Stopping the Elite Phantom leaving
Posted June 28th 2015
When you exit the third tower, a Phantom waits to fly Arbiter away. However, you can get it to stay there, just hovering. When you cross the loading point (not before), use a fuel rod gun to blast the gun platform off by splash damage. As long as you do this in time, it seems to prevent the ship leaving!
That's rather strange, but I find it even stranger that it's no good to just blast the platform off directly. Apparently it has to come off via splash damage. The best areas to go for are the silvery metallic patches either side of the boarding area, but you could also go for the lowered parts of the ship (like boarding steps), or even the green above the boarding area.
Note: When the platform is blasted off, sometimes Arbiter doesn't even board the ship.
Update: I've now found that manning the cannon can stop the ship departing. So can being near the rear underside, or something like that.