Star Wolves 2 Walkthrough (Corporate side) GoblinRavisher v0.1 --- This guide is there to keep you from making avoidable beginner mistakes. If you are considering to buy the game, consider SW 1&3 first. They are more desirable for most people. If unsure, SW 3 has most content and least game-breaking bugs. SW 1 is not bad either. SW 2 is the buggiest and shortest of the trilogy and in general, worst bang for your buck. Keep your expectations low, especially if you have played other Star Wolves games. You can still reap at least some enjoyment out of it if you keep making game saves constantly. Every single Star Wolves game expects you to reload saves constantly to keep your ships from exploding. You will not be given enough funds to recover from exploded ships or buying not-end-game-viable items. You have been warned. In this game, you can off-set stupid spending by painfully grinding cargo transport missions. --- Controls -- (You can use this as your cheat sheet. The game is very controls- intensive.) Mouse left mouse button (LMB) - select right mouse button (RMB) - attack/follow/move/etc. Double LMB OR Alt+LMB - focus on target mouse wheel or LMB+RMB+mouse-move - zoom and window slider control Ctrl + RMB - force attack SHIFT + RMB + mouse-move - vertical move - Keyboard [, ] - slower, faster game speed <, > - show, hide contacts panel +, - -- zoom in, out ` - select mothership 1 - 9 - dialogue choices and fighter selection (additive selection with SHIFT + 1-9. A - attack B - open mothership menu [very useful] BACKSPACE - star map Caps Lock - show relative altitude (useful when looting) CTRL + A - select all ships [you will use this a lot] CTRL + Z - launch all fighters AKA "wings" D - Dock ship E - escort Esc - deselect all ships or brings up the menu, ends cutscenes F - alternate between Free and Focused camera modes F1 - lists the keyboard controls in a window F5 - quicksave F8 - quickload F9 - Free camera mode F10 - Focused '' F11 - "Chase"/Follow '' F12 - 3rd person '' G - cycle through camera modes H - toggle tooltips L - toggle message list, wipes upon system change M - horizontal + vertical movement (w/ two LMBs) Q - toggle quest window [very useful] R - rocket attack S - Stop ship TAB - system map [extremely useful, especially for long movement] V - toggle radar coverage on the system map X - toggle special action panels (pilot skills & rockets) Z - dock all fighters to the mothership -- End Game Goals in Star Wolves Games --- 1. Getting top-tier, passive anti-missile systems for each ship o Without missile defense, you ships are not going to survive. + Cyclone for fighters / "wings" + ABM Mist for mothership 2. Laser weapons (other weapons are slow and/or unreliable) + As soon as you start getting Scorchers or better, the game starts to shift to your favor. Even relatively cheap Rapiers can carry you through to the end, because they do not miss much. + The best lasers (ASCL) can cost 500k a pop, though you will not need gear that good to beat the game. 3. Mothership's repair system + Less useful than in other games as the ship full-heals every system change. Still, very helpful. 4. Late ships with Big/"Heavy" Guns + At the beginning, Tiger is very cost effective once you get a cargo mission or two with 500k+ rewards completed. + Late game, my favorite ship is Matarice w/ FIVE (5) "Heavy" cannons. Do not trust the 4th gen ship specs as listed in the manual. They are mostly false. (The terms in quotes are the SW2 terms. Most of those got trashed and replaced with the old SW1 ones in SW3: Civil War. SW2 was quite a misstep.) --- Stuff You Generally Do Not Need for Anything (Sell Them) --- 1. Radars i.e. sensory range extenders. No point in seeing what you cannot shoot anyway. 2. Stealth devices. You lose limited experience gains if you bypass fights. 3. Active or team, repair or missle-defense systems. A ship activating those systems cannot fight, giving the enemies more time to damage and overpower you. 4. Missiles. They are slower and more expensive than lasers and run out. Even if they were any good and enemies did not have anti-missile systems, they are a lot of hassle. They require you to stuff your ships with sensory range extenders just to use the really big ones. The really big ones are a fast way to friendly fire your own ships. Just stick with lasers that are much more practical and effortless. Also, Corsair is a missile specialist of the game. Consequently, he is particularly useless. Even he gets more done with lasers than missiles. 