(mission 5) investigate the scorpian wreckages - just kidding!

[rightfn]

Is this a real objective? I sent a ship to sit in the circle from the start of the mission, and nothing happened. Sending ships to the wreckage field has consequences for how the rest of the mission plays out.

Replacing it with 'destroy the wreckages' makes it appear that the player has failed a time-limited bonus objective. Did I? Should I replay the mission to find out, or is there nothing there? Fun game, just a frustrating design choice here.

[GrenadeMagnet6]

Hi, I played through that mission a few days ago and have completed it. Here's spoilers to protect those who have not played the mission, yet:


The mission requires two objectives to be met:
1) Investigate the wreckages by moving at least one ship into the white circle: you can tell if you are in the circle if your ship's Z-Axis line (the horizontal position line) gets inside the circle.

Once your ship is in the circle a timer should appear in the upper-right part of the screen: I think it takes two or three turns to complete the investigation part.

2) Then destroy the three wrecks after Admiral Cain tells you again to do just that.

Once the wrecks are destroyed the mission ends.

I agree it's suprising the mission turns out this way, but that's the way it was implemented.

I sent my Vipers to destroy the heavy raiders on approach to the wrecks, then moved a Manticore in to the investigation circle. I had my remaining ships move away from the approaching Cylon fleet. Once the Investigation part was complete I had my Vipers destroy two of the wrecks and my Manticore torpedoed the third. Then the mission ended as a success.

In fact, I'm about to go play the mission again, as shortly after I noticed the invading Cylon fleets start to go up in FV size. I don't know if completing Mission 5 caused the Cylon FV size to increase, or if was another accidental incident where the game gave me a ship and caused the FV of one of my fleets to go over 2000 points.

[GrenadeMagnet6]

I kept a save before Mission 5, then played Mission 5, and saved the game after completing it.

I found that after you complete Mission 5 the game engine will up the Cylon FV size to at least 2700 FV from 2000 FV. This is on Commander difficulty.

I'll give more details in my Optimal Strategy thread.