Star Trek Deep Space Nine: Dominion Wars Unofficial Strategy Guide and FAQ by Kasey Chang Released December 31, 2002 0 Introduction This section is "about the FAQ". Feel free to skip this section. Happy New Year. :-) If you like the FAQ, send me $1.00. :-) See [0.3] 0.1 A word from the author A quick browse through the gamefaq.com shows that there is no FAQ for this Star Trek game. So here's my version. This is a FAQ, NOT a manual. You won't learn how to play the game with this document, and I'm NOT about to add it to ease the life of software pirates. This USG only covers the PC version since that's the only version that I have (and exist, as far as I know). Some of you may recognize my name as the editor for the XCOM and XCOM2: TFTD FAQ's, among others. This FAQ is dedicated to all who lost their lives in the terrorist attacks on the US East Coast (except those terrorists, who deserves much worse for causing all those innocent deaths). If you find this FAQ helpful, go give blood at your local blood donation centers or donate to your local Red Cross. 0.2 Terms of Distribution This document is copyrighted by Kuo-Sheng "Kasey" Chang (c) 2001- 2002, all rights reserved excepted as noted above in the disclaimer section. This document is available FREE of charge subjected to the following conditions: 1) This notice and author's name must accompany all copies of this document: "Star Trek Deep Space Nine: Dominion Wars Unofficial Strategy Guide and FAQ" is copyrighted (c) 2001-2002 by Kasey K.S. Chang, all rights reserved except as noted in the disclaimer." 2) This document must NOT be modified in any form or manner without prior permission of the author with the following exception: if you wish to convert this document to a different file format or archive format, with no change to the content, then no permission is needed. 2a) In case you can't read, UNMODIFIED means just that: UNMODIFIED. No banners, no HTML borders, no cutting up into multiple pages to get you more banner hits, and esp. no adding your site name to the site list. (Someone actually did that to one of my FAQs.) [Small exception: a small toolbar above the FAQ is acceptable.] 3) No charge other than "reasonable" compensation should charged for its distribution. Free is preferred, of course. Sale of this information is expressly prohibited. If you see any one selling this guide, drop me a line at ksc1@aol.com. 4) If you used material from this, PLEASE ACKNOWLEDGE the source, else it is plagiarism. 5) The author hereby grants all games-related web sites the right to archive and link to this document to share among the game fandom, provided that all above restrictions are followed. Sidenote: The above conditions are known as a statutory contract. If you meet them, then you are entitled to the rights I give you in 5), i.e. archive and display this document on your website. If you don't follow them, then you did not meet the statutory contract conditions, and therefore you have no right to display this document. If you do so, then you are infringing upon my copyright. This section was added for any websites that don't seem to understand this. For the gamers: You are under NO obligation to send me ANY compensation. This FAQ is dedicated to the victims of the terrorist attack on the US East Coast. If you find this FAQ helpful, go give blood at your local blood donation centers or donate to your local Red Cross. And may God (whatever his name) bless you. 0.3 Voluntary Contribution Gamers who read this guide are under NO obligation to send me ANY compensation. However, a VOLUNTARY contribution of one (1) US Dollar would be very appreciated. If you choose to do so, please make your US$1.00 check or $1.00 worth of stamps to "Kuo-Sheng Chang", and send it to "2220 Turk Blvd. #6, San Francisco, CA 94118 USA". If you don't live in the US, please send me some local stamps. I collect stamps too. For the record, out of ALL the FAQs I wrote (33 at least count) over the past six years, I've received exactly 7 dollars and 2 sets of stamps, as of release of this guide. So I'm NOT making any money off these guides, folks. 0.4 How and When to Contact Me PLEASE let me know if there's a confusing or missing remark, mistakes, and thereof... If you find a question about this game that is not covered in the USG, e-mail it to me at the address specified below. I'll try to answer it and include it in the next update. Please do NOT write me for technical support. That is the job of the publisher. Please do NOT ask me to send you a list of controls, the manual, etc. If you borrowed the game without borrowing the manual, blame your own stupidity. If you bought the game without a manual, blame your own stupidity. If you copied the game without copying the manual, you're not only scum, but STUPID scum. Please do NOT ask me to answer questions that have already answered in this FAQ/guide. It makes you REALLY idiotic. I will NOT answer stupid questions like the ones above unless I'm in a really good mood. If you send questions like that, do NOT expect a reply. The address below is spelled out phonetically so spammers can't use spambots on it: Kilo-Sierra-Charlie-Hotel-Alpha-November-Golf-Seven-Seven AT Yankee-Alpha-Hotel-Oscar-Oscar DOT Charlie-Oscar-Mike To decipher this, simply read the first letter off each word except for the numbers and the punctuation. This is "military phonetics" or "aeronautical phonetics" in case you're wondering. This document was produced on Microsoft Word 97. Some editing was done with Editpad (editpadclassic.com). 0.5 The Author I am just a game player who decided to write my own FAQs when the ones I find don't cover what I want to see. Lots of people like what I did, so I kept doing it. Previously, I've written Unofficial Strategy Guides (USGs) for XCOM, XCOM2:TFTD, Wing Commander, Wing Commander 2, Wing Commander 3, Wing Commander 4, Privateer, Spycraft, 688(I) Hunter/Killer. Mechwarrior 3, MW3 Expansion Pack, Mechwarrior 4, Mechwarrior 4: Black Knight, Need for Speed: Porsche Unleashed, The Sting!, Terranova, Fallout Tactics, Starfleet Command Volume II, DS9: The Fallen, DS9: Dominion War, Driver, and a few more. To contact me, see 0.4 above. 0.6 Disclaimer/ Copyright Information Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Dominion Wars is a trademark of Simon & Schuster. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine copyrighted by Paramount Corporation. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Dominion Wars is designed by Gizmo Industries (Gizmo Games). This USG is not endorsed or authorized by Simon & Schuster, Paramount, or Gizmo. Most information compiled in this USG has been gathered independently through the author's efforts. If it appears similar to tips offers in any other FAQ or guides, it is probably because we came to the same conclusion. Some information or tidbits have been gathered through the various DomWar forums, such as the one on gaming.startrek.com. Thanks to all the participants, who are too numerous to list here. 0.7 Spoiler Warning The USG contains spoilers about all missions in STDS9: Dominion War (hereby referred to as DomWar). Only get enough help to get past the hump, so you don't spoil the sense of accomplishment. 0.8 Release History 11-SEP-2001 initial release 31-DEC-2002 updated for V1.04 and unofficial V1.05 info 0.9 The Most Frequently Asked Questions Some information here are excerpted from Annika's DomWar Technical FAQ. Go to https://gaming.startrek.com, then message boards, then Dominion Wars, then FAQ, and you'll see latest version of her FAQ. Thanks! General Questions Q: Can you send me Dominion War? A: Why should I? Q: Can you send me the manual (or portions thereof)? A: Ditto. Q: Can you tell me how to play the game? A: Read the manual, which is that little booklet in the inside cover of your CD case. Q: What are the key commands? A: Read the manual, or look in the game under preferences / keyboard. Q: What's the latest version? A: The official patch is 1.04. However, there is a patch 1.05 out there. You can see the version number in the lower right hand corner of the "main menu". Go to the link at https://gaming.startrek.com, then pick forums, and you should see the link to the patch. There are FOUR versions, depending on which version is on the CD and where you got it. Please use the right one, and read the FAQ. Q: My box did not come with Star Trek: Starship Creator Warp II! A: The non-US version (different distributor) did not include this bonus disc. Q: How do I change screen resolution in the game? How about gamma? A: The game ONLY runs at 800x600. The manual is incorrect. V1.04 added a "gamma" slider. . Q: Any mods? Editors? A: Nothing yet. Supposedly a mission editor may become available later, but it's NOT official. See https://www.ussmetaloid.4mg.com/ for more info. Q: When I load a saved game my ships will no longer fire. Why? A: Apparently when save game is loaded, all ships were issued "hold fire" command. Try ordering them to shoot again. Q: How do I change the difficulty level? A: Use the option slider. Q: What does that actually do? A: If you turn it to one side or another, that side (easy side = you, hard