Hi, maybe I am not too good at this but I am playing the campaign mission and I got the game two days ago. I selected the Rebellion side and choosed "Hard" as the game option. I managed to do all the missions up to the one where you are supposed to release the wookies. First I liberated Mon Calamari then I completed the Kashyykx? mission. Here are my issues...

1. I can never seem to win a space battle with the empire. I sent a force of 4 Assault Frigates and 6 corvettes (max 25 unit points) and still lost to the empire with a class 4 station, 2 missile frigates, 2 acclamator and 1 star destroyer. However if I select auto-resolve, the AI will let me win. Am I missing something here?

2. In defending the Mon Calamari station I had a force of 3 assault frigates and 6 corvettes plus tons of X-wing and Y-wings. I had a class 2 station. The empire came at it with 4 star destroyers, 6 missile frigates and 6 tartan cruisers. How did they get so many units into the space when I could only bring in a few initially. Does the AI cheat?

I find myself having more success on land missions than space missions. For example to take over Mon Calamari, I sneaked in a small force of 1 light tank, 1 rocket troop and 1 soldier. It was no problem defeating the empire and moving my force to the edge of the shield. After that it got tough as the Empire has a light factory churning our AT-ST and heavy tanks. I then grouped all the calamaris together and sent them in suicide mission to shoot down the light factory to stop production and then to shoot down the units. Took a while and many many repeated attempts with hundreds of calamari lives lost but I saved most of my troops. After I took over the planet, the space station disappeared.

Now if only I could figure out the space battles...

1. The only reason must be that you are worse than the PC at the game (no offence), or, that auto resolve takes pop limit into account.

2. The PC has no pop limit, so they can come at you with 287 corvetts at the same time (happened to me) (this is to balance out).

I guess playing it at a "Hard" setting maybe tougher than I expected. I guess given that I have lost almost all my space battles but won the ground ones, the Rebels may have a tactical advantage on the ground while the Empire rule in space. I mean, if you are limited by a pop cap to 4 Frigates, how to take on 4 Star Destroyers?

I have adopted a "Raid" tactic where I send in 1x Artillery, 1x Tank and 1x Troop to raid and take over planets. Once that happens, the space station disappears.

To win offensive space battles I have found that a mix of forces works well. I have at least one of each capital ship, 4 squadrons of X-wings, 4 squadrons of Y-wings, and 2 Fleet Commanders because they give bonuses to all ships. I have all of the fleet attack the strongest enemy ship first, targeting the ship's shield generator or engines first, then the turbo lasers, hangar, laser cannons, etc. until the ship is destroyed. Then have the whole fleet attack the next strongest ship next, and so on.

To win space battles when attacked, the key as a Rebel is to have 2 Ion Cannons on the planet, the strongest possible space station, and again a mix of forces. Having 2 Ion Cannons means it takes half as long for the next ion blast to be available.

As soon as the enemy fleet appears, use an Ion Cannon blast to disable the closest, biggest enemy ship. Move your fleet close to the enemy and have the whole fleet attack the biggest non-disabled ship that is closest to the space station. Attack the ship's shield generator, engines, turbo lasers, hanger, etc. Another ion shot should be available by now, so disable the biggest non-disabled enemy ship that is closest to the space station. Repeat. Send your X-wings against enemy TIE fighters and bombers, Y-wings against the disabled capital ships. Keep using ion cannon shots as soon as they become available to disable newly arriving capital ships. The Ion Cannons only disable the ship but don't damage it, so don't waste shots on ships that are already disabled. Try to disable the capital ships to keep them away from your space station.

Also, remember to pull in reinforcements if your ship population drops below 25.

I'd agree with almost everything Amidala said. I'd also add this:

Anti-fighter corvettes tend to target better when you let them do it themselves. Just keep them near your larger ships and leave them alone unless you're in trouble. They will target multiple targets at the same time. They'll quickly get rid of those pesky torpedo bombers and fighters, then you can tell them to focus on larger ships.

I usually go for the hangar bays first, to eliminate free reinforcements. (even before the shields) This applies to both Emperial cap ships and space stations.

