Nope. This is a tactic, not a spoiler...except for the Kamov Torps. But does that matter? You posted already anyways.
I love to cloak behind Basilisks and then shoot.

Going to move this to Starlancer Spoiler.

Take a Reaper, load it with Solomons. The Reaper has enough primary weapons power to take care of any Kamovs, Basilisks, and the Pukov's shield generator and turrets, so keep the solomons. Remember, you can still "see" the cloaked Kamovs, they're like blue ghosts flying toward the Yamato. Take them out when they're cloaked. There are six total.

Now, when the Yamato lines up to fire torps at the Pukov, park yourself above the Yamato. Each time the Pukov shoots torps, fire the same number of solomons. They will find each torp. The Reaper is the only ship with enough hardpoints to do this. Just stay there and keep doing this until the Pukov shoots about 20 torps. At that point, the Yamato has already destroyed the Pukov, and the explosion wipes out the torps.

My fondest memories of Starlancer are of playing the Pukov mission in Multiplayer. Danged if it isn't probably the sweetest experiance ever.

And loading up any ship with Solomons is the best way to go. You haven't played Starlancer until you've sat behind the hanger in the Pukov mission, watched two wings of Sabers launched, and scattered twenty or so Solomons at their tailpipes. That's the day you really start to live.

I think the best way to beat the Pukov mission is to play it multiplayer. We usually have a pair of people in Shrouds cloak and afterburn toward the Pukov. One of them smashes the shield generator while the other two clear all the turrets. Usually by the first cut scene in the mission we've already got the shield generator down and all the top turrets taking out.

We usually follow that up with some strategic targeting of the bottom turrets - BE CAREFUL HERE! The Pukov will at some point start to turn and it does turn FAST so it will ram you HARD.

ALSO! BE ESPECIALLY AWARE! Whenever you fly near the Pukov or the Yamato - those big guns will hit you and will kill you in one hit. You need to maintain a safe distance from the Pukov especially when targeting turrets to remain safely out of the way of the Big Guns. Shrouds work especially well for anti-turret work, as they can cloak.

The bombers will launch now at some point, the first wave only has two, they're very easy to catch right outside of the hanger. In multiplayer we usually have a cloaked ship waiting at the bow of the ship for them. The second flight is four ships instead of two, for a total of six (Boscoe mentioned this, but I wanted to cover that they come out in two waves of two and four). They're a bit harder for one person to catch but like Boscoe said you can see the blue glow (and on a side note, if you turnt he graphics down you can see the whole ship, surronded by a blue glow, just not target it - this is useful if you're REALLY having problems flying the mission.

So our typical multiplayer load out involves someone in a shroud (or more typically, two people in shrouds - we usually play with a team of four) and someone (usually two people) in a Reaper, and then I'm usually the fourth person and I fly the Pheonix, mostly because I prefer the manuverability of the Pheonix to the heavy guns of the Reaper. The Reaper just handles two slow for me.

During the entire fight the Reaper Team is working on the fighters darting in and out of the conflict - with special attention to Basalisks. Sabers aren't really any threat but those basalisks WILL try to pounce anyone attacking the Pukov, and with that pesky close sometimes you don't know they're there until they unload on you.

Now...onto the Torp Strike. Gamma doesn't do much good, at this point it's usually safe for the Shrouds to be escorting the bomber strike, just to ensure a stray fighter doesn't ruin the day for you...believe me, it'll happen. And that puts them in the ideal position to park above the torp slot. With two Shrouds up there and the Pukov out of turrets, and most of the fighters dead, you'll have an easy time of the torpedoes. However, better safe then sorry: the reaper team should take up a position near the Yamato, facing the torpedo tubes and prepare to pick up any torpedoes the shroud team misses. This is important because if the Shroud team moves out of position over the torpedo tubes they may miss the next strike, leaving more torpedoes homing on the Yamato.

That being said, if you can keep the whole team alive up to this point in the mission you're pretty much set to go.

There's really only two things that ever kill me on this mission. The first I already mentioned, watch out for friendly fire from the big guns. If you're sitting a full health and shields one minute and dying the next, you probably got hit by one (I usually make the Pukovs Big Gun my first target with some screamers, just to reduce the number of shots in game. The Yamato fires two shots remember, and they'll pass right through the hull of the Pukov, so keep alert.

The other thing that kills me (you won't have to worry about this in single player) is a wingman unleashing a load of Solomons. Yes, I can see you laughing now - it's not so funny when it happens to you mid mission. Solomons home on the nearest enemy with blatant disregard for any friendly fighters that might be between the solomons and their target. We've lost countless multiplayer missions because of Solomons killing an allied wingman. It sucks. That being said, before firing your solomons check your radar TWICE. Then alert your comrades. Then check your radar TWICE more. Then alerty your comrades again. THEN fire. For extra safety (my team always does this) all friendly ships should make sure they are far far far away from enemy ships when a load of Solomons goes out.

