Challenge

A challenger appears!

One of the many freelance missions in Galaxy on Fire 2 is known in the game as "Challenge".

Objective

A person in the space lounge will offer Keith a marksmanship challenge, (wager) betting that he cannot beat him or her in shooting down a group of hidden pirates. Should the player accept the mission, the person will send coordinates of the pirates to Keith's ship.

Upon exiting the space station, Keith's opponent, in his or her faction-appropriate ship, exits with him. The coordinates show up as waypoints that show up as a thin, blue circle that show how far the ship is away from it. A scoreboard appears in the top right (?) corner, first as "0 : 0", but counts up as pirates are shot down, with Keith's on the left and his opponent on the right.

As Keith's ship flies closer to the waypoint, at least one pirate appears and immediately opens fire. The player must shoot down the pirate(s) as quickly as possible; it does not matter who shoots first, but the the shot that defeats the ship does. On average, there are three waypoints Keith and his opponent must reach before the challenge is concluded. The most pirates shot down after all waypoints have been reached is declared the winner. Credits are transferred right away should the player win.

A behavior exclusive to challenge opponents is that their ships fly significantly faster than Keith's. As many players will experience the first time, both of their ships will head in the same direction, but the pirates that spawn are gunned down right away because the opponent reached the waypoint first. This can be easily rectified by installing the most powerful boost the player is able to obtain, and gain a huge lead on his or her opponent. Using EMP weapons on your opponent is another option.

Notes:

Possible "Glitch". If a challenge / wager starts in the Loma System and the pirates have been paid off prior to entry into the station, the challenger will not fire until Keith angers the pirates. It is possible to go through all the way points and see all the pirates appear but they will be neutral (yellow) in stance until Keith attacks one of the pirates. The challenger will not attack until Keith attacks.

An advantage can be gained by the player by using long range lasers and EMP weapons. The EMP weapon can be used to temporarily disable the opponent. The opponent seems to have limitless hull energy and does not appear to ever fall below 99% even with if targeted by high powered weapons from the player. EMP disabling the opponent allows the player to reach the waypoints before the challenger in most circumstances, or at least levels the playing field. It also helps to unlock the autopilot as soon as the general direction of the next waypoint is known, thereby allowing the player to target pirates as they appear.  The player can also save themselves time  by re-engaging the autopilot approaching when less than 1km from each waypoint, as soon as the next waypoint shows up on the display the auotpilot is again disengaged, freeing the player to target pirates.