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Elite Tactical Reports - A Guide to STFs on Elite Difficulty

naldorannaldoran Member Posts: 0 Arc User
edited January 2014 in The Academy
Note: This guide is intended to assist players attempting to complete the optional objectives on Elite difficulty. The strategies outlined here will work on normal difficulty as well, though they are perhaps more nuanced and complex than may be necessary for runs on the normal difficulty setting.

Greetings Captains!

So, you completed the story missions, maybe tried an STF or two on normal difficulty, and now want to take on the nastiest, toughest PvE missions that Star Trek Online has to offer. Think you're ready? Think again! The Elite STFs are the most challenging PvE content in the game, and you can't charge into them without proper planning, a fine team of your fellow captains, and a properly-equipped ship.

If you're new to STFs, this probably isn't the thread for you. I suggest that you take a look at the following excellent threads for an introduction to STFs.

Newbie Guide


[URL=" http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=245866"]A primer on the Loot System[/URL]


Additionally, if you think that a video walkthrough of these strategies would be helpful, please check out these excellent videos put together by the STF Raiders, these are the guys I run with when I want to know that we'll beat the mission.

I'm going to outline some general guidelines for the Elite STFs, then present detailed mission briefings for each of the six Special Task Force missions.


Ground Weapon Selection
: For these missions, it is very useful (though not required) to have one of the STF ground sets when trying for the optional objectives. Time is very tight on these missions when trying for the optional objective, and the instant remodulation is invaluable when you consider how many times you will need to remodulate even at three seconds per remodulate. You are also highly recommended to carry a pulsewave assault weapon, as there are numerous groups of tightly packed Borg, and the area-of-effect damage allows you to get far more damage in. Your other weapon should often consist of a second pulsewave (Khitomer Accord) or a sniper rifle (Infected & Cure) so that you have flexibility in engagement ranges. On Infected especially, there are times when long-range damage is needed and a pulsewave doesn’t have the range. If playing a federation character, the MACO rifle and pulsewave assault would be recommended. For a KDF character, use a sniper rifle of your choice and the Honour Guard pulsewave.

Space Weapon Selection
: As a general guideline on gear quality, the crafted mk 11 purple items or the mk 11 purple anti-borg weapons are a good starting point. Escorts should probably be running dual heavy cannons and quantum torpedoes, science vessels do well with dual beam banks and torpedoes, cruisers generally work well as beam boat unless you have an Excelsior or Negh’var cannon build. There are far more possible and reasonably effective space builds than would be convenient to discuss here, but by the time you’re ready for elite STFs, you should have figured out what works for your character.

Kit Selection: On the matter of kits, there are a few that stand out as being particularly useful for elite STF runs, which are discussed below:
  • For tactical officers, the Fire Team kit is what I generally stick with unless my character is trying to tank Armek, in which case I switch to the Security Protocol kit for Overwatch and Draw fire. Supressing Fire against heavy and elite tactical drones combined with DPS-boosters are always good choices.
  • For science officers, the Analyst kit is quite popular since it includes Tachyon Harmonic and Sonic pulse for crowd control and shield-stripping to take down heavy tactical drones. I will also use the Physicist Kit for some nice ranged damage. When tanking Armek, or running Infected Ground, I will also frequently switch to the Borg Medical Analyzer for the Tachyon Harmonic and healing support. The Medic kit can substitute for that if you never fought Armek before Season 5.
  • For engineering officers, the Enemy Neutralization kit is highly recommended, as the explosives do excellent damage to enemy groups, and Weapon Malfunction is key to staying alive against heavy and elite tactical drones. The Fabrication Specialist kit has uses in the Armek fight, permitting quantum mortars to bombard him from range. Bunker Fabrication is an option when guarding transformers in Cure, though the transphasic bombs from Enemy neutralization are generally superior due to their knockback effect.
Ground Equipment Selection: You’ve got four slots for items, and gear for each slot must be carefully selected. One of the things that you should always, always have is a ready stock of hypos. I routinely carry eighty large hypos on my STF characters. If you don’t have the MACO set, large shield charges are also worth considering. If you have a Tribble of Borg, the damage resist buff is very handy. The Ophidian Cane is another noteworthy item, and is highly recommended for guarding the transformers in Cure Ground, as it is guaranteed to stop the workers from interfering with the transformer. It goes without saying that a remodulator is essential. If you don’t have a remodulator, you have no business in even a normal STF. Fractal Remodulators from the Defera invasion crafting are worth the effort of collecting crafting materials.

Injuries and Ship Damage - Your Enemy: One of the biggest problems that people have when entering Elite STF missions for the first time is the injury system. When you (or your ship) are killed / destroyed, there is a significant chance that you will receive an injury. Injuries come in three levels of severity: Minor, Major, and Critical. Minor injuries are generally things that have little effect on your combat capabilities, so many players ignore them. Do not fall into this trap. Major injuries result in penalties that are quite noticeable, and critical injuries involve things like -10% to all damage dealt; a couple of those will completely cripple your ability to fight effectively. And guess what results in higher chances of major and critical injuries? Unhealed minor ones. The more injuries you have, the higher the chance that you'll get a crippling one. Remember that teams rely on each member effectively contributing, and you can't do that with a crippled ship. So please be sure to keep a well-stocked bank full of components and regenerators. As a rule of thumb I keep 40 major & minor versions of each healing item, alongside a couple critical ones. Happily, I almost never have to use the critical ones because I keep even minor injuries at bay. Players that don't heal their injuries is the first sign that someone doesn't know what they're doing in Elite STF runs, don't be one of those people. ;)


Tactical briefs for individual missions follow in storyline order according to the pre-season five progression.
12th Fleet | Sad Pandas | Starfleet M.A.C.O.
Post edited by naldoran on
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  • naldorannaldoran Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited June 2012
    Infected Space

    ----
    Infected Space Briefing

    Note: I copied this from the wiki article which I wrote, so this is not a case of plagiarism.

    Mission Outline:
    1. Initial Borg patrols are defeated.
    2. Optional Objective timer begins (All mission objectives must be completed in 15 minutes).
    3. Nanite generators (4 per transformer) are destroyed. Two spheres will warp in after the first two generators are destroyed, and the destruction of generators begins the process of nanite probes and spheres, which heal the transformer, warping in.
    4. Nanite transformer(s) is/are destroyed.
    5. Borg Tactical Cube warps in.
    6. Tactical Cube & Gate are destroyed to complete mission.
    General Tactics & Suggestions:
    • Gravity Well, Eject Warp Plasma & Tractor Beam Repulsors are all quite effective at slowing down incoming nanite probes and spheres.
    • It is recommended to focus on destroying the Tactical Cube and any remaining Borg ships before destroying the gate. It is generally easier to destroy the spheres before attacking the Tactical Cube.
    • Klingon Carriers with Power Siphon drones are extremely effective against the Tactical Cube: one good carrier skipper can quite literally turn the Tactical Cube into a defenseless, offensively impotent target drone. The Aceton Assimilator console can also single-handedly take out the shields on a the tactical cube.

    Tactical Walkthrough & Optional Strategy:
    1. After clearing out the initial patrols, the timer will start. Head over to one of the gates and quickly destroy the Cube guarding the nanite transformer.
    2. The team should split up and bring each of the four nanite generators to 10% of max health, WITHOUT destroying any of the four generators feeding nanites into the transformer. On command of the team lead, destroy all four nanite generators simultaneously. IMMEDIATELY have all ships focus fire on the transformer, using all available DPS-boosting abilities. The goal is to destroy the transformer before the spheres that spawn can get into range to heal it.
    3. After the transformer is destroyed, all ships should clean out the Borg vessel that entered the system.
    4. Repeat Steps 1-3 for the other transformer.
    5. After both transformers are destroyed, a Tactical Cube will warp in. The team should have a science vessel use disabling abilities such as Beam Target Shields, Beam Target Weapons, or Tyken's rift to neutralize the Cube as quickly as possible. If available, Klingon carriers with Power Siphon drones can effectively neutralize the tactical cube in short order by deploying drones and then leaving the Tactical Cube's range envelope.
    6. Focus all fire on the Tactical Cube, then the Gate to complete the optional objective with time to spare.
    12th Fleet | Sad Pandas | Starfleet M.A.C.O.
  • naldorannaldoran Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited June 2012
    Infected Ground



    Infected Ground Briefing


    Introduction:

    This is the single hardest of the optional objectives in the entire game. It requires the entire team working in close coordination, and there is less than a minute margin for error. For this mission, the group should be broken up into two teams, one two-man team which is responsible for rescuing the Starbase personnel (rescue team) and a three-man team which is responsible for distracting the rest of the drones and killing them (distraction team).

    Class Specific Notes:

    Engineers should use the Enemy Neutralization Kit, since Weapon Malfunction on Heavy Tactical Drones is essential to surviving with a very aggressive strategy, and the explosives do wonderful damage against closely packed groups; Tactical Officers should use the Fire Team Kit, since you need as much DPS as you can possibly get. For Science Officers, since tachyon harmonic is extremely useful against Heavy Tactical drones, one should use the Borg Medical Analyzer or the Analyst Kit.