side = enemy) gets a combat bonus in both starship combat and marine combat. Compatibility Questions Q: Is the game compatible with WinXP? A: It *should* work in compatibility mode, but it's not supported. Try it? Q: Does the game work with video card _______? A: If it that card supports DirectX and Direct3D, it should work fine. Please download and try the latest video drivers for your specific card. Q: I have problems with ATI Rage series card. A: Please search for "RageMan" 3rd party drivers. Those seem to help when the ATI drivers didn't. Q: Game loads 75% and freezes... A: This seems to happen with some "built-in" (onboard) sound cards. Try turning down the DirectSound acceleration. Q: Game crashes when launched A: If you are running desktop at extremely high resolution (at or higher than 1280x1024) this can be a problem. Please switch to 1024x768 or below and try again. Fleet Setup Questions Q: How do I use device ______? What devices should I use? A: See the device section. V1.03 and later, all the devices are automatically equipped onto the ship at beginning of the mission. Previous versions may require you to right-click the device to "equip" the ship with it. Q: Can I save my fleet setup? A: Hit EXIT button. The menu should pop up allowing you to save. Q: I can't figure out the save interface! A: Click on one of saved games (or even AUTOSAVE). Hit backspace- key until the name at the bottom box is gone. Enter new save game name (no space allowed). Hit enter-key to save. To overwrite existing game, don't change the name. WARNING: overwriting existing game may CRASH the system. Delete extra saves when you exit the game. Q: What do the different crews do? A: Security: capture enemy ships, or guard against capture. Engineering: repair damage to ship (cannot repair destroyed components) Command: allow ship to go above 1/4 impulse. Q: What are those "medals"? A: They add a slight bonus to each captain in the different areas. I didn't find them to have any significant effect. I also don't see how captains receive them. They seem to be random depending mainly on the number of kills. General Mission Questions Q: My shields drop for no reason! A:You probably entered a nebula. The computer should have warned you "entering nebula". Shields don't work in the nebula. Sometimes ion storm is also referred to as a nebula. Q: One of my ships just stopped responding to commands! A: If you captured enemy ship(s), this can sometimes happen. The only way to regain control is to destroy the captured ship(s) until you are back to six ships (or less). Q: What is that triangle with rounded corners on the screen/map? A: That's one of your objectives. Remember the briefing screen? Q: What's that tall thin box with a little head and tail on the screen/map? A: That's a patrol point. You have to reach (fly near) all of them in the mission to accomplish one of the objectives, usually patrol. Q: Some of my ship's items are inoperative no matter the number of engineers! A: Destroyed items cannot be repaired. Movement Questions Q: I ordered warp speed then one of the ships just blew up! A: Your ship had a warp-speed collision with something else. Next time, turn the ships to the right heading, let them spread out a bit first, THEN order warp speed. And make sure there's nothing in their way. Order warp speed for each ship separately may help. Q: My ship just keep popping into and out of warp! A: You ordered it to attack a target AND warp speed. It's trying to do both. Instead, click near your objective to set the destination. After the ship(s) come out of warp, THEN order the attack. Q: I can't issue accurate movement orders by clicking in the 3D screen! A: Try clicking the location on the mini-map (scanner map) instead. Zoom in to be more precise. Q: My captured ships won't go above 1/4 impulse! A: You need to beam over some Command (red) personnel. Specific Mission Questions Q: How do I beat the Defiant/Argolis mission? A: Take on ONE ship at a time, and take out BOTH generators before you start on the OWPs. If you still have problem, read the mission walkthru. Q: How do I rescue Tom Riker? Which ship is he on? A: The Keldon he's on has crew of 960 instead of the regular 200+. Get between the prison planet and Cardassia Prime (the planet in the northwestern corner) and take on all the Keldons that come along. If you still have problems, read the mission walkthru. Q: I can't finish mission ______! I've destroyed or captured everything! A: In some missions you must destroy the objective instead of capturing it. This particularly applies to the Dominion missions. Engage the self-destruct (see the cheat section) on the item in question should solve it. See also bug list. Misc. Questions Q: What's with the micro-quantum torpedoes on the Achilles? I never see them shoot! A: Apply the V1.04 patch. Q: What's this about importing Starship Creator Warp II ships and captains? A: They can only be used in Multiplayer games. You can choose to allow those special ships and crews in the game setup. Q: Where are the cheat codes? A: See last section Q: Can I play the movies outside the game? A: The game uses the popular BINK video format. You can download a player from https://www.radgametools.com. The movies are on the CD in the VIDEO subdirectory and should also be in the install directory on the HD. 1 Game Information Dominion War is a real-time starship tactical combat simulation in a 2D world that simulates starship combat in the world of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, with 3D perspectives. The game is set during the Dominion War, when the Federation and the Klingons attempt to defeat the Dominion invasion. You can play either the Alliance or the Dominion. Your first mission start you off in the Badlands, and progress to either defeat of the Dominion and invasion of Cardassia Prime (Fed side) or conquest of Earth (Dominion side). There are two single-player campaigns of 10 missions for each side. The campaigns are strictly linear. You must finish one mission to advance to the next one. There is no resource building or gathering during the mission. In this aspect it is similar to Myth. Instead, you are allocated certain amount of credits. You use these to outfit your fleet with captains, ships, devices, and/or additional crew. Once your fleet setup is complete, you launch the fleet into combat into 3D combat, through the movement is only 2D (just like Star Trek). All the ships have the appropriate weapon arcs and special equipment as such. Several of ships have been created just for this game. The ships range from class 1 (really small and weak) to class 5 (battleship type) and are nicely detailed. All the weapons emanate from the appropriate positions on the ship though occasionally, when ships are firing AND maneuvering, you may see ships firing through portions of itself. You can use transporters to beam over marines to capture other ships, or beam anti-matter charges onto other ships and so on. At the end of mission, the captain may gain (or even lose) experience, and perhaps be promoted (demoted?), and thus eligible to command different ships. They can also receive commendations, which adds to their effectiveness in certain areas. There is no "difficulty level" per se. There is a difficulty multiplier bar that adjusts some AI factors like weapon hit percentage, sensor range, and such. Multiplay is supported through Windows DirectPlay with both host and client possible, esp. through GameSpy service. There are a variety of game types. Please see your README file for details. You can also play through Gamespy Arcade (free copy included on CD). 2 The Ships Here we discuss the ships available to each faction. Keep in mind that you usually don't get that much of a selection in the game until the very end. Previously I've reported that SP and MP have different ship stats. This is not quite right. There is a bug in the game that causes the fleet setup display to show random numbers for the ships. 2.1 General Comments In general, two ships of one class are about equal to ONE ship of the class above it. For example, it takes two class 1 ships to match one class 2 ship, and so on. That's assuming shields and all such are working, and not counting any devices. As ships aren't that expensive, it does pay to upgrade. Info here is going to be somewhat different from the manual or even the website, as these are the info that actually made it into the game. In general, class 1 ships are useless. You really want class 2 or better. The ships are listed with their stats like this: shields / weapons / impulse speed / cost. Please note that the ship stats seem to have some bugs in them so I can't be absolutely sure of the numbers. 2.2 United Federation of Planets (Feds) In general, the Feds have the best ships all around. Their ships are a bit slow, but nicely shielded, and good firepower. Feds use photon torpedoes (with quantum torpedoes on some ships or as upgrades) and phasers, though some use pulse phasers. Their ships carry decent amount of marines, esp. the larger ships. However, their lack of Class 4 ships is a concern. 