X-Wing | Y-Wing | A-Wing | B-Wing | All Four

Description: You fly solo against top ace Corvettes.

Intent: In this mission you learn how to defeat varying stages of Corvette difficulty.

Enemy Craft:

1. Stationary - one, Rookie
2. Stationary - one, Top Ace
3. Mover - one, Top Ace
4. Mover Group - one wave of three, Top Ace
5. Attacker - one wave of three, Top Ace
6. Circler Group - one wave of three, Top Ace
7. Attacker - two simultaneous waves of three, Top Ace

Goal: Circler Group of three must be destroyed.

Time Limit: 30 minutes.

Setup: Each subsequent wave will enter on, or shortly thereafter, the destruction of the preceding wave, except for the last two Attacker waves which will enter at a predetermined inconvenient time.

As you enter, the first Corvette will be stationary, but not disabled. Run up between .2 and 1 kilometer behind its engines so that the face of the engines is all you can see. This is a Corvette's blind spot which continues all the way around the ship along its horizontal axis.

Consider this plane the face of a clock with "12:00" being the direction of the Corvette's travel (if this one was moving). The range is narrowest if you approach from the "9:00 to 11:00" or the "1:00 to 3:00" angles. It widens up a little from the "11:00 to 1:00", the "6:00 to 9:00" or the "3:00 to 6:00" angles with the widest possible range being directly at 6:00.

Max your lasers and your shields, and fire on it steadily until it is gone. Supplement your lasers with your shield energy if you must. Being Rookie level this one probably won't fire on you until it's in its "death roll". The next stationary Corvette will be along shortly so get out of the way.

This new Corvette will be a top ace (as will all Corvettes from here on) and WILL fire at you given the chance. Use the same blind spot to take advantage of this one as well. The third Corvette will be a "mover", and it's path will be straight. You'll be able to use the blind spot for this one, too.

The next to enter will be a group of movers. While their course will remain straight, the lead Corvette sit a little lower than the hind two. You won't be able to take advantage of any of the blind spots, but only because the spacing of the craft makes it such that someone is going to be able to fire at you. So now you must modify your strategy a little.

Attack one of the left hind most Corvettes from it's blind spot in its "7:00 to 9:00" range. This will be a little hard to get in to, but the other hind Corvette won't be able to shoot at you. The only one that can is the lead one. If you're careful, and don't get real close, you can probably avoid most of the incoming fire from that one. When the Corvette you've engaged is gone, then attack the other hind Corvette from the same range on the other side away from the lead one. When this on is gone, you'll be able to take advantage of the remaining Corvettes blind spot.

The fifth group to arrive will be the Attacker group. You'll be a good distance away from them because you've been moving along with the last group. There are no blind spots with these - but it really doesn't matter - due to something in the game, they probably won't fire at you even though they're top ace. At least they don't in the PC version.

However. The next group to arrive are three Circlers. These WILL fire at you, and they won't feel very bad about doing so. These are your objective - to kill all three Circler Corvettes. Time's probably starting to run out right about now, too - so that's likely a concern. Hope you've saved your torpedoes until now, because they'll help you complete your objectives best by saving them until now.

Oh, by the way... Just because I like making things a little more difficult... The last two Attack groups are going to hyper into the same area as the Circlers - you'll probably have nine Corvettes in the immediate area, of which you'll have to kill only three. You'll probably figure out, rather quickly, how to tell the difference between the ones you have to kill and the extra ones. But that's part of the training too, so I won't tell you how - you'll have to figure out that by yourself.

If you have ion capability, it may or may not be advantageous to disable any of the Corvettes before you kill them - you don't have a lot of extra time to play around. It's not likely, though not impossible, that you'll max out this mission. In testing, I think the only one in which I was able to clear them all was the B-Wing.

If you have any questions, please see Castor's "X-Wing Hints" page, "General Tactics and Strategies" chapter, "Corvettes" section.

Good luck!