    Team Composition & Gear Load out:

    Standard recommendations about gear apply, with one change; switch out the Borg Tribble for Collective Static Grenades. These are extremely useful as they buy a few seconds for the distraction team to close with the tactical drones and unleash pulsewave attacks. When dividing up into teams, the first science officer should always go with the distraction team, along with one engineer officer, if present. The last slot on the distraction team should be filled by a tactical officer, though two tactical officers on the distraction team also works nicely. the rescue team does not need to be heavily DPS-focused, and any classes may fulfill this role adequately. Pulsewave assault weapons are considered mandatory for this mission because they are simply the most effective way to attack closely packed groups of Borg.

    Mission Map: The rest of the walkthrough will reference the below map extensively. It is recommended that all team members memorize this map, paying special attention to trigger lines.

    Link to the Mission Map


    Tactical Walkthrough:

    At mission start, do not talk to the NPC until the team is in position at the force field. One team member should stay back to talk to the NPC and start the mission timer once the other four are stacked up. From henceforth, the walkthrough will proceed with room-by-room breakdowns. NOTE: For the entire run, the distraction team should run in first to draw the Borg’s attention before the rescue team goes in to rescue the hostages.

    TRIGGER LINES: DO NOT CROSS TRIGGER LINES UNTIL THE PREVIOUS ROOM IS CLEAR AND THE ENTIRE TEAM IS READY TO PROCEED. CROSSING THEM WILL BEGIN THE 15-SECOND ASSIMILATION PROCESS IN THE NEXT ROOM!


    Room 1A: After clearing the hallway leading to 1A, the distraction team runs in, with the heavy tactical in the centre as priority target. Throw a collective static grenade at the centre group surrounding the heavy tac, and engage the Borg, taking care to not cross the trigger line during the clear, don’t advance past the furthest bench. After the initial clear is done, wait for the heavy tactical patrol to enter the room and engage; taking care not to use excessive knockback attacks. Let it be noted that the NPC hostages should be beamed up only after the room is clear so that the rescue team can assist the distraction team in clearing the room sooner.
    Room 1B: After clearing room 1A, the group should move over the right side of the room and hide behind the potted plant while one team member ‘pulls’ the heavy tactical team from near the threshold between 1A and 1B, while taking care to not pass the trigger line. That person then retreats near the plant and hides with the rest of the team until the heavy tactical group is within the room, then engage with weapons that have low knockback. After the pull has been completed, storm the room, snatching the hostages on the left and dropping a collective static grenade on the centre heavy tactical group. Clear the hallway leading up to room two and wait behind the trigger line.

    Room 2A: Repeat of room 1A tactics, with a helpful addition. Since there is a heavy tac group very near the entrance, it is possible and highly recommended to pull this group into the hallway (without crossing the trigger line of course) and destroy this group in isolation, which makes clearing 2A much easier.

    Room 2B:The difference between 1B & 2B is that instead of being on the centre-left of the room as you enter it, the hostages are on the back right of the room, so the rescue team will have to be extremely quick, and the pull is even more important so that flanking attacks don’t kill the rescue team as they run in to rescue the hostages.

    Room 3: In the hallway between room 2B and 3, clear the Borg normally until you reach the ramp leading to room 3. From the top of the ramp, snipe out the four normal drones in front of the door to room 3. You are now ready to storm room 3, the most difficult portion of the mission. the distraction team will stick along the left wall, and either have an engineer use the cover shield or throw a static grenade to distract the heavy tactical for a few seconds while the rest of the team snipes the workers. An alternative is to have a science character tank the heavy tactical while the remaining two members of the distraction team snipe the workers from the sniper locations marked on the map. The rescue team can simply advance to the marked sniper spots from behind the knee-high barrier and take out the workers. Do NOT advance past the sniper spots, since that will cause the Elite Tactical Drone to attack. It will ignore the team until the team advances past halfway through the room or attacks the elite. The room is much easer to clear if the Elite Drone does not immediately attack. Please note that shooting or destroying the nodes in room 3 can aggro the Elite, which you don't want.

    Alternate Strategy: As a safer though perhaps slightly slower method, pull the Heavy Tac group on the left side of room 3 into the hallway, sniping it as it comes. This makes rushing the room far safer and is recommended if the party is engineer-light and thus can't knock it out with Weapons Malfunction.

    Captain Ogen:In Captain Ogen’s room, the fight is quite straightforward, with the caveat that engineers should not use cover shields to trap him into his regeneration alcove, since this simply slows the fight down. Simply use a lot of team buffs and debuffs on Ogen and the fight should go quickly. Ignore the drones that spawn in halfway through the fight, since they transport in away from the platform with Ogen on it. After Ogen is dead and the drones are dispatched, have three people lower the force field.

    Room 4: Run up to the area behind the trigger line and snipe the group of Borg in the entrance to the room using low-knockback weapons so that it doesn’t take too long to kill them all. Ensure that any engineers save their orbital strikes for this room, since one of the workers in each room (the super-worker) has extremely strong shields and is as hard to kill as a heavy tactical drone. The rescue team should attack the group on the left, while the distraction team attacks the left side group. Do not engage the heavy tactical and its group at the back of the room; they may be safely bypassed. After clearing the workers (focus on the super-worker first! It looks like a Heavy and is far harder to kill than a normal worker) and immediately beaming up the hostages, advance down the hallways towards room 5. On your way out of room four, any engineers present should put up a cover shield to block the exit from room 4, so that the heavy patrol which you did not engage is unable to pursue you.

    Room 5:Before reaching room five, ensure that the team stops at the top of the ramp and snipes the drones (including the heavy tactical) before the team crosses the trigger line. The strategy for clearing room five is similar to room four, with the additional note that no one should attack the elite drone until the workers have been killed and the hostages beamed out.

    Manus of Borg: Clear the center platform, and then move to the platform immediately to your right when you enter the room. Make sure that you don’t fall into the plasma soup. Proceed around the room in a clockwise manner, knocking tactical drones into the soup to kill them using knockback attacks such as sniper fire and sonic pulse. After the central generator is down, there are two possible strategies. Firstly, you can simply have the entire group huddling behind a cover shield put up by an engineer and shoot Becky. Make sure that whoever is targeted by her blue circle gets behind the cover shield immediately. Alternatively, the team can spread out and simply snipe Rebecca. If team spreads out, it should be noted that you can actually climb up onto Rebecca's platform and use the two pillars on either side to take cover from her attacks. Once she's dead, go pick up the loot drops from the central platform and pat yourself on the back for beating the hardest optional objective in the game!
    12th Fleet | Sad Pandas | Starfleet M.A.C.O.
  • naldorannaldoran Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited June 2012
    Cure ground

    Cure Ground Briefing
    Introduction:

    This mission consists of several distinct portions. Firstly, there are two different shield puzzles where transformers must be activated in sequence to lower barriers preventing further advance. Along the way, the team must free four captured Klingons which the Borg have captured for later assimilation and collect genetic samples from the Klingons which have died as a result of the assimilation plague. After both gates are brought down, the shield protecting the orbiting shipyards must be destroyed, after which the team must defeat Armek of Borg.

    Class Specific Notes: Tactical captains should stick with the Fire Team Kit, Engineers are recommended to use the Enemy Neutralization Kit, since they can use the knockback from transphasic bombs to defend transformers, or use those same bombs, pre-positioned before the repulsor fields go up, to damage turrets. Engineers should also bring along the Fabrication Specialist kit since Quantum Mortars are highly effective against Armek of Borg in certain circumstances. Science officers, and the mission REQUIRES at least one science officer, MUST bring a medic kit or Borg medic kit for the Armek fight. For the rest of the mission, Science officers may use the Analyst or Physicist kits for crowd control and ranged damage, respectively. These two kits are highly recommended because they contain the Sonic Pulse ability, which is extremely useful when defending transformers.

    General Strategy: When engaging groups of Borg, focus-fire on the Heavy Tactical Drones first, use area-of-effect attacks like Pulsewaves and Transphasic Bombs to quickly take down the Borg groups before freeing the Klingon prisoners and collecting the genetic samples.

    Turret Takedown Strategy: People attacking the turrets (it is recommended that at least four players take down any turret) must bring the turret’s health down to slightly below half before the repulsor field goes down and the turret can be destroyed by planting a bomb on it. Once the field is down, the designated bomb planter must run in and set the bomb while the other team members shoot the small plasma turrets that transport in so that they don’t shoot the bomb-planter and disrupt the demolition process.

    Transformer Puzzle Strategy: The transformer puzzles require that four transformers be activated in sequence and then defended until the beam brings down the gate. The first transformer is generally attacked by the largest number of drones, and thus should have the player best equipped with knockbacks and crowd control assigned to it. Generally, one person is assigned to generators one through three (generator four shouldn’t need a person defending it), another is assigned as a ‘floater’ roaming between generator one and two and assisting as needed, with the last person assigned as the runner who will activate the transformers and plant bombs on the turrets. After clearing out the Borg near the transformers, activate the first transformer. All five team members should attack the first turret, then the person assigned to guard generator one should peel off and keep the workers off the generator. The other four team members should move forward and take down the second turret. Once the second turret is down, the remaining team members should split up and assume assigned duties until the gate goes down. Once the gate is down, ignore the workers and simply rush forward to the next part of the mission. There is no reason to kill the remaining worker drones; that is simply a waste of time.

    Shield Generator Strategy: There are a large number of Drones, including several Heavy Tactical Drones surrounding the shield generators. It is not advised that the team attempt to engage the entire mass of drones simultaneously. Rather, right around the group of drones between the shield generators and the final gate, the team should stop and take up sniper positions while one member goes forward and shoots one drone, then retreats to the rest of the team. The team is thus able to snipe one group at a time as this process is repeated until the number of drones is manageable. After the Borg are all killed, destroy the shield generators protecting the Borg Shipyards so that after defeating Armek you can beam up to your ship for the space portion of the mission.