2.2.1 Sabre (Class 1) [3/3/6/2000] Sabre is like cannon fodder. Its weapons will barely scratch a bigger ship. Even right at the very beginning you should use Steamrunner instead. 2.2.2 Steamrunner (Class 2) [5/3/5/4000] Start with this ship. It is not bad for its class, but a little low on firepower compared to Escort-class, but you get plenty of these vs. ONE Escort-class. 2.2.3 Oberth (Class 2) [5/1/6/2000] Oberth is a research ship that has virtually no weapons, but VERY good sensor range. It would work well as a scout, and can get away from most threats. It is not useful in single-player, but can be useful in multiplayer games, esp. in "find the founder" or similar scenarios. 2.2.4 Escort (Class 2) [5/6/5/6000] Many people think of this as the Defiant-class. It's not QUITE the overwhelming superior ship you see in the episodes, but it is the best class 2 ship. There's only one of these ships available. 2.2.5 Troop Carrier (Class 2) [1/1/3/2000] Also known as the transport or freighter, this ship allows you to carry a lot of troops for massive invasions. You should not need to buy one ever. If a mission calls for one, one will be provided. 2.2.6 Akira (Class 3) [6/6/4/6400] Akira heavy cruiser is a good heavy cruiser. Which is about all there is to say. :-) 2.2.7 Achilles (Class 4) [9/10/4/10000] This ship comes into play late, the only ship of her class, and experimental (according to the plot). It is worth the wait though. Think of it as the bigger brother to the Defiant would not be far off, as it has pulse phasers, quantum torpedoes, AND a spine-mounted phalanx-array of EIGHT micro-quantum-torpedo launchers. It can defeat any other class 4 starship, and is a good match with class 5's. (Previously listed as 9/8/4) 2.2.8 Galaxy (Class 5) [10/9/4/12000] Battleship of the Federation, this ship has the highest weapon rating in the game (not alone though) and shields to take a LOT of damage (one of the highest shield rating in the game) so it can "take a lickin' and keep in kickin'". It can be a real ship killer with the quantum torpedo upgrade and phaser range extenders. 2.3 Klingon Empire (Klin) Klingon ships all come with cloaking device, less shields, and faster speed under impulse. Klingons use disruptors and torpedoes, though some ships use pulse disruptors. Klingons can apparently use quantum torpedo devices, so if you have the money, add them. 2.3.1 B'Rel (Class 1) [2/2/7/2000] Cannon fodder, just like the Sabre. This one has even LESS shields and power than the Sabre! 2.3.2 K'tinga (Class 2) [3/3/5/4200] You need quite a few of those to hit a class 3. Don't even think about taking on a class 4. Even within Class 2 it's under- matched. 2.3.3 K'Vorcha / K'vort'cha (Class 3) [5/6/5/6200] Pretty balanced ship. For a Klingon. Not a bad match for the Akira. Slightly inconsistent spelling. The game is not very consistent on the spelling, which is why you see it listed twice here. 2.3.4 Vorcha (Class 4) [6/6/4/9000] This attack cruiser will be your only Class 4 ship for a while, and it's actually not bad. Just remember it carries less shields than your equivalent Fed, so remember to rebalance shields more often, and pull it out of battle if need be. And of course, it's nowhere NEAR as good as an Archilles class starship, but you get plenty of these, vs. only one Archilles. 2.3.5 Negh'Var (Class 5) [7/8/3/12000] The Klingon battleship, it's actually LARGER than the Galaxy- class, but not quite as well shielded or armed. There's only one of these around, so don't use these up too fast. 2.4 Cardassian Union (Card) Cardassian ships are quite weak overall, and require numbers to overwhelm their enemies. They have even LESS shields than Klingons on the average! However, they do carry a bit of firepower. Note: these ratings have been revised from the previous release significantly due to some ship stat display issues in the game. 2.4.1 Hideki (Class 1) [1/2/8/2000] Your Cardie cannon fodder. Don't use at all. It's VERY fast so it can chase down some freighters, but won't survive in battles. 2.4.2 Norin (Class 2) [2/3/5/3800] Cardassian answer to the Defiant, it still can't stand up to one in a fight. It may last long enough until help arrives. 2.4.3 Tonga (Class 3) [3/5/3/6000] As all Cardie ships, this one is weaker than average. 2.4.4 Galor (Class 4) [4/6/3/8000] Your typical Cardassian ship. Weak shields, good firepower. (Previously listed as 4/3/3) 2.4.5 Keldon (Class 4) [5/7/4/9000] Keldon is improves somewhat upon Galor. (Previously listed as 5/4/4) 2.4.6 Hutet (Class 5) [6/10/3/13500] This ship is so huge, it's over 60% longer than a Galaxy-class! However, its shields are quite wimpy, and it cost too much for the money. (Previously listed as 6/6/3) 2.5 Dominion / Jem'hadar (Dom) Jem'hadar ships tend to be slightly weaker than Federation ships, but it's quite balanced. They tend not to have much command crew around though, so capturing ships and using them may be a problem unless you have big ships. Most Jem'hadar ships have two names, a short name and a full name. Both are listed. 2.5.1 Attack Ship / Fighter (Class 1) [2/3/6/2200] Actually not too bad for a class 1. May be a match for Sabre. 2.5.2 Strike Cruiser / Cruiser (Class 2) [3/4/4/4200] Not too bad for a class 2, but can't match the Feds, esp. the Defiant. 2.5.3 Battlecruiser (Class 3) [5/5/4/6200] Pretty good, now the ship gets firepower and shields that are average. 2.5.4 War Cruiser / Warship / Super Cruiser (Class 4) [7/7/3/9000] Warship is actually quite good for its class, but has too many names. 2.5.5 Super Carrier / Carrier (Class 5) [10/8/3/10500] The only Class 5 that can stand toe to toe with a Galaxy-class. And it's cheaper. It also carries more marines and crew, very useful when going after other ships, esp. when you get shield transport device. 2.6 Ship Table (Single-Player) The best weapons and shield ratings in the class are listed in bold. Keep in mind that the bigger the ship, the slower they turn. Level Faction Name Cost Shields Weapon Speed 1 Fed Sabre 2000 3 3 6 Klin B'Rel 2000 2 2 7 Card Hideki 2000 1 2 8 Dom Fighter 2200 2 3 6 2 Fed Steamrunner 4000 5 3 5 Fed Oberth 4000 5 1 6 Fed Troop Carrier 2000 1 1 3 Fed Escort 6000 5 6 5 Klin K'tinga 4200 3 3 5 Card Norin 3800 2 3 5 Dom Strike Cruiser 4200 3 4 4 3 Fed Akira 6400 6 6 4 Klin K'vort'cha 6200 5 6 5 Card Tonga 6000 3 5 3 Dom Battlecruiser 6200 5 5 4 4 Fed Achilles 10000 9 10 4 Klin Vorcha 9000 6 6 4 Card Galor 8000 4 6 3 Card Keldon 9000 5 7 4 Dom Supercruiser 9000 7 7 3 5 Fed Galaxy 12000 10 9 4 Klin Negh'var 12000 7 8 3 Card Hutet 13500 6 10 3 Dom Supercarrier 10500 10 8 3 As you can see from this chart, pattern is clear: the Feds have the best ships around, and Cardassians have the worst. 2.7 Other ships Some other ships can appear in the game as enemies or friends, or you can choose them in multiplayer. (Any one has REAL stats for these ships?) Class 1: Maquis Raider (3/3/5?) Class 2: Bajoran Patrol Ship (2/3/5?) Class 3: Ferengi Marauder? (4/8/4?) Class 4: Breen Assault Ship (can be chosen in some Dominion missions) (8/9/4?) Class 5: Romulan D'deridex "Warbird" (10/9/3?) 3 The Captains I'm not going to list all the captains here because there is not enough room, and their stats change as you play the game, so listing them here would be useless. You need a captain that is rated at least the class of ship you plan to assign him/her to. You can put Sisko (starts as Class 4) on the Defiant (Class 2), but you can't put Dax (starts as Class 2) on the Achilles (Class 4). As each captain fights, they will gain experience, and grow in rank and ratings (and cost more credits). It is possible for a captain to LOSE experience and rank, usually by losing the ship. Captains don't die in this game. One that lost his/her ship usually lose some experience points. Depending on how much experience that captain had, that might be enough to get him/her DEMOTED. Your objective, ultimately, is to get at least SIX admirals to command six different class 5 starships by the final mission. As you only start with three or four admirals (and not all of them are good), you have to "grow" a few captains into admirals. Look at ALL the possible candidates before making your choice. Some may have higher ratings than others may yet costs nearly the same credits. Consider that before choosing who to "groom for promotion" from the lower ranks. Sometimes, it's good to "downgrade" one of the captains to save some money for the devices and such. Captains can win commendations after completing certain missions. Those commendations can mean bonuses performing certain tasks, like repair, attack, defend, scan, and so on. The formula to generate these commendations has not been revealed by Gizmo yet. . 