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I concluded the Operation Highland campaign at the command of a Spectre class destroyer (I had originally commanded the 60th Destroyer Squadron, but my whole squadron was destroyed in missions leading up to the end (one ship at a time), so I took command of the heavier squadron when it arrived.

In the last major engagement of the Highland campaign, my "new" destroyer was tasked to protect a freighter, the "Adventure". Which seemed like the oddest thing because when the mission started, the Archon battlegroup and her support ships were all in system just a stone's throw away from a major base and the Dantari Separatist and Hegemony ships were maneuvering to defend the system. It swiftly geared up to be a major climatic battle, but for some reason I was supposed to protect a freighter.

The Adventure died quickly, before we could even reach her, fighters blew her to pieces, at hard burn, we were still too far out and all I could do was watch her break up. I was ready to call the mission a failure and bugout when all hell broke loose nearby. More fighters than I could count, from the Archon and the nearby space station were going at it, and a nearby carrier, the Goliath and her support ships, were practically going toe to toe with fighters and missiles.

Looking at the map, it looked like I stood a chance of hitting the Goliath from the side or rear because of where we were located, so I had my whole squadron turn and burn hard for the Goliath.

Enroute to her, the space around us was like a fighter highway, streams of Separatist fighters, largely in pairs, were making for the Archon and her defenders as fast as they could be launched, forming a long trail through space, flying through this trail we took some fighter fire, and I lost a frigate in the process.

My second frigate was lost not long after that as we got closer to the engagement zone, I think a combination of fighter fire and maybe missiles from a destroyers or even the large cruiser that was in the system may have killed her, but she died with little fanfare.

That just left my ship, the Shadow, a Spectre class destroyer and the Necromeger (not sure if I'm spelling that right), also a Spectre class Destroyer.

Making a beeline for the Goliath I opened up with missiles and Xray lasers as fast as I could, and set my shields to full expecting some counterattack. The Goliath started to go down quick, her hull redlining. But just as it seemed she was about to blow, she suddenly disappeared, no explosion, no kill recorded, she just disappeared. I don't know if this was a game glitch and she did die, or if perhaps she fired up her Quantum drive and got out of there. I assumed the latter. With her gone, one source of fighters was out of the picture, which I think made the Archon's job of defending herself a little easier.

After that I turned and engaged a nearby cruiser (I forget the class, but it was a heavy one, it blew the destroyer Stalwart to pieces right before my eyes), and between the combined fire of my Shadow and one of the Archon's defensive destroyers, she died. I turned and splashed 2 more enemy frigates in quick succession. Throughout all this I suffered little more than minor damage to one XRay laser that was patched up quickly.

There were two more frigates out there, but they were close to the station, which I expected was armed and I wanted to avoid that area of space so far from support, I dared pursue one, firing off the last pair of my missiles at long range and wounded her, but she was still alive and running for the station.

Checking the nav screen for more contacts, I saw alot of enemy fighters making runs against the Archon, then returning to base, but only one other warship, the Wolf class destroyer "Wolf" which was hovering around in the distance.

I turned to intercept, firing my engines to full, and ordered the Necromeger to heave-to and come with me. But she strangely didn't respond, despite any of the commands I tried, and instead just lingered in an area between the station and the Archon group, doing little more than engaging passing fighters with her point defense lasers for the remainer of the battle.

With warheads gone, I thought I might stand a chance to take out the Wolf with Xray lasers, but enroute to her, I suddenly got harpooned by a couple of enemy fighters that I didn't even know were targetting me from behind, they came from that fighter "highway" was talking about, and just as quickly as they fired at me they appeared moved on because they didn't bother me again. Their accuracy however, was amazing, one moment my ship was fine, the next, my ship's main power core and several other power systems were down. I had power to weapons, shields, sensors, but little else. Engines would not respond.