5. Fighter repair systems. You have moshi for superior free & fast repairs. --- Time Spent on Two Full Playthroughs to Write this thing: 27 h Estimated time to complete a full playthrough: 4 - 7 h (If you do the credits memory-edit cheating, it is 4h. You would not enjoy those repetitive credit-grinding jobs anyway. Cheat to maintain your sanity.) --- Walkthrough -- Stage 1 (game setup and start) 0. Set your settings, especially the resolution. You cannot change the during the gameplay without exiting it. You should disable "Launch fighters automatically" in additional settings. Otherwise you are likely to waste time baby-sitting helpless fighters every system jump to not lose them for a portal in-jumping pirate squadron. 1. Start a new game, name your main dude ('Gimli Jr' for the stupid beard?) and pick the specialty of Gunner. Confirm it and pick the perk Quick Learner for the guy. Gameplay will start immediately afterwards. (Piloting makes you go maybe a bit faster and Systems and Missiles ones are plain useless. Star Wolves games are about a famous mercenary group tasked with the challenge of gunning down enemy fighters to stay alive. By picking any other profession than Gunner, you are practically making a pro-roleplay choice at the expense of your survivality. To be fair, laser weapons are good enough that picking a sub-optimal specialty is not a game-breaking choice. In addition, Star Wolves 2 is a very easy game. The game does not even have a difficulty choice in the beginning unlike the other games.) 2. Go to the waypointed Watcher's Station. (You have no mothership yet.) (Pressing TAB opens the omni-useful system map with the waypoint paths. Yes, your call sign is "Vessel-12." In the game and on the game box it clearly says "M.S.F. Radamanta." Ignore that, I guess. MSF = Military Space Forces, i.e. Empire's military. AKA "NAVY" in SW1. You are in Areco system now. The funny part is the call sign is kept even though you immediately upgrade from a single fighter to a big capital ship. At least Patrol bases call you "Star Wolves.") 3. You are given the remodeled Radamanta capital ship and crew. Pick Quick Learner perk for K.T.. Go to Trading Station and opt to do Jack's mission first. (The shape of your MoShi i.e. Mothership is TERRIBLE. The Axe cannons are nigh useless unless the enemies come very near it to die. All "low" accuracy guns are like that. The power behind a missed shot does not matter. Even the nearby stations have similar garbage on sale. Be careful until you get some Scorchers. The start of the game is quite rough with this awful equipment.) 4. Portal travel to Lacade-Tarrot. (Press Q for journal and Backspace for the star map to figure out how to get to places. [ and ] to speed up and down the game when traveling long distances.) 5. Go to A2 Station and tell him to load the cargo. Return Lacade-Areco to "Watcher" Station. (You might meet some pirates. Remember to loot what you shoot like a big boy.) 6. You get 50k and are waypointed to the a MSF skirmish mission. Go towards the Farlese portal. You get a cutscene ("Vessel-12") and are hintedly forewarned about the insane early game fight you are going to have in Egleon against end-game Alien ships. 7. Go to Farlese. You will fight a couple alien ships, no biggie. 8. Go to Egleon, launch your fighters and SAVE. Next, you have the most difficult fight in the game. You might die here, so just be ready to reload. Sooner or later you will succeed. (It helps if you let your escorting MSF pilots get sacrificed in your place while you hammer the aliens.) 9. Go towards Cheos portal to meet-and-beat the Aliens. Kill them. (They are difficult because they have Alien Missile Launchers. Missile defense does not work against Alien technology.) 10. Travel to Cheos and go towards MSF Station. SAVE before arriving (as aliens are attacking the station and you ships do not last long.) (Here is what you should do: park your MoShi/"Base" behind the station do not move. Let the AI pilots deal with this one. Taking down your big ship is too easy for aliens at this point. The AI will win, so you can just wait.) 11. MSF Station offers you a mission. AGREE to it. Go to the way point. (You do not have to do much as MSF usually can finish the job even with you just watching and looting their own ships.) 12. Return to MSF Station. (This will end the helpless part of the playthrough) (Bryna hilariously says: "At last, a chance to stretch my implants." To fully get the joke, look at the game box art. Even more funnily, she is going to have to wait a long time of before that mission is ever continued.) - Stage 2 (grinding some creds and equipment) 1. Give the main dude the second learning perk and go to Danstag. 