So, I avoided triggering swarm of A-Wings, drew the dogfight away from Lulsla, killed remaining opposition. X-Wing Blue Group shows up and blasts me out with missiles. I simply can't dodge them in gunboat -- it is too slow and it's hit box is huge. It looks like they use advanced missiles -- it takes like a second for it to reach me.

Did anyone ever managed it? Is there some secret on how to handle missiles in gunboat (besides tanking them and abusing energy transfer)?

Unless you are really close to the X-wings my advice is to shoot the missiles down, I remember beating the windows CD version of Tie Fighter so it should be doable.

Blue group consists of 4 (or 5?) wings of x-wings (lol). I highly doubt I'll be able to repeat this trick 4-5 times in a row. Especially considering that they keep using them in a dogfight too.

I was thinking maybe I should try getting rid of mines early, trigger A-Wings spawn, disable one of them, kill rest and try to keep close to Lulsla to ambush every batch of x-wings as they launch? At least in this case I don't need to survive close-in. The trick is that those A-wings take me apart real quick too... :-\

Unfreaking believable... I did it! After about 10 attempts (on Normal). For future googlers here is what worked at the end:
- pick torpedoes (blue ones)
- at the very beginning: transfer all energy to shields, shields 25%, lasers 0%, full throttle towards Lulsla, target nearest enemy (a-wing), set wingman on him, select Lulsla, ask wingman to ignore him (Shift-I)
- immediately after Lulsla launches mine-laying transports -- target one of them and when it starts tracking drop speed to 2/3
- fire dual torpedoes, immediately target second one (while dodging incoming fire from B-Wings) and fire two torpedoes at him. If you did everything correct -- not a single mine will be deployed (in the worst case it is easy to shoot one without getting too close to cruiser -- you do not want A-Wing Gold to be launched, they'll rip you apart)
- now set laser to 75% and head towards containers, each container takes 6 dual (fully charged) shots, so as you approach transfer some energy from shield to lasers (3 clicks), fire 5 shots and, once identified, fire final one. Repeat two times for remaining containers
- now (it is very important!), IGNORE B-WINGS! If you kill them, NU Group will attack cruiser -- triggering mayhem. Instead, go after X-Wings Blue, then A-Wings and then B-Wings
- If everything is good -- you'll have full shields, all gunboats will be alive and turn around towards Lulsla, which at that moment will be launching dreaded X-Wing Blue group. You should be close enough to them to attack before they could lock their advanced missiles on you. This will scatter them and in ensuing dogfight it is very important to knock off them faster than they write off NU and your wingman. And most importantly NU won't attack cruiser!
- make sure to disable last one, ask wingman to ignore it (NU was dead by then in my case) and recuperate shields and energy fully
- now, get to full speed, standard energy config (75% laser, 25% shield) kill stranded x-wing and close on next wave ASAP. I usually attack from behind, launch two torpedoes on one guy (even it hasn't completely locked -- it'll still keep him occupied for a while), spread some laser fire and once their formation breaks -- concentrate on one and kill it asap. If you are lucky -- you'll end up with only three X-wings to deal with and your wingman alive.
- My wingman survived two waves (I should've probably waited for him to restore shields in-between waves). Last (4th?) wave I faced alone and killed them. Each wave you usually take one adv missile up your rear. I think I got two once, but managed to survive.

Once you hear the message -- GTFO! Don't test your fate, that cruiser has bunch of killer A-Wings that I can't even imagine taking out alone.

Result: 32(29), 33569 points, no reinforcements, all objectives. Neat! :-)

P.S. You rarely use ion cannons, it is important from time to time (when ion banks are full) to transfer energy into shields and then back to lasers (3 clicks) to maximize recuperation speed.

A neat trick I've learned by watching a multiplayer match on youtube was (once you are out of torps of course) putting both ions and lasers to dual fire and mash the "W" key while firing, this way you can add the ions to the lasers and it helps A LOT in bringing down the target's shields.

It works very well with assault transports, I hate those bastards.

Does it increase damage output -- do you end up shooting faster? Most importantly -- how would you avoid wasting your missiles?

My biggest fear is Escort Shuttles (ones with turbolaser turret on the back). Every time they show up I am either in T/F or T/I :-)

Btw, I reached B2M5 (Guard Resupply) while picking up every objective available (on Medium lvl of difficulty). It seemed impossible to get all bonus objectives on B2M5. And then I found this... amazing... footage:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=029NbUdYu4w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uilQOH8h_s

... on hard ... he didn't even use joystick. O_O

As I said, the trick can be used only when you are out of missiles/torpedoes/rockets/bombs, it can't be use always.
Yes, essentially while the lasers cool down you fire the ion cannons and viceversa, it essentially doubles the damage output.

