Killing capital ships - how?

[toshi EG]

Hi!

I've got some rep with mercs guild and now they are offering me a 'destroy capital' missions.

I've tried to complete this kind mission on fully fitted Nexus (most expensive equipment and upgrades) for many times using different missiles/torpedo variations and I don't get how to kill that ship. Friendly assistants get owned too fast, then capital owes me.

Any suggestions?..
 

[Orange Drink]

It depend what kind of Capital ship it is. Pegasi are probably the easiest of the Capital Ships, because it doesn't bristle with guns, But since it has the highest level of engine upgrades of any ship, its shields recharge very quickly.

If it's a Nexus, don't try to get very close to them. outfit your side turrets with the longest range weapon possible, So you can circle around them and bombard them from afar, because they're too slow to get anywhere near you. Once one side is down on shields, divert all shield power to the front and afterburn your way towards it and dive bomb it with torpedoes. Rinse, repeat until nothing is left.

Don't really bother with the fighter escort. Usually the friendlies will go for them first. also, get a wingman before your encounter, and try to get an expensive one so that they have good gear. Then you get one more meatshield assistant that you can also order around so that it doesn't try to take on the Capital Ship by itself.
_________________
I eat syrofoam cups.
 

[Shadow]

[Flyboy]

How does someone control shield power? I know how to control overall shield power, but what about diverting all power to a certain zone?
 

[Christian Knudsen]

You can't. Unless you're playing X-Wing.
 

[Bradford]

I'm curious how many people here have actually completed a "destroy capital" mission..
I haven't yet (just now about ready to buy a capital ship).

For those of you that have, what ship were you flying? Which enemy capital is the hardest to destroy?
 

[Flyboy]

I haven't destroyed any. The hardest is a Kamekh, followed by Nexus, followed by Pegasus. I know because I've tried all of them, and the closest I came was when I was fighting a Pegasus.
 

[Cthulhu]

I've destroyed a pirate Pegasus once. But that's it.

I was lucky, he started running or something so I emptied everything I had in his rear shield. That, and the assistance of the hunters did the trick. (I was using a Pegasus myself.)
 

[Flyboy]

I just learned something.... if you fight a Pegasus, and you are flying a Pegasus, and you have an AI controlled rear turret with a fully boosted Tachyon Cannon, you can hit afterburner and maintain a distance that allows your turret to hit him but leaves you out of his range. Then just run like crazy in a straight line, and eventually he will blow.
 

[Bradford]

I was just thinking about trying this exact technique Flyboy! (I don't actually have the credits for it right now though.) Does it only work against a Pegasus?
 

[toshi EG]

Huh... I still have no luck

Pirate ship just smashes my shields too fast...
 

[Cthulhu]

I think you have to have a Nexus or Pegasus fully equipped in order to stand any chance at all.
 

[Orange Drink]

I did take down a Retro Nexus using the technique I posted above, except I did it in a Pegasus instead of a Nexus, using the rear turret instead of the side turret. It took over an hour of intense micromanagement, with many, many coffee breaks, just to get it's shields down. I then dive bombed it with dual torpedoes.

I attempted to try to take a Pegasus down in a Ulysses. I was going pretty well before it turned it's front towards me. You can guess what happened next.

And I swore I changed my shield levels to the front. If not, we should be able to.

@Flyboy: Kamekh?
_________________
I eat syrofoam cups.
 

[Cthulhu]

[Flyboy]

[toshi EG]

Well I am using almost equipped (no gun accelerators on front turrets) nexus...
 

[Iltsuger]

I don't believe it, but I managed to down a capital ship for the first time with my humble Galaxy. Was armed with neutron guns in the fore and aft, had an Orion-piloting wingman and four mercs with me. For some reason I just kept at it, firing at it even though I'd reloaded a bunch of times already and was pretty sure I'd lose.

I kept pummeling it with EMP torpedoes and neutron blasts as a few of the mercs exploded around me and... suddenly I knocked out its power supply and was aboard. A few dead pirates later and I could safely blow the ship up! Granted it was just a Pegasus, but I have to say that was pretty rewarding to finally take one down!

Also, I didn't know their cargo holds were so big; I got quite a haul afterward.
 

[Cthulhu]

Don't mean to brag or anything, but here's a 2 min. movie of me taking out a Pegasus, without the help of any hunters, and with out any damage to my ship. This is definitely the most cowardly way to do it, but it works about 40-50 % of the time. It's the "Flyboy maneuver"

(I fear admin. will change the Cap-ship missions when he sees this, so Christian, don't look )

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=KUG7UGTE
 

[Christian Knudsen]

*peeks at video*
 

[Iltsuger]

*laughs!*

I dunno, seems legitimate to me, even if it can't be a whole lot of fun :)

Just try doing that with a Galaxy, though, and see how far you get ,)

(No, that wasn't a mistype. My character's missing an eye from the last battle with a cap ship.)

There's an idea. You get a limb blown off, you get a robotic replacement for cheap, but it's not as good as a vat grown body part clone...
 

[Cthulhu]

[GLI]

[Cthulhu]

I dunno, science can never seem to match nature. Sure we can go faster than a leopard and higher than an albatross, but we can never seem to come even close to doing it as "cost efficient" as nature. Like solar cells, not even close to the plants photosynthesis.

While I'm being philosophical (this was written before 1960's):



this was taken from the blog to the excellent comic http://xkcd.com/
 

[GLI]

[Iltsuger]

Again, science fiction is a relative thing... I'm not sure I get your continued assurance that things follow through. Why is everyone speaking cigar-chomping English? Why does everyone wear slightly changed airforce garb? Why is everything named after 20th century stuff, and people are still referencing World War II like it was yesterday?

It's because we're not in the future, and we don't know how things will go.

So, this is a gameplay idea, not a magical prediction sphere. This is a game with Plutonium in asteroids, for heaven's sake.

The robo limb is the cheap replacement, left over from when they used them. Now they use vat-grown stuff, but because people can't afford it, they're often given the cheap, old replacements instead until they can afford it. See? Not so hard to come up with a reason, but the reasons don't matter. It's a gameplay idea.