[Mongoose]

Okay...I'm going to renege on what I said earlier.  I don't see any plausible way that Keepers of Hell can be beaten.  I physically can't fly all the way over to those Ravanas and get their beams disarmed before the Keeper is taken down to 30% hull integrity or less.  And even after I do, the Liliths that continue to rip into it are a full 10,000 meters in the opposite direction.  And all the while, all of the fighters the Ravanas launched are hanging on my tail, sending potshots at me.  There's just no realistic way of covering that much distance quickly enough to prevent the Keeper from being torn to shreds.  The only thing I'm left with now is going through all 70-something pages of this thread and hoping that someone has previously posted some hidden trick to getting through this.

Edit:  Apparently, actually following people's advice and swapping out a flawed model file with its retail equivalent works wonders.  But even with me hauling my ever-loving ass all the way over to the Ravanas, knocking their forward beams out with about 50% left on the Keeper, dragging an entire Shivan wing the better part of twenty kilometers after me as I raced to take care of the Ravanas, even after all of that...the Keeper had two percent on it when it jumped out.  Two. Percent.  I think I was on the verge of putting my fist through my monitor.  Darius, if you're reading this, you make a hell of a campaign, but whatever you're planning for the sequel...keep missions like this out of it.

[blowfish]

*snip*

What difficulty do you play on?

[Mongoose]

Gah, you snuck in.  I've always played on Easy...which is, apparently, not always so easy.

[blowfish]

Gah, you snuck in.  I've always played on Easy...which is, apparently, not always so easy.

Huh ... I play on Easy too, and I can beat this mission pretty consistently.  Let me post a walkthrough, EXACTLY as I play it:

Spoiler:

I usually choose Seeker for this mission, though the Preacher works too.  When you first arrive, link your primaries and divert all power to your engines.  I usually head as fast as possible for the point between the two Ravanas (if I don't then I frequently get vaporized by a beam).  When the Keeper arrives, I order all of my wingmen to protect it.  At this point I start heading for the first Ravana.  The enemy fighters will typically ignore you at this point.  If they do, and there are too many of them to just ignore, then you have a problem.  The main beams will fire, and the Keeper's hull integrity will drop a lot.  When you reach the first Ravana, equalize your engergy and destroy its frontmost beams with your guns AND missiles.  Shouldn't take too long, assuming you don't have the broken Ravana model.  Now go for the other Ravana.  If you notice you have a bunch of fighters on your tail, you have time to kill one or two of them, but don't get caught up for very long (not more than 30 or seconds).  On Easy, you can just absorb most of their fire.  Destroy the other Ravana's main beams.  Now head for the nearest Lilith.  Make sure all power is on your engines and that you're using your afterburner liberally.  It will take a while to get to it.  Again, you may have time to dogfight one or two fighters, but you really need to get to the Lilith as quickly as possible.  Once you reach it, equalize your energy and let loose on its main gun.  Remember, you are attempting to do this quickly, not efficiently.  Once it is destroyed, immediately head for the other Lilith (divert power to your engines).  Once you destroy its main beam, go for the bombers attacking the Keeper, though it is hard to fail from this point unless the Keeper's hull is really low.

Did that help at all?

[Colonol Dekker]

If you're only failing the mission by a small margin cheat. You would've earned it after many hours of stress anyway. So why suffer the stress.

[Titan]

hey, isn't this now one of the 3 longest threads on HLP?

[Mongoose]

Maybe my edit didn't make it clear, but I did manage to beat the mission, if by the skin of my teeth. That 2% hull integrity on the Keeper was when it jumped out successfully.  At least the next few missions made all of that frustration worthwhile; the flashback had my jaw literally gaping.  I even managed to cruise through Bearbaiting 2: Electric Boogaloo without too much trouble...until I got overwhelmed by a wing of Dragons and couldn't turn fast enough to kill them.  Maybe I should have replaced that bank of Piranhas with something that has more of a chance of killing fighters...like, say spitwads.

