------------------------------------------------------------------ Star Trek Starfleet Command Volume II - Orion Pirates ------------------------------------------------------------------ ==================================== = Author: DG Dobrev = = E-mail: iron_feather@mail.bg = = Date: unknown yet = = Version: 1.0 = ==================================== ---------------- COPYRIGHT NOTICE ---------------- 1. What you can do with this guide: - Make a copy for pesonal use 2. WHAT YOU CANNOT DO! - Sell this FAQ for money. - Post it on your website without my permision. - Use parts of this FAQ as your own. - Plagiarize this FAQ in any imaginable way. 3. FOR ANY COMMENTS, additions, questions about the game etc. regarding this FAQ feel free to e-mail me. My personal mailbox is: iron_feather@mail.bg ------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------ Table of Contents: - The Pirates in brief - The Pirates' ships - Pirate Campaign Mission Walkthrough - Some tips and tricks - Final words ------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------ ================================================================== Part One: The Pirates in brief ================================================================== There was one thing that made SFC Volume 2 somewhat incomplete and this was the lack of a Pirate Cartels campaign. Although of "bad" alignment, always causing trouble, these brave warriors attracted lots or gamers' interest. Why? Because they don't have their own empire, roam "freely" the space and have very unusual ships. I must say that the Pirates quickly earned my respect! Imagine the Federation, with all its inhabited, economically powerful planets compared to the Pirate cartels... They look like junkmen to the Federation! Yes, maybe they are, but these junkmen did whatever they could to become a threat and make profit! Using bravery and skill, treachery and treason, they have managed to cripple and capture many armed merchant ships, freighters and cruisers, split them to parts and create entirely new types of warships, with entirely new properties and design! Yes, these brave junkmen deserve respect! The Pirates usually operate on the territory of a specific empire. They are not very warlike - they would rather hit and run, than fight bravely. Almost every battleship vs. battleship combat is lost for them, so these people have acquired a special intuition when to fight and wehn to run. And if you are going to be a Pirate, you should do your best to acquire this intuition as well. There are lots of cartels available in the game, each one of them using a specific pattern in weaponry, somewhat similar to the native race's territory, in which they operate. Yet, their weapons are not EXACTLY alike... For example, if you check out the Prime Industries cartel, which operates in the borders of the Romulan Empire, you will notice than the Pirates beside the Plasma torpedoes, have photons, missiles and rarely disruptors. So, as I mentioned, each cartel operates in a specific territory. This means you should review their ship's statistics well in order to find the cartel that best suits your "needs". After you win the game with one of the cartels, you may easily turn to the others. ------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------ ================================================================== Part Two: Pirates' Ships ================================================================== The Pirates' ships can be described in just two words: WEAK and MANEUVERABLE. Speed is somewhat fast, maybe just a little bit slower than the Klingon's ships. The weakness of the Pirates' ships is coming from the fact that they aren't able to form gigantic ship-building corporations and make high profit. This is why they have never made a Battleship - making such a ship is extremely pricy not only to build, but to support either. So, the best ship you'll see there will be the Dreadnought. To compensate for this, their ships are somewhat cheap and easy to operate. The Orion ships have very high turn rate and usually attack in large numbers to compensate for their weakness. SHIELDS: average at best. Frigates and Destroyers have the strength of the Mirak and Lyran shielding, which is adequate... Even the most powerful dreadnoughts have weak shields, so don't count that much on the "take damage and hit with your best weapons often" tactic. You may be hard pressed to run almost all the time to protect your ship from being hit hard. ENGINES: again, not that good. Don't get me wrong, their engines are not bad, but seem weak because of the high energy consumption of the various weapons aboard. A Frigate has 13 points engine power, the Destroyer - 20, the Heavy Cruiser - 34. As you see, it is not THAT bad... WEAPONS: the Pirates have lots of weapons. You can easily find lots of different weapons (for example, Disruptors+Fusion Beams+ Missiles on one ship, which incorporates 3 different technologies) - depending on what the pirates have succeeded to steal... MARINES: Pirates have more marines than any other civilizations' ship aboard. I guess since they can't get good ships, they compensate in the simple manpower. If you can just get a shield down... DEFENSE: Pirates have a lot of tractor beams generally... But few of their ships (depending ot the cartel) are equipped with an AMD, the best anti-missile defense :-) TRANSPORTERS: Pirates' ships have more thansporters than any other race (maybe except for Mirak). For example, a destroyer has 3 or maybe 4, while the others have only 2. This is definitely a little compensation for their weakness in combat. And