4 The Devices Some devices are race specific, while other devices may work for their allies as well. How they interact is not clear. You CAN add MULTIPLE devices to the same ship. Some enhancements appear to be cumulative (i.e. the device is "stackable"). If you add five retro thrusters the ship will turn on a dime. Add five fast shield devices and shields regenerate in seconds. Add five phaser extenders and the ship will fire phasers at extremely long ranges. Questions that need to be answered: do different devices stack? For example, can harden shields work with meta shields? How about boarding party enhancements like Phaser Rifle and Bat'tleh? So far no answer from Gizmo yet. As of V1.03, all the devices you include on fleet setup screen is "automatically" equipped. Version prior to V1.03 you'll need to "equip" the item manually from the cargo screen by right-clicking the item. Please note that the EXACT workings of these devices have not been revealed by Gizmo yet. As there is no official strategy guide, these numbers will probably remain unknown. 4.1 Devices for All Races Anti-Matter (8000c) - start the 10 second count down and beam this over to the enemy ship for a 80-isoton surprise! Load one into the transporter, then click on it to start the count-down. You better beam it out before the countdown reaches zero! Detect Cloak (8000c) - allow you to detect cloaked ships in your sensor scan. You need to use the sensor scan button, not the scan item button. Not needed if your captain has the "detect cloak" skill. Shield Transport (10000c) - a.k.a. "transporter shield penetrator", allow you to beam through enemy shields. Becomes available very late in the game (mission 8 or 9). Best combined with marines and/or anti-matter. 4.2 Federation Devices Phaser Extender (1500c) - increases phaser effective range (by ???). Can be stacked. Very useful for the ships that has the regular phasers, like Akira, Galaxy, etc. Just watch these ships stab their phaser beam into the void for a long-distance barrage! Use multiple and see those phaser beams fly REALLY far! May work for pulse phaser also. Meta Shields (500c) - i.e. metaphasic shielding, increases your shield's effectiveness.(by ???) Definitely get it as it's cheap. Seems to help recharge rate? Can be stacked. Retro Thrusters (500c) - increases your sublight maneuverability (turn-rate?) (by ???) Not sure of how useful this can be. It may help smaller ships evade torpedoes. Can be stacked. Helps with turn rate, so can be useful in joust or hit-and-run tactics. Type B Phaser (500c) - increases effectiveness of Fed marines/boarding parties (by ???) The only Fed marine enhancement, definitely get it. (Should be Compression Phaser Rifle) Combat Triage (500c) - decrease crew casualties when ship takes hits (by ???) Unknown effectiveness, get it if you have spare credits. Quantum Torpedo (2000c) - twice as effective as photon torpedoes Definitely get it when you can (available by mission 7?). If your ship carries multiple torpedo launchers you need multiple devices. The forward launchers get the enhancements first. Putting these on Defiant or Archilles is a waste or your credits. These should also work on the Klingon ships. Nanotech Virus (6000c) - when beamed into enemy ships, shuts them down for 5-15 seconds Equivalent to all the other "disable" weapons. Use those few seconds to pound the target to pieces. On the other hand, I find disabling weapons pretty useless. 4.3 Klingon Devices AI targeting (600c) - increase weapon hit probability (by ???) Unknown effectiveness, may help if the captain has low tactical skills. Can be stacked. Should also work on Federation ships. Super Disruptor (1400c) - increase disruptor effectiveness (by ???) Supposedly increases damage. or range? Can be stacked? Bat'tleh (300c) - increase Klingon boarding party effectiveness (by ???) Obvious uses, and cheaper than the Fed version. Harden Shields (300c) - increase shield effectiveness (by ???) Or does this really means shields won't be destroyed as easily even if beaten down? Can be stacked? Anti-personnel (4000c) - beamed onboard enemy ships to disable their security personnel for easier capture Equivalent to the Cardie metagenic weapon, it may be cheaper to just buy more marines. 4.4 Cardassian Devices Fast Shields (500c) - regenerate shields faster (by ???) It's not known how fast do these shields regenerate, but get them nonetheless. If you want REALLY fast regeneration, get several. Can be stacked. Phaser Rifle (500c) - increase Cardassian boarding party's effectiveness (by ???) Typical marine enhancement. Power Drain (6500c) - when beam onboard, drains ship's power for 5-15 seconds Yet another of the disabling weapons. Boring. Metagenic Weapon (4000c) - beamed aboard enemy ships to kill crew for easier boarding May be cheaper to just load up more marines. 4.5 Dominion Devices Breen Weapon (6500c) - when hit, the enemy ship powers down for 5- 15 seconds (???) Another disabling weapon. This is never seen in single-player? May only work if one shield is down. Need multiple devices for multiple weapons. Shield Enforcer (500c) - reinforces shields (by ???) Unknown effectiveness. Try combining it with fast shields. Advanced Warp (1000c) - increase warp speed (by ???) Pretty useless, IMHO. Can NOT be stacked. Ketracel White (500c) - increase Jem'hadar boarding party's effectiveness (by ???) Typical marine enhancement. 5 General Tactics 5.1 Concentrate firepower Concentrate all your ships to fire on one target at a time. You'll destroy that ship much sooner. If you have multiple targets, go after the biggest one first. Your ships will use the rear weapons and such on other targets of opportunity. Also see [5.9] for one exception. 5.2 Select Fewer but More Powerful Ships You want the captains to gain kills and captures, and thus more experience and promotions. As there are only so many enemy ships in each mission, the fewer ships you bring the more for each captain. Of course, don't bring so few ships you can't get things done. 5.3 Don't Quit the Mission at First Opportunity As soon as you completed all primary objectives, you get the option to end the mission. Do NOT accept. Instead, stay in the mission and complete all secondary objectives, as well as get as many kills as you can. 5.4 Go for Capture Capturing an enemy ship not only gets you its firepower and shields, it also gives you extra credits for your performance at the end of the mission in single-player (esp. after 1.03 patch). This is even MORE effective at lower difficulty levels as the odds are in the attacker's favor. When you get transporter shield penetrator device, load up on marines and go! If you don't have it, just tell your ships to go for the shields first. If you're short on marines, you can send over just about any body. Including engineering guys. Remember to STOP shooting (hold fire) when the shields go down or you may destroy the ship and lose all those marines! Remember to send some command crew (red guys) onboard the captured ship or the ship won't be able to move faster than 1/4 impulse (except going to warp). You also need to send over some engineers if the ship's damaged. 5.5 Try No Tactics at All Strangely, one of the more effective fight tactics I have is "none"! Really, I have NOTHING highlighted on the tactics panel at all. The ship just sits in place and fire at will. This is really helpful if you reinforce forward shields. 5.6 Aim for Specific Parts of the Ship If you want to blow up enemy ships, go for engines or none (shoot at everything). If you want to capture enemy ships, shoot the shields. Remember to stop shooting when you get the shields down! 5.7 Engage as few enemies possible at a time This is better known as "divide and conquer". Your ship(s) can defeat any single enemy ship, but not when they group together and mob you! Instead, achieve local superiority and take out ONE ship at a time. This may involve a bit of "teasing" and maneuvering to lure one enemy ship out of a group. Lure it until you can engage it without fighting the rest of the group. Kill it, and repeat until you kill them all. 5.8 Know when to split your forces Sometimes, the objective requires you to split your forces. In general, it's better to put captured ships in a separate group apart from your regular ships unless you can fully crew them with excess crew you brought. If you need to protect multiple objectives, like multiple groups of ships, multiple starbases, and so on, then definitely split forces. 5.9 Kill the Breen First If you see a Breen ship, kill it first. The Breen carries the "disabler" (i.e. the Breen weapon). If it hits one of your ships while that ship's shields are down, that ship will become disabled for up to 15 seconds, during which it can't move and can't shoot, and thus a really juicy target. When you see a Breen, ignore everything else and kill it first. 6 Federation/Klingon Alliance Campaign The Fed/Klin campaign is more difficult than the Dom/Card campaign. If you want easier time, try the Dom/Card campaign first. 