Is there a minimum range for subsystem targetting? And how do you deal with the mines? At first I tried shooting them down but they are dropped so fast my cannon just seems to overheat. Not to mention nailing them in one shot a piece is kinda trickey.

So I guessed manouver is to be key. Keeping a defensive posture vs the mines while using the seekers to take out key subsystems. So sometimes I manage to kill it using up all my missiles, sometimes I don't. And I can't tell the difference between the two. Either way in the end I always die to the mines, the first few hits aren't too bad but the numbers stack up quickly and systems failure means I'm a sitting duck. Also, what is the effect of disabling different subsystems? I mean engines and LDA fields is obvious but for example taking out the bridge does that disable everything?

I played through I-War 2 before but this game is both more awesome and has me absolutely stumped in tactics to use. The training missions aren't very informative in the approaches they offer.

Im going to try a few more ideas I have, I'm guessing thats going to be a big part of the game. :)

I haven't played I-War in a while, but for I-War 2 you have to be within 5km to target subsystems.
The way to deal with seeker mines is to keep your distance from them, they have a max speed and if you also have that speed approximatly it is not very hard to take them out.
Be sure to press the nearest target button now and then.

The tutorial mission itself states to take it slow and take out the mines as they come. Which is fine, except I'd still need to kill the hulk spawning them within the 3 minute time limit. After reading the manual I figured dropping my AM supply bowling style at it might work while fending off the mines. Except I can't find the button for dropping it. I did manage to improve my flying/gunnery skills a bit, holding mines at bay.

Or use the zoom once it's installed. That extends it out to 25 or 30 km, don't remember which. This also makes it handy to mark cargo pods for Jafs without having to fly within the shorter 5 km range. Er, I-War2, that is.

I agree with your tactics for mines. Just use the manual override to fly backward at a similar rate, so they never close the distance to your ship. In I-War2 I think at the first mine mission you have Lori and Az in the turret fighters, so I sometimes just set them to fire at will and they do most of the work. The downside is that they burn through all of their missiles on stupid mines, when it's not really necessary. To avoid that go back to the first tactic of backing away and picking them off, without using the girls.

I was getting really frustrated with this game since I was consistently getting massacred in the advanced weapons training mission, and this was on a training mission!!!

One thing I was noticing was some of my shots were not causing any damage on the hulk and also, most of the time on mines. I read around and there was a suggestion to set screen resolution on the nglide_config to a fixed amount and not automatic since this creates some kind of framerate issue.

I tried it and completed the previously morale breaking mission on my first try!

So if you're finding some missions to be impossibly difficult and are starting to question yourself as a video gamer, nay even a human being, you might want to try this.

Can you tell what settings you used?

I set the screen resolution to 1200 X 800.

how to do the "advanced weapons" training mission: this mission is a bit tricky as well, as the covette needs to face a much stronger bigger "destroyer" ship

the trick to defeating the bigger ship is:

- select seeker missiles (BACKSPACE)

- get within 5km of range (it's best to attack the rear side), then target subsystem (T) until "CRW" (CREW) and "WEP" (WEAPONS) is selected

- FIRE ALL SEEKER MISSILES FAST, mag empty? hit (ENTER) to switch back to lasers

- now the "destroyer" should have been sufficiently damaged, keep circling it while hitting it with lasers in (F3) mode and

- how to hit the drones: in (F3) mode keep, fly cricles and keep hitting (Z) (target NEAREST enemy) and keep firering (SPACE)

chances are, it just will explode

good luck pilot! (it's a tough one)

imho this 1997 pc game is BETTER than "elite dangerous" AND "eve online" X-D