Official servers have been decommissioned and multiplayer is now officially dead - RIP, Jazzy Boatman, you will be missed.

Please give me a rating for the guide, and if you're a reader, enjoy :)

The first thing you must know about this game is that the AI is exceptionally dull... or, depending on your perspective, genius. This is what makes certain scenarios so difficult. Of the few reviews I have read, nary a one fails to indicate that the level of NPC spawn is "absurd" or "outrageous". Examples of these are:

• the 40+ ships you face in the Defense of Outpost 77 (Killer of Giants achieve); this, by a long margin, was the most difficult scenario for me to defeat.
  
• the apparent necessity to not actually defeat the boss ships/final wave, so much as to outlast them as they kill themselves
  
• how to deal with the completely unrealistic behavior of small ships to suicide into player vessels, and the inane physics of how such a small mass can so utterly disrupt the velocity of one so much larger

As a result of the observably stupid AI, you must regard your tactics mindful of a combination of fighting against an amateur and a hive; the smallest ships (Shortfins, Buzzers, and other small-class ships) will suicide at you. Given the NPC use of guns with little-to-no minimum ranges, this can be very effective once you're swamped and immobile, because the larger ships just don't care what is between you and their big guns... and they'll gleefully destroy their own ships just to get at yours. Thus, Murphy's Laws of Combat apply to this game in all respects:

• rule #2: Incoming fire has the right of way
  
• rule #21: Friendly fire - isn't!

This applies also to your ships - if your sleek and nimble scout is in the way of a railgun shot taken by your Dread or Atlas... well, it's not going to be sleek and nimble for much longer.

As a rule therefore, number crunching and powergaming tend to work well in scenario planning, for those scenarios in which you can choose your own fleet.

My first walkthroughs will be of two of these scenarios.

Regarding the Defense of Outpost 77 challenge, the following video was inspirational for my playthrough (give this guy some hits please!):


The short story is that you take the heaviest armor and guns you can (2 Atlases, heavy armor all around, 6-7 Railguns all front mounted, 1 or 2 shields - I did it with 1, he used 2 - and some Beams on the OUTsides for the little suicide ships).

1. back into the little bay directly behind the spawn location, keeping your ships as close together as possible; the bad guys will actually try to wedge you apart
   
2. keep shooting your RGs right down the center of the middle opening, if you're not plotting shots, you're probably doing it wrong (toward the end there may be exceptions)
   
3. use your Supply ships to play capture-recapture the generators - I do not advise that you use those very attractive little inlets and craggy coastlines to try to hide; the bad guys WILL go for your SSs before they go for your main force
   
4. around turn 40-44 you will get the message that you've repelled the onslaught - but it's not over! Don't move your Atlases!
   
5. on turn 46/47, the final wave - a Gargantuan-class ship with 8001 HPs - enters the east side, and immediately moves toward the shallow ground, grounds itself, and begins to take damage

By this time, your ships will likely all be dead... but if you've played carefully, you can keep a supply ship alive and make a run north to avoid combat for a few turns, while the grounding damage kills the Gargie. You'll be sailing blind, and both generators will be offline... don't try to retake them unless you've managed to kill ALL of the HammerHeads, or they will kill you - and losing here because you got greedy is infuriating. The generators are gone - RIP.

Now all you have to do is corner tightly, sail in straight lines - but not straight away from the HHs if you think you are being pursued; make their RG shots hard if you need to - and wait a couple of turns to let the inept Gargie captain relive the glory days of the Titanic.

Viola! You are now a Killer of Giants.

It is NOT necessary to kill all of the enemy ships in this fight, as the fight ends immediately at the turn end where the Gargantuan is destroyed.

This looks like a wall of text, but it's half story-telling, and half strategy. Honestly, it's not a difficult read, and by the end you'll understand exactly how to win this fight.

I played this scenario with a couple of friends about twelve times before we realized that the AI would sail the ship into an island.

The very, very short strategy that worked for us is thus:

1. Lead ship (Bullycruiser): Barbs or Kausers front, mines sides/rear, light shield, maybe a Kauser on your stern
   
2. Trailing ship (Bullycruiser): Barbs or Kausers rear, with some to the sides, light shield and mines rear and/or sides (truly... 3-4 mine units are not too many)
   
3. Flanking ships (2 Scouts): Barbs front, Kausers sides, light shield rear
   
4. This setup is NOT exact - you will have to see where the spawn comes in and how they behave, and probably fail this scenario once or twice, including watching the replay, before you know what exact setup and strategy you will use effectively.

Basically, you want to take ships with enough guns mounted front and back to both damage incoming vessels, as well as damage pursuit, and take mines in order to be a decisive "prey" that they will chase. Mines work very well in this scenario, especially if you mine passages, drop them close to corners where the AI bunches up, or likes to turn in a predictable arc.

Remember, the AI is DUMB, and will more likely follow you in a straight line, than steer around land or obstacles... and they can't see mines. Smoke can work for this purpose too, but it doesn't cause damage, so in my opinion, it's less useful.

