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I've been asked by numerous people lately to explain how exactly to solo the Star Ravager (Imperial Corvette) in Kessel. Since I'm tired of writing this out for every person who asks, I'm going to post it here since the other threads of this nature don't seem to give enough detail to have any pilot believe that they can accomplish this seemingly impossible task. (You definitely can in case you're wondering)
Now, let's get started....
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#1 ***Getting the Corvette to Show***
First, read what MonsofoLexius has to say about the Corvette possibly not showing up like it should:
Each Corvette will not spawn if its 2 Gunboat escorts are at its exit point. (I have seen the fighter escort there too)
The escorting gunboats will be chasing each other in a tight circle around a single point in space. (hard to miss)
The escorting gunboats can be very difficult to kill for newer pilots.
You only need to disable the gunboats (taking out engines) and wait. They will self destruct after a minute or 2 when disabled.
The Rebel Corvette (Corellian Corvette) exits at -7260 4873 6341(on Scylla)
Therefore, go to the exit point first and see if the gunboats/fighters are still there. If they are, you must kill them first. Go to the next section about fighters to learn how to kill them, and a quick gunboat kill-guide has been appended to the bottom of this post.
Next, the imperial corvette spawns at 7000,7000,7000 in Kessel. I highly recommend waiting for it to reappear at the spawn instead of finding it very close to where it jumps out of the system, because that'll merely frustrate you. You may need as much time as possible to disable it on the first few tries. The Star Ravager (called "vette" from now on) respawns on the order of 20 minutes to 2 hours from the time it last left the system, presuming that its escort of gunboats and fighters are not waiting at the vette's exit waypoint. If they are, you must take care of them first before you can wait on the vette to show. Time is the corvette's greatest weapon, for you need to be prepared to wait for 2 hours, and most groups can easily dissolve before such time passes. This is the greatest reason why you may need to learn to solo the vette, because no one else has the patience to stick around.
Presuming you waited long enough and survived any random TIEs that spawned near where you were waiting, the vette will eventually hyper in. Make sure you're not waiting on top of the spawn, or you may get an unpleasant wakeup call. Wait 2000-3000m away from the spawn because you can easily see the vette from this safe distance.
#2 ***Fighters***
There are around 8 fighters and two gunboats guarding the corvette. The gunboats are set on the same waypoint path as the vette, so they will never break off and follow you. The fighters however, will break off once they see you and give chase.
You have two choices from this point: ignore the fighters and proceed to disabling the vette ASAP or down the fighters first. Once you are familiar enough with the layout of the vette, you can ignore the fighters and easily dive straight at the vette and take out the necessary systems without taking too much damage. However, I do not recommend this for a first try because the fighters will haunt you if you are not fast enough and you never want to engage the fighters near the vette since a slight misorientation with respect to the vette can kill you. If you can manage to disable the corvette quickly before the fighters can hurt, do so, and the fighters and the gunboats will leave once the vette is disabled. HOWEVER, do NOT simply let the fighters and gunboats go. Let them get far enough away from the vette and then kill both the gunboats and fighters. If you do not, the vette may not respawn again. Read below for a quick fighter tactic, and look at the bottom of this post for a gunboat tactic.
If you do take out the fighters, this will be the hardest part. Generally, you can easily lure the fighters away from the vette until they get bored and start to turn around. I usually turn and engage the fighters at this point because it's highly unlikely that all of the fighters are now bunched together, meaning you can pick a few off without fighting the whole gang at once. Lure the fighters in this fashion until they're all dead. (I think that the fighters consist of 2 Aggressors, 2 Oppressors, 2 Interceptors, and 2 Advanced)
#3 ***Corvette Guns***
Ok, now to the real trick itself. There are 8 guns on the vette, and 7 of them are on its topside. Yes, only one gun is defending the belly of this beast. It's gun 5. You'll find it slightly behind the bridge. The gunboats are right behind the engine of the vette, so here's what you do. Approach the corvette from its front and from its bottom so that only gun 5 sees you. (If you approach from the wrong side, you'll know because there will be a ton of fire coming at you) Roll or move up/down or move side to side so that gun 5 has trouble hitting you as you make your first attack run. Once you're in firing range of the gun, straighten out and fire until you're almost on top of the gun. Hopefully you have managed to kill the gun in this single run. If not, 2 runs will easily suffice, but you'll obviously prefer to have enough blasterpower to not have it shooting at your behind as you retreat. Either way, you are now approaching the back of the vette where the gunboats are, meaning that those boats will now do their best at making you cheese of the swiss kind. Pull up and do a vertical 180, making absolutely sure that you are leaving the vette from its bottom side and away from the gunboats. If you panic and decide to leave in any other possible direction, you may find that you've inadvertently put yourself right next to the remaining 7 guns of the vette as well as the gunboats' 14 guns, and you may not live to make another run. I will now presume that you have managed to kill gun 5 and escape to the front/bottom side of the vette away from fire.
