Katina

Overview

Katina is a planet from Star Fox 64 found on the medium route. The stage is spent completely in full range mode (free flight) fending off invading Venom aircraft. To complicate matters the skies are also filled with friendly Cornerian fighters that are hard to identify until up close. Dogfighting enemy fighters make up majority of the stage until the Saucerer mothership flies in an deploys more fighters.
 

Mission Details

The goal of the stage involves fighting back the waves of enemies while the Saucerer prepares a beam weapon to destroy the Katina base. When it starts charging, it leaves the player a minute to destroy it before it obliterates the Katina base and the Cornerian forces. Destroying the Saucerer opens a route to Solar. Failure forces them to head to Sector X.
 
Bill Grey, a friend of the Star Fox Team, makes an appearance in this stage. His role on Katina is the squadron leader and he will provide updates on the Saucerer and chew out the player if they shoot down allied ships. If the player saves the Katina base, Bill will appear in the next stage to provide support. If not, his fate is left more ambiguous. It's not made clear if he is dead or unable to regroup with the Star Fox Team.

Player's Guide Information

Info from the player's guide explains that Venom fighters on this stage suffer from inferior design and don't stand a chance one-on-one with Cornerian fighters. They try to compensate for this with sheer numbers, going for a quantity over quality strategy. They've also been painted with the same green and white colors of Cornerian fighters, by Andross's orders, to hopefully cause confusion and friendly fire. In-game, enemy targets and friendly targets look quite similar from a distance. There are only a few ways to tell friend and foe apart. Enemy ships often travel in numbers, in formation. They also have no engine glow unlike Cornerian fighters. Of course, the lock-on function of the Arwing has no trouble telling the difference, but runs the risk of accidentally killing friendlies with splash damage. 
 

Planetary Information

• Radius: 4,893 skm
• Albedo: 0.37
• Gravity: 0.85
• Esc Velocity: 9.45 skm/s
• Equilibrium K: 281
• Atmosphere: N280 0217
• Biomass: 676 Quads
• Class: D 
  

 

Trivia

• The stage is an obvious reference to the finale of the 1996 Hollywood movie, Independence Day. The Saucerer has a UFO shape and fires a simliar beam weapon to destroy the Katina base.