The way I do this mission - and I just spent considerable time replaying it on Hard to try to understand how it works - is I first kill the transports, like the OP did, then containers, then anything that happens to be targetting me. Once my hands are free, I trigger the A-wing Gold wave deliberately. That way I can focus on it and disable it.

It's important to do this just by closing distance, without shooting the cruiser - if you shoot it, it'll start launching adv. missiles at you.

When fighting multiple A-wings you can always prevent an advanced missile being fired if you just do a sharp loop whenever you see someone's trying to lock on. That way, no matter where the guy who is currently aiming at you is coming from, he'll be forced to close distance and fly past you. The more fighters are targetting you, the fewer and shorter the windows of opportunity where you can actually shoot something instead of having to do those loops, but as long as you don't get impatient, you should be pretty safe. If your wingman is alive at the time when they launch, some of them will probably attack him, too.

Once the A-wings are disabled, I finish the rest of the original enemies. At this point it's pretty inevitable that some dumbass from the MU or NU groups will attack the cruiser and die - I was never able to prevent that, apparently unlike OP. This is fine, anyway, since Gold is already disabled. Disable X-W Blue and A-W Yellow groups and you're in full control. Recharge shields, kill Blue, new Blue wave launches, repeat.

Now this is the interesting thing - usually some time during this mission the enemy fighters launching from the cruiser fail to target me, and instead do the "patrolling for craft to attack" mission. Anyone else getting this? Any idea how this happens, what triggers it and how to prevent it? Does it only happen in the 1998 version (which is what I'm playing), or only on Hard?

Of course it makes the mission easier, but I'd still prefer to win "fairly" (not that the mission is designed fairly, lol).

Ok so just completed this mission with 100% bonus goals and not triggering the dreaded A-Wing Gold group. Basically the A-Wings will spawn under 3 conditions:

1) ANYTHING hits the Lulsla. The main responsible for this are GUN Mu after the B-Wings are destryoed. This will also happen if you don't take out the minelaying TRNs since at 5:00 your TRNs and GUNs will hyper in and try to attack the cruiser.
2) You fly too close to the Lulsla, the mines try to shoot you and end up hitting the Lulsla.
3) You call in for reinforcements since GUN Rho seem to target the cruiser instead of helping with the fighter screen (programmers were that sadistical back then).

So, these are the steps I followed.

- Immediately pump all cannons energy into your shields, then dump all power to engines, switch to dual missile fire and take out a couple of A-Wings while flying towards the Lulsla (the speed at which you fire the missiles affects their overall damage).

- In dual missile fire mode, target TRN Leven FIRST, and then Modd, taking them out with 4 missiles each. By now you'll be pursued by at least 1 B-Wing, you'll have to wait before shaking them off your tail.

- You should be in range of the containers. Pull up some cannons recharge rate and QUICKLY soften them up before inspecting, and then DESTROYING them one by one. > SECONDARY OBJECTIVES COMPLETE

- Now keeping the B-Wings on your tail, head back towards the main battle, take out the only A-Wing left alive, then order your wingman to cover you, pull up cannons and shields recharge rate and engage the B-Wings.

- When there are just a couple of B-Wings left, DISABLE both GUN Mu. Yes these rebel traitors will 100% disrupt any chance of getting the bonus goals since when A-Wings Gold spawn you're done for. Done that, go back clearing the B-Wings and then the X-Wings. Make sure you have full double shields charged all the way up by then. > PRIMARY OBJECTIVES COMPLETE

- Now, for the bonus goals. Quickly make your way towards the Lulsla and stay close to her hangar bays, 5 X-Wings from Blue group will spawn momentarily. Your best chance at taking them out is spawn-harassing them as soon as they appear. There will be 3 waves in total. BE SURE YOU DISABLE AT LEAST ONE of each group asap during the engagement since the next group will spawn almost instantly after the 5th X-Wing is downed, so use that precious time for building 200% shields before each wave. When you are fully charged, destroy the remaining X-Wing while closing distance with the Lulsla hangar. Rinse and repeat 3 times > BONUS OBJECTIVES COMPLETE

- If TAU 2 is still with you the better but he will most certainly not survive until the end. You need to lower the odds FAST when each Blue group appear. And I mean FAST. 5v1 isn't manageable, 3 or 2 is as long as you keep a decent pace (I suggest shields recharge neutral and cannons 75% for dogfighting the X-Wings) is doable as long as you don't fly straight for too long giving the X-Wings (which are armed with ADV MISSILES) a cheap lock on you.

- After a TOUGH fight as soon as you get the bonus objectives complete hyper out.

This is a VERY DIFFICULT mission to get the bonus goals, almost as difficult as the minefield clearing in a TIE Interceptor one, so don't feel bad if you don't manage, it's a very challenging engagement where you need specific conditions not triggering in order to even get the chance at success.