Finished Fulcrim, moved on and... wth?

[Vacuity 10]

OK, once again, I think I am missing something.

I finished Fulcrim without too much trouble (a few crashes here and there, but hey...), and so I move on to the rest of the islands. The first island I arrive at gives me the usual "You need to disable the firewalls." No worries. And then moments later the enemy carrier arrives.

Huh?

Of course, I don't have a huge amount of fancy weaponry because I've only just completed Fulcrim and got access to the rest of the blueprints, attempting a head-on attack is suicide, trying to bomb him with my mantas (I have two bombs) results in my squadron getting swatted out of the sky in very short order. Oh, and I cannot run away to a new island as the option is disabled.

What am I supposed to do?

[disorder 1]

Assuming you have control, did you destroy all of the garages/helipads and any of the guns when you captured? if not all of them, try and lead the ai ship into range of any mantas/garages/guns you have near the coast

[Nifty 1]

Hello,

prepare for the battle if you know he is coming. Place your plasma canon straight to him and start fire when you barely see him. When his health goes belong 70% he escape.

Or if you really dont want fight with him, just produce new items from Fulcrum island and run away before he arrived.

Tell me how it went :)

[Vacuity 10]

Assuming you have control, did you destroy all of the garages/helipads and any of the guns when you captured? if not all of them, try and lead the ai ship into range of any mantas/garages/guns you have near the coast

Uhh, as I said, she arrives within about a minute of me arriving at that first island. I could probably undock my mantas (and walruses) to send them somewhere, but by then, I think she would have arrived. Taking the island before she arrives is definitely impossible. And this is the first island in the campaign after Fulcrim. (I timed it, 51 seconds from the autosave point to the alert)

prepare for the battle if you know he is coming. Place your plasma canon straight to him and start fire when you barely see him. When his health goes belong 70% he escape.

Or if you really dont want fight with him, just produce new items from Fulcrum island and run away before he arrived.

Tell me how it went :)

OK, I'll try that with the plasma cannon. Probably a few times as I doubt I'll get it right the first time. I guess the plasma cannon has a longer range than I thought? On the automatic system it only opens fire when something gets within range of the mini-radar. And when the enemy carrier is that close, I get destroyed in short order.

Ooh, I just tried it out. Worked, uhh, reasonably well. I think I should reverse my ship at maximum reverse thrust as well to prolong the time before she opens up with the other weapons. I managed to force the enemy carrier to retreat, but I took a fair chunk of damage in the process. Interesting that the AI always takes out my plasma cannon first. Good work there by the developers. Of which I see you are one. Thanks for the game! It's fun! And that's from someone who played the original as a kid and loved it.

As an aside... Why call the carrier 'he'? Traditionally, ships are considered female. In fact, they're one of the only inanimate objects given a gender in English. The only others I can think of offhand are countries and cars, and cars are sometimes 'he' to some people. I suppose if you're thinking of the AI itself, that could be a 'he'... Not important, just a minor query.

Edit: Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...

Actually, I think your advice may have worked a little too well. This time I managed to hold her off long enough that she disengaged very shortly after she had closed and opened up with her own weapons, and so my plasma cannon didn't get knocked out. So I chased her down. And destroyed her. Umm. On the very first island post-Fulcrim. :confused:

Edited September 17, 2013 by Vacuity

[species1571 64]

So I chased her down. And destroyed her.

You only THINK that ;)

[Vacuity 10]

You only THINK that ;)

Dun-dun-DUUUUNNNNHHHHHH!

Ahem.

Anyway. I've just failed the Thermopylae mission quite miserably. Personally, I don't think I did that badly, it's just that my walruses got stuck in the mountain pass. Went for a river bath. Took the scenic route(s) out of each set of buildings that get captured. Decided to attempt a 50-point turn on a bridge.

So, now I know why people complained about the walrus pathing as being atrocious. Sorry. It's a terrible letdown when you feel you're playing fine, but your squad decides to go take a mud bath together.

Is there *any* way to get the walruses to stick with me well enough to make it in time?

Edit: Tried again from the beginning, which went better for a while, until the repair laser walrus just stopped following altogether. Stopped. In the middle of a flat area. Not even trying to move. Needless to say, that put a limit on how much further I managed to successfully go.

Edited September 18, 2013 by Vacuity

[azrapse 10]

Yes. That mission is the part that suffers most in the whole game of bad pathing.

Whoever in the dev team that had a look and fixed the pathing information on the islands, please go again to Thermopylae (that is huge, by the way) and make sure the routing information for the roads that affect this mission is as clean as possible. :S

[hellR1de 1]

I'm about to get there, as I'm currently cleaning the surrounding islands (quite easy, so far), but I'll definitely try to gather some info as well, once I'm there. From what I understand regarding survival, a lot seems to depend on the repair walrus. I'll keep that little renegade on a tight leash.... ;)

[scrapser 11]

I have just completed the campaign for about the 6th time. After Fulcrum, I go north and never see the carrier. If I go south I encounter the carrier and do as Nifty says, "Prepare for battle." I hammer him with my Plasma cannon and if it gets knocked out I move to another gun and keep shooting.