Seeing I couldn't take the Wolf now, I turned for the Archon, hoping to get within her protection on sheer inertia. My engineering screen said I had no replacement for the lost power core, so I was running on little better than batteries to keep my other systems active but I was coasting on inertia with no engine power. The Archon was far in the distance, and I was traveling at a speed of maybe 150.

The Wolf wasn't willing to let me go and moved to intercept me. She must have been out of, or didn't carry missiles because she only targetted me with point defense lasers and heavier lasers, which gave me a chance to fight back.

I swung the bow of the Shadow around, continuing to travel on a course heading roughly for the Archon but flying backwards and firing at the Wolf as fast as my lasers would reload. I thought it would end quickly but it turned into something like a full 5 minute duel where I wasn't sure if any of us were doing any damage to the other. I sent out multiple radio calls for assistance from every ship and fighter flight on the board but nobody showed up despite acknowledgements to the contrary.

Finally, I got some engine power back, not much, at full power I was moving at a snail crawl 58. Without a main power core it looked like it was the best I was going to get, so I tried to turn and run, but the Wolf just wouldn't leave and I got tired of being pelted by her point defense lasers, so I would turn and fight for a while, then try to flee again. We repeated this cycle three times. My hull was bright yellow, his was just beginning to turn yellow. I felt like we were pinching each other, the amount of damage we were inflicting was so minor and slow spreading, we each were taking damage, then repairing the damage, then taking damage again...

Finally the Wolf seemed to turn away, and I made another attempt to run, but the strangest thing happened, although the Wolf was turned away, she hadn't fired her engines, and she drifted backwards right into my Destroyer. The Wolf suddenly exploded, and for a moment I was sure we had both blown up as a bright yellow glow filled the screen. But when the explosion faded, my Shadow was still intact, only now truly crippled with my caution board lit up like a christmas tree.

I had been looking for an out, and this was it. I was sure the situation was under control, there was only 2 frigates left on the board and they were hunkered close to the station. The Archon had lost many if not most of her protective ships but was intact, and the Necromeger was still loping around out there. There were no ships anywhere in my vicinity. The number of fighters out there had begun to diminish greatly.

I hit escape, and opted to conclude the mission that way (not an abort). The mission I had actually been tasked to fly, to protect the Adventure, was a failure, but in the process of scoring several kills I had still worked up somewhere around 1700 points with ship kills. I didn't get credit for the Wolf.

I was disappointed to see the Operation Highland campaign deemed a failure by the game on the next screen that popped up, and it appeared to immediately restart the campaign and take me back to Day 1. I'm not exactly sure what went wrong in that final battle that caused us to lose, or if "the team" just hadn't achieved enough points, or what the deal was, but I guess I'm going to be doing it over.

Regardless, it was the best starship battle I had fought yet in the game, very memorable.

Nice read.
 
Shame that glitches so often foul things up.

Cool recap.
 
Watch for those fighters, they'll get you every time.
 
and just wait...it gets better. [:D]

Nice read, well written. Some clarifying points:

my "new" destroyer was tasked to protect a freighter, the "Adventure". Which seemed like the oddest thing

Yes it is odd putting that new, fresh destroyer squadron to use on something so trivial. Especially when only a fighter escort is any good against other fighters. Personally I just ignored the freighter and went cruising around CapShip hunting. We obliterated two frigates and two destroyers that mission.

don't know if this was a game glitch and she did die, or if perhaps she fired up her Quantum drive and got out of there.

She would have quantumed. Both the Manticore and the Goliath always do (it seems all carriers do, makes sense). You'd know if she blew up - very bright flash, and if you're closer than 30km (50km for the manticore) even with shields at full you'll most likely take some significant damage from the explosion - Be WARNED. Plus there's wreckage of the hull left behind.