again... If only you get a shield down and some of your men inside the enemy! CONCLUSION: You best allies are your speed and your wits. In lots of cases, you may as well think that this game is extremely unfair towards you and the odds are really, really grim. Overcome this!!! No Pirate is afraid of this. And if he is, should he become a pirate in first place? So, be patient, always scan the enemy ships before entering the fray. You need to know all the time your chances for victory. If you think you can't win this fight, then run away and warp out of the system and as they say "live to fight another day!". If you think you have chances to beat them - then go for it. Make your teahers in the Astoroid belt proud! ------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------ ================================================================== Part Three: Pirate Campaign Walkthrough ================================================================== Well, after we have pointed out the strengths and the weaknesses of the Pirates and their ships, let's turn to the main events now - the campaign itself. The missions for all cartels are one and the same, but require different tactics because of the different weaponry used by the cartels. Before you start the campaign, go to the "Vessel Library" screen. Here, you are able to review all cartels' ships. I am sure you have afavorite race in Starfleet Command - Federation, Klingon, Hydran, Romulan, Gorn, Mirak, ISC, Lyran, whatever! All of these races have certain specific weapons, and if you like that race, than you'll know how to use these weapons. The cartels, operating in the territory of that race will most likely have those weapons. Pick carefully. If you are fond of missiles, maybe you'll want the house of Korgath. They allow you to take command of pretty well preserved K-D6D (klingon drone battlecruiser) with 6 missile launchers. The second option is the Prime Industries Cartel, which also implies the missile technology.If you like plasmas, try the Syndicate. They have acquired lots of ISC technology and one of their ship design specs included some phaser 1, some phaser 2, some phaser 3 and 5xPlasma F. Nice for ramming enemy ships, right? If you like the Hydrans and make best use of Fusions and Hellbores, then pick the Beast Riders. So, let's get on with this. ******************* Mission 1. The Test ******************* Recommended ship: War Destroyer or better On entering the system, lock on the freighter, go to red alert and max speed at it. You actually, don't need your heavy weapons here - a couple of phaser shots will be sufficient to get one of his (preferably the back one) shields down and beam a team of marines to capture it. The freighter will most likely be yours even before the federation ship has arrived. When the enemy battle ship (not battleship :-)) has arrived, set speed to 0 and overload your weapons. A good alpha-strike will do wonders for you. However, it is most likely the other ship to have some missiles, so arm a few tractors before entering the fight. Defensive tractors I mean... Don't underestimate the enemy, don't do it ever when you play as the Pirates! However, shouldn't be too difficult! ******************* Mission 2. The Ruse ******************* Recommended Ship: Destroyer or Better Your orders are to fend off the attackers for a short while, until the Kartel's ambush force arrives. Let the ISC ships approach and hail them. They'll order you to surrender. Of course, you're not going to comply, are you? So, "Stall" them (the button is on the Communications panel), while running away from them (no need to fight, keep yellow alert and maximum speed!). They'll chase you, but just keep the distance! A good thong to do is to switch to the tactical map - to see where the ISC ships are and watch out for asteroids. Soon the Ambush force will arrive. Their ships have the same colour as your own, so they are easily recognizable. Carefully turn the course the their location (you don't want a bundle of ISC plasma torpedoes to hit your shields, right?) and hide behind them. Your friends will deal with the attackers. It is up to you whether you want to fight longside your friends or not. This is all. One more thing: if you want more safety, hail the ISC ship and start running right away. Thus you'll be away from them at all time. Both ways the prestige you get is 100, so... I guess risking your ship's health is foolish. ************************ Mission 3. Law and Order ************************ Recommended ship: Heavy Cruiser or Better On entering the system, you'll see the friendly freighter and a bit later on, the two federation ships trying to intercept you. Keep you position near the freighter, because there's a high possibility to get away without the merchndize you have for his captain. Now, attack the Federation ships. Arm defensive tractors right away, as much as possible. In my games (most of all), one of the Feds was a drone destroyer (6xMissile Rack B) and I had big troubles fighting it. However, use Alpha-Striking on the stronger ship of the two and try to take it out right away. Overload anything possible and go for it. After you have dealt with the two Federation ships, go to the freighter, capture it with you Tracktor beam for safety, order him to drop down his shields and beam in the drugs. That's all in this mission. NOTE: Missiles are the best thing in this mission, since you can launch them at no energy cost and while running away from the enemy. If you can get 4+ missiles in your ship, this mission will be the easiest one you have ver played, since enemy ships just run into