6.1 Errands of Mercy OBJ: Eliminate Cardassian threat, escort Marquis transports out to exit point. Pick Dax and one more Lt. Commander (both Class 2) and two Steamrunners (Class 2). You should have JUST enough credits for both, exactly. Upon start, group both starships to one group. Look at the map and you'll see two rounded triangles. Those are your objectives. You should go for the one on the left first. Click on it to set destination (yellow circle), then hit WARP and you'll warp to the edge of the nebula. Your ship will continue on at 3/4 impulse. Note that shields don't work in the nebula. When you get close, you should detect one Cardassian Hideki fighter. Send both ships to attack, any tactic, and the Hideki should be toast in no time. When you see the freighter, don't attack it! That's the ship you're supposed to escort out. Follow it until it makes it to the exit point. Now head for the other objective. When you get near, three Hidekis will attack you. You will see a freighter near the planet. Destroy the three Hidekis and follow the freighter closely (use guard if you want). When you get near the second objective triangle, another Hideki or two should attack. Take them out, escort the freighter to the exit point, and you win! 6.2 A Calculated Move OBJ: Escort the transports to evacuate DS9, and eliminate Dominion attackers. You should choose three Steamrunners with the respective commanders. You can keep the two from the previous mission. When you start, you should see five different transports near you. They will approach DS9 one at a time. They will move by themselves; you can't control them. Once they load up, they warp out of there. However, if enemy starts to harass them, you need to keep them safe. One transport will leave for DS9 immediately. Send ONE of your Steamrunners to the half-way point between you and DS9. Make sure you send it AFTER the transport left so they don't run into each other. After the first transport leaves DS9, some Dominion ships will show up ("Warp signature detected"). Two Hidekis and one Jem'hadar fighter should attack the station. You can help out with your Steamrunner, but keep the other two WITH the convoy. DS9 is heavily armed and should take care of the attackers by herself. More enemies warp in. More Hidekis and other Dominion ships. Then a Strike Cruiser comes after your convoy! Send both Steamrunners that stayed behind after it. It may take a while but that Strike Cruiser is toast. Keep the third Steamrunner protecting transports and shoot enemy ships as necessary. After that there's no more threat to the convoy so send all the Steamrunners to help DS9. Look carefully when the transport leaves. Sometimes one of the attackers (Norin / Tonga) will follow it and try to shoot it. In that case chase down the attacker yourself with the Steamrunners. After a few more kills you should get the "eliminate Dominion attack" complete message. When the last transport warps out, you've completed the mission. 6.3 A Hero's Task OBJ: Take Defiant and take out the Argolis Sensor Array. As you can only choose the Defiant, there's no reason not to choose Captain Sisko to go with her. Add any device and crew as you see fit, but you don't need to use any marines. On the other hand, some people like to use them. (Question: any one knows what is the "time limit" in the briefing about? Probably nothing.) This one can be tough if you do it wrong. It's quite doable if you do it right. Basically, you need to kill ONE enemy ship at a time. Most of the guards are class 1, so you can kill them with no problem as long as you do them one at a time. You also outclass most class 2's. Engage cloak, then look around the sensor map to see any "loners". Pick on those with no one nearby to help. If he's too close to other ships, use the "tease" move to lure him out of range of the help, then take him out. Repeat, kill. Repeat, kill. If you like, you can capture the enemy ships, but you don't really have enough marines to go around, nor the command crew to get full performance out of them. Take out each loner, and take out the two shield generators (east and west of asteroid field), and the OWPs should blow up. To the south of the array is a single OWP. If you take out that one (easy after practice) the array should be for the taking. Destroy the array, and you can go home. 6.4 On Swift Wings OBJ: Get a ship to the Klingon OWP at the planet to warn the Klingon Fleet, keep the relays up (the more of them the faster the fleet will return), and protect OWP from Dominion attack. You should be able to afford 3 Akiras and 2 Steamrunners if you did well in the previous missions. Assign the appropriate captains and crew as you see fit. Upon start, note the RAPID-MOVING asteroid field in the middle. (Some of those asteroids move at WARP SPEED!) Do NOT warp through it. You'll lose ships. Send your 3 Akiras to the middle relay over to the left, while send your 2 Steamrunners west, then north to the waypoint to warn the Klingons. Once the Steamrunners get there, the Akiras should start taking out the Cardassian attackers (a few Norins, Hidekis, and Tongas) at the relays. The Steamrunners can then head for the nearest relay and defend that as well. That leaves one relay undefended. Keep defending the relays and kill Cardassian ships (you may not kill that many, don't worry) until you get "warp signature detected", and you see those are Dominion ships. When you see that, warp back to the planet with all ships and start defending it. The Klingon fleet should arrive any moment now. So keep killing enemies and wait for the cavalry to arrive and you win! You can kill the rest of the attackers for bonus credits if you think you can handle them with Klingon help. 6.5 Homecoming OBJ: Return Tom Riker to the Federation, and destroy all the Keldons You don't have access to any Class 4 ships, so you have to use 4- 5 Class 3 Akiras. On the other hand the Keldons aren't that difficulty to handle with that many Akiras. Load up on all the marines you can get, and add the type B phaser. You'll be doing a lot of boarding. Upon start, note the planet in the middle, and another planet to the northwest corner. That's Cardassia Prime, where Tom Riker will be executed. You need to get between the two planets and whack every Keldon that comes along. Remember to aim for shields, until shield goes down. HOLD FIRE. Beam over enough marines and engineers to capture. By that time the next Keldon should be in range. Repeat. It's easy to tell which Keldon has Tom Riker. That ship would have a MUCH bigger crew (like 960 or 1200?). You can capture or destroy all the other Keldons, but I prefer capture, as you get to use the weapons against their owners. Just leave enough to capture the one with Tom Riker on it. (NOTE: many people have reported that when they clicked cargo, then the Riker icon, the mission fails immediately. This is hard to reproduce, and may be due to the fact that the wrong ship is selected as destination. The surest way is to capture the entire ship.) Once you got Riker, you may want to bring him onboard one of Starfleet ships, or you can send the ship he's on away from the conflict to make sure you don't accidentally use it (and lose it). You may encounter other ships such as Hideki or Norin as patrols. They may come after you. But they're weak. Even if they do come after you, your Akiras (hopefully by now supplemented by a few Keldons) will deal with them easily. If no more Keldons are coming, you need to go to the planet to find the last few. Feel free to blast all the defenses around the prison planet as well for your secondary objectives. Once you got Tom Riker, send the ships to the exit point, make sure you blasted or captured all the Keldons, and you win! 6.6 A Fatal Flaw OBJ: Destroy Ketrecel White facility and OWPs, destroy sensor grid and defenders You can do this mission with 4 Class 4 ships (C4's), or 1 C5 and 3 C4's. Just bring your best along. Upon start, you should notice that you start at the southern edge of the map. The target is WAY to the north, inside the asteroid field. You probably want to go along the eastern edge of the map and approach the asteroid field from the east. If you go in from the west you have to get through the OWPs protecting the planet. You can't split forces here as you don't have enough ships. Approach the asteroid field from the east, and take out the shield generator first. Now run back out and defeat any guards that come chasing. Those should only be a few Hidekis or Jem'hadar fighters though, maybe a Norin or two. If you see bigger ships, just head outside the asteroid field and deal with them there. Wait for repairs to finish, THEN head back in to attack. When ready, head back to starting position. Approach the field again, this time from the west, to take out the other shield generator. Approach carefully and take out one OWP at a time, move away, repair and recharge as needed. Deal with any patrols first. When you take out the shield generators, the OWPs are easy kills. Take out all the OWPs around the KW factory, then kill the factory. If any enemy ships come calling, lure them OUT of range of the OWPs so you don't fight both at the same time. Now it's just a matter of patience as you slowly move south and wipe out the sensor array with its OWPs. When you do them all, you win! 6.7 Second Wind OBJ: Take back DS9, destroy Dominion counterattack, DS9 must survive You should have 2 to 3 Class 5's and 2-3 class 4's ready to go. Either Fed or Klingon ships are okay. You don't need to worry about those two transports. They will be provided free of charge. Just worry about your ships. Upon start, set your warships to group 1, your transports to group 2. Send the transports out to the east, out of the fight. You move the warships