Occasinally, a Basilisk will turn at me and fire full guns at me, and knock my health significantly, but the best way to avoid that situation is to have a wingman (or the AI wingman) jumping on this fighters as quickly as possible. Like I said, the sabers can pretty much be ignored except in the case of it being necessary to kill them to advance to the next scripted mission event.

Lastly, if you don't eliminate all the turrets on the Pukov, the bomber strike may have difficulty getting through. So try to get that done ASAP. It also helps pouncing on the Kamovs and Sabers when they launch, as the Pukov won't have the ability to take pot-shots at fighters camping the hanger. Screamers are nice for pouncing full wings from the hanger - though occasinally I've seen Solomons knock eight fighters out of the sky in the span of about two seconds.

I submit that everyone needs to play this mission multiplayer with at least three other people. It just rocks. This is probably my favorite mission in the game, followed closely by the raid in the Cloaked Kamovs and the mission where you have to escort the transports deploying the satellites.

Great post Akula!!! I'll have to try this in mulitplayer sometime again, been quite a while. I should note that with SLTool and SLEdit I'm able to add many extra guns and hardpoints, so it's been a while since I beat the mission with "vanilla Starlancer". The way I mentioned above is what worked without editing.
Again, good stuff, thanks for your post!

Twas a bit long. =( But I was working on a Starlancer Multiplayer FAQ a while back, things to look out for, unlocking ships, and the like. But I never finished it because my friends and I never finished playing through the campaign. I just copied and pasted some of notes from the FAQ into here.

Your piloting skills will affect this mission A LOT. I will post how well the Shroud, Pheonix, and Reaper will do with knocking torpedoes out. I choose these three ships because they all have Blind Fire. What, you want me to do the Predator? No way.

Shroud:
You've got a useful ability that you have used a lot, probably at least, when you use the Shroud. It's called cloaking boys. One problem I find EXTREMLY annoying is when you're taking out the torpedoes, the Basilisks or Sabers will choose that moment to fire at you.
Cloak, stay at either the Yamato or the Pukov, wait for Yamato to launch, then decloak. Probably halfway through your cloaking, the Pukov will return the fire, with their own torps. Fire Solomons or Raptors at them, Or afterburn your way to them and just shoot them. Both methods combined might be neccesary, as the Shroud doesn't have enough hardpoints to get all the Solomons in for the torpedoes. Or Raptors.

Pheonix:
Ah, Gattling Lasers. Most of you will know they are very, VERY fast, though they aren't the killer ammo. Still, you could scrape a torpedo with an ejection pod and it'll go boom. Gattling Lasers are ideal torpedo shooters.
Fly around the Pukov, shooting anything neccesary. Just stay close to the Pukov. The Kill list include turrets, shield generators, fighters who get too close for comfort, and the rest. (Can the engine be shot down?) When Yamato launches, get into position (unless you have already) to chase after those torps. Or you could place yourself really high, maybe about 70 kilometers, and wait for it to come. (What does kps mean?)

Reaper:
The Reaper has even more annoying ammo for the Pukov to handle. Ideal for taking out their turrets as well, and a few more subtargets and fighters who want to get in the way. The fact you only need to hit an enemy 2 times with Vulcan Batteries on the same side helps.
But we got even better. The Reaper has 8 hardpoints for loading your Solomons on, or maybe a Raptor if you don't feel comfortable with them. The Vulcan Battery can be reserved, perhaps, for the fighters, while Gattling Lasers will take out the Torpedoes. Just remember that you can't have both guns, or Blind Fire will deactivate.



Edited by - Jambo on 4/5/2005 5:17:57 PM

Yes, you can destroy the engines! I think I forgot to mention this in my post. Also, I respecticfully disagree with your suggestion that Blindfire is more useful on this mission - there's at least one point in the mission where you need to kill the fighters to advance the mission plot, and blindfire just doesn't hack it with Basalisks.

After playing with ships that have 2 sets of weapons (Or three, like I think the Wolverine has) I find that I do much better putting just a few shots on target from all my guns then an endless stream of accurate shots from Blindfire. Even with blindfire you still have to be pretty much on target. If you're going to be that on target, why not one full burst from your strongest guns?

I still prefer Blind Fire...did I say I was a pro pilot? I'd play another game if it weren't for Blind Fire.
When you react fast, you can take Basilisks on. Since the Shroud has very good speed and agility, I move around like mad demon.
Think Pheonix. Or Reaper. Power shots with Blind Fire....that's better.



Edited by - Jambo on 4/7/2005 2:50:03 PM

I like the Pheonix the best...my problem with blindfire is that it allows anyone to play the game well, even those who don't have any paticular flight experiance. And because they don't have or need the flight experiance, they never learn to develop it. It becomes just another point and click shooter game, more like arcade the simulator.

That's why I stick with the Wolverine, it's slow as hell and has no blindfire, but one good burst from my guns kills anything. And I do mean anything. I took down two kurgens in about five seconds flying that thing.

I had to fly the Shroud on a mission today and it took me twice as long to kill the enemy as it would have in a Crusader. And about four times as long as I could have done it in a wolverine. I mean, to each his own, but real pilots don't need blindfire.