them, rarely shooting to destroy the incoming threat. I was playing the Prime Industries with a P-DBR3 (4xMissile Rack B + 2xMissile Rack C) and had absolutely no problems on this one. ******************* Mission 4. Big Hunt ******************* Recommended ship: Heavy Cruiser or better Arm your weapons, and overload whatever you think is neccessary. There are 2-4 Hydran ships, ready to attack you (the number seems to vary - the first time I played the mission there were two, the last time they vere 4). They are not anything special (the last time - three H-GEN and a frigate), so even if you have only one ship, you'll deal with them quite easily. Now, do some monster hunting. Destroy all monsters except for the Sunglider (M-SGS). Just be careful! There's an Astrominer there (1xPlasma R, 1xPlasma S, 2xPlasma G)!!! Kill it with utmost caution! You dont want that 50+30+2x20=120 pts of damage to hit your ship! Keep high speed, even at the price of weapon usage and evade the plasmas. Then attack. Killing the 2-3 monsers (excluding the Sunglider) will net you additional 1000 points prestige! Ain't that nice? Now, after you're done with those monsters, fly to the Sunglider, switch to the Communications pannel and click "Brainwash". This is the last thing required to complete this mission. ******************************** Mission 5. Honor amongst Thieves ******************************** Recommended ship: Battlecruiser or better; preferably not a "drone-type" cruiser! Ouch... This mission is taking place in a Nebula. I bet you all know what that means - weak shields, missiles are destroyed after short time, and loads of other bad, bad effects. So, if you happen to use a "drone" cruiser (only missiles and phasers, Korgath, Prime Industries and a few other have them), this mission will be a living hell, unless you know what to do with those missiles. The solution is: fly towards the enemy ship to ram it. When there are about 4-5k left between you two, launch the missiles. They will hit his front shield, and they'll hit hard. Resistance: I had 3 ISC ships here. Not extremely powerful, so use high speed to avoid being hit by their Plasma torpedoes. In return - alpha-strike them till they're crippled. You know, you need to protect those freighters (SLV-class, which is good - all of them have nice weaponry and shielding for a freighter!), so, deal with your enemies as fast as you can. You may find this mission a bit difficult due to the fact that it's taking place in a Nebula. If you MUST, use an extra ship, otherwise, save your prestige. Once the ISC ships are destroyed, the mission is complete. *************************** Mission 6. To catch a thief *************************** Recommended ship: Even a Destroyer will do. However, I'm sure you have at least a Battlecruiser by now. Prepare for an easy mission. You are asked to deal with a ship of another cartel, which is pathetically weak. The dodgy thing here is that you must talk to this ship's captain before destroying it. First, "Taunt" him, then press "Notify" on the communications panel. After he has received your "nice" message, feel free to destroy it. No trouble at all :-) *************************** Mission 7. To Hell and Back *************************** Recommended ship: Battlecruiser or better When this mission starts, be sure to decrease your game speed to 10 or less. I want you to know, that if you play at 11, you may accidentally leave the map (warp out) and thus forfeit this mission. I am sure this ain't the thing you want. So, you start with some friends here! Great. They'll be a very valuable addition for the strike against the enemy base. So, first concentrate on the enmy ships. Destroy them all before going for the base. I can tell you, you'll need as much alive allies as possible! So, help them with all your skill and knowledge in space battles :-) Now, hopefully with all your allies at hand, attack the enemy starbase. Just keep an eye on your shielding, base's weakest shields, strike carefully, strike hard, strike its vital places. It won't be long before it's down. And again, just be careful not to leave the map by accident. ****************************** Mission 8. Hard road to travel ****************************** Recommended ship: Heavy Battlecruiser or better I can tell you right away: forget about pure combet in this mission. Go to red alert, arm only the phasers. Everything else should be offline, in order to keep you engines at highest possible efficiency. So, arm the phasers and max speed to the freighter. When you near it, activate your tractor beam, and shoot at his rear shield. It will go down right away! Beam in the princess, release the freighter, go to yellow alert and get away from here. You don't need to fight the ships that are trying to intercept you. You got the princess, right? Why complicating your life as a starship captain? However, if you feel really adventurous, destroy your enemies without any hesitation. Yet, I don't think it's good idea. *********************** Mission 9. Man for hire *********************** Recommended ship: Dreadnought or Carrier, if possible - Be sure to have the maximum amount of marines for this mission! On entering the system, go to red alert, overload anything possible and attack the enemy ship. Alpha-strike it! Your job is to take it down before the freighters come nearby. Once it's down - go get the freighters. Hit carefully! You only need to get a shield down and beam in your strike teams. You need ABSOLUTELY ALL freighters captured! Don't even think of destroying a freighter! That's all that is required from you. ********************** Mission 10. The