I can't seem to find much footage on YouTube regarding this so I'm going to ask real quickly here:

I really like the simulator levels as they are good teaching tools, but on Level 02 you are required to protect a transport ship of some sort against Kilrathi fighters. At one point a wave comes forward and there are two fighters and one massive Corvette ship.

The problem I'm having is that I'm finding the Corvette nigh on indestructible. I can't approach it without getting fried, even if I put my shields full forward or something like that, I still have problems. I can't seem to scratch its shields and I tried flying with the Shrike earlier but got toasted by the first few waves of enemies in the scenario.

So my question is: is this level beatable? I remember as a kid I found it impossible, too, and I'm wondering if the game devs purposefully made this a near impossible level to beat, or if it's some kind of hiccup in the game's design?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I haven't played Prophecy yet, so take this with a grain of salt, but I'm guessing you need to use torpedoes (not missiles, which are for fighters, but torpedoes, which are for cap ships). A quick google search brought me the following forum thread, which says you have to lock on to a specific subsytem to get a torpedo lock in prophecy: http://www.gamesflightsimulation.info/wing-commander-prophecy-gold-torpedoes-help

I completed level 2 on nightmare, but with Vampire, not Tigershark fighter. Vampire has enough missiles (Pilum, I think) to take out the corvette, or at least strip it off of shields and armor.

Now level 3 is so ridiculously hard for a "tutorial" that I suspect it is in fact some kind of puzzle or challenge.

Sorry this is like 11 years too late but in case anyone else in the future is struggling with Level 2 in the Simulator, here's the trick:

To pass this test with the intended ship (the Tigershark) first, do your absolute best to protect the transport from the smaller enemies (fighters and bombers). The less damage it takes, the easier the last part of the mission will be. (Charging Mass driver can 1-shot smaller enemies, just practice with it)

Once all lesser enemies are dealt with and it's just you, your allied transport craft and that strong enemy Corvette, all you need to do is fly ABOVE your friendly transport ship (not underneath) and then kill your engines and wait.

You see, your allied transport ship has 5 gun turrets on the top and they're surprisingly strong against that enemy corvette. So if you taunt the enemy craft a couple of times, they'll ignore the transport ship and only shot at you... except you'll be out of range :)

Lure them in, and when your transport ship starts shooting at it, you know the corvette is within range to start firing off some missiles / torpedoes (no lock required, just dumb fire them in a straight line at the corvette as it slowly moves closer) Once you start coming under fire just pull some evasive maneuvers but stay above and close to your allied craft. Their gun turrets will make short work of the corvette.

Mission Accomplished :)