#4 ***Shield Generators***
The next available systems to destroy on the vette are the two shield generators. These two systems are also just behind the bridge, where the body begins to expand. Fortunately, the shield generators are on the sides of the vette (one on the left and one on the right), meaning that you can hit them from the bottom side of the vette. Now approach the vette from the same place, being the front and bottom of the vette. You will want to come in more from the front (and possibly more to one side so that you can better hit one of the generators) than straight into the belly of the vette since you will have to angle yourself to hit the shield generators. No dextrous maneuvering is required this time, since nothing can shoot you from this orientation now that gun 5 is gone. Just remember to make your vertical 180 as you get close to the shield generators so that the gunboats can't reach you and that the topside of the vette doesn't see you. Don't panic if you can't seem to hit the shield generators at first. It can take a bit to get used to the angle you need to approach at, but once you get it, the generators go down very quickly. Once this is done, we proceed to the next (and last really) part of this solo tactic....the engines.
#5 ***The Engine***
Good job if you've made it this far. You're practically done with the solo, though this last system remains to ensure that the vette will not leave the system. The engine is the easiest system to take out because as long as you don't approach the engine from the topside of the vette, you will survive the attack run and will most definitely be able to kill the engine in a single run. If you are worried about the gunboats since they are right behind the engines, approach slightly below the gunboats so that only their tail turrets can take a few shots before you pass underneath them. Dive away from the engines (do not pull up towards the topside) once they are dead, and your escape should be a clean one. Now wait a little bit. The gunboats are stuck on the waypoint path that the vette was on, and they don't know how to stop, and since the vette can't move, the gunboats will gradually fly past. This is the time where you must ensure that you destroy the fighters and gunboats if you haven't already. The vette won't go anywhere, so you have plenty of time now to kill anything else that's left. Be courteous and kill the gunboats so that the vette will respawn again for someone else. (A quick gunboat guide is section #8 of this post)
#6 ***Remaining guns***
If memory serves, you can only hit the next system, the reactor, from the top of the vette. This means that the rest of the guns need to go. Fly near the belly of the vette and slowly creep to one side and very slightly over to the topside until you can see/shoot each gun. This requires some creeping skills that you may also develop for killing Star Destroyer guns, but fear not, if you creep too much, only one gun will be able to see you, and you can easily fly away to try again. Regardless, you definitely can kill all of the guns without them ever shooting at you, but there's little else to say on how to do this other than keep allowing yourself to see more of the gun until it starts taking damage from your shots.
SheenaBrelya had this to say about taking out turrets, which I agree 100% with:
Turrets 6 and 7 are the side mounts, but can be hit easily from the bottom. I typically hit them before turrets 0 - 4. I blow 4 before 0 -3 as it is my belief that 4 has a wider firing arc and is more powerful, making it more important to disable.
Now, once the guns are all dead....
#7 ***Reactor and Bridge***
Some people are convinced that it is smarter to use ordinance against these two remaining systems in order to kill the vette. You can if you like, but since there's nothing left to kill you, I'd always have the patience to find the correct angle needed for blasters to kill these systems. Fly close to the topside of the vette and angle yourself towards the reactor, and you should be able to hit it. Last is the bridge which is easy to kill at this point, and then the vette will make a good fireworks display, and with 43,000 experience to show for it, you're done!!!
#8 ***Gunboats*** NEW SECTION
I am assuming that you courteously followed the two gunboats after disabling the vette. If you're new to soloing gunboats, here's a quick how-to. Type "/examine" whilst having one of the gunboats targeted, and observe its layout. Notice that there are zero guns on the belly of this thing, and only one gun on its tail while all of the other guns are on its topside. Unlike the vette, you can tell which side is its belly because the back fin is smaller on the bottom side. There are two ways you can take out these suckers. The riskier one is to approach from directly behind with gun 2 (the tail gun) targeted and to start firing away, making passes until the gun dies, and then nothing can stop you from destroying it. The safer approach is to come directly from below the gunboat so that none of the guns can see you. If you did go after the gunboats immediately after disabling the vette, this should not be difficult to achieve. However, if you wait until the gunboats make it to the system exit waypoint before trying to kill them, they will constantly circle around the exit point, making it much much more difficult to kill them as they are constantly rotating with respect to you instead of flying in a straight line.
There you go, an in depth strategy on how to easily kill the corvette. I've now done this in an Xwing, Awing, and Firespray, and once I took a whopping 3 hits from the gunboats the whole time I was attacking the vette, (not including fighters) so you can see that your shields don't even have to be that great. (even though spectators will think you have 4k+ shields)
WARNING: The biggest caution I can give is that the corvette runs through preset waypoints in the system, and each time it hits a waypoint, it will turn and rotate before proceeding to the next waypoint. This can be extremely dangerous since you can suddenly be exposed to the topside of the vette. Either be familiar with these waypoints, attack only after it has turned, or be prepared to run like hell if the vette starts to twitch.
I hope this helps and that most Master Pilots don't get too mad at me for revealing our secrets.
Nokilo
P.S. - I learned my initial strategy by speaking and flying with Tidu around the vette, the best pilot on the Chilastra server.
*Thanks to all for the comments and corrections. Message Edited by Nokilo on 02-25-2005 09:23 AM
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