Note: You can give chase to carriers with your own quantum drive, Goliath'll be in either Trellis, Solus or Kalon 99% of the time, click her name in the Nav screen and it will tell you if she's in-system, otherwise it'll show nothing - Neither carrier is much of a threat on their own and they don't quantum again. Plus you get about 1500 points for killing her (I think about 2k for the manticore. It did take me about 30 mins of guns fire to kill each carrier with a spectre DD though.
Also - if you are giving chase, remember that quantumed ships have a prediliction for colliding with space-stations, especially if they jumped to kalon system but also trellis I think it was. So you have to be quick to follow.

After that I turned and engaged a nearby cruiser (I forget the class, but it was a heavy one, it blew the destroyer Stalwart to pieces right before my eyes)

I'm pretty sure the only Cruiser in the first campaign is the Stalwart herself. The ship you're thinking of was most likely a DD of Broadsword class.

where I wasn't sure if any of us were doing any damage to the other

Yes, this is odd. I had a similar thing except I was in a full cruiser and blasting the enemy Broadsword DD with Gamma Beams (twice as powerful as xrays) and yet doing practically no damage (inspite of the fact I'd totalled a whole bunch of ships previously with little effort, including cruisers).




I have no idea why the Campaign was deemed a failure. Well actually I do have a fairly good one (just a guess though). As you stated, there are point scores for all teams (team score, top right of the campaign screen), I'm guessing that the enemy's score got too high compared to yours because you lost too many ships. It doesn't sound like you even knew about the entire second carrier group that belonged to the hegemony in-system, plus there were several other destroyers too that you didn't encounter.
For comparison: By that point in the campaign my team score was about 9600. No idea what theirs was.
Off the top of my head I think there are 5 broadsword class destroyers, 2 lesser class DDs (maybe more) and around 6-8 frigates and 2 carriers in-system at the start of that part of the campaign.

Broadswords are nasty. First time I took command of the Shadow, I jumped into a system to be jumped by two of them. I couldn't escape, and the rest of my squadron was awhiles off, so I rammed one of them :p The blast from both our ships blew up an enemy frigate, it was pretty awesome to watch :p.

the amount of damage we were inflicting was so minor and slow spreading

that's because it is a Wolf class, ive had similar battles using the stalwart in the highland campaign(but no power core loss)
the Wolf class has a very small sweet spot(ive only hit it once) and no missiles at all

i had the same thing with the adventure when i went to the new battle group
i  went cap ship hunting and got jumped by fighters on my way out but i didnt survive

also once i was using the Devastator class Furious en route to attack the vendetta class Imperator
Right in front of me at the beginning was a cruiser battle group, so i went on an attack course just below the nose of the nearest cruiser. The rest of my battle group followed suit and swung around to face them
Even tho it was a Vendetta, i killed it from long range with missiles.  We then swung to attack the next cruiser, also a Vendetta. I closed to laser range, preparing to pass straight under her and pound the soft spot with the gammas. i took some minor damage on the way there, but it was worth it. She exploded about 5 Km away from the nose, filling the screen, and my dmg control  panel with yellow. However, it was for some nonessential systems, a good thing because there were 2 volnaris class destroyers to contend with. I worked with the AI, who came under fire from the 2 ships, to make them swing around and expose their soft spot in front of the drives. Each was disposed of in one burst of my gamma's. Then, while the repairs were finishing up, i found another, lone, cruiser.By this time i was out of missiles, so i had to use gamma's alone. i prepared to repeat the first couple kills of the game, but he opened up with missiles and mag12's. unfoutunately his gamma's had hit my forward PDB and it was offline. I targeted his mag12's, then his missile launchers, destroying them in short order. The missiles had damaged several systems, most importantly, the drives and the fusion core. Eventually i drifted beside him, as he ended up drifting from some unknown damage to his drives. i opened up with my newly repaired gamms's, reducing him to scrap in short order. I shut down all damaged components, which included the fusion drive, thinking there were no enemies nearby. After a couple minutes though, i took several missiles from a till-then unknown destroyer, and quickly broke up, as i was completely defenseless.

Long battle, but i lost a good ship(the only Desastator cruiser in that sector/system/whatever the small area is)