    Armek Strategy: Armek, the most difficult boss fight in Star Trek Online if you don’t know what you’re doing. Let me make this very clear: a Science Officer with a healing kit is absolutely required for this fight. There are a number of different variations on the basic strategy of distracting Armek in melee while the rest of the team kills him. Note that Pollyalloy Armor is highly recommended to grant physical resistance to the tank. Also note that Immunosuppressant hypos boost both melee damage and provide immunity to the assimilate attacks that Armek likes to use.

    Things to avoid: Pets such as Horta and Security Escorts are absolutely forbidden in this fight, as are plasma grenades and multiple people engaging in melee with Armek. There can only be one tank at a time, and the medic should keep at least five to ten meters distance from Armek at all times.

    The Tank: Any class can tank Armek effectively if they have healing support. Engineers can kill Armek quickly with the Enemy Neutralization Kit, Tactical Officers can stay alive a long while with Overwatch and apply damage resist debuffs to Armek, and Science Officers can simply stand there and keep themselves alive indefinitely.

    The Kill: Again, there are a number of ways to effectively kill Armek, which depend on team composition.

    Mortars: If the team has a large number of engineers, the engineers can camp outside the force field area and keep mortars deployed around the perimeter. In this strategy the tank can simply hold Armek’s attention while mortars do most of the damage.

    Engineer Tank: As previously mentioned, Engineers with the Enemy Neutralization kit can manage the kill more or less solo with a medic healing. Other team members should simply stay around the perimeter of the combat area so as to avoid orbital strikes and snipe at Armek, applying debuffs as is practical.

    Sniper Method: The fall-back strategy that works with any class mix: either have the medic tank or heal the designated tactical officer (since you aren’t using the above Engineer tank strategy) while the rest of the team spreads out and snipes, debuffs and calls in orbital strikes against Armek.

    Pulsewave Method
    :This is a variant of the Medic Tank which can result in 30-second kills. Quite simply the medic stands in front of Armek, engaging him in melee while the other four team members stand about two or three meters behind Armek and bombard him with pulsewave assault weapons. When the cover shields pop up, everyone should be within the perimeter of the cover shield area, the medic in melee and the rest with their backs to the cover shields. Fastest known method.
    12th Fleet | Sad Pandas | Starfleet M.A.C.O.
  • naldorannaldoran Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited June 2012
    Cure Space


    Cure Space Briefing

    Note: I copied this from the wiki article which I wrote, so this is not a case of plagiarism.

    Mission Stages:

    1. The first part of the mission consists of defending the I.K.S. Kang form waves of assimilated Klingon ships spawned by the shipyards and associated Borg Cubes while simultaneously destroying said Cubes
    2. The Captains then hail the I.K.S. Kang after all three Cubes are destroyed; it then warps out.
    3. All Captains proceed to mop-up surviving Borg vessels.
    4. An Assimilated Carrier warps in, which must be destroyed.

    General Information:

    In order to destroy the Cubes, you must destroy first the lower nanite probes (the ones closest to the shipyard) then the upper nanite probes in order to make the Cube vulnerable.
    After three lower probes and one upper probe are destroyed, one Borg Negh’var and one Borg Raptor decloak at the shipyard and move to attack the Kang. It is recommended that they be destroyed immediately.
    Once the first Cube is destroyed, the ships spawned at the other two locations change to Raptors. Once two Cubes are destroyed, the final one spawns waves of Negh’var battle cruisers.
    Player Captains are able to use healing abilities on the I.K.S. Kang. Tactical team in particular is recommended as the Kang will not mange its own shields.

    Optional Objective:

    Destroy all three cubes in under fifteen (15) minutes while not permitting the health of the I.K.S. Kang to drop below 75%

    Tactical Walkthrough:
    1. Players should pick one person to defend the I.K.S. Kang. An Escort with area-of-effect (AoE) attacks such as Cannon: Scatter Volley & Torpedo: Spread can fulfill this role quite adequately. A slightly superior choice is a Klingon Vo’quv class carrier, as these ships excel at killing multiple weak targets such as the waves of Birds-of-Prey. Carriers can also equip crowd-control bridge officer abilities such as Gravity Well.
    2. The other four players are responsible for destroying all nanite probes in the system, ignoring ALL other targets save the Negh’vars and Raptors that decloak as previously mentioned.
    3. Upon warping into the system, the player assigned to guard the Kang should assume their station while all others head to the left gate and begin killing probes.
    4. Once all probes are destroyed, it is necessary to kill the three cubes SIMULTANEOUSLY. There are two main strategies for doing this:
    • Once the last group of probes is destroyed, the four players formerly on probe duty all attack the Cube until it is at 20% health, then leave one ship to ‘guard’ it and keep it at a low health. This is recommended for a low DPS team, since it is very easy to kill the Cube by accident or with an unlucky critical hit. This is a disastrous outcome.
    • Alternatively, particularly if the team has three or more Escorts, the team should split up and attack the three cubes without using buffs so as to avoid excessive DPS until all cubes are wounded and ready to die. This is my preferred strategy for most situations.
    • Additionally, be careful to keep your distance from any wounded Cubes, as the warp-core breach from a destroyed starship can destroy the Cube if it is close enough.
      Variant (PUG-Friendly) Tactic:
      1. Assign one person to Kang duty, then split into two groups of two.
      2. One pair takes out the right cube, another pair takes out the middle cube, and they time the destruction to so that the right cube blows up first, then meet in the middle to deal with raptors.
      3. If the team doesn't have a high enough DPS for two ships to reliably take out the probes and accompanying cube by themselves, then eliminate the probes at the right & middle cubes, then blow the right cube, then eliminate the raptors, followed by destroying the centre cube.
      4. Lastly, have everyone converge upon the last cube and take it out. The group should have enough firepower to take down the Negh'vars if all five are together.

      [*] Upon command from the Commodore (team lead), destroy all Borg Cubes.
      [*] Hail the I.K.S. Kang immediately so that it warps out of the system and away from any attackers. The ship hailing the Kang must be out of combat.
      [*] Destroy any and all remaining Borg vessels.
      [*] Destroy the Assimilated Carrier.
      12th Fleet | Sad Pandas | Starfleet M.A.C.O.
    1. naldorannaldoran Member Posts: 0 Arc User
      edited June 2012
      Khitomer Accord Space

      ----
      Khitomer Accord Space Briefing

      Mission Stages:

      1. Destroy the Tactical Cube
      2. Deploy ships to control probes warping in and defend the Time Vortex
      3. Bring the left gate to 10%
      4. Bring the right gate to 10%
      5. Kill both gates simultaneously
      6. Kill Donatra

      General Information & Tactics:
      • Do not permit any probes to enter the time portal leading to the era of the tutorial mission.
      • The team should be broken down into three sections: one person guarding each gate, and three
      • people assigned to destroy the gates and transformers.
      • Ships on probe duty should equip abilities such as Gravity Well, Eject Warp Plasma, Theta Radiation Vent, Tractor Beam, Cannon Scatter Volley, and Fire at Will. Multi-Vector Escorts with Cannon Scatter Volley and Gravity Well, as well as KDF Carriers are highly effective in this role.
      • The three ships attacking the transformers and gates should be high-DPS vessels such as escorts.
      • The fight against Donatra at the end can by quite difficult if the team doesn’t have appropriate abilities to take her down; Tyken’s Rift, Aceton Assimilators, Target Shields, Siphon Drones, etc. are all effective.
      • The same tactics that work against the Tactical Cube in Infected will function against Donatra.

      Tactical Walkthough:

      When the mission begins, there is a single tactical cube which must be destroyed to begin the countdown timer on the optional objective. This tactical cube is far weaker than the one in Infected; no special strategies should be needed to combat it.

      After the tactical cube is destroyed, the two people on probe duty should assume positions between the time vortex and the gates which the probes come out of. The other three should move towards the left gate and begin attacking generators. Once two generators are down, a cube will warp in, and the team (assisted by the person on probe duty if possible) should focus all available fire on the cube to bring it down quickly.

      It should also be noted that the person on right gate duty (since fewer probes come out of right gate) can bring down generators on right side so long as they are careful not to attack the Cubes which warp in. This makes the job of the assault team significantly easier.

      Once both transformers on left are eliminated, the left gate should be brought down to 10% health, no lower. By doing this the mission becomes significantly easier, since both gates will continue to spawn only probes, which are far easier to kill than the Spheres which would warp in if one gate gets destroyed. It is recommended that one ship be left behind on the wounded gate to stop the probes that continue to warp in if this method is used.

      When the above process has been repeated on the right side and both gates are down to 10%, the two gates should be killed simultaneously. It may be necessary for a second person to come back to the left gate and assist in destroying it.

      Once both gates are destroyed Donatra will warp in. Us the same tactics that function against tactical cubes and Donatra should go down without too much difficulty.
      12th Fleet | Sad Pandas | Starfleet M.A.C.O.
    2. naldorannaldoran Member Posts: 0 Arc User
      edited June 2012
      Khitomer Accord Ground


      ----

      Khitomer Accord Ground Briefing


      Introduction:

      Khitomer Accord Ground is perhaps the easiest of the elite STF missions, with highly skilled groups completing the optional objective with seven (my personal record) or even eight minutes remaining on the optional objective timer. In this mission, which takes place in the past during the tutorial mission preceding the Borg attack on Vega colony, the team must stop the Borg from ‘upgrading’ a large number of old Borg that have been in hibernation through the use of the Isolinear Molecular Reconverters. The IMRs must be destroyed after eliminating the six shield generators protecting them, and then an easy boss fight and the mission is done.

