Maximum Effort

[Gargamel]

Originally Posted by CCIP

My only try in this mission so far ended rather hilariously. For some odd reason, within the first 2 minutes of the mission, I got reports of "loud explosion" on the sub's bearing. I then found it on my HF, but it wouldn't pick it up as contact. It soon became very apparent to me that the sub was dead and gradually sinking deeper and deeper... blew itself up? What happened? I have no idea...

I then spent some time running from the merchant and getting no points, until finally deciding to give up

As for evading the merchant, I highly suspect that the ACTUV is far more maneuverable than the merchant. So even if you are slower, you should be able to dodge him and force him to overshoot.

Dodging and overshooting is easy.... It's keeping him outside that 500yd exclusion zone was the tricky part.

[Molon Labe]

Fighter pilots have a saying... "rate kills." And that freighter's turn rate sucks. Even worse, it's rotational momentum is horrible.

ACTUVs that are not the Seahorse can do an OK job turning inside him and outrunning him. "Get on his tail and stay there" more or less... a two-circle fight. It's easy but it's time-consuming.

But what's better--and vital for the Seahorse--is to trick him into turning one way and then going the other. It'll take him a few minutes to get out of that turn, and that's time you can use to get as far away as possible and regain contact. It takes a little more planning ahead than a two-circle fight but it pays off very quickly.