slowly north and take out all comers. Lesser ships may surround you. Do NOT panic. Just head south and try to open the range, and your ships will keep firing. If you have enough marines, capture some of the higher level ships like level 3 Tongas or Supercruisers. Once you cleared the way to DS9, more enemy ships will warp in. Keep engaging enemy ships until the area is down to one or two ships. Remember, small engagements, local superiority. You have help, so try to fight near other friendly ships. If overwhelmed, move away and draw enemy ships out, then kill them one by one. When area is clear, target shields, then send your ships to attack DS9, while sending the transports in. You should need only one to capture the station, the other is a backup, so bring in one of them (warp in). When the shields go down, hold fire, and start transporting. When you're done, send the transport back to the "holding" spot. If you need more marines, bring in the other ship as well. Now be ready for the counter attack. Jem'hadar ships will start warping in around the station, along with a few Cardies, and they'll bring bigger ships. Mainly class 3's and occasional class 4's. You should be able to defeat them easily with the ships you have. Once you take them all out, the mission ends. 6.8 Forcing Our Hand OBJ: Destroy shipyard, and destroy sensor net. You should be able to sortie 3 Class 5 and 3 Class 4 ships by now. Upon start, you are at the southeastern edge again, while most of the enemies are to the west. Some patrols are to the east. Start by going west almost to the edge. Make short hops only to the edge of sensor range as you don't want to run into something unknown. Take out any OWPs, shipyards, sensors, and such you can find. If ships come after you, get out of range of the OWPs then fight the ships. You can wear them down after a while. Keep moving slowly north and blast shield generators, OWPs, and more space docks. You'll see more ships, but as long as you stay out of range of the OWPs and concentrate your firepower you should have no problem blasting all those ships. Eventually you'll make it to the sensor net, and more ships and OWPs will defend. Blast them all, and you win. This mission is more about patience than strategy. At the end of this mission one of your captains will probably demand a HUGE salary due to the HUGE number of kills racked up in this mission. 6.9 A Line in the Sand OBJ: Destroy Dominion invasion fleet, protect Earth from Jem'hadar invaders, protect Starbases and defenses. You should have all class 5's by now, with all the nifty devices you can get, and max crew. If not, just fill up on the best and the brightest you got. Upon start, split forces into two groups. Keep one group near Earth at ALL times. That group doesn't go further than the middle of the map. That's your reserve force. The other group will perform mobile strikes. The initial attack wave is mostly Class 3 Tongas and Battlecruisers with a few Breen assault ships. They are going after the starbases, so send the mobile force to help them. Go after Breen ships first. You should have transporter penetrator now, and the quickest way to take a Breen out of the fight is to capture the ship(s). You'll see a second wave going after the starbases, while a third wave comes in a minute later coming straight down the eastern edge. If you see any Dominion Supercarriers (probably second wave), take those out first. Those are the invasion ships. Try to capture a few of those to add to your firepower. After that you can send your reserve force to help mop up any enemies left in the system. 6.10 The Final Thrust OBJ: Capture Cardassia Prime, defeat all defenses This mission is actually pretty simple, believe it or not. Just bring your best and the brightest, all class 5's with all the gadgets. Make sure everyone has all the marine bonus devices, transporter penetrator, and max marines. Add quantum torpedoes, phaser extenders, AI targeting, and shield enhancers as needed. Upon start, immediately group all ships into a single group, and send them slightly north at impulse speed. You'll be escorting this group of SIX transports that will be landing troops on Cardassia Prime. Fortunately they are quite slow, but there's a long way to go. Do NOT use warp to jump ahead of the convoy. You may cause a warp collision, and you don't want to lose any of the ships. Take out the OWPs in the convoy path immediately, but don't stray too far, because Cardassian and Jem'hadar ships will be attacking very soon, from all sides. You get a constant stream of ships. Start with 6 Fighters, then 2 Norins, 2 Galors, 2 Supercarriers, and then ones and twos all the way to the planet. You don't have time to go after the shield generators unless you use captured ships or willing to detach a ship or two. You can do this the lazy way: assign one of your ships to guard each transport, but that likely won't get you anywhere as the enemy will just swarm all over you. If you see any level 4 or 5 ships attack, send some marines their way. Kill everything level 3 or lower. You probably don't even need to designate targets specifically, just move the units to the right place and they'll engage automatically. Designate targets to kill them faster. Use captured ships to perform mobile strikes. Keep the escorts ahead of the convoy unless the enemy penetrated your screen. In that case the guards would stay right next to the convoy. When the threat is past, the guards should resume leading position. When you hit the final set of OWPs before getting into orbit around Cardassia Prime, be ready for a big fight. The Cardassian final reserves, consisting of 4 Hutets, 4 Galors, and some misc. ships will pay you a visit. Use the marines to take care of them. Once you're taken care of the ships, you need to do a circle around the planet to destroy any OWPs remaining in order of Cardassia Prime before the troop transports arrive. When the transports reach Cardassia Prime and leave, you win! (Note: the ground war on Cardassia is treated as a boarding action. On higher difficulty levels you may need to bring along additional troops and send them down WITH the marines in those transports.) 7 Dominion/Cardassian Alliance Campaign V1.04 improved the AI somewhat by introducing more trigger points and "reaction force" fleets that will chase you all over the map, even if you go into warp. It's still vulnerable to "tease" attacks though. 7.1 Rally the Wolves OBJ: Patrol the Badlands, destroy Marquis evac freighters. Killing Marquis is easy. Destroying the freighters is hard. Somehow these freighters move FASTER than 3/4 impulse in the nebula. This is one of the cases where having a fast Hideki can help catch the freighters, though 1 Norin and 1 Strike Cruiser will work as well. You should see the two sensor arrays upon start. Send the faster of your force to the patrol point to the left array, and the slower one to the right array. The force on the left should encounter a Raider as you enter/near the nebula. Destroy it. Continue toward the patrol point, and you should see a freighter. Kill it too. The force on the right should encounter 2 Raiders. If you send a Class 2 ship they should be no problem at all. Put the fast force slightly south of the remaining patrol point as the anvil. Have the slow force enter the nebula and get to the remaining patrol point as the hammer, engage any Raiders you find. When you get to the patrol point, you should find a Raider accompanied by 2 freighters. You MUST destroy those freighters. Have the slow force hit one freighter while you send your fast force after the other freighter. Once one freighter is dead you can send the free force after the Raider. Once you destroy them all you win, hit all the patrol points and you win! 7.2 Business of Betrayal OBJ: Rescue Founder from Klinzhai system onboard a K'tinga, and transport him across the Romulan border. WARNING: Do NOT engage warp when going through that asteroid field among the planets. It's easy to lose a ship in there. Impulse only! By now, you should be able to afford 2 Class 2 ships and 1 class 1 ship. Load up on marines if you want to use the capture strategy. Try to use Jem'hadar captains as much as possible. You start at the northern edge of the map. The Klinzhai system has three planets, and you'll need to cruise them to find the ship you're looking for. Capture as many ships as you can for extra credits, even the freighters roaming the system. I generally go to the planet to east first, then south, and finally west, moving clockwise. You may run into the occasional B'Rel. If you have class 2 ships they can't do you much harm, even if you can't see through cloak. Capture as many Klingon ships (including the freighters) as you can for more credits, but do this AFTER you grab the K'tinga. When you're midway between the south planet and the west planet, you should run into the K'tinga. Capture it or just beat down the shields and beam over the Founder. Send the ship with Founder back to the northern edge of the map and you're done. (Note: some people have big problem rescuing the Founder by beaming him off. The surest way is to capture the ship.) You may want to stay around and capture a few more freighters or shoot some more B'Rels for more points. 