      Class Specific Notes: When taking care of the control room, Science Officers benefit from a kit which grants the Sonic Pulse ability, and Engineers can use the Forcefield Dome from the Bunker Fabrication kit to push back drones around the consoles which permit the shield power transfer to be extended, giving the rest of the team a longer time to destroy the generator. Tactical characters should simply stick with the Fire Team kit for DPS.

      General Strategy:

      Remember, as always, to kill Heavy Tactical Drones first, even before Elite Tactical Drones. They do almost as much damage, and die far faster. After the first few corridors when the party reaches the main room, it should be cleared of all drones, and then the generators destroyed. When destroying generators, remember to NOT engage the Borg that transport in, simply run to the next generator in the sequence so that you can complete the mission as quickly as possible.

      Tactical Walkthrough:

      At the beginning of the mission, there is an elite tactical drone immediately to your right down the ramp. There are a few others, but the elite tactical should be your primary target. After that, there are a couple of groups before another room with a single elite tactical drone. Taking that down shouldn’t be hard at this point for you, proceed down another couple series of ramps, clearing Borg groups along the way.

      At the end of the series of stone ramps, you enter another room that looks like the inside of a Borg vessel, with an elite tactical drone on a raised platform to the left of where you enter. It is possible to bypass this elite drone and the couple at the bottom of the ramp by simply turning sharply to your right when you enter and jumping down a level. There will be a heavy tac and a few regular tactical drones that you need to dispatch. After this room is a long corridor. To your left entering it is the boss chamber, to the right the rest of the hallway, with one of the IMR controllers ahead and to the right, protected by a force field. Approximately halfway through this long corridor, the timer will start for the optional objective, which gives you fifteen minutes to destroy both IMR controllers.

      After the long corridor, you enter the primary generator room at the bottom of a ramp guarded by a medium-sized group of drones. In this generator room there are six generators and three levels two on each level. The generators on the right as you enter are the beta group, the generators on the left as alpha group. Right when you enter the generator room, behind the tactical drone is a console which, when interacted with, will transport the user to the generator control room. Within the control room is a centre console used to lower the shields on the generators and six smaller consoles around the perimeter which can be used to extend the time for which the shields are lowered. When a generator has its shields lowered, lightning will shoot from the ceiling to the console which you need to interact with to extend the shield transfer. As mentioned, science officers and engineers often have the easiest time managing to knock down the Borg which transport in around the shield extension console.
      In order to clear the generator room, you need to clear all the Borg from the room, then send the designated person to the control room.

      The top floor is designated as 1, the middle as 2, the bottom as 3. When clearing the room, it is recommended that you begin clearing from generator 1A, move to 1B, jump down to 2B, run over to 2A and clear it, then jump down from 2A to 3A and clear it. There is a heavy tactical drone in the middle of the room and an elite tactical drone near 3B. The control room is then staffed, and the team destroys generators in the reverse order in which they were cleared, communicating with the person in the control room to lower the appropriate shield. You then need only to run to each of the two IMR controllers and interact with them to start the destruction process. If you need the accolade to get the Borg Science Officer, simply walk into one of the IMR controllers and let yourself die.

      After destroying the two IMR controllers, move to the previously inaccessible end of the long corridor and clear the room full of Borg. There is no particular strategy for this room aside from not rushing in and drawing the agro of the entire room. Pets shouldn’t be used for this reason, simply stand outside and draw the boss and one side of the room towards you before clearing the remainder of the room.
      12th Fleet | Sad Pandas | Starfleet M.A.C.O.
    3. naldorannaldoran Member Posts: 0 Arc User
      edited June 2012
      Acknowledgments & Situational Awareness Guide
      ----

      This concludes the Elite Tactical Briefing; I hope this helps other folks get the MACO Commander accolade. I would like to thank the members of the STFRaiders channel for all the many missions that they've run with me while I've learned and honed these strategies. Additionally, I’d like to give personal thanks to StarFleetCommander, Meynolt and Mistriever for all the STFs that they've run with me and advice given.

      Credit for creating the "Felczer Maneuver" which describes the pulling of heavy tactical groups from rooms 1B & 2B into the preceding rooms goes to Brandon, who came up with the trick while several of us were helping him get the optional objective on Elite Infected Ground.

      The below guide to situation awareness is very good, and was written by Phasecloaker and reproduced here with his permission:

      SA is an over-used, under-appreciated term. It describes your mindset when you do things, not equipment, tactical procedures, or chain of command. With good SA, you’ll be able to do well in any mission, any team, at any stage of the fight. You don’t need a mk xii set to play like a pro, all you need is to know what’s going on. Lastly, it is important to know the difference between a poorly executed success, and a well-executed failure. It is natural to not learn from a success, and even worse, not appreciate the good lessons from a good failure.


      Targeting Priority
      Always gang on the heavy/elite first. The reason is that heavy and elite can kill you, others cannot. You don’t get candies for single handedly wiping all the drones early, but you get killed and injured if you don’t kill the heavy hitters asap. Most groups come with a heavy, shoot them first. Rank targets in descending order, most powerful first, less drones last. Also, this way will make sure the whole team shoots the same dude, making the fastest kill. You can learn this in 3 seconds, yet most people in EliteSTF still plays like a noob.

      Targeting Discipline
      Aggro is a two-sided coin, both sides are gold if you do it right. This is one of the most important part in ground STFs.
      It is important not to aggro a group that your team is not really to fight. Groups usually come with a heavy, if you touch a drone, the heavy will come after your team. Having to fight two heavies is difficult even for the best of teams, especially when the other team members are not aware of the fact that there is a double aggro. Split-beams and full-autos are okay, just keep the right distance. Also, there are many places (in KA) where you can simply skip entire groups, simply skip those.
      There are other times when you actually want to aggro a group, like in time constrained mission, infected. It is beneficial for the most experienced player be a pacer, pre-pulling the next group before the current group is cleared. This saves valuable time while not endangering the team with two heavies.
      (at this time, plasma grenades are bugged and has an aggro range of about 50m)

      Skills Usage
      Use your skills to maximize the combat effectiveness of your team at the right time. Unfortunately, pros don’t get a flashing flag when they do the right thing here. For example, a sci should lead with tachyon harmonics, followed by the team killing a heavy in 5 sec; an eng would also lead with weapons malfunction to protect the approach of the rest of the team; a tac would save the tactical initiative and tactical team for an expected long-difficult fight ahead. Tactical placements like cover shields are just as important; place it up front, at a bottleneck. Skills are less visible because there is no huge FX coming out at the end of a barrel, but it makes good team a great team.

      Hiding
      You want to keep your shield at max most of the time, otherwise a heavy drone can one-shot you. Find physical obstacles and cover shields for recharge. Pop out to shoot, hide if you get too much aggro. If you aggro the whole group, hide to spread aggro around. It is important here, to read the borg and see which of your teammates it is targeting, that determines where you would go next. Some players naturally generates more threat than others, they keep aggro longer, which can leave more margin for lower threat teammates.

      Kiting
      A special little piece for dealing with elite. If you have elite’s attention, you probably want to limit your exposure to less than 1 shot at a time. Kite it around corners, obstacles and cover shields. It will follow you while the rest of the team shoots it in the back. When it turns around, you pop out and shoot it in the back. Cover shields are great, if you make one when you have aggro, it will start hitting the shield. It’s as much skill as it is art, to handle an elite.
      In the simplest case, you can simply melee it and have the team shoot it in the back.

      Positioning – Drones
      Cash in the flanking bonus! In general, you’d only worry about this with heavy and elite. The simplest case is to have a 2/3 split, in front and in the back. Following a tachyon harmonic shield disable, you can kill a tac with 2-3 shots in the back, which takes 1-2 sec.

      Positioning – Turret in Cure
      The bomb planting part fails, even in good teams, for two reasons: 1) planter getting shot, or 2) planter getting stuck in cover shields. The key is to have the team spread out surrounding the turret, each coving a 72-deg arc. Shoot the little turrets as soon as they pop so the planter doesn’t get shot. If you see the planter getting stuck around shields, destroy the little turret, then step in and shoot at the turret. There is no need to change roles, just help your planter buy more time.

      Positioning – Armek in Cure
      Following the well-trusted “shotgun?? method, here’s what the shotgunners should be aware of. Armek has this nova aoe attack that take everybody from full shield to half health. This attack is triggered whenever two or more players are within 2m radius of his center, which is different from the damage range of the attack, about 5m. The solution is to stay away just enough. At the beginning of phase 2, move in a little bit, when the cover shields pop, back up against the shields. This way, you will be just far enough to not trigger the aoe attack, but still be inside the shields to do damage. You can kill Armek even if he fires the aoe attack multiple times, but you’d know somebody’s position is off if he even fired it once, and that should be corrected.

      Learn on the Fly
      The best way to learn is to watch your teammates during the mission. If you’re learning, or not sure what to do, simply wait in the back. Watch what your teammates are doing, and know why they are doing what, then join them. If you get mixed up in the fight early, you can’t watch, and you can’t learn. Nobody is going to know if you stay back for 5 sec and watch your team kick ***, everybody will notice if you make a mistake and the team spends 40 sec to clean up.