Legend ********************** Recommeded ship: Carrier or Dreadnoght This is a pure "The Surprise Reversed" mission. Arm your weapons and start taking right away the enemy ships, before they have started to power up and prepare for combat. Use alpha-strikes. Don't overload your weapons - I have noticed it takes a bit longer to destroy the enemies this way, and you need to do so before a couple of ships are ready for fight. If you have to face a couple of ships at the same time, the only thing that saves you is the missiles. You don't want to fight a couple of ships at the time, do you? Once you've dealt with all your enemies, go for the rebelious captain's ship - he had a heavy cruiser in my game. Destroy it and you're done! ******************************* Mission 11. Eyes without a face ******************************* Recommended ship: Carrier or Dreadnought (+ another ship, if possible) This mission is much like the previous, with the "slight" difference that all gorn ships are active. They are nothing special, just keep high speed to avoid their plasma torpedoes and alpha-strike them in return. After you've destoyed them all, fly to the freighter and capture it in your tractor beam. Set speed to 0 and start shooting at its rear shield. Get it down and start sending in marines until it is captured. That's all you need to do. ******************** Mission 12. Dead end ******************** Recommended ship: Carrier or Dreadnought (you have helpers, so you don't need another allied ship) In this mission, the "helpers" are no other but Mirak!!! Isn't this the best thing? You are well aware about the AI's weakness against missiles, right? So, concentrate on destroying the enemy defense force again. As you know, Mirak have relatively weak shielding, and may get easily destroyed. And since bases have quite a big bunch of defensive tractors, the best thing here is to have as much Mirak allies alive as possible. Once the resistance is down, attack the base. It won't be long before it's down, you can be sure in that :-) *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*- This concludes the Pirate campaign. Now, try winning the game with another cartel! Try increasing the difficulty. Try playing at "advanced" level of technology. There are lots of objectives you can achieve, and there's no need to be game-related. Make up your own! And if you want, mail me a couple of those! :-) *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*- ================================================================== Part Four: Tips and Tricks ================================================================== -> carefully pick up the ships you're buying. Since the Pirates are relatively weak early on, you may have lots of troubles if you've chosen the wrong ship. -> see if frigates don't happen to have better weaponry than your current ship. If they do, downgrade your ship. This works especially well for "The Syndicate" (if I remember correctly), where I traded my Destroyer for a Frigate with 3xPlasma F and scored a considerable amount of victories with this ship. -> While travelling, see that there's a base or planet around your ship's location. Venturing in deep space with the Pirates is very, very dangerous. You need to have a secure repair-dock near you at all times. -> Don't forget to "restock". If you feel confident that this is the ship you'll be spending most of the time with, buy the largest amount of missiles, mines and marines. -> Mines are used best against incoming missiles. A single mine can take out from 2 to 7-8 of them if they fly in its location - and they will, if you carefully command your ship. -> Know when to fight and when to run! Since Pirates have relatively weak ships, you must run away if you see that the enemy is stronger than you. The first couple of hits scored will show how adequate is your ship compared to your enemy's ship. -> Speed is life, as is written in one of SFC manuals. This is absolutely true. Try to keep as high speed as possible, and in the same time, know that keeping high speed doesn't compensate for the lack of firepower. All weapons recharge at specific rate, which means they need considerable amounts of energy. This is the good thing about missiles: they don't need any energy at all to be armed, while fusion, photons, phasers and so on need it. -> Try to have at least two other types of weaponry except phasers - this means your ship must have flexibility in space combat. I am well aware that AI is weak against missiles, but there are certain points in the game where having only missiles is a pure suicide. Like the "Honor amongst thieves" mission. -> Having an AMD is nice. Consider this while purcasing a ship. It can be destroyed, so watch out for this. I am intended to add even more tips, but if you take a look at my Starfleet Command FAQ,I am sure you can use most of the tips I've written there. In addition, as I noticed in Kasey Chang's FAQ on Starfleet Command Vol.II - Empires at War, most of the tips he gave there can be as well used in Orion Pirates as well. I admire his work! ================================================================== Part Six. Final words ================================================================== I wrote this FAQ without any help. Nobody offered me, and nobody helped me. I always desire any help I can get, and give it a proper credit. I want to say, that right now I'm compiling data for all Pirates' ships. Hopefully it will be done soon and I'll post it in a month or so (I have one last exam till the end). Good bye, and enjoy this great game! And many thanks for reading this FAQ. DG Dobrev