Anyone able to provide some advice for this one? I can't seem to get by it. Shuttle 2 always gets shot, and the shuttles need to survive as well, not just the x-wings?

Pick up the Official Strategy Guide. Not only does it have some really great information about each mission, the entire thing is wrapped up into a story if you want to read it. The story is one of my favorite reads, to this day.

You can get a used copy for literally 1 cent and 3.99 shipping.. so $4 out the door. It's invaluable in my opinion!

It is also featured as bonus content here on GoG.

i passed the mission. Thanks tho guys. the strategy guide came free with the gog purchase too

so...what was the solution?

I usually do this the following way:

First I redirect all energy from shields to the engines, because noone will shoot you in the first phase of the mission, and the closer the X-Wings stop to the jump point, the sooner the shuttles finish their mission. Then just disable the X-Wing you were told to in the briefing. If I can disable my X-Wing before the others, I join to help them.

Ideally you should be able to finish disabling the X-Wings before any TIEs arrive. This is when the next phase of the mission begins: protecting the recovery operation from the TIEs. There is one big problem: the TIEs are faster than you, so you can't really dogfight with them, but you're the heaviest fighter the rebellion has, so you can act as a wall.

So, the next thing I do is redirect all my energy into shields and lasers, and head straight towards the destroyer. The TIEs will head straight towards you, so you can just shoot them face to face, they won't be able to take down your shields. If you find that another wing of TIEs can get to you faster than you can rebuild your shields, then direct the shields towards forward. If you don't dogfight, just play wall, the only reason to have aft shields is to have some shield energy in reserves.

Now, you might make some mistakes, and one or two TIEs might slip through. If you start dogfighting, they will get too far out of your reach, and the mission will fail. So the moment a TIE slips through, turn back, redirect all your energy to engines, and arm one proton torpedo tube. Now, torpedoes aren't made against fighters, but when a TIE is going straight for a strafing run, a torpedo doesn't have to turn, and is still faster than the TIE. One torpedo is always enough, don't waste them, you might need the other torpedoes for later runaways.

While your doing this, take care not to get too close to the destroyer, because that means you have to evade its turbo lasers, while intercepting TIEs, which are getting away faster from the destroyer than you can. Not a good idea. So, if you have a breather between 2 waves of TIEs and you feel you're far away from the jump point, turn around (towards the rebel operation, away from the destroyer) to put some distance between you and the destroyer. But target the closest TIE, don't let it get to you from behind. When it gets to 4 clicks, turn back towards the enemy.

At least that's how I usually do. I also turn on "new missions" in the menu, because that changes some very difficult missions to easier versions, I'm not sure if this is one of them.