      Be Supremely Confident of What You Do/Not Do
      Be confident of what to do and not to do because you know exactly why. Over time, you will get familiar with the individual pieces of the mission and learn to gel with any team. You will naturally know what to do, because you know what should be done next. You can confidently proceed because you know your team is ready, and you know the next move, not because commands from Teamspeak. If you are a sci, go ahead and lead with tachyon harmonics; if you are an eng, go ahead and apply weapons malfunction, plant bombs; if you know you should wait, then stand there and do nothing. Know the missions, know the team, and the current situation, and the next step would become clear.


      I tried to make this as generally as possible, but some less-aware details are important too. With a good mindset going into STF, you can do well in any team, any mission, and learn faster than the holding-hands approach. You don’t need mk xii set or Teamspeak to play like a pro; a good player can make the best decision even in the absence of perfect information.


      • Lack of SA or SA degradation is the main cause of transportation accidents and deaths. People generally don’t die if they lack the skills to parallel park; accidents occur when people don’t know what they are doing, but proceed anyways without corrective actions, and finally beyond their limits.
      12th Fleet | Sad Pandas | Starfleet M.A.C.O.
    4. naldorannaldoran Member Posts: 0 Arc User
      edited June 2012
      Reserved #1
      12th Fleet | Sad Pandas | Starfleet M.A.C.O.
    5. naldorannaldoran Member Posts: 0 Arc User
      edited June 2012
      Reserved #2.
      12th Fleet | Sad Pandas | Starfleet M.A.C.O.
    6. naldorannaldoran Member Posts: 0 Arc User
      edited June 2012
      Reserved #3
      12th Fleet | Sad Pandas | Starfleet M.A.C.O.
    7. quiscustodietquiscustodiet Member Posts: 350
      edited June 2012
      So THIS is where the wildly inefficient and terribly nonsensical (space) strats are born.
    8. moronwmachinegunmoronwmachinegun Member Posts: 0 Arc User
      edited June 2012
      Regenerators and Components can be placed in your character bank, and pulled from their to repair damage/injuries. HOWEVER, that means that if someone else runs out, you won't be able to restock them.
    9. mav75mav75 Member Posts: 113 Arc User
      edited June 2012
      So THIS is where the wildly inefficient and terribly nonsensical (space) strats are born.

      Agreed. The tactic for Cure Space are needlesly compex.

      Current tactic is (RMMRL or MRRML) to kill probes on one cube (Middle or Right, as decided), move to another cube kill both probes and cube. Quickly move back to the first cube, kill the spawned raptors (3) followed by the cube. Quick move to the left (everyone seems to leave left last) and kill everything there. One will guard the Kang.
    10. quiscustodietquiscustodiet Member Posts: 350
      edited June 2012
      And KASE.

      1. He recommends people waiting at the portal (leeching)!

      2. Waiting to destroy a gate? That's downright terrible for at least 3 reasons:
      A. A Gate hits a lot harder than a couple of Spheres.
      B. Halving the flow of probes ASAP can only help you finish in time.
      C. Regroupping the whole team can only help you finish in time and spread the damage received around and focus targets down faster (btw, that's true in CSE as well: 5 Ships of any type will slaughter a wave of Negh'vars in no time).

      I guess he operates under the misconception that those Spheres can go through the Portal, that's the only reason I can fathom for recommending to keep a Gate low while the other is worked on.
      They don't, it should be obvious both by observing them and reading the objective (it says "Probes" not "all Borg Ships".
    11. joenatljoenatl Member Posts: 0 Arc User
      edited June 2012
      IGE is outdated as well. If a team waits to pull each group from each room then rush in to get that hostage it will fail optional. The team should clear the first group, try not to agro the second, get the hostage out, then clear the second group as fast as possible while staying on the move(this to me is key to keep moving to the next trigger line). Using the Cane or a grenade to knock back the workers works to keep them away from the hostage and gives the team time to kill them.

      Also the final room the team should clear the left platform, then the right platform, and center last. Then jump. I disagree with the group huddling also behind a shield. The group should span out, preferably in an area where the drones will respawn latest. Also in this room prescion shooting is 100% needed. AOE shots only agro the borg, pets, turrets, etc also agro the borg and that is what you don't want to do.
    12. skhcskhc Member Posts: 355 Arc User
      edited June 2012
      joenatl wrote: »
      Also the final room the team should clear the left platform, then the right platform, and center last.

      I don't agree with that, I find centre first far more efficient. It makes no sense to me to be engaging the Borg on the left and right platforms from anywhere other than on those platforms so you can just knock two of them off with one pulsewave hit each.
    13. talzerotwotalzerotwo Member Posts: 0 Arc User
      edited June 2012
      mav75 wrote: »
      Agreed. The tactic for Cure Space are needlesly compex.

      Current tactic is (RMMRL or MRRML) to kill probes on one cube (Middle or Right, as decided), move to another cube kill both probes and cube. Quickly move back to the first cube, kill the spawned raptors (3) followed by the cube. Quick move to the left (everyone seems to leave left last) and kill everything there. One will guard the Kang.

      I'd have to agree on this point, please update.
      [SIGPIC]http://tinyurl.com/msywqm5[/SIGPIC]
      Chillax. No Ego. No Drama.

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    14. joenatljoenatl Member Posts: 0 Arc User
      edited June 2012
      skhc wrote: »
      I don't agree with that, I find centre first far more efficient. It makes no sense to me to be engaging the Borg on the left and right platforms from anywhere other than on those platforms so you can just knock two of them off with one pulsewave hit each.

      100% disagree. Its about timing and when the drones respawn. You want to take out the area farthest away from where you will be when you cleared objectives first so that when they respawn you are no where near them. If you take out center first then those drones respawn first and have full view of the whole room and can hit you anywhere. If you do center third they are in line after left then right respawning. Left should respawn as you are taking out #4 console at the latest. With taking center out first that means center would respawn as you are clearing 4, so you'd have to stop, clear them then go ahead.
    15. starfleetmacostarfleetmaco Member Posts: 118 Arc User
      edited June 2012
      Heya guys! :D


      Just letting you all know that we are trying to update the post but having trouble since it was transferred over and lost the editing power. We're working on it! :D





      StarfleetCommander
    16. drasketodrasketo Member Posts: 148 Arc User
      edited June 2012
      Most of this is woefully inaccurate, wasteful, or just generally wrong.
    17. naldorannaldoran Member Posts: 0 Arc User
      edited June 2012
      drasketo wrote: »
      Most of this is woefully inaccurate, wasteful, or just generally wrong.
      Before denouncing the posts/strategies as worthless, I'd like wager that I used 'em to get the Team Commander title long before you had it. This guide is aimed at people doing the elite STFs for the first time, not practiced folks from elite STFs.

      I'll admit that I've outgrown these strategies myself. On Cure Space Elite, we simply start at the right, blow everything up including the cube, then move to the middle, then left, killing raptors / negh'vars as needed. We usually finish with seven to nine minutes left on the optional; I don't however recommend this strategy for most players, as the Pandas are a bit of an outlier when it comes to DPS. ;) For KA we usually have two on the right with one guy handling probes primarily / secondary DPS, while the other player, preferably an escort that can solo cubes, blows everything up; usual optional timer is five to seven minutes. Infected is as in the book.

      To the IGE naysayers; I've gotten the optional with nearly four minutes left using the described strategy. This is far from a record, but hardly failing the objective. Clearing the central platform, without drawing other groups' aggro allows you to be sure to have to engage only one group at a time, with the entire team jumping to each platform to engage each group.

      However, please remember before you slam this work that this is simply a repost of a thread originally written nearly four months ago, when strategies were a bit different.

      @drasketo: I then invite you to write a better one, or write out detailed proposals for revisions / additions to this one.
      12th Fleet | Sad Pandas | Starfleet M.A.C.O.
    18. skhcskhc Member Posts: 355 Arc User
      edited June 2012
      joenatl wrote: »
      100% disagree. Its about timing and when the drones respawn. You want to take out the area farthest away from where you will be when you cleared objectives first so that when they respawn you are no where near them. If you take out center first then those drones respawn first and have full view of the whole room and can hit you anywhere. If you do center third they are in line after left then right respawning. Left should respawn as you are taking out #4 console at the latest. With taking center out first that means center would respawn as you are clearing 4, so you'd have to stop, clear them then go ahead.

      I understand the logic of LRM fine, but I still don't think it's the best idea. If the Tac Drones are respawning whilst your still on consoles, then you're too slow doing the room, whichever method you're using. Although I will say that I usually find LRM slower, simply because you at best knock one of the six drones at the start into the plasma for an insta kill (left side, guy standing on the corner nearest the centre), vs. routinely knocking off three or four of the same six, plus as many again at the back, whilst going around after doing the centre.

      I've been on plenty of successful runs where the team-leader's asked for LRM and it's worked. And I don't complain if the team-leader wants it done that way. But centre first, done properly, is a lot quicker and Tac Drones don't respawn until Rebecca is dead.


      Also, on the subject of IGE's boss room: Splitting the team to 2 in the middle and 3 on consoles, which I'm seeing with most EliteSTF groups, (I appreciate that is not strictly part of LRMing the start though) really slows the process down as you then have two people sniping Tac Drones at the back into the back wall so they can't be knocked off the edge. And if the 3 get there and have to fight one or more Tac Drones, as is often the case, you frequently end up with someone DoTted, slowing down the console activation. Get DoTted with all 5 going around together, and there's still 3 people without a DoT to do the consoles.
    19. drasketodrasketo Member Posts: 148 Arc User
      edited June 2012
      You want me to rewrite it?

