Stuck on Oxford Mission

[HeyYou]

I am trying to defend the shipment of rare books, mission three, I think. There are three Demons, and they completely ignore me, and destroy the ship before I can even get them mad enough at me to change from friendly, to hostile. According to the Privateer walkthrough, they are supposed to ignore the cargo ship, and come after me? Not that I have noticed..... I am open to suggestions.... I cant even destroy ONE of them before the cargo ship buys it.

I have a centurion, am using missiles, and neutron guns.

[micheal_andreas_stahl]

try making them mad before you start the mission. i use dumbfires and friend and foes. they do the most as a) when the df's hit they take the shields down giving me a oppertunity to damage them. but that takes a lot of practise. b) the ff's neaver lose there target. so they do the some job but with out the hassles. i did the mission on AB's to try to keep up to the demons. you might have to change your gun arrangement to:

mass driver particle particle mass driver

this is to conserve energy while have a bite to your gun fire.

[HeyYou]

Thank You. I will give that a shot.......

[klauss]

Another trick you might try is, when you run out of missiles, dock with the drayman and replenish

Another way of making them mad (though I'm not sure it's fast enough) is taunting them, by targetting them and hitting "4" repeatedly. Eventually they turn your way and engage you, but only the targetted ship. It's a good thing to know if you see someone breaking off and heading towards the drayman.

[Solon Halwinder]

I'd suggest you switch to Tachyons over Neutrons. Comparable damage, much lower energy usage, and I'm pretty sure better range and bolt speed. Also, though they're kinda cheap, Autotrackers for your gun mounts will help immensely.

[HeyYou]

I have auto trackers on two gun mounts, I find that they are not always a blessing in head to head combat. Dumped my tractor, in favor of more missiles, Dumb Fires. Single shot kills on smaller ships, been practicing on retros.......... and pirates. Very Effective.

Will have a look at the Tachyons, but, if I sell my current weapon, do I also sell the autotracker? Will I have to replace them when I change weapons? They are not precisely cheap, although, money is not so much of an issue. Merc missions that pay over 100k help quite a bit. Would like to find more of those.....

[micheal_andreas_stahl]

Will have a look at the Tachyons, but, if I sell my current weapon, do I also sell the autotracker? Will I have to replace them when I change weapons? They are not precisely cheap, although, money is not so much of an issue. Merc missions that pay over 100k help quite a bit. Would like to find more of those.....

yes you should still have AT.

[Solon Halwinder]

The autotrackers modify your gun mount, not the gun itself, so yes, you'll keep them. Same goes for if you autotrack your missile mounts and then change what's equipped on them.

As for them not always being useful, I find that sometimes too. You can turn them off by pressing K.

[HeyYou]

Nope, this mission is kicking my ass. The Demons are way too fast. They cruise in and out of my range so fast that I cannot hit them. The best I have done is get four out of six. The last two always destroy the cargo ship. Also, they completely ignore me. Even when they are hostile. I dont dare shoot at them while they are heading in, as I hit the cargo ship, contributing to my problem.

I remember having a similar problem on an old win98 machine, with the original game. Then, I had turbo turned on, and it made everything go much to fast. Same problem here? Does the game take processor speed into account? Am I just a lousy pilot? I am running a centurion, with speed geeked to 600/1400. (I justify this by the fact that the car I drive is far from stock. It seems in character for me to modify my ship past what is available thru regular channels.....)

Is there a way to hack the game to just bypass this mission, or have it considered "completed"? I have found the key to library access, however, it does not trigger the presence of the next guy I need to yak at.

[Solon Halwinder]

If you don't mind installing the Parallel Universe mod, that would provide you with a large number of other ships with which to attempt the mission, in addition to all the other tweaks the mod involves, including weapon damage and faster-regenerating shields. I beat Oxford 3 my second try, playing on Normal, with an un-hacked Sabre.

Hang on, I'll dig the link to the latest version out of the thread.

Okay, there we go. (Jesus, that took half an hour.)

http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/forum ... &start=225

It's about five or six posts down.

EDIT: Since you tweaked your Centurion's speed stats, why not just tweak the Demon's speed stats in the opposite direction?

[HeyYou]

Hhhmmm, reading thru *some* of the thread, there seems to be some rather onerous bugs. I would rather wait on that one, and let them iron some of them out before installing it.