You will start in the middle of the map, with your ships facing all different directions. Pick a direction and take all of your ships that way. As you move, try to arrange them so that your "lead" and "trailing" ships are in their proper places in order to maximize your damage potential. We used the flankers largely as evasive units/decoys at first, and tried to use their shields to block shots on the Bullys, whose guns we wanted to protect for as long as possible; in hindsight, it may have been better to do this the other way around, since by the end of the fight you're fleeing and waiting for a ship to die from grounding damage.

Starting on turn 1, the enemy will spawn from every direction and sail toward you in haphazard fashion, trying desperately to either shoot you (reasonable) or ram you (absurd). Given the nature of a wargame however, you know now what to expect. Avoid being bogged down, even to the extent of maneuvering your guns out of firing position; it is much more important that you keep moving... and making them chase you, running into each other as they do. This is where mines start to really pay off.

We ran northwest, and mined the whole passage as we went along, including right down the side of the western island. By the time we ran out of mines at the southern end of the island, on about turn 30, we were out of mines. Unfortunate, since Overlords start spawning from the south at this point (around turn 27). Still, with the now-huge fleet chasing us, they weren't able to keep up with us as we turned back into the middle, until their new reinforcements from the north rammed us, a battle from which only 1 Bullycruiser escaped. He ran full speed to the north/northeast, and cut close corners, counter-clockwise, around the northern island, with about 20 ships in pursuit, trading shots with the closest and using shields to good effect, and made the cut around the northern edge, back into the same waters we had previously mined - and dragged the remaining pursuers right back through that minefield once more. Like I said, mines pay off in this scenario, big time.

When the Charybdia (an Atlas with normal armor) presents (on turn 47, far east edge of the map), you will not want to be near it; it is armed with Barb-/Kauser-ranged weapons (the M1x1, M2x2, and M3x3 guns that players do not have access to), many of which do not have a minimum range, whose firing arcs are 360 coverage. It also has a shield.

For us, this is where the luck really kicked in. With only 1 ship remaining, and it down to under 100 hit points by this time, the closest pursuers rammed each other while cornering, and sunk each other. This left our last guy sailing blind. Having only a normal combat bridge, he just kept on navigating through the mines we'd laid, and tried to repair as much as possible before the inevitible resumption of combat.

Twenty five turns later, in heavy combat with a pursuing Overlord and a Destroyer II approaching (the only remaining ships who had survived the minefield and their own friendly fire), and with barely 300 hit points remaining as his shield failed, he got the victory message. When we watched the replay, the Charybdia had beached itself on the southern edge of the northern-central isle and sunk there... it had never even fired a shot, let alone taken damage from other than grounding.

Given a runthrough or three, anyone can figure out their proper setup to win this fight by making themselves a hard target, playing the long game, and making the enemy come to you - or die trying.

Congratulations - you have Survived the Fury!


A single mine can take out a full health destroyer... and if an Overlord hits 2, it's finished.


We mined the western side of the map starting in the NW passage between the central islands, all the way to the southern end before we ran out of mines.




Overlords come in, at first from the South.


My buddy is running to put distance between himself and the Charybdia's spawn point... and the entire enemy fleet...


...and he's making it work.


He rounds the corner after the Charyb spawns in the middle of the east side of the map, and starts after him, heading NW with the rest of the AI fleet...


...and he runs like the Devil is chasing him....


...dragging the pursuit back through our mines once more...


...and destroying several more as they pursue:


Meanwhile, the Chaybdia is sitting on the bottom, slowly, slowly dying on the island to the NE:


And finally, she goes down, yeilding a satisfying victory:

This scenario was another that frustrated me for quite a few runthroughs; at least in my experience, and unlike some other challenges, you apparently can't run around islands and draw them after you, which is what I had tried several times before giving up and just sitting in the middle... several times. The main reason for this is that the main ship, the Atlas (named Patro in this scenario) cannot navigate any but two paths out of the center of the islands, both on the east side of the map.

This makes me wonder what kind of highly skilled naval tactician would place such a ship in the dire position in which it begins... but, hey, there's two repair platforms there, so why not? ;)

The basic synopsis of this fight requires understanding of several items, some of which are painfully obvious, others of which I learned only after several attempts:

1. You cannot choose your fleet for this challenge; you just use what they give you. For this reason, it's a fight best done solo, as opposed to multi, with mates.
   
2. Your ships begin in a rough star formation; they should maintain this formation for as long as possible - especially the Patro (it's highly UN-maneuverable). This is mostly because if you react to bring your best guns to bear on any given area, the next spawn is calculated to enter opposite that location, when your shields and guns will be unable to deal with it quickly; in this way, after about the 4th wave, you lose maneuver room, and AI ships start to pile up fast.
   
3. Your artillery is garbage; don't bother trying to sight with your lighter ships, just fire it as often as it recycles at the inlet openings you can hit from your starting position. I shot at the shortest ranges/tightest passages as possible and occasionally damaged ships would enter after a hit or near-miss.
   
