Let's (Sort of) Play Homeworld - Mission 5

Welcome back to an aborted mission, I'll finish it tomorrow, just too much annoyance to bother continuing now.

Charlie gets repairs under way, and everything on the Mothership is tiptop. Karan, reasonably bitter, locates the enemies in a nearby asteroid field and knows they're the Taiidan who destroyed Kharak. Our mission now, given by Charlie, is to eliminate the opponent.

We come into a strange Vee-shaped patch of dust. There's a power signature at the other edge of the map. Charlie tells us to go send a probe, instead - I send my entire battle group and strike group there in wall formation.

This proves ultimately futile, though. My wall is devastating on their Assault Frigates and Ion Frigates, but my Strike group is eliminated, and...

... after destroying their Carrier, they send their Destroyers (along with a healthy accompaniment of Defenders) right at my Mothership, eliminate my resourcers, kill my Salvagers, and blow up the Mothership.

Soo, I restart! This time I send my wall up a little bit, to cut off the Destroyers' path. I'm so smart, aren't I?

Well, no... My ion cannons can't fire through dust clouds, but heavy projectile weapons (like those used by the Assault Frigates and Destroyers) can pass through easily. My Ion Frigates are all wiped out, and I restart again.

This time, I'm gonna be smart. I send my probe to a... oops... too far. I trigger the event, and the enemy starts to mill around waiting for me. Ahem... the PROPER thing to do (restart number 3, by the way) is to send the probe to a spot about 45 KM from the Mothership, Harvest up one side of the Vee, and then...

Harvest up the... oh for the love of GOD! After starting my Resourcer on the other half of the Vee, my stinking computer decides it'll be funny to make the game crash... I saved, though, and that's about as much of this level as I can handle.

I did, however, build 2 more Ion Frigates (for a total of 12), 10 more Interceptors (2 groups of 15), and I researched Plasma Bomb Launcher and built 10 Attack Bombers. Hopefully tomorrow, I should be able to actually win.