If you're REALLY having trouble, you can always load the autosave which will bring you back to the start of the battle. That way you can experiment with different strategies in the same battle, however that could be considered a wimpy way to do it by some people. :)

If you have a space station, remember to buy any upgrades available, and don't forget that you can select the station itself and tell it to focus fire on a specific target.

Sometimes you can send ships into nebulas to hide them while their shields recharge.

One more thing: It's not always wise to use special abilities. For example, the Tartan's increase fire ability weakens the shield so much that it can cost you dearly. Pay attention to the side effects.

Sometimes you can send ships into nebulas to hide them while their shields recharge.

This is good, I like this idea.

Personally I always target anti-fighter vessels first, gives your bombers a better chance of survival. If your bombers have free reign then the battle will be over shortly.

In offensive battles vs the AI, you can normally draw the enemy fleet away from the station, simplifying your mission.

Since the AI often charges you with his anti-fighter units, I tend to kill them, send my bombers around the back to kill the stations hangar, and then destroy the enemy fleet before going in range of the station.

Thanks for your comments here. I tried all these tactics (believe me) but I guess I need to practise some more.

I tried the "hold back and pick them off as they come" tactic but going up against Class 3 or Class 4 stations is a pain since they manufacture Cruisers and TIEs easily to throw at you. In addition I can't seem to lure Imperial fleet away from the base. They will go back to guarding the base after pursuing you for a short distance. So that doesn't work.

I tried the fighters and bombers tactic but their Tartans decimate my flights before they could reach the base. No use using frigates to take out the Tartans first as the base will resupply everytime one gets destroyed.

The only thing I can think of is holding back and using missile frigates to blast the base. But then you need to be able to see the base first. That is tough unless you send in the Sundered Heart to fly around like a mad chicken attracting enemy fire.

Tough. So I take out the ground first before attacking space.

Cheers.

Strange, whenever I play the AI obeys the pop limit rules. They hyper in a fresh ship when one is destroyed. Maybe it only applies to hard difficulty?

About fighters and bombers - as rebel, I am now finding that they have no sane place until all the tartans is killed, so I almost never bring them to an offensive fight at all.

Before you get to larger ships, I seem to play with mostly frigates (all of them) and corvettes. one thing I like is to use a frigate with shield boost to soak damage while using rear ships to do damage. I almost never (as reb) use bombers against a station since they get devastated by the tartans, but instead hit the hangar with missile frigates.

I would REALLY like to be able to select my initial force, since then I would not choose any fighters/bombers that the AI:s charging tartans could kill. Now it seems if I bring fighters to a fight, they always die before you can say "mincemeat".

haard, that's a good idea. using one frigate with shield boost to draw fire, I'll try that in multiplayer. In single player campaign games I don't EVER buy fighters. They are not needed against the AI, and the AI seems to give priority to destroying them. I buy a few bombers, but I keep them with my ground assault force, just for bombing runs in ground combat. I don't ever bring bombers into space combat, unless it's near the end of the game and I want to clear up some pop cap points to build cruisers. Of course, skirmish and multiplayer are a different story, and require a different tactic.

OK. I guess I am improving on this. I just played a couple of space battles and won using different tactics. The first was to figght the imperial fleet in the space over a planet I own with an ion cannon. The second is to rely more on corvettes, Y-wings and Marauders than on frigates.

The corvettes are to make a quick sortie to attarct the attention of the ISD, or to kill the Tartans, or to kill the pesky Broadside Cruiser lobbing missiles at my fleet from far corner of the map.

After that the Y-wings go in to kill the ISD or/with the Marauders firing at the ISD or at the space station from a safe distance. The frigates go to soak up the fire if the ISD gets too close to my Marauders.

Some points to think about...

If I take out the ISD engines with my Y-Wing, shouldn't it stop moving and become easy prey for the marauders?

How many Y-Wing ion blast does it take to immobilise an ISD?

Why can't I use kamikaze tactics (i.e. use an X-wing to ram an ISD's shield or use a frigate to ram an ISD or use an ISD to ram a space station)?

And finally, HOW COME NO PLANETARY BOMBARDMENT EVEN WHEN I HAVE A CAPITAL FLEET IN ORBIT?