4. Your Rockets should be considered largely ineffective as well, mostly due to the fact that the ships against which they are most effective will move too quickly to close range before the projectiles can strike. If, however, you ever see a pile-up start to occur, that is a good place to put both pods at the same time.
   
5. The RPs should be used by your faster ships, as opposed to the Patro, until absolutely necessary (near the end, when ships start dying).
   
6. Remember: RPs do not regenerate repair capability while ships are within their repair radius!
   
7. Your smaller ships, though FAR more effecitve than the Patro, are mobile shields to prevent damage for as long as possible.
   
8. In my game, I did not once leave the enclosed area with any ship; they simply become ineffective too fast, or die too quickly.
   
   In the last couple of turns, it is very possible that I just got lucky with some bad AI maneuvers and lucky deflections, after being unlucky with some bad misses/deflections off of the enemy armor earlier in the game. As with other scenarios, you can benefit greatly from watching replays and making a record of when/where the enemy ships will enter - which is the only way your artillery and rockets will be of any use at all.
   
   Some things worthy of note:
   • A couple of Ravens (medium ship, artillery and rocket, 1/ea) will enter and hit you in an alarming manner; the first shoots at you on T16/17, and becomes visible only on T17/18 from the NE, where it will park and try to keep hitting the center of your formation, or the closest ship to it's position (a scout). I ate the damage and immediately moved the Scout to the southern RP, and turned my Interceptor to bring guns to bear, as well as launching rockets from the Patro. This attack is one of the ones that is hardest NOT to respond to, but don't break formation to chase him; with the Interceptor turned toward him and the Patro's heavy guns on him, just hit him and he dies pretty quick. For the two times he did get to shoot at me, I had shields up on the BACK of most of my ships, where I figured he'd targeted his rockets:
     
     
     
     
   • The second Raven enters the fight on ~T22 from the SE, and rammed the Scout I'd moved to the southern RP; his shots were mostly ineffective, and oveshot all of my ships. By this point I had to break formation to engage him and other ships that were piling up, just because the Patro's guns were trying to shoot through my own ships. From this point on (about T28 or so) my formation was very loose, just as the first HammerHead engaged from the west, stopping in the inlet to do so - and making himself a great target for Rockets, the only time in teh game this opportunity presented clearly. Sadly for me, I had moved the Patro to the northern RP by this time, and could not engage him as such, so the Patro's Kausers and the Scouts and Interceptor had to handle him with Barbs and Kausers.
     
   • On T30 a Mako enters the map on the middle of the west edge, and will launch rockets (2 pods) as soon as he is able. This is an elite ship, and will likely pound the Patro or Interceptor, unless both are outside his rocket attack range. I advise that you let the Patro take the hits, since the Interceptor is useful for a longer time, if you can keep him alive..
     
   • From T32 on, my formation completely fell apart, and I lost a Scout and Interceptor in short order; from this point on, it was chaos, and I just kept moving the Patro to keep artillery firing on the main egress points used by the enemy ships for as long as possible, and trying to use it as a mobile shield for the remaining pair of Scouts.
     
   • On T43 a Mako and Sharpnose I enter from the SW and SE corners of the map (respectively). BOTH of these ships are Flags, and when you kill them, presumably the mission ends; I cannot confirm this since they were the last AI ships on the map for me. If you have remained within the circle of islands, you won't see them until T44/45, though the Mako, just as the first one did, will fire rockets as soon as it has a target within range... which means you'll probably see the rockets about 3-4 seconds before seeing the ship itself.
     
   • The Mako comes straight in, entering the circle at the 8 o'clock position, while for me, the Sharpnose circled around to the 4 o'clock position; both of them got right up on top of the Patro, killing one of the Scouts as they did so, while the other was able to reposition for shots on the rear of the Mako.
   
   From this point, the Mako circled around to engage the Scout, while the Sharpnose just say under its minimum ranges, unable to shoot anything, and blocked from entering the circle by the physical mass of the Patro. The Mako moved far enough and fast enough to ram my Scout, and because he did so, I was able to hit him with rockets from the Patro, and that was enough to sink him (T49/50). In epic showdown irony, the Mako's parting rocket shots likewise sunk the Patro, allowing the undamaged Sharpnose into the circle with my last ship, a Scout with only 251 hit points remaining.
   
   
   
   By about T53/54, I think was the first time I truly appreciated having side mounted guns, because it became a maneuvering battle between my Scout and a Sharpnose I, whose only armament is a Barb mounted to the front. I was able to use shields to block his shots at me, and I made it to the northern RP where I was able to repair to half health (630 hps) while he was still south of me and turning northward. I sailed rigth on through the RP and turned sharply east, toward the center of the circle, intending to keep under his guns and try to outflank his firing arcs; against a player, this almost certainly would not have worked as well as it did.
   
   
   
   A lucky shot took out his Barb and we sailed rigth past each other again, and my stern guns did some damage, then he sailed right into the rocks at the very northern edge of the map, doing hundreds of points of damage... but he managed to get out with under 30 hitpoints, and allowed me the honor of the final, killing blow: