Trying to get through the Academy missions for the Federation. The Battlecruiser and Heavy Cruiser missions are giving me fits. I've managed to get the freighter to survive the time period, but have blown through a lot of my extras needed for the combat part. The racing part is just ludicrous. It's not a matter of beating the other ship, its not knowing where any of the dust fields are at.

Any tips?

No idea, so I'm bumping the post. If nothing else, it might help to know there's someone else asking similar questions.

In the heavy cruiser race, I just tractored the Racer X into an asteroid without killing it. It'll be repairing damage for a while.

Edit: Yeah, I haven't tried the battleship yet, but the Federation Academy Heavy Cruiser was trivial once I figured out I could cheat. Transport a few mines in inconvenient places in front of the Racer X to slow it down as needed, but most importantly, you need to gently tow it with a tractor beam into an asteroid, then let go. It should survive, which is probably necessary considering my experience with the freighters in an earlier technical*.
Sulu kindly restocked my poorly spent mines at the end of the race, as well as repairing a few damaged systems. It probably helped that, having crippled my opponent, I completed the rest of the race at low speed with a huge amount of power devoted ONLY to the forward-most deflector shields. (He also restored my spare parts, some of which I probably also could have stolen from the crippled Racer X had I thought about it at the time.)

When I discovered Sulu forgot to bestow the same kindness upon the Racer X, I started to feel a little guilty.

* The mission failed because towing them to the asteroid does not mean towing them into the asteroid.

Say, what speed are you running the game at? I usually turn game speed down to 1 for long stretches, especially in combat or high maneuvers.

I normally run it at 6 just to keep responses somewhat rapid. I guess if I were to open up the minimap it might help me to avoid the debris fields. But I don't think that they're around the asteroids like they are in the actual game. I'll try messing around with the other racer. I've noticed that larger ships can bump into asteroids at low speed and survive, albeit crippled.

I've also noticed that there doesn't seem to be much difference between if I put full power to only one shield and full power to all shields. The color change isn't any more rapid implying that it takes the same amount of power. It doesn't seem to get any closer to white than if all shields are being boosted. I could be mistaken on this, but the shields on my game also seem to have a mind of their own. They randomly raise themselves if I've gone to green alert to maximize speed to get away and I have to manually lower them from the shields menu.

For the BC mission, I can usually put down enough mines and other objects to interdict enough of the missiles before they reach the freighter. I think it had more to do with my inexperience with battlecruisers when I first attempted the mission. I couldn't utilize the normal amount of maneuverability that I was used to with heavy cruisers and below.

I've gotten a bit tired of the academy missions anyway since you have to repeat them every new game unless you put a save file at the start.

Eh, maintaining only one shield is probably good practice anyway, but it'd be good to know if it's truly unnecessary. I always manually raise and lower shields, if only so I can keep track of what I'm doing. (Hence a speed of 1, I suppose!)

As to grinding the racer cruiser against an asteroid, I had to replay the mission (save got corrupted; keep backups!), and this time I accidentally blew the thing to pieces. Sulu congratulated me on my victory, but said I still need to complete the race...
So that's not a game-ender, apparently, though I'd still rather have crippled it simply so I could score my first victory in the combat portion in the simplest way possible. As was, I was rather alarmed by the sheer volume of rear-facing guns those buggers have; the first cruiser I actually fought this time around (Commodore difficulty) crippled me when I tailed it. It wasn't doing too hot either, but it was definitely slowly winning, and all three of my forward facing shields were at or near 0 for most of the fight. (If I could have taken down its engine power a bit, I'd've retreated and come back fresh.)

Speaking of crippling the enemy's engines in the Academy, during the Light Cruiser course I took out an unhealthy number of klingons by crippling their engines and letting them drift into the black holes. Try to keep those nearby if you're in half-decent condition.

What are the actual effects of shooting to disable? Perhaps I'd have better luck hitting my opponent to disable, then coming around for killing blows.

Addendum: Yeah, I see no difference in power between turning on all shields and turning them on directionally. If it ever becomes necessary it might be good to tinker more to know any small mechanical differences, but the broad strokes is, if you're gonna have one shield on, have 'em all on.

And y'know, a well-timed missile barrage can spell the end even for a dreadnought. Late era has its advantages, even for the Federation.

Is there an advantage to doing well on, or even completing, the Academy? Or is it just "chievos" and good practice?

I'm in the Academy training missing where you have to transport mines near a freighter to destroy it. I have a bunch of mines in front of the freighter, but for some reason they never detonate. The freighter is well within the range of the red-blinking mines. Is another command needed?

Update:
I think I figured it out. One has to place the mines directly in front of the ship. They don't work on the side even if they're in range.