2. a) Keep traveling the system route of Danstag-Loreel-Walok-Dulled- Lang-Deosys-Ulle-Quitaro-Bae and checking-and-switching jobs at the Trading Stations to generate that 516k cargo haul quest. (Just do not take anything to far trips. The Lang one seems to generate those very short cargo runs with only a couple required to the destination.) b) If you are tired of doing busywork just to up some number i.e. your balance, you can value inject and cheat the time and the boredom required to get there. It is a win-win to cheat here. Basically, here is what you do: I) Install Cheat Engine or equivalent, any version will probably do. II) Start it. III) From 'File' drop-menu, select 'Open process' IV) Select random-numbers-Star Wolves 2 and click 'Open' V) Now click the 'First Scan' window button VI) Make sure it says 'Value type | 4 bytes' and 'Scan type | Exact Value' . VII) Open the game and write down the current credit value that is listed under the Base / Mothership panel under the portraits of the two ladies. VIII) Now input that credit value to the textbox over-labeled "Value:". IX) You should now have a list of memory addresses on the left side. Some of them are false positives, sometimes all of them. Now you should buy or sell something to change the original value. (Usually, only the actual number changes.) X) Once you have changed the value in the game, check which numbers correctly reflect that change. Some times all of them are fakes and you need to repeat the procedure. XI) Once you have found the right value, click on its value field. Considering that 4 byte values can store values up to 16.7 million, input 16000000 there. The balance line should look quite full now because of the big number. Now save the game to a new test entry and try to go to the main menu. (Star Wolves 2 crashes upon returning to Main Menu in case of a corrupt game state. It is a decent test of save file integrity.) XII) Now resume the normal gameplay and go buy some really expensive stuff. 3. Now you have the dough. Too bad you cannot buy anything useful before you get Corsair to unlock it with ease. Even if you somehow manage to unlock the Black Market with Ace, theere will not be anything worth buying before the Caebos skirmish has been settled and you are guaranteed to get Corsair. So keep ignoring station shops a little longer. (You can usethe value write trick to up crew XP. Basically, scan with 'Value type | Float' the current exp points value and then get some cheap perks to see which pointer changes its value right. It will not work if you do not set it to Float. Also, messing with the memory slightly increases the chances of SW2's game state corruption kicks in and you have to start from an earlier save. Save often and have many different save entries.") 4. Continue the story to Caebos. (Go try to buy some crazy stuff at Condelle. You cannot because the game does not let you.) - Stage 3 (Becoming a hardcore corporate and unlocking stuff to buy) 1. Get yourself to Cheos and travel to Haeon-Caebos. 2. Go to the skirmish place, though do not approach the frigate. (It will focus on you if it notices you and you will die very fast.) Instead, stay behind the Stalingrad cylinder ship. (Or lure it closer to the low-range Stalingrad ship and let it get maimed. Though the last cutscene will not kick in then. Harmless. Except that Defense of Caebos quest will always remain 'Pending.') Do not launch any fighters. 3. After Aliens have gone, exit the system and re-enter. Go to the given map coordinates. Decline to side with Empire/Emperor. Immediately USS offers you a spot to work for them corporations. AGREE to that. Let the sides smash one other until only one side prevails. Afterwards, you will be forcibly plot-jumped into Cassano System. (You chose corporations and you still need to settle with this worthless Corsair the Missile specialist. "I will be with you, no matter what." Half the skill tree of that guy is useless.) 4. Go to USS Station. Afterwards agree to escort some actor. 5. Check out the Trading Station for stuff like Mist MoShi missile defense system and Polaris lasers. 6. Go to Lerigore and visit Patrol Station. With the extra escorts, go towards the Uras portal (destroying the two pirate squadrons) and enter it. 7. You get your payment and you are immediately pushed into the Astra kidnapping quest. Travel Lerigore-Cassano-Gallio to progress. 8. Go to Pirate Station, fight off some weaklings and travel Cassano- Lerigore. Go to another Pirate Station, fight some goons and Astra will join you. (Get her a Gunslinger or something to play with.) 9. You get a USS mission to exterminate pirates in Lafose. Travel Mo- Lafose and destroy the Pirate Station along with the pirates. 