I see people rage quitting this beautiful game after encountering the first "difficult" mission in HW1R. I am hoping this guide will put an end to that.

A. You don't have to save all the cryo-trays. Saving just 1 is sufficient to pass the level.

B. I have saved all 6 trays with more than 13 assault frigates spawned. I think I have been able to save them all with as many as 17 spawned; but I find more than 13 is counterproductive if your objective is ship capture. Mission 4 becomes unmanageable.

C. There are two groups of frigates; three, actually, but the damaged frigate (which is technically in its own group) behaves the same as the forward group. The forward group is focusing fire on the top tray nearest the mothership. Have a salvage corvette grab that tray first thing, and have a repair corvette keep the tray alive while it is getting docked.

The rear frigate group is firing at targets of opportunity. You can neutralize/distract the rear group by attacking it with strike craft set to evasive tactics. Make the forward group a priority for capture if you have enough salvage corvettes to do so.

D. Time is of the essence, so the order in which ships depart the mothership is important. You should be issuing orders to your ships as soon as they can be selected. Don't wait for the voice-over to finish; start commanding your fleet right away. Ships will depart in order reverse to their docking (fist docked, last departing) in the previous mission, with fighters and corvettes departing simultaneously.

If you auto-dock at the end of mission 2, you will not be able to control the order in which they depart in mission 3, so you should manually dock at the end of mission 2, using the "remain docked" toggle on the launch tab of our mothership.

At the end of mission 2, try to dock your scouts last so they can be sent immediately to distract the rear group of frigates. Dock your combat corvettes first, then all but two of your repair corvettes, then your salvage corvettes (you really should have the max number by this point, but you will need 2, and want at least 3 for mission 3), and finally, your last 2 repair corvettes.

If you assign control groups to your ships at the end of mission 2, you will be able to issue commands to those groups without having to wait for them to disembark in mission 3. This will help greatly to reduce the amount of micro-managing needed for this mission.

Do not be shy about making repair corvettes. They are actually extremely useful in keeping your fleet alive due to being faster than support frigates, but nearly as effective. And they can heal corvettes on the move, rather requiring the corvettes to dock for repairs. You can pass mission 2 by building one repair corvette to heal your one salvage corvette so it can get to the mothership from the Khar-Selim in one piece, and produce nothing else (not that I recommend that). Your mothership is enough firepower to get through that mission.

At the start of mission 3, send your first 2 repair corvettes to repair the cryo-trays; making sure one specifically targets the top tray nearest the mothership. Send your fist salvage corvette directly to that top near cryo-tray to save it. Send the rest of your salvage corvettes to start capturing the forward group, but do not give them capture commands until they are very near their targets to reduce the amount of aggro they incur. If you have enough salvage corvettes you can sick one salvage corvette on each frigate to immobilize them, and use the corvettes left over to bring them in at your leisure. Having lots of repair corvettes to keep salvage corvettes from popping is very helpful in this process. Any frigates you do not intend to capture (you have to capture at least one as a mission objective) should be focused on, one by one, by your fighters and combat corvettes, starting with the forward group. Your scouts will probably be able to survive distracting the rear group long enough for you to finish off the forward group (don't forget their speed boost ability that will make them last longer), but if they don't, peel off small groups of interceptors to continue distracting them.

If the above does not do the job for you, the workshop has a mods which will give the cryo-trays and/or salvage corvettes more health so you will have more time to save/use them.