Tweak the Demons? Why didn't I think of that....... What I would really like to do is edit the mission somewhat, however, I am unable to find where the mission data (or whatever it really is) is stored. Any suggestions?

[Solon Halwinder]

The worst bug is when you come against a Drayman that has repulsor beam turrets, because in basic PR (and thus the PU mod) the Repulsor Beam was copied from the Tractor Beam, and the "tractor-in" effect was never removed. Thus, the Drayman in question can insta-kill you by hitting you with the beam and "repulsoring" you in. (Of course, he has to have space in his cargo hold, so the bigger your ship is, the less danger you'd be in.)

The other major one is ships that don't load properly. You'll see them on radar, but they have no model in-game. z30 is still trying to track this one down. However, it's pretty rare (only affects variants of the major ships, like the GalaxyHK) and from what I've seen doesn't have any bearing on you.

As for tweaking the missions, talk one of the admins for PR. They'll know where the info in question would be.

[micheal_andreas_stahl]

Or you could get a gothri.

[micheal_andreas_stahl]

Another trick you might try is, when you run out of missiles, dock with the drayman and replenish

You can get missiles at the Drayman? I can't do anything but repair.

[HeyYou]

Figgered this one out, edited the mission, so there was only two demons, two waves. Made it seem to easy.... (hard difficulty) not sure why one ship made such a difference.

Now, murphy wants me to kill the reinforcements, but she sends me to palan. THere seems to be a never ending supply of demons, and they are not near the planet. I have killed eight of them, but, still no soap. Whats up with that?

[Dilloh]

If your status with hunters is friendly, the new waves won't recognize you as an enemy (at least if they don't spawn in your/their sensor range). They will start patrolling the Palan system, but I'm pretty sure they won't jump out of the system. Just patrol the system for yourself and find them all. A usual place is the asteroid field.

Myself, I completed the mission using several "advantages":

1.) Make sure to be friendly with hunters, the kilrathi and the pirates
2.) Take the mission at Basra
3.) Head to Palan or whereever the blockade spawns.
4.) Wait until the (friendly) hunters begin to patrol the system and follow them. They will eventually meet some of their "natural" foes, pirates or kilrathi. This encouter will kill some of them
5.) You might also accept a clean sweep mission with capital kilrathi ships - a kamekh as a quasi-wingman to kill the hunters would be the most useful tool. You could even cancel the clean sweep mission because it's not required to complete the campaign mission. To get the hunters near your kamekh (or anything else), taunt and run!
6.) For the remaining hunters, fire all warheads (especially torpedos), dock at palan, rearm+repair, save, launch, warheads, dock, rearm+repair, save, etc. (repeat). Remember to stay in docking range with the planet! The massive attacks of the hunters can cause serious damage or even kill any ship within seconds.
7.) Wingmen might also help

Hope this will help to make the mission easier. The mission will eventually end, but it spawns many many waves. So be patient.

[micheal_andreas_stahl]

Once the shields are fix up why not get a cap ship.

[Dilloh]

Because armed capships will appear later after the drone mission, except of the drayman cvl of course.

[micheal_andreas_stahl]

I have not finished and i have a kilrathi cap ship.

[Dilloh]

?!?

So where did you get the kamekh? With the bonus missions?

Do you use a PR version older than 1.2?

[micheal_andreas_stahl]

1.2 with no up-grades (there to big for me to download). Though i have 1.0 Master Parts list. Oh where is z30? He has not been around for a while. since he's gone work has stopped. And when is Gosshawk?

[Dilloh]

I don't know. I wrote a pm to z30 last week, still no answer. Andy could you please post or send me your 1.0 master part list?

[micheal_andreas_stahl]

Andy could you please post or send me your 1.0 master part list?

i'll try to find it in my 6.16 GB, and 15, 821 Files and 1, 060 Folders. Try getting it. may have deleted it as to get ready to test the newest patch i changed everything back to normal 1.2 stuff. may have it still though.

[SJ]

How do you get those cap ships, if not by buying them?

[Dilloh]

You need to buy them, anything else is cheating.

The only items I ever saw for free were:

1.) Steltek Gun
2.) Cloaking device (prior to 1.2)

Ship always cost creds.