[General Battuta]

Ironically, Keepers of Hell would be a cakewalk if you weren't forced to use Vishnan weapons. Trebuchets on an Aurora would probably do the trick.

Though the near-impervious Vishnan shields are a bonus.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

Really? What's the amount of shielding on the Vishnan Seeker and Preacher?

[Mongoose]

It's definitely quite substantial...unfortunately, the armor underneath is paper-thin.  AAA beams can do a number on you.

So I finally made it through to the end.  Fantastic, fantastic campaign.  The penultimate mission was among the more epic moments I've ever experienced in this game (even if I got thwacked by a few missile shockwaves in the process of trying to beat it).  As for the ending...well, can't say I saw that coming.

Spoiler:

For a minute there, I thought that UEF frigate was going to go hostile and lay into the fleet, not the other way around.  Maybe it's just some inner concealed hippie in me, but I never did like the idea of Sol and the GTVA being at arms with one another as soon as contact was restored.  I mean, it's obvious that the GTVA would be tripping over themselves to once again take advantage of the economic/industrial base that Sol represents, but you think they'd go the more groveling-at-your-feet, "God we missed you guys!" route.  And you'd think Sol would be overjoyed to learn that they weren't the only boxed-in corner of the human universe anymore.  Then again, considering GTVA Command's usual level of intellect, maybe this would have wound up happening in any case.  At least Admiral Bei came around in the end. That final debriefing hints at all kinds of goodies in the future, too; dawww for Samuel getting a second chance at love.

Anyways, awesome stuff.  Keep busy on that sequel, Darius; I want to see where you take this.

[blowfish]

Hey, I have a question.  Will we see any new GTVA ships in BP: WiH?

[Stormkeeper]

Probably, tho you should ask that in its thread.

[Droid803]

That or the 'Ships" thread.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

He did that already.

[Droid803]

Apologies, I didn't catch that.

[Aardwolf]

Spoiler:

For a minute there, I thought that UEF frigate was going to go hostile and lay into the fleet, not the other way around.  Maybe it's just some inner concealed hippie in me, but I never did like the idea of Sol and the GTVA being at arms with one another as soon as contact was restored.  I mean, it's obvious that the GTVA would be tripping over themselves to once again take advantage of the economic/industrial base that Sol represents, but you think they'd go the more groveling-at-your-feet, "God we missed you guys!" route.  And you'd think Sol would be overjoyed to learn that they weren't the only boxed-in corner of the human universe anymore.  Then again, considering GTVA Command's usual level of intellect, maybe this would have wound up happening in any case.  At least Admiral Bei came around in the end. That final debriefing hints at all kinds of goodies in the future, too; dawww for Samuel getting a second chance at love.

Possible explanation (I think this was posted earlier, but it's a big thread)

Spoiler:

The Beta Aquilae convention, which was so great and all in FS2, may have actually forced the GTVA into taking this course, in its stating that all Terran and Vasudans were subject to its rule alone, and not the rule of whatever government was in Sol. However, that would be kind of a lame excuse, considering they knew in advance that they were going to have a Sol gate, etc.

[Titan]

  BETAC was long before the SSI, they never knew about the Knosso's.

and

Spoiler:

Eriana is his sister. He gets his sister back, who died in the SSI

[Androgeos Exeunt]

Spoiler:

Eriana is his sister. He gets his sister back, who died in the SSI

Thank goodness for that.

Spoiler:

No wonder the Elysium is marked as Eriana and Mei Ling Bei (note the surname absence behind Eriana).

[Aardwolf]

BETAC was long before the SSI, they never knew about the Knosso's.

Yes, but they could have thought of some way to modify it in order to avoid a military conflict--thus probably ruling out the BETAC-responsible-for-the-conflict thing (which was not originally my theory btw).

[General Battuta]

BETAC was long before the SSI, they never knew about the Knosso's.

and

Spoiler:

Eriana is his sister. He gets his sister back, who died in the SSI

Eriana's his sister? I don't think so. I thought they were intimate.