Let's Play Homeworld - Mission 5 (end) and Mission 6

Welcome back to the end of a mission that tests my patience more than any man should have to be tested, and a mission that's a very happy vacation from swarms of ships blowing me up.

After promising my computer cookies if it behaved, I finished up the other half of the Vee - careful not to go past the probe - and then collected my battle group into wall formation. My strike group followed along happily.

Into the battle - it pretty much looked like this the entire time. My strike craft zoomed around, my Ion Frigates blew up approaching enemies (just left and down of center are two enemy Ion Frigates - hard to tell without beams of happiness shooting from my own), and my Attack Bombers did a great job. Charlie sees new ships and tells me we can learn the tech to build them (Defender Sub Systems - builds Defenders, these guys tore me up last time.)

Coming out of the glare of the galactic core, I see the Carrier, a Support Frigate (not sure why they have that) and two Destroyers. I turn my guns on the top left Destroyer and then their Carrier. However, one of the two Destroyers got past me...

... and I captured that sucker! Woo! I have a Destroyer now! Too bad it's relatively useless in the next two missions >_< I finish mining the rest of the dust clouds and asteroids with my two Resource Collectors (I have 2 now.) I also get prepared for the next level...

... boring screen, I know. But that little red X will save me in two missions. It keeps my Strike Craft from being able to be auto-launched.

So I build up the fleet a bit for the next level. 15 Defenders, 8 Attack Bombers (for a total of 15) and I collect all my slow frigates and my Research Ship and Resource Controller into one group.

It only took him a few missions, but Charlie has the transmission from the Frigate we captured... apparently there are tons of Outposts... with large amounts of ships... so, to avoid them we have to go through an asteroid field and a nebula.

Crap! Could have warned us about the asteroids! I send all my big ships away and use the manual launch to only get my Attack Bombers and Defenders out... and they... do what they do...

... blow up asteroids. Yay. This is a rather boring level, my Resource Collectors however, are quite useful as they suck up loads of asteroids and convert them into RUs that I shall take advantage of in the future. Once that's clear, the Bentusi arrive and give me Defense Field Research for 500 RUs.

We ask for their advice on the nebula ahead and they say that even the Taiidan fear the great nebula. Awesome. I retire my Attack Bombers, finish researching Super Capital Ship Drive (Destroyers can now be built), and built a butt-load of Defenders and Heavy Corvettes, as well as replace the 3 Salvage Corvettes I lost in the previous mission.

Tune in tomorrow for... a heckuva lot of fighters.