7.3 The Hunt OBJ: Take out Fed sensor array around DS9, and destroy mine power generators. By now, you should have enough credits to include 2 (or even 3) Class 3 vessels with captains. Try to use Jem'hadar captains whenever possible. Load up on marines and "White" to capture ships for extra credit. You start at the southern edge of the map. There's a line of sensor arrays across the middle of the map. Bajor is on the western edge, DS9 is to the north and the mine generators and the wormhole is to the northeast. Start by warping to the westernmost sensor array and blast any defenders, and work your way across. You'll run into 2 Bajoran Patrol vessels on the westernmost sensor, then one or two Steamrunners and Sabers as you move east, and even an Akira. You outgun them all with your group so take them out one by one. Capture as many as you can. Do not get close to DS9. It's surrounded by several Akiras and if you get too close they'll come after you. Once you took out all the sensor arrays, it's time to take out the power generators. There's a waypoint to the north/northeast of the map, right on the edge. Warp near there. When you get close, you'll see it's 4 generators accompanied by 4 Fed OWP. Take out the OWP's first, then the generators, and you win! 7.4 Eye of the Storm OBJ: Destroy the invasion force hiding inside this ion storm, and protect the sensor arrays in place. You should have at least four Class 3 vessels by now with captains. Again, try to use Jem'hadar ships and captains. As you're in an ion storm marines are useless. Consider adding a faster Class 1 or 2 ship to the mix, as you'll be chasing down some freighters. You start in the southwest corner. Immediately assign your ships into roughly two equal groups. Send one group to the middle sensor array, and the other one to the eastern sensor array. You'll need to send the eastern force to a dogleg south so they don't have to fly through the ion storm. You can see the enemy ships separate into two groups of 2 Steamrunners and 3 troop transports each. The troop transports just run, while the Steamrunners are going after your sensor arrays. Fortunately you should get there in plenty of time. Take out all four Steamrunners should satisfy the "protect sensor array" objective. Then send your ships after the freighters. Or you can split into FOUR groups, if you want a slower but surer victory. Two of them take out the freighters (the fast ships) while the other two take out the Steamrunners. Once you destroy all the freighters, the mission should end, through you can stay and take out the THREE Akiras hiding just outside the eastern and western edge of the storm for bonus points. Look for FAINT purple dots, or just let the sensor array do the work for you. There's another Akira right in between the two visible ones, in the spot where sensor can't reach. 7.5 Welcoming Committee OBJ: Destroy Achilles prototype, destroy Fed space docks, and destroy Riker's Galaxy-class vessel. You should have enough credits for 4 Class 4 ships and 2 Class 3 ships, along with their captains. You don't need to split forces on this one. Add marines as you see fit, as there will be chances to capture a few ships. You may want to choose captains with "See Cloak" skill as you'll be fighting a few Klingons. As soon as you start, 6 B'Rels will swoop in, but your ships should take them out even without you directing the attacks. It's followed by 6-8 Steamrunners, but they come in singles and pairs so they pose no threat to you at all. Eliminate them now as they'll chase you all over the map. Once the area is clear, you can see that there are several space docks in a diagonal line from NE to SW. Start with the SW one, and work your way to NE. When you destroy two of them, 3 Akiras will pay you a visit, but you still outgun them significantly. Clean out the space docks and any OWPs that defend them. Remember there's one more space dock around the planet. If you don't get "destroy space docks" complete, you probably forgot that one. Now head south and see that last space dock at the waypoint. Go near there and start blasting. Achilles will leave the dock and try to stop you. Kill it. When it's gone a Galaxy and 3 Akiras will come by. Take them out too, and you win! You must NOT capture the Galaxy or the Archilles. You must destroy them. If you've captured either (or both!) by accident, use the self-destruct cheat (see last section) to destroy them or the mission will never end. See also the bug list. 7.6 Crumbling Foundation OBJ: Escort Troop Transport to AR558, escort them back to exit, and wait for reinforcements. You can only pick Jem'hadar ships and captains from now on, which is why you should have concentrated on Jem'hadar personnel early on. You should have enough for 4-5 Class 4 and their captains. Fill the rest with Class 3 ships and captains. You will be escorting 3 transports, and you need to do both active and passive protection. Set two ships to guard two of the three freighters. Take the other four and assign two groups of two each. You should be able to see the different enemies as "fuzzy contact" on the scanners. Put the groups on either side of the path, but AHEAD of the convoy, and just take out threat after threat as you stay AHEAD of the convoy and attack things until they go away. You'll see mainly Klingon ships attacking, but there will be an Akira and other Feds in the mix. You need to get to the planet before the convoy does and take out those 4 OWPs. Then the troop transports will beam down their cargo. Now, protect them on the outbound trip also. If you see some WHITE group transports coming in on the outbound leg, DESTROY THEM. Those are Federation marines trying to land so don't let them. A few B'Rels will attack you on the way out, but they're no problem at all with your fleet. Once all troop transports leave, move yourself AWAY from the exit point, until you get "Cardassian ships are targeting you". Warp beyond the planet to your west, and a minute later the mission should be over. If you want you can stay and smash the Cardassian fleet, which is composed of 2 Hutets, several Galors/Keldons and Tongas. 7.7 A Dish Best Served Cold OBJ: Destroy DS9, destroy Gul Dukat's Hutet, and destroy all defenders. By this time, you should be able to field 4 Class 5 ships with 2 Class 4 ships. Adjust budget and such until you can fit them in. Your goal is to have more than six admirals. Take the best captains and give them good ships. Take the best Lt. Cmdrs and give them good ships too, and hope they grow into captains and admirals fast enough. You start in the northwest corner. DS9 is to the southeast. Warp midway between your starting position and DS9, and you can see there's a "tripline" of ships between you and DS9. Those are only Class 3 Tongas though, so you can go through them. On the other hand, why take chances? Start from one end of the line and work your way across, destroy them one at a time. When you kill the second Tonga, a Galaxy escorted by two Steamrunners will show up. Destroy them with your massed firepower, then sweep up the Tongas. NE of DS9 you'll find some Klingon ships. Gul Dukat and his Hutet is south of DS9, escorted by 2 Keldons or Galors. You should go south and take care of Gul Dukat immediately. Dukat is known to leave while you tackle DS9/Terok Nor. With your 4 Class 5's he stands no chance. Do NOT capture him though. His ship MUST be destroyed. Such is the wish of the Founders. Now you can clean up all the enemies around DS9, or you can just attack DS9 itself and see all the enemies come in one at a time. Do NOT capture DS9. Destroy it. When you do that, and wiped out all the enemy ships, you win! 7.8 The Time is Now OBJ: Escort Breen ships to exit points, Destroy the Romulan and Klingon fleets, and Destroy Gowron's Negh'Var and Worf's Vorcha. By now you should have 5 Class 5 ships with 5 admirals. Just pick the best you got, and pick the best captains for the few class 4's you have around as training vessels. You should have transporter shield penetrators now, but you don't have time to use them, as you can't beam into a cloaked vessel. If your captain doesn't have "See Cloak" capability, add "cloak scanner" device to the ship to compensate. Upon start, immediately divide you your ships into two groups, and send one chasing each Breen group. You can probably send the weaker group after the Breen to the left (west). The one to the east encounters more enemies. The Klingons and Romulans won't be able to do you too much damage as they are too busy decloak and recloak to really shoot at you, but the Breen ships are pretty weak shield-wise. Just follow each group and let the AI do their job. You'll run into a LOT of Klingon ships and OWPs, but those are just class 1 to 3. There's an occasional Class 5 Romulan Warbird, but they're no threat to your ships. Just concentrate on one as you go. Constantly check back and forth between the two groups (remember to hit F to change scanner focus to the group), zoom in if you need to. Engage the biggest threats quickly until the Breen