saintxi.com

Greetings everyone,

Of course I really like this game, but before singing all its praises I need to finish it first. Like most games the quests get increasingly difficult as you go on, but usually the key to victory is in learning an important lesson needed to win each one. For example, there was one early quest that was quite difficult until you figure out that you need to learn how to manage your colonies properly so that you can switch your mining nodes over to fuel once your population income is sufficiently high. There was another one that forces you to learn how to manage multiple fleets.

Having said that, repeated tries with Haven have failed to uncover the secret to winning that mission. In short, the bad guys come to get me long before I have a strong economy up and running. I know there are some quests that if you don't trigger a certain event you get a breather in which to build up. For example, there was one later quest where you are asked to send a fleet to investigate one of your colonies that had gone silent. The trouble is, when you do this it triggers attacks by the bad guys. Of course then I held off doing this for a while, and in the meantime built up cities and defense platforms on my other planets. But I digress. If there is such an 'interim' in Haven to build up, I've not found it.

FYI, in my latest attempt I actually had a single planet with three colonies with one of the colonies a city and protected by a defense station. I was feeling then that I might have actually had a live one there, but as it turned out when the bad guys attacked they brushed aside my station, cruiser, and three fighters with little trouble. It was like I was totally outclassed.

Anyway, suggestions would be appreciated. I would also add that I want to call 'Light of Altair' the best space strategy game since the original Homeworld, and I will providing I don't get frustrated with these final two quests.

is this the mission where you enter a system and have about 20 mins to build up a fleet large enogth to make a run for the hyperspace gate?

Yes, I believe so. It was funny though. In one of my tries I actually did take the gate, as early on it was only lightly defended. Made no difference though. They still came after me and clobbered me.

I guess then the fault must be in my colony management? It seems that thus far I've not been able to build up a viable force in twenty minutes.

Well, in my latest attempt I went ahead and struck at the gate early again while building up on just one Planet (Stranger). It seems this time though with the gate taken out the bad guys are only sending relatively light forces against me. I'm still not out of the woods yet, what with my treasury running barely above zero much of the time, but I think I might be on my way.

can you jump out of the system?

I think you have to destroy the gate.
Then it is easier... I do not recall having trouble on any of those missions...

Yep, once I destroyed the gate, most of my troubles (at least for that leg of the mini-campaign) were over. In fact I would say that it's probably best to hit the gate early rather than wait the twenty minutes, as if you wait too long the bad guys will build up their forces protecting the gate. Anyway, although I found dealing with the pirates in the next leg of the campaign a bit challenging, I was of course eventually able to prevail.

There were two major lessons learned from this campaign though. The first is that you have to pay close attention to what weapons systems and protection the bad guys are using, and adjust accordingly. It was very frustrating to see the pirates take down my ultra-expensive space stations with only a small number of ships. The other lesson was learning how to manage very large fleets between multiple star systems.

Anyway, one more to go, and with the increasingly difficult quests, I shudder to think what hoops this final mission is going to make me jump through.

I think someone mentioned a way to beat the system on that level, ascension. Of course, I also believe it is in the help on revolutions pages...good luck finding it, because I may be wrong.

Thanks Domino. If I get stuck on Ascension (and expect I probably will), then I will check out the page you mentioned.

Speaking of Ascension, I used to play keyboards for a Yes tribute band with that name.

BTW, I gave Altair an '8' on Metacritic, and now think it is more deserving of a '9'. I think it is that good.

blergh metacritic