      Fine, what the hell, its Saturday and Ive already taken care of everything I need to.
    20. drasketodrasketo Member Posts: 148 Arc User
      edited June 2012
      So it turns out I had slightly more to do today, than I thought, oh well. Here it is.
      I kept the format just for ISE, then got mostly lazy.

      Stuff from Post 1:

      Ground Weapon Selection: For these missions, it is very useful (though not required) to have one of the STF ground sets (MACO for Fed, KHG for KDF) when trying for the optional objectives. Time is very tight on these missions when trying for the optional objective, and the instant remodulation is invaluable when you consider how many times you will need to remodulate even at three seconds per remodulate. Apart from the sets, the most generally useful ground weapon is without a doubt the pulsewave rifle. Also both factions should carry with them a split-beam (for the main portion of IGE) and sniper/high density beam rifle (for one fight in CGE, the boss fight of IGE, and a variant approach for the boss fight of KAGE). The Synchronic Proton Distortion Prototype Assault Rifle (Anti-Devidian gun, IE, the Ghostbuster) should not be discounted either. Its secondary is exceedingly powerful and capable of dropping entire packs of borg at once if positioned properly for flanking damage. It will even chain the extra exploit damage to all targets in range if used on an exposed target.

      Space Weapon Selection: As a general guideline on gear quality, the crafted mk 11 purple items or the mk 11 purple anti-borg weapons are a good starting point. Escorts should be running dual heavy cannons and quantum torpedoes, science vessels do well with dual beam banks and torpedoes or as pure torpedo boats, cruisers generally work well as beam boat unless you have an Excelsior/Assault Cruiser or Negh'var/Vor'cha cannon build. There are far more possible and reasonably effective space builds than would be convenient to discuss here, but by the time you're ready for elite STFs, you should have figured out what works for your character. One important thing to note is that Antiproton weapons, while red and very shiney are NOT the end all be all of damage type. In fact, they can be worse than other energy choices if you do not have appropriately high Targeting Systems and Energy Weapon Specialisation Skills.

      Kit Selection: On the matter of kits, there are a few that stand out as being particularly useful for elite STF runs, which are discussed below:

      Tactical: Fire Team is the most universally useful. Its plasma grenade in particular, it can, if used on the Defense Turrets in CGE, confuse the light plasma turrets and keep them from attacking the bomb planter. Squad leader is very beneficial for IGE with its in place bonuses from Overwatch and Rally Cry as well as the Smoke bomb.

      Science: Analyst is marvelous for close range work in KAGE and CGE with Tachyon Harmonic and Sonic Pulse (both very good for keeping worker drone off transformers in Cure). Physicist is good for longer ranged work such as IGE (it can be more universally useful now with the geologist doff's changes to gravimetric shirt, the ground based gravity well). For general support, Medic works, as does the Borg Medical Analyzer (a discontinued, and therefore very rare and expensive item).

      Engineering: Every engineer should carry with them at least Enemy Neutralisation, Fabrication Specialist, and Equipment Technician (for the IGE boss fight). Enemy Neutralisation should be used most of the time, swapping out to Fabrication to put down quantum mortars when they are useful (such as when guarding transformers or before Armek). Fabrication Specialist is also particularly useful for the pre-Ogan phase of IGE. Equipment technician is for the boss fight in IGE.

      Ground Device Selection: The only things required are Immunosupport Nanite Injectors (which counter the borgs attempt to assimilate you, most of the time, and which contrary to popular belief can even happen at absolutely absurd ranges {IE, out past 30 meters}) and, a remodulator if you do not have the Integral Remodulators that come with the STF ground sets. After that, it depends on your set up. Engineers in MACO gear, for example, need hyposprays but not shield charges. Depending on their damage intake, KDF characters in Honour Guard might be able to get away without hyposprays but will likely need shield charges. If you have it, the Ophidian cane is excellent, either defensively or offensively.

      On the Subject of Tribbles, if enough of your team was around for it, and you have the right make up, IDIC tribble synergy is ideal. Otherwise, the Triolic Tribble is cheap and provides damage resistance if you dont want to pay for the Borg one.

      Injuries and Ship Damage - Your Enemy: One of the biggest problems that people have when entering Elite STF missions for the first time is the injury system. When you (or your ship) are killed / destroyed, there is a significant chance that you will receive an injury. Injuries come in three levels of severity: Minor, Major, and Critical. Minor injuries are generally things that have little effect on your combat capabilities, so many players ignore them. Do not fall into this trap. Major injuries result in penalties that are quite noticeable, and critical injuries involve things like -10% to all damage dealt; a couple of those will completely cripple your ability to fight effectively. And guess what results in higher chances of major and critical injuries? Unhealed minor ones. The more injuries you have, the higher the chance that you'll get a crippling one. Remember that teams rely on each member effectively contributing, and you can't do that with a crippled ship. So please be sure to keep a well-stocked bank full of components and regenerators. As a rule of thumb I keep 40 major & minor versions of each healing item, alongside a couple critical ones. Happily, I almost never have to use the critical ones because I keep even minor injuries at bay. Players that don't heal their injuries is the first sign that someone doesn't know what they're doing in Elite STF runs, don't be one of those people.
    21. drasketodrasketo Member Posts: 148 Arc User
      edited June 2012
      Infected Space

      ----
      Infected Space Briefing

      Mission Outline:
      1. Initial Borg patrols are defeated.
      2. Optional Objective timer begins (All mission objectives must be completed in 15 minutes).
      3. Nanite generators (4 per transformer) are destroyed. Two spheres will warp in after the first two generators are destroyed, and the destruction of generators begins the process of nanite probes and spheres, which heal the transformer, warping in.
      4. Nanite transformer(s) is/are destroyed.
      5. Borg Tactical Cube warps in.
      6. Tactical Cube & Gate are destroyed to complete mission.
      General Tactics & Suggestions:
      • Gravity Well, Eject Warp Plasma & Tractor Beam Repulsors are all quite effective at slowing down incoming nanite probes and spheres.
      • Its reccommended to kill the Gate prior to attacking the tactical cube as the Tac Cube does *not* immediately aggro on entering the system, leaving you free to pummel the gate into submission without any incoming damage at all. If someone does manage to aggro the cube (and really, they have to go out of their way to do this, IE, this is a troll you probably dont want to run with again) they, or someone else should kite it out a little bit and then evasive back to work on the gate. You can also just move to the other side of the gate (flying behind) and the gate should be dead before the tactical cube manages to blunder its way into range.
      • Specifically about fighting the gate. You dont have to take any damage whatsoever. Out past about 7.8 km 15 to 30 degrees off of the side of the gate is a dead zone where its attacks cannot hit you.
      • Due to nerfs to power siphon drones and energy siphon in general, its not longer possible for a single ship to keep the tactical cube totally docile. However, they still help. Even thought they tend not to have the brute force damage potential of an escort, science ships/carriers can still make this fight a lot easier.

      Tactical Walkthrough & Optional Strategy:
      1. After clearing out the initial patrols, the timer will start. Head over to one of the gates and quickly destroy the Cube guarding the nanite transformer.
      2. The team should split up and bring each of the four nanite generators to 10% of max health, WITHOUT destroying any of the four generators feeding nanites into the transformer. On command of the team lead, destroy all four nanite generators simultaneously. IMMEDIATELY have all ships focus fire on the transformer, using all available DPS-boosting abilities. The goal is to destroy the transformer before the spheres that spawn can get into range to heal it.
      3. After the transformer is destroyed, all ships should clean out the Borg vessel that entered the system.
      4. Repeat Steps 1-3 for the other transformer.
      5. After both transformers are destroyed, a Tactical Cube will warp in. Ignore it. Do not aggro it. Focus all fire on the gate while sitting in its dead zones.
      6. After the gate is destroyed, kill the Tactical Cube, and make sure to use every single trick up your sleeve, to complete the optional objective with time to spare.
    22. drasketodrasketo Member Posts: 148 Arc User
      edited June 2012
      Infected Ground

      Ill start this off with a quote from a firing range instructor I had in the Boy Scouts. "Slow is smooth, smooth is fast." I think some version of that was in a movie I saw a while ago, too. Infected Ground is not as difficult as people seem to think it is. In fact, people usually end up going unnecessarily out of their way to make it hard.

      The basic premise is to not cross a series of trigger lines staggered throughout the map. When crossed, the borg start a 15 second assimilation process on the Starfleet Officers you are there to rescue (for the optional completion).

      The trigger lines are detailed on the maps linked below. Most are accurate, a couple are way off but ultimately close enough, since you can do what you need to from behind them.

      Link to the Mission Map

      There are two ways to do this mission.

      The first involves splitting into two teams and ramboing in like your life depends on it. Which it does, cause if you TRIBBLE up or too many people die, or you just get plain unlucky and get hit with a flanking crit from an ornery heavy tactical drone, or some one lags, or any number of different things go wrong, you will fail the optional.

      The second way, involves using your head and realising that you can kill everything from a distance, very, very quickly and then just sprint in, rescue and move on with your life. Slow is smooth, smooth IS fast.