ships reach their respective exit points. Remember NOT to end the mission! Once that's done, start using your scanner to detect cloaked vessels, and destroy them, along with any other OWPs you haven't destroyed before. After a while you should see the message about destroying Gowron and Worf. Warp to about the middle of the map and you should see their warp signatures. Send the weaker group after Worf and the stronger group against Gowron. Once they are destroyed, you can end the mission or continue clearing out the map. 7.9 Fish in a Barrel OBJ: Destroy Starbase 234, break enemy line of defense, destroy Admiral Ross' Galaxy-class ship. By now you should have 6 Class 5 ships with 6 admirals to conn them. Try to fit max crew and transporter penetrator on every ship, along with Ketracel White and fast shields. You will be capturing a lot of ships on this mission, and hopefully most without damage! You start in the North of the map. There's a sensor post to your south (the waypoint), and a few more sensor posts in an E/W line. Start from one end and take them all out. Akira and Steamrunner patrols will probably come to interrupt you, but they'll fall under your guns easily. Take out the sensor post at the waypoint and you've broken the enemy line of defense. Start scanning for cloaked ships, as there's a few of them about, Klingon and Romulan. You can also take out the few remaining sensor posts on the map. Just warp all over the map (except to the planet on the SW edge of map). When you see a Galaxy-class, put every ship to hold fire, then use the transporter to beam over about 200+ marines. You should capture it in no time. Kill any other smaller ships you run into. Remember to add command crew and engineers to captured ships to get full speed and repair any damage. Once you've cleared the map of all the enemy ships you can see, it's time to wipeout the Starbase. The Starbase is covered by 3 OWPs, and it is quite nicely armed itself. On the other hand, by now you should have enough ships that blasting the SB should be no problem at all. Once you've blasted the SB to smithereens, move over to the planet, and you'll see the remaining Fed ships, should be a Galaxy or two and several Akiras. Destroy all of them and the mission should end. If the mission doesn't end, you probably captured Admiral Ross' ship already. If that's the case, choose the Galaxy's you've captured and commit self-destruct on them (select it, focus, then repeat Ctrl-Shift-Delete until it blows up). Repeat for each until mission ends. 7.10 All Good Things. OBJ: Destroy both starbases, destroy Earth and Mars orbital defenses, destroy all enemy ships, and finally, destroy Sisko's Defiant. You better have six different Class 5 ships now. If you do this mission is easy, esp. with shield penetrators. Max the crew and add the good devices. You probably don't need antimatter or metagenic weapons. If your captains don't have "see cloak", add "cloak detect" device to your ship(s), though you only really need one of them in the whole fleet. Upon start, your forces are split. The first three ships are to the northwest just behind Mars, while the other three are to the north. There are two starbases along the NE/SW diagonal line with some sensors long the lines, and Earth is to the SE. Group your first three ships as group 1, second three as group 2, and all ships into group 3. Any ships you capture go into group 4. Send group 1 to wipe out the OWPs around Mars, while group 2 goes after the sensor array to its south. Keep wiping out the OWPs and sensor arrays with both groups until you notice some warp signatures start to show up. (With V104, you'll get hit by a whole slew of B'Rels and Steamrunners right at the start, followed by a few Galors and Akiras, then the Galaxy's show up.) The Defiant and a Galaxy will visit the western group, while 2 Galaxys come to pay tribute to the northern group. You may also encounter some misc. ships like Steamrunners and Akiras. You should wipe them out with no problem at all, though try to capture the Galaxys, as they add to your firepower nicely. If you have problems, unite the two groups (group 3, remember?) and use the concentrated firepower. You may end up capturing SIX Galaxy's. After you take care of the visitors, go after each starbase deliberately. Some Akiras and Galaxys may pay you a visit, but you should destroy/capture them with no problems. Wiping out both Starbases is simple if you do them one at a time with that many ships. By this time, you may want to start scanning for cloaked ships, as the Klingons and Romulans are still around, though often they just hide behind Earth and wait for you to come to them. Some Romulan ships may move around, take them out. Once you wiped out both starbases, and dealt with all the Starfleet ships, it's time to visit Earth. The remaining Klingon fleet (Vorcha, 2 K'vort'chas, K'tinga, and B'rel) with a few Romulan Warbirds are probably around Earth, though some Warbirds will be roaming the Sol system. Take out any single Warbirds you encounter. Go to Earth with your entire fleet (remember to redistribute crew and fix any damages first) and wipe them out. You may want to tease them away from the OWPs in orbit around Earth first. Once you destroy all the ships, destroy all the OWPs, and you win! Congratulations, you've conquered Earth for the Founders. Victory is life. 8 Multiplayer Some hints for your multiplayer enjoyment. Use the shipyard - your shipyard can repair your ships! DS9 is considered a shipyard as well. Steal devices - knocked down other people's shields and you can steal their devices! (at least SOME of them, like antimatter charges, metagenic weapons, etc.) Use the sensors! - Oberth has one of the best sensor ranges of any ship, so it can be quite useful in games like "Find the Founder". Even better if you put a sensor specialist onboard. 9 Misc. Info 9.1 Cheat As documented in the key guide, you can damage anything you are viewing by hitting CTRL-SHIFT-DELETE. This is often used as a "self-destruct" feature, though it also works on enemy ships. However, using this during the mission may make some of the missions HARDER as the escorts assigned to that object will move to a different objective to protect. 9.2 Bug List (as of V1.04) Note: this is NOT a hardware compatibility list. For that, see the official Gizmo FAQ on DominionWars.com. Please do a CLEAN reinstall when patching. You need to DELETE/RENAME the existing directory AFTER you uninstall the game as the uninstaller will NOT delete the directory as not to wipe out your savegames. Then reinstall and patch, THEN copy back the save games (NOT the options.ds9 file though!) 9.2.1 Fed Commendation Bug Playing as Feds, by mission 7 some of my captains and admirals have Dominion commendations! It's REALLY funny to see a Federation captain with a commendation as "Founders Elite One", or "Klingon Expert"! This doesn't happen for the Dominion side. With V1.04, this has been reduced, but NOT eliminated. Workaround: none needed 9.2.2 Commendation Typo On the Fleet Setup screen (both Fed and Dom), Commendation was misspelled as "Commandation". Workaround: none needed 9.2.3 Occasional Freeze Sometimes, when playing 6-10 missions in a row, the game would suddenly freeze. With V1.04 the ships started behaving weird, but this is caused by NOT completely removing V1.03 files. If you start with a FRESH install the problem is mostly eliminated. Workaround: none 9.2.4 In-game save useless You can bring up the escape menu to save a game while in a mission, but loading such a saved game has all the objects STUCK. Nothing responds. You get voice confirmation of the order, but the ships don't move at all. The only thing you CAN do is to restart mission. Workaround: don't use in-game saves. Save only at the fleet-setup or debrief screen. 9.2.5 Objects must be destroyed, not captured On several missions where you must destroy certain ships (Gul Dukat's Hutet, Tom Riker's Galaxy, Deep Space Nine, etc.) capturing them doesn't count. The objective must be DESTROYED. Workaround: use the "self-destruct" cheat (see above under CHEAT) to destroy the objective 9.2.6 Crew Credits bug On the fleet setup screen, one should not be able to buy more crew when one is out of credits. However, you CAN still get crew even when your credit is zero. If you save the game after you zeroed your credits and maxed the crew, then reload that game, you can "sell" the excess crew back and get extra credits. This also works for devices, though crew are the cheapest items. Workaround: self-control. This is an exploit/bug, so you don't HAVE to use it. 9.2.7 Archilles Micro-Quantum-Torpedo bug Archilles never fires those micro-quantum-torpedoes. This is fixed in V1.04. 9.2.8 Lost Command to Ship After capturing some ships, one of the original ships may stop responding to commands and behave like an AI ship. Workaround: Destroy your captured ship(s) (use self-destruct cheat above) and the "rogue" ship should come under your control again. 9.3 Custom Missions For custom mission patch, more captains (mainly for Starship Creator), more ships, and so on, try https://www.ussmetaloid.4mg.com/ -- THE END --