Eliminating the marauder base

[StarWrecker]

I hate this mission with a passion. I kill all of the corvetes guarding the station, then Clay tells me to avoid the gunstar (after I-War 1, I took this to heart). So, I look around, and all that's nearby is a stack of cargo pods. CAn these be used to kill the station?

[Todd77]

Yea, dock with one of the pods that has warheads. Fly toward the station and undock with the pod. The pod will coast into and detonate the station.

[Momaw]

A slight clarification, fly toward the station starting from about 30km away and just hold down your Accelerate key. Undock the pod when you're near to collision, and pull up. The pod will "coast into" the station at several kilometers per second.

[StarWrecker]

yeah, I figured it out, but, thanks anyway. Gotta love the Newtonian physics in IW2. Now, I'm stuck in the bit with the six gunstars. I've figured out that they turn off for 20 secs, ans I'm using the ComSec, being more agile than the Tug, but, I still get blown away while trying to dock.

[dmfp321]

I would use the tug instead of the comsec. I know the comsec is much more agile, but it can't take the same amount of punishment as the tug or carry disruptors. Personally I always beat this mission with the tug kitted out with disruptors. Just keep tryin and you'll eventually beat it. This is one of the more challenging missions in the game.

[Momaw]

Eh. You can beat this one almost entirely with autopilot. It helps if you have have traded up to an Autorepair 2, though.

Target the gunstar directly ahead of you while you're docked to the station. The INSTANT it goes offline, whack Undock, and thrust ahead a bit. Don't wait for the undock animation to finish. Once you're moving in the direct direction, hit the Autopilot: Dock and sit back. You'll probably take a hit or two, while you're backing up to the gunstar or rotating to match airlocks, but then the gunstar's bulk will shield you from the other incoming shots. Then just target the next gunstar (I go in order of proximity, according to the contact list), wait till it goes offline, hit Autopilot: Dock. Once I'm lined up on the course the autopilot likes, I tend to turn it off and manaully accelerate a little bit just to close faster.

So, yeah, 90% autopilot and 10% judicious use of Accelerate on the straightaways. Worked on the second try last time I went through this mission.

[SchnozBott]

If you engage your dock autopilot towards the next closest gunstar about 3 seconds before it goes from red to yellow, you should be able to get through the entire dock manuver without the gunstars going red again and firing any shots (that could hit you). Any initial shots at you during your launch should miss because your initial speed will be pretty high and they won't have time to get a bead on you. This method requires two additional things: you have to use the comsec because it's so much harder for the gunstars to hit it, and you have to count the number of seconds for each phase, neutral yellow and hostile red, and to time your launches based on the known phase times.