I'm at the part where you have to defend the flagship against waves of attacking zeppelins carrying hordes of soldiers. I'm playing on Hard difficulty, so enemies soak up enough damage that I can't quite keep up with them, and they slowly destroy the ship's core. (I don't even want to think about dealing with this on 1999 Mode…)
What strategies are effective in this fight? Should I be saving my "air strikes" for the gunships, or should I be using them against the infantry on the decks? How do I deal with the Patriots?
Best Answer
This one took me a few times as well. Ultimately, you want to prioritize:
Gunships (the boats that fire rockets constantly) will do the most damage to your airship core and need to be dropped first.
Zeppelins don't actually directly damage the airship core... they just launch Patriots. If there are no gunships to target, you can use a short 'airstrike' cooldown to help you clear the deck, then take down any Zeppelin's that are targetable with the next 'airstrike'.
Also remember that, when dealing with Patriots:
In addition, there are RPGs on the wall beside the starboard (right) side of the core and another one on the deck below. These do decent damage (especially if upgraded), and Elizabeth should feed you enough ammo to keep you firing them. If you haven't upgraded the RPG, though, favor another heavy-hitter that you've upgraded (in my case, it was the Hand Cannon).
Lastly, the enemies all come in waves triggered by clearing the last one. You can use this to your advantage by leaving one low-damage person alive, kiting them around (or just letting them fire at the core and do negligible damage), waiting for your 'airstrike' to come off of cooldown, then finishing the straggler off. This will make sure you have an airstrike ready for the beginning of the next wave.