      For this STF, everyone should have a split beam, because the last thing you want to do is start knocking borg out of range with sniper shots or high density beam blasts. For the feds in Maco, sure, use your sniper secondary, just use your head while doing it. On getting to Ogan, however, its a good idea for Federation players to swap out their split for a pulse, since you can get in close to most of the rest of the enemies.

      Furthermore, this is the best place for pets. IE, security escorts, monkeys, hortas, clones from the Shard of Possibilities, drones, whatever. All of them can cross the trigger lines WITHOUT triggering the assimilation process. And, with proper cooldown (and tactical initiative) management, you can have them up and absorbing extraneous damage and causing havoc on all the more difficult pulls.

      Engineers should be using their Fabrication Specialist kits for this fight. Quantum Mortars and phaser/disruptor turrets for the obvious reasons, the medical generators all have places they can go out of line of sight for passive health regen and resistance, and the seeker drone to just fly in and cause trouble. Once you get to the Ogan fight though, it is best to swap to the Enemy neutralisation kit (it makes the fight go far faster). Once done with Ogan, swap back to Fabrication, stick down a mortar and then put the Enemy Neutralisation kit right back on before you get into combat. For Rebecca, use Equipment Technician as sticking down turrets/mortars or popping out drones only serves to aggro extra borg that you dont want to be fighting.

      Tactical Officers should have either Fire Team or Squad Leader. If you have more than one tactical officer, one squad leader user is enough. If you only have one tactical, its pretty much a toss up. The Smoke bomb is incredibly useful for messing with the incoming borg and Overwatch and Rally Cry get maximum utility as your team stays close together for most of the STF.

      Science Officers can get use out of most of their kits, the best three being Analyst, Physicist, or, lastly, Medic (Borg Medical Analyzer would probably beat out all three, if you have one). Analyst brings Tachyon harmonic, which you will have in range a lot of the time, Anesthizine Gas, again useful for messing with the borg, and Triage to help deal with incoming damage. Physicist is pure damage, especially with the new Geologist Doff's ground effect. And Medic for pure support (which while useful, wont really be necessary).

      Apart from that, its just a matter of shooting the borg, drawing them in while eliminating them. Then, when all or most are dead or nearly so, running in and saving the silly, wimpy Starfleet officers who managed to get themselves caught.

      Tips for the Lead-Up:

      In the room with the first Elite tactical drone (the one just before Ogan's domain), you can aggro everything in the room but the Elite by sniping at the Tactical Drone in front of the holoprojector table. As long as you dont leave the ramp (IE, cross the trigger line) you can even get in range with a split beam rifle to shoot at him. This will bring the rest of the drones in the room to you, making rushing in to rescue easier as youll only have the Elite and the worker drones to deal with.

      Same thing with the Elite in the Room immediately before Rebecca. You can snipe at it without crossing the trigger line so you dont have to worry about flanking hits while trying to get Worker Drones off the Rescuees.

      Rebecca, aka 'Flying Borg Hussy'

      The most difficult part of this fight on Elite is jumping from platform to platform. Because of the way the game calculates and determines character movement (the way they read packets [this was explained to me by the same person who coined 'Flying Borg Hussy']) sometimes you will just fall into the plasma. So, your goal is to make the jumping as easy and simple as possible.

      The easiest and simplest way to go about doing that is to be intelligent in the way you kill the tactical drones in the room. The standard way to go about this (and there is a reason it is standard) is to stay right by the door and snipe or generally shoot the borg on the left platform and then the right, and only afterwords, move up the ramp and kill the borg in the center.

      What you are doing is managing when they respawn.

      After taking out the drones in the center, all fighting needs to stop. Do not, under any circumstances, aggro or kill the drones on the far side platforms, you actually want to leave them all alive as long as possible.

      A team of three needs to go activate the transformers (start with the one immediately to the right of the door and start moving clockwise around the room). Once they are done with the second transformer, the other two team members should start clearing out the borg on the far side. They can either shoot them, or simply move over to the platfroms and just knock them off. Done properly, the team of three will simply move from transformer to transformer activating them in sequence.

      Once all transformers are active, the Shield around the big shield generator in the center will go offline. Everyone needs to focus fire on it immediately to bring it down. Once destroyed the actual boss fight can begin.

      To kill Rebecca, everyone needs to spread out. She has a chaining attack that will cut through you very quickly if you are too close together. This is why you want to kill the borg in the center and on the far wall as late as possible: to leave room for you to all spread out without having to deal with extra drones in the fight.

      Snipers and high density beam rifles get you the most bang for your buck here as they do high *SINGLE* target damage. And the only target you want to be fighting is Rebecca.

      Tips for Rebecca:

      While pretty useful for the lead up, Tachyon Harmonic is probably the single worst thing you can use on Rebecca. If it shuts down her shields, when they respawn, they will do so at full health, which means you are basically healing the enemy. Needless to say, this is rather counterproductive. The Medic Kit would probably be the most useful here.

      Tactical officers may even want to swap to the Operative kit for the fight. Lunge can knock borg off platforms, and the stealth module gives you extra burst damage. The plasma grenade is virtually useless for Rebecca, and if you are spread out, which you *have* to be, her damage is so low as to make Supressing Fire trivial.

      Obviously, as mentioned, Engineers will want Equipment technician for this. A Fed engineer with Maco and this kit will probably never even have their shields go down on the Rebecca fight. But then, neither will most anyone else ... Its just a case of bombs and mines being pointless and turrets and drones ultimately detrimental (they aggro respawning borg very quickly, which will get you flanked and killed, also very quickly).
    23. drasketodrasketo Member Posts: 148 Arc User
      edited June 2012
      Cure Ground

      This is another very simple ground mission (in fact, all of em are).

      The goal is to bring down a series of shields blocking your path to Armek, a big, annoying, mouthy, and very glitchy assimilated klingon whose day you are there to ruin.

      When you first beam in, there is a practice session for precisely how you will be taking down the shields. Activating a series of transformers that bring a pretty green light from the starting transformers to one on the wall. When it gets to the wall, BOOM, and the shield goes down allowing you to progress.

      Along the way, you have to gather samples from dead assimilated klingons and free captured klingon warriors. Also, you have to kill some borg.

      The basic packs are simple, target them in priority Elite > Heavy > Tactical > whatever else. Remember to using flanking attacks, tachy harmonic, kiting borg into bombs, everything. Orions are pretty useful for seducing the harder targets (how they do that I neither know nor wish to).

      When you get to the Turrets, however, it gets tricky. These are annoying, shielded little P'sITA there purely to waste your time. Getting them down requires some measure of teamwork, or a single very astute tactical officer with a fire team kit and an attitude.

      At first they have a large, hemispherical shield around them. Damage them to roughly 40% health and the shield will drop, rotating cover shields will start spawning, and three light plasma turrets will show up to annoy you. This allows a player to run in between (or if a kitty, jump over) the cover shields and begin planting a bomb that, if they successfully get it off, will blow up the turret. The key to getting the bomb planted is to have the other players aggro and kill the light plasma turrets (they look exactly like the engineer phaser and disruptor turrets). Thus, you need a couple people to do this. If the turrets are not kept from attacking the player in the center, the damage they do will interrupt the bomb planting process, requiring them to start over and probably letting the turret heal enough that its big shield goes back up and you get to do the entire process again.

      The other way, is to have a tactical officer chuck a plasma grenade at the turret late enough that it can last the entire time it takes to plant the bomb, but early enough that it doesnt get blocked by the spawning cover shields. This requires some careful timing, and, even if you have someone who can bring it off appropriately, you should still take out the light plasma turrets as soon as possible.

      There are a total of 6 turrets in the map, 2 each in a pair of shield gauntlets, that must be destroyed in 15 minutes to satisfy the optional.

      The shield gauntlets are where groups tend to fail. This requires some teamwork. They operate exactly like the first "puzzle" when you beam in. Activate the transformers in sequence to get the power to the shield and blow it up allowing you to progress.

      There are two caveats however. First, activating the first and second transformer in each gauntlet activates a Borg defense turret that you need to allocate people to destroy. Second, every time a transformer finishes its activation process, worker drones spawn near all activated turrets and move in to shut them down. Thus, people need to be allocated to guard them.

      Engineers and science officers work best for guarding transformers. If you run into one who says they need help, they probably need to uninstall the game, or go back to normal and practice a little more.

      Each shield gauntlet run should look something like this:
      1. One person starts Trans #1's activation process; the others get into position to take out the first turret.
      2. Defense Turret #1 activates, all 5 people shoot it, bring it down to 40%. The bomb planter runs in to set up the bomb, the others aggro and kill the plasma turrets as fast as possible.
      3. Defense turret #1 blows up. The yellow beam shoots from Trans #1 to Trans #2, opening it for activation and spawning worker drones that will attack Trans #1. The Trans #1 guard (plus perhaps one other) starts guarding the first transformer. The others activate Trans #2.
      4. Trans #2 starts working and Defense Turret #2 turns on. Destroy it as before.
      5. As soon as the beam reaches Trans #3, activate that and the Trans #2 guard starts working to defend their real estate.
      6. One person runs to Trans #4 to wait for it to activate and one person stays at Trans #3 (and probably should be helping to kill any worker drones still alive at Trans #2).
      7. As soon as the beam reaches Trans #4, the person there activates it and runs to help kill the drones spawning near Trans #3.
      8. At this point you have a about 15-20 seconds before the beam gets to the final shield generator and blows it up, at which time you all move on.