10. Travel to Mo and get very close to Lith portal. Just before you are close enough to enter, USS dude will give you another mission. First you need to kill a dude in Lith. Enter Lith portal. 11. Go to Kadhis portal. Reject his suggestion and blast his Hatchet. Continue to Tibborg. Waste the squa Now you have your 5/6 pilots, with Phantom joining your crew. 12. You got a quest to go to Othan, something about Berserks. Go there. Launch fighters and visit Automatic Station. (The opposition will be stiff. Do not go MoShi first as the drones will tear it apart fast.) 13. Go near Keleen portal and you will get a quest involving it. Enter the portal. Visit Pirate Station, fight some MSF schlock, go to Storage Station to get pilot Heretic and make your way towards Othan portal until you get the Sveres quest. 14. Travel Othan-Sveres. In Sveres, immediately launch fighters and the ambushing Angorians. (Sometimes hostile MSF forces attack from the portal, so maintain alertness.) Kill all the Algorians while fending off the MSF fleets, approach Doria portal to get the quest and enter it. 15. Go to USS Lab. Approach Sveres portal until you get the quest. Travel Sveres-Gess-Leyborn-Denn. Go to Spammer Base and kill the transporter and the base. You are given a choice. Choose Astra's idea. Travel Leyborn-Gess-Sveres-Doria-Gallio. 16. Go to USS Lab. Travel Doria-Sveres-Othan-Keleen. Go to Storage Station. Kill the goons and move towards Lith portal until the quest progresses. Travel Lith-Mo. Go to Phantom's Laboratory. Fight off the MSF henchies. 17. (Phantom finally built a predictor of Argonian attacks. Expect another tough fight.) SAVE. As you come near any portal, you are given a chance i.e. an ending fork to switch for MSF. (Preserve that save if you really want to see that torpedo-fires-nothing-happens ending.) DECLINE and kill the MSFs. Travel Lerigore-Uras (for the finally battle against an Argonian Frigate.) 18. Go to the Automated Station and focus on killing the Frigate. After it is dead, Corsair suggests selling the remains. (If you agree, your branch switches to the pirate one. It sucks and ends with a childish El/"Al" exterminating all life in the galaxy with an Argonian super bomb.) Choose to hand the stuff over to the corporations. 19. You get the quest to prevent the extermination of AI in Enval with MSF. Travel Lerigore-Mo-Lith-Tibborg-Wilfore-Enval. Go to Automated Station. Kill everything there -- the "mission failure" is scripted in. Go to Willfore portal to progress the quest and jump in. Go to Prison Laboratory. (No matter how you kill the enemies, the detonation of El/"Al" ship will happen once there are less than two MSFs left from the initial skirmish. It has been extensively tested. The reason "Al" has to die here is that the foreign object is an universum-grade life eradicator bomb that "Al" knows how to detonate. By having it die, you survive. Also it provides the excuse to use the inferior USS scientists for more corporate feel for the quest-line.) (BTW, you can now buy Gen 4 ships. You do not really need that much firepower in this easy game. Just to let you know that the game is finally) about to end soon.) - Stage 4 (end game and endings) 1. Travel to Othan. Go to Keleen portal to trigger the USS Station waypoint and go there. Go near Never portal for a quest update. (You are told that the object is "an infinite energy source" i.e. a limitless explosive. It is probably related to the self-charging Precursorian batteries at the very end of Empire [MSF] quest path taken from the "Unknown" Precursor system. You should read between the lines that the next one is the last battle of the game. Maybe you can get more of those Argonian Frigates there. You will find out.) 2. Go to Never. Edge towards the center where the masses of ships are located. Once you defeat most of them, a cutscene kicks in, indicating the end of the game. (As long as you do not rush in, you will not be endangered. Use the USS units as meatshields when necessary.) (Feeling like seeing the other endings? DON'T. They are different ways of exploding the Argonians. Pirates - all life, including Argonians, gets destroyed MSF - they shoot a torpedo through a portal into their system and wipe them out. Corporates - they get a ship gun to exterminate all enemies at whim, much like possessing Star Hammer i.e. a Star Wars Expanded Universe Sun Crusher that shoots torpedoes into suns and explodes them as supernovas, destroying everything in the their local systems.) Now pat yourself on the back for another game completed. --- PP: goblinravisher at gmail dot com