missiles) were set on an intercept trajectory at about 6 and 1/2 hours. 3 of these missiles were shot down closing in but they still gutted the engines, main radiators and powerplant of the laser frigate knocking it completely out of the fight.

Next the drones came in. I set them to intercept around 7 - 8 hours into the battle (plus some counters to enemy evasion etc.) and to have a speed of about 660 m/s on contact. Faster than I would like but it is impossible to get a slower intercept while still beating the time record. These guys were set to go in broadside with the radiators of the drone carrier targetted and to ignore range restrictions. Their mission was to take out the carrier and its flares before the final volleys of missiles hit. They succeeded in that mission and not much was left of the rear of the carrier once their pass was completed. I think one or both of the orbital defense craft suffered some damage at this stage but it was nothing major. Probably only armour hits.

Final note, the enemy commander will use his missiles to attempt to intercept your drones. So long as you set them to no orders they should be fine; I had maybe 3 knocked out. If you are particularly worried, you could order them to manually thrust towards the missiles so they pass even more quickly. However, I think this would probably lead to better lock ons and more drones destroyed. Haven't tried that evasion strategy against missiles, though it certainly does work for hostile drones.

The next four missile volleys were set to come in thick and fast after the drone strike. By 8 and 1/2 hours in they had all either hit the ODSs or missed altogether. The one volley that missed was a manual overcorrection for earlier evasive manouvres by the enemy. The next two volleys hit and each destroyed an enemy ship. The final volley may or may not have hit something but they were all dead anyway by that point so the game didn't track it.

Meanwhile those 5 beam drones were sent out to intercept the enemy drone strike force. They will always launch 15 stinger drones at you, leaving 10 behind for defensive launches against closing enemy capital ships. Luckily, lasers are mighty effective against drones with nose-mounted guns (as all default drones have). Set the beam drones to ignore range restrictions and turn broadside on engagement. Then just find a decent intercept trajectory. Remember you want to intercept as slowly as possible (though this is less of a concern in this case so long as you intercept head-on) but you want to ensure you kill the drones before you run over the 9 hours and 27 minutes limit on the mission.

NB: the reason it is less important to get a slow interception against enemy drones is that the drones' frontal weaponry fatally compromises their frontal armour. So long as you are going at them head on with lasers, they'll melt in seconds. Seriously. 5 beam drones took maybe 3 seconds to melt 15 stingers.

Final note: for those who don't already know, orbital positions are randomised partially at the start of some (all?) levels. Certainly all combat levels up to Ceres. Restarting is sometimes necessary in order to beat records or at least makes beating them much less frustrating. For example, Ceres will occasionally have the enemy fleet on the opposite side of Ceres to you. This is a really difficult starting postion that's good for a challenge but not great for beating records. Randomise until they are on the same side of Ceres to you and ideally behind you. Much easier for missile trajectories etc.