      After the second shield gauntlet, there is a pack of borg to kill, and a final turret to destroy after which, if you get it all done in 15 minutes, you get the optional. If youre getting down to the wire on time, its is virtually *never* a good idea to try and skip the drone pack and go straight for the turret as they will aggro and start flanking you with the turret.

      From there, you kill a large group of drones guarding some shield generators that protect Armek. For this group, you need to hold back and snipe from range, there are simply too many to run on in. Engineers should swap to the Fabrication specialist kits for this fight as the quantum mortars are very useful here.

      After they are all dead and the shield generators are destroyed, Armek can be fought, assuming you have gathered all the samples and freed all the klingons (4 of each).

      Armek, aka 'Annoying, Glitchy, Assimilated Klingon'

      This fight can take anywhere between 30 seconds or a couple minutes, depending on how much of a glitch fest it ends up being.

      There are also a couple different ways of doing it.

      The fastest, and dirtiest, is for everyone to get right on Armek's toes and pulsewave his face off. A couple people will likely die doing this, but thats not a big deal. This is probably the fastest way of doing it, and the easiest. And, by far the typical favourite.

      The other way involves using some kind of tank who stays in melee range while the other players back up to the corners of the large rectangular shield that spawns around Armek and snipe a. This way requires a Science officer, either to be the tank themselves, or to stand closer, but nowhere near melee range, and heal whoever it is tanking (which anyone can do).

      In either case, several things should happen. Any engineers should put on their fabrication specialist kits (which, they should have on already from dealing with the group at the shield generators) and place their mortars down outside the box shield. Secondly, ABSOLUTELY NO PETS of any kind inside the shield (this includes security escorts, drones, turrets, clones, anything at all). For the first method, they just get in the way, and in the second, they will likely get your tank killed as Armek has a melee range 'chain' attack similar to Rebecca's.

      General Tips:

      If they hang back a little before each shield gauntlet, engineers can swap out to their Fabrication Specialist kits, place down their quantum mortars and turrets, and then back to their Enemy Neutralisation kits. This makes guarding the first transformer entirely solo a cake-walk and frees up everyone else to work on other things and generally be nearer the shield which speeds the process up.

      As mentioned, tactical officers can use plasma grenades to make dealing with the Light Plasma turrets that the Borg Defense Turrets spawn easier. As long as the plasma fire lasts on the Defense Turret, the Light Plasma turrets will not attack the bomb planter (or anyone else).
    24. drasketodrasketo Member Posts: 148 Arc User
      edited June 2012
      Cure Space

      This is probably the easiest Space mission, and certainly the fastest. A team of 5 high damage escorts will blow through in 5 to 6 minutes.

      The goal is to destroy all 3 of the shipyard facilities while protecting the Kang from the craft they periodically spawn. Destroying all three while not letting the Kang drop below 75% hull hp within 15 minutes nets you the optional. Realistically, the Kang should never even be touched, and, as before you should finish the optional with 8+ minutes left on the timer.

      To do this, you need one player to guard the Kang. Absolutely nothing beats an escort in this role. They have the fire power to mow through bops and raptors with ease and the speed and agility to get to every single spawn before they can reach the Kang. Simplest way is to have three purple Conn Officers in the active space slots improving the Evasive Maneuvers CD. Three will take it down to 15 seconds. After that, hyperimpulse engines and high engine power (IE, weapons set to 100, engines to 50) are all you need. Punch evasive maneuvers when near the right cube and you will burn all the way across the map. This escort's load out should be dual Cannon: Scatter Volley and Torpedo: Spread.
      A good tactical captain can kill every single bop spawn and both raptor groups and have the Negh'var group nearly dead before anyone else gets there.

      Everyone else focuses on assaulting the cubes.

      There are several ways to go about doing it.

      The easiest way, and with the highest dps requirement is to simply move right to left (or vice versa) destroying the nanites and then the cubes. (IE, RRMMLL: right nanites, right cube, middle nanites, middle cube, left nanites, left cube). Of course, everyone will always want to gang up on the negvar as soon as it spawns and then the raptor.

      The middle of the road route is to follow a pattern similar to RMMRLL (or some other equivalent combo, MRRMLL, LMMLRR, or MLLMRR). The idea is to clear the nanites at two cubes, pop one cube, then the other without nanites, then everyone focuses on the last. With this, especially if the first cube popped is the middle, the assault group should be responsible for killing the raptor pack that spawns.

      The last way is also responsible for most of the failures to complete this mission. It involves destroying all of the nanites at each cube, and then popping the cubes. Some people advocate trying to pop them all at once, but this is unrealistic and requires a very intimate knowledge of each persons dps. Espcially since its unlikely they will all go off, etc, then you have at the best case two groups of raptors and a pack of negs all headed to the kang. Maybe even some bops. The entire thing turns into a giant furball, and you will be lucky to even avoid failing the mission, let along getting the optional.

      If you really feel you dont have the dps to deal with a final cube spawning negs, clear all the nanites at the cubes, and then pop one cube, deal with all the raptors, then pop the next. Deal with the negs, then destroy the final cube. Do not try and synchronize the cube deaths. While it can be done, youre more likely to all out fail the mission. And when you fail, you get an hour long timer on the mission and NO loot.

      After the Kang is safely away, some random loot pinata called the "Assimilated Carrier" flies in. Its a joke, I have never seen anyone die to it. Point, shoot, it dies, loot drops, etc.
    25. drasketodrasketo Member Posts: 148 Arc User
      edited June 2012
      Khitomer Accord Space

      This is a relatively slow-paced mission with a lot of waiting or flying back and forth.

      The objective is to prevent any ships from reaching the temporal gate in the center of the map. This is accomplished by bringing down each of the two transwarp gates that are off to either side. Each gate spawns probes periodically (and more as the transformers to either side (just like in Infected Space) are destroyed.

      When you first warp in, there is a Tactical cube guarding the system, destroying it begins the optional countdown. This ship isnt quite as easy as the Assimilated Carrier, but it is close.

      After the cube is destroyed, the shields on the gates go down and they start spawning probes. From there, the group is split up into Gate guards and attackers.

      Attackers simply work on destroying the Gates exactly the way it is done in infected. Kill all the generators to make the transformer vulnerable. Kill both transformers to make the gate vulnerable. Then kill the gate. Destroying two of the generators on a transformer spawns a cube similar to the two spheres that warp in in Infected.

      The Gate guards are concerned with killing the probes that come through the gates and try and get to the time portal. Believe it or not, it is perfectly possible for one single person to guard both gates. They should use the exact same set up as the Kang Guardian in Cure. Three purple Conn Officers improving Evasive Manuevers and hyperimpulse engines (a bonus, not even a necessity). A lot of people tend to treat someone doing this like a rock star until they try it themselves and realise that "Oh ... its easy .."

      As for the actual correlation of forces:

      1 Gate guard, 3 Attackers on Left, 1 attacker on Right:

      This is my favourite, but it requires the solo person going right to be mildly insane. Their goal is to have both transformers destroyed or nearly so by the time the 3 on the Left make it over to the Right. A Torp boat carrier works very well for this, but so does an escort with slightly absurd DPS. Obviously, the three on the left blow up that gate as soon as humanly possible and then burn over to the right, kill the sphere group that spawns, and then the gate. With the right people, you will not see a second sphere group. This has the advantage of getting all 5 people attacking the same thing.

      1 Gate guard, 4 attackers:

      Again, a super fast escort to guard, this time, the 4 attackers leave the left gate at 10% or so before moving right. It becomes the gate guard's job to blow the left gate when the right is nearly done. Timed properly, a sphere group may not even spawn. (difficult to do without a voice program, so dont worry if it doesnt happen)

      2 Gate Guards, 3 attackers:

      Same as 1/4, just with two guards in the event no one can handle both gates.

      I could go on, but they would jsut be variants of the above. Some group or person to guard the gate, and some way to destroy the gates.

      Donatra, aka 'Glitchy Space Ninja'

      This fight can be difficult or easy, depending on how screwy the system gets. Here, same with the Infected Tactical cube, energy drains or disabling attacks make everything simpler, however, they merely make her easier to kill, not more docile.

      Save Evasive Maneuvers for every time she decloaks to fire the thalaron blast (which on Elite difficulty is almost certainly going to kill you. A very tough tank cruiser running a lot of resists could probably survive it, I think Ive done it a couple times myself, I honestly dont remember, but its not worth trying.)

      The main tactic is to try and keep behind her, she has some very powerful fore facing weapons, mostly in the form of very damaging torpedo spread attacks that will drop a shield facing and take a hunk out of the hull of even a very tough tank cruiser.

      Also, be careful with repulse abilities as you can kill people by pushing her and her
      thalaron attack back into range of someone who just evasived to get out of it. They can sometimes be helpful, but its pretty rare, especially since people hardly ever plan their own safety around someone pushing her in a particular direction.

      Tips:

      Occasionally, she will fire her thalaron pulse instantly, if it gets you, its not your fault.

      Usually, its a good idea to save your cool downs till after she decloaks the first time (some teams can take her out before she cloaks even once, this has a large luck component to it though) as she will sit there, still charging up the gun. This give you a decent amount of time to pound her into oblivion.

      Lastly, you can 'kite-tank' her by flying out of range (> 10 km). This usually extends the amount of time she stays uncloaked and can be useful if your team .. sucks.
    26. skhcskhc Member Posts: 355 Arc User
      edited June 2012
      (snip, thought you'd already done KAGE)
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