Foreword

This is a collection of everything I’ve learnt whilst running F59, and things which other community members have taught me. Some of it may be found in the List of not so obvious tricks and time saves guide. Let me know if anything is wrong, needs clarification, or could be added! DM me with more info!

M1 – BOTB

Hangar Crawl

Immediately after you leave the hangar menu or reset the mission, hold accelerate until you gain visual of your aircraft. In limited circumstances, this will give you a small amount of constant speed when you spawn in. This is before you gain control. This will allow you to leave the hangar faster and shorten your distance to the runaway.

The speed is variable, sometimes you’ll be outside before your wingmen start moving, sometimes, it’ll be so slow that the effect is negligible.

I’m currently not sure what causes it. Sometimes it happens off a fresh boot, sometimes it occurs after I’ve had the game open for a while. All I know is that once the bug is 'activated', it remains so until the game is closed. Otherwise, activating it is a mystery to me. If you know anything more, DM me or make a thread with your findings :)

You can see it in action at the start of my NG+ PB.

Tells that Hanger Crawl hasn’t worked

You see a red alarm light flash as you load in.

Your screen remains utterly black until you gain visual.

Tells that Hanger Crawl has worked

You briefly see your UI pop up and disappear again, approximately a second before you gain visual.

Taxi Skip

Drive ahead and slightly right into the grass straight out of the hangar; you will be teleported to the runway.

Thorn Rose Gang

Spawn Location

TRG spawns a set distance to the east of you. If you fly west before they arrive, you can ensure you'll be fighting them within the map boundaries and near your escaping allies, which may draw their fire.

Railguns

TRG's second wave spawns with railguns on all F-types on mercenary difficulty. Focus these down as quickly as possible. Direct hits from railguns 2-shot you when glass cannon is on. If you see one charging a shot, fly erratically to evade.

M2 - Invasion

PK Steel

After you destroy the initial 2 waves, you'll be waiting around for ~6:15 minutes until PK Steel and the penultimate naval wave arrive. What you do in this time is of no consequence.

Naval Wave Softlock

If you destroy any of the naval ships before certain dialogue finishes, the mission will softlock. You can kill hardpoints, but don't risk destroying the ships. Wait for these two lines to finish:

Cascadian Ship - "AA and SAM stations, tracking and online!"

Cascadian Ship - "Deal with them before we can box in the retreating forces!"

Keep in mind that PK Steel is highly aggressive and will finish off ships if you destroy too many hardpoints.

M3 - Mousetrap

Bomber Squadron

The Lanzelet + bombers will spawn and fly towards the Cascadian FOB after you destroy the 2nd wave of targets. The time frame in which you kill the 3rd wave is of no consequence, but all targets must be dead for the mission to end, or for Scraps skip to work.

Protect the Bombers

Your allied bombers can be downed, and the Lanzelet can lose hardpoints. Keep enemy fighters busy and destroy any SAMs you see. The less damage the bomber squadron takes, the better; you need them to take down the Cascadian FOB quickly. It takes ~3:15 minutes for Lanzelet to reach the FOB.

Scraps Skip

Credit to FalconLuma, whom I saw trigger this skip and prompted me to investigate.

The moment the Lanzelet says: "Cascadian FOB is in range. Master arm on all ordnance." You have ~45s to clear the FOB before they say the following line:

"303 has expended all ordnance, we're RTB. K-9 gets the scraps."

Leave at least one target alive, or ideally, two/three in close proximity. Your allies might killsteal a target and ruin the skip. Bunkers near the edge of the FOB are sturdy and make good candidates for this skip.

Wait until Lanzelet begins to say the scraps line, and then kill the final target. If you do this before the scraps wave spawns in, 'Mission Complete' will appear, allowing you to finish the mission early.

If you do it too early, Lanzelet will still say the line, and you will be required to kill the scraps wave. Too late, and you will be required to kill the scraps wave. It's a pretty short window, so be prepared to stall near the target with fast missiles or double MGPs ready.

M4 - Express Lane

Tunnel Skip

You can fly over the mountain range and stall within the collision box at the end of the tunnel to progress the mission. The prototype planes are the best at this due to their high mobility. The F14 can do it, but struggles to do it quickly due to poor deceleration.

Plane Choice

The F14 clears the tunnel the fastest by about 6-8s. The prototype planes are able to perform tunnel skip in approximately the same time. Due to the F14 possessing favourable hardpoints for clearing ground targets via HVSMs and UGBLs, I would recommend it over the other planes. The Sk.37 and VX-23 may win out on easy difficulties if they run AOA whilst clearing targets.

Target Priority

Fly in wide circles to evade missiles whilst simultaneously striking targets. Especially on Mercenary difficulty, focus down railguns first and SAMs second to make your life easier. Once these are dead, it opens up your options to fly more aggressively.

M5 - MF

Target Priority

Destroy railguns asap and SAMs afterwards. If you feel unthreatened, focus down enemy fighters, they have a habit of veering far away from the kill zone on this mission and wasting your time.

M6 - Faust

UGBLs

Use UGBLs to destroy all hardpoints on Faust's airship in a single hit in each stage of the boss fight. It should be the first thing you do. Choose moments when Faust is flying in a predictable fashion, i.e. straight or in a gradual turn. Poor angles can cause you to miss or crash into her.

Phase 1

Faust and her entourage will spawn on this radar line:

Phase 2

Orion Squadron will spawn a large distance away at a randomly chosen location. This location persists throughout your current session and does not change when you reset the level. Let them come to you whilst you bomb Faust. She will spawn new hardpoints after returning the phrase “By the Dust” to Orion, who say the same beforehand.

Phase 3

Enemy airships and bombers will spawn a small distance behind you. If you assume a straight flight path, you can predict their spawn. With good positioning, you can force them to spawn next to Faust and bomb them together. This is high-risk, high-reward, abort if you can’t see a flight path through them.

Focus down airships quickly after you bomb Faust, they have railguns.

Faust will be left with at least 4 lasers after you bomb her, they are located towards her tail. Be aware that missiles have trouble hitting them.