Flying around Troy in my relatively pimped Tarsus (for a new game). Dual missile launchers fully stocked with FF missiles, meson cannons, engine upgrades, afterburners, and the glorious B&S Omni with full friend or foe recognition and ITTS - cost more than my ship!
So, I'm going through a 5 waypoint patrol, and I run into a lone Dralthi (which takes me several minutes and 6 missiles to down) and two squads of three Retro Talons. Luckily I burn through both squads with only taking moderate damage.
I'm down to 3 missiles, several of my systems are moderately damaged, and my rear armor is almost completely gone. I hit the last point, and there's a squad of three Pirate Talons. Need to even the odds fast - lock the nearest one and fire two missiles at the same time, and he goes up in flames instantly. The other two start pounding on me, and I jink around while stuttering the afterburner to throw off their shots, and do a couple head on passes with both of them. I nail through one of their shields and their cockpit section and port wing go into the red. That'll give me a moment free from him, so I tap the afterburners and get onto the third Talon's tail. I fire my meson cannons into him, and drop the rear shields... and boom! He's gone.
Suddenly, my cockpit starts sparking, my radar is filled with static, and my rear armor is completely gone. My shields are completely gone. I check the damage, and almost everything is dark orange - including my maneuvering thrusters. I've dropped from 300km/s to 70 km/s. I slowly lumber my Tarsus around towards the final enemy, and I see him looping around for a final run. Full armor in the front, so I go to a dead stop (not like I could outmaneuver anyway) and he starts flying towards me, head on. I open up a few seconds before he's in range, and hammer down his shields. Several of his shots hit me - more sparks, my front armor is almost gone - and he veers off to the side early as my cannons smash into his armor.
I fire my last missile, and it unfortunately strikes him in the rear... setting his engines to red, but he's still alive. I barely maneuver in time and fire a string of shots at maximum range as he's beginning to loop around for the kill run, and somehow one of them hits and he explodes.
It was an intense dogfight. I limp back to the nearest station (thankfully running into no enemies on the way), get my paycheck, and upgrade to a shiny new Centurion.
Wing Commander: Privateer