forget that mission I give up
Do you mean that you're on
Series 4 Mission D? This is commonly rated as the hardest mission in the Wing Commander series. I've never finished it by playing fairly. On rare occasions I've shot down all the Gothri, but with so much damage that I can't survive making the torpedo runs. The Fralthra just hurl out too much anti-matter-gun fire.
Some ingenious pilots manage to turn this against the Fralthra by lining up so one of them shoots the other - which will still leave you with one anti-matter-spamming Fralthra to deal with. That's probably what happens in centaurianmudpig's run on this mission; at 7:58, one of the Fralthra spontaneously explodes.
If anti-matter chicken doesn't work out (and it's both dangerous and time-consuming), I fully endorse using debug codes on this mission. While you could just apply the
finger of death, there's a more
subtle cheat that makes it easier but still requires some work on your part. Use the "Origin" command line parameter, then while in flight press "Alt-i" to increase AI skill, and "Ctrl-i" to decrease it. If it's working, you'll see red text saying "Dynamic Intelligence = #". You may need to use the shortcut multiple times before the number changes; possible values range from 0 to 10. Also, when you destroy ships the number silently increases, so you'll need to lower it again periodically.
With the intelligence lowered to zero, I've seen all my wingmen survive the Gothri - and all three are
still destroyed by the Fralthra before they can launch any torpedoes!
You need to destroy both Fralthra to win this mission and the campaign. Leave one or both alive and you'll find yourself in
Series 5 Mission D - flying a Sabre against a Fralthra defended by more Gothri. It's no easier the second time.
I've often wondered why the mission designers give you a Sabre with its usual paper-thin shields, after making the second half of SO1 all about the Crossbow. (Yes, the script justifies this by saying there isn't time to rearm the Crossbow, but in other missions they have no trouble turning around Blair's existing craft in minutes.) Possibly they just wanted to reuse the background of everyone climbing on the Sabre to celebrate from the WC2 ending.