I've added a little additional information to the Infected Ground section, describing the rationale for Kit selections and the deployment of a cover shield to cover your retreat from room 4.
Guide to Situational Awareness (written by Phaseclaoker) added to the end of the guide after the KA ground post. I would have preferred to add it to the first post, but it didn't fit due to character limits.
Also, when I get around to typing it up I have a modification to clear procedures in rooms 3 & 4 of Infected Ground following further testing.
I have to disagree with you on the strategy of destroying the cubes all at once. When it comes right down to it there is only 1 thing that matters for completing the Cure. That is ....DPS... Plain and simple. I have completed Elite Cure almost a hundred times destroying one cube at a time, and only a handful of times when the team wanted to wait and kill them at the same time. In the end, killing them at the same time doesnt help anything because the ships still spawn the first raptor wave and overwhelm a under par team. The biggest problem with the cure elite is that there are too many players who jump in with a ship & build that dont do enough damage. Period. And Im not trying to put down anyone, you just need to realize that if you wanna play elite, you gotta have an elite ship. Trust me, i am a veteren who has played this game since beta testing and has run thousands of elite STF's succesfully.
I have to disagree with you on the strategy of destroying the cubes all at once. When it comes right down to it there is only 1 thing that matters for completing the Cure. That is ....DPS... Plain and simple.
I've done the missions many times using the simultaneous destruction strategy, and it works. I note that you don't say that the strategy doesn't work. I will admit that it is certainly possible to destroy the cubes one-by-one and beat the mission, if you say, have a team with five escorts, tac captains and scatter volley. For more diverse groups, and groups at a lower skill / gear level, the simultaneous destruction strategy is in my experience easier to successfully execute, and thus more appropriate for a guide such as mine.
There are shortcuts you can take to shave time off the mission, but if I can already beat the optional with seven or eight minutes left, I consider the existing strategy to be sufficient. If you can present me with a strategy that is both more reliable and easier to execute, I would certainly be interested in that.
The Cure ground optional, never got it, but been might close lots of times. And the times I've tried to do a full bypass, inevitable someone dies mid-run, res-ing them is a pain and if they respawn getting back passed the mobs is never pretty.
OK history lesson, during WW I the way German stormtroopers attacked was to strike, move fast & if they came up against a well defended postion they went around it. They over-ran the main line of defense with the pockets of resistance being mopped up by heavy infantry/tanks that followed the Stormtroopers. Lesson over.
So why not use the same principle, easy targets (normal & infected drones) take them out; Tacticals, Heavies & Elites ignore them. Theorectially it should free up enough time to get the optional done, while at the same time clearing a path through the mobs so that if anyone needs to respawn they can get back to the team without getting agrro from every drone on the map
One other thing with the mission, the first turret why does everyone keep shooting the damn thing after the charge is set? It's going to blow and you're not going back so move on. It saves maybe 10 seconds , but add that to the 15 seconds you get from bypassing each Tactical etc, it soon adds up to a significant amount of time you've gained to complete.
Something else I noticed, but again haven't really had chance to fully try out. Mines do a damn good job of being an anti-Heavy Torpedo net. If you've got a big ball of green fire heading your way, just turn, drop and run and let the mines do the hard work. So, in theory at least, throwing up a mine field say 3 km away from the Kang could be useful in catching any torps that the BoP's etc get off
The members of the 106thFleet fleet (myself included) use these strategies almost to a "T" and get the optionals almost 100% of the time on elite. I endorse these guides. If you think the optionals are impossible, and you are willing to listen to direction, I can almost guarantee a successful run of the optionals.
Some form of voice communication helps dramatically. I prefer teamspeak over the in game voice program.
Some form of voice communication helps dramatically. I prefer teamspeak over the in game voice program.
Indeed, I though prefer Ventrilo (for some oddball reason Teamspeak makes people incomprehensible scramble with my headset...; and my fleet anyway uses Ventrilo for pretty much everything, half the fleet nowadays don't type a single word anymore).
Indeed, I though prefer Ventrilo (for some oddball reason Teamspeak makes people incomprehensible scramble with my headset...; and my fleet anyway uses Ventrilo for pretty much everything, half the fleet nowadays don't type a single word anymore).
I used Vent with my old fleet, and when it got folded into another fleet started using TS. Vent worked WAY better than TS - TS lags STO out like CRAZY, while Vent had no such problems.
Good guides, definitely helped prepare me for my first Elite run!
I used Vent with my old fleet, and when it got folded into another fleet started using TS. Vent worked WAY better than TS - TS lags STO out like CRAZY, while Vent had no such problems.
I have the exact opposite reaction with vent although niether of them lag out STO for me. Vent would just lag out and then 30 sec later you would get all the voice at once and on several occasions vent would just stop working and I had to restart my computer to fix it even if I just tried to restart vent....
I've done the missions many times using the simultaneous destruction strategy, and it works. I note that you don't say that the strategy doesn't work. I will admit that it is certainly possible to destroy the cubes one-by-one and beat the mission, if you say, have a team with five escorts, tac captains and scatter volley. For more diverse groups, and groups at a lower skill / gear level, the simultaneous destruction strategy is in my experience easier to successfully execute, and thus more appropriate for a guide such as mine.
There are shortcuts you can take to shave time off the mission, but if I can already beat the optional with seven or eight minutes left, I consider the existing strategy to be sufficient. If you can present me with a strategy that is both more reliable and easier to execute, I would certainly be interested in that.
I have to agree with JayGamma. I'm still relatively new to the new STFs (I quit for a while and have recently come back...again), but I've run Cure Space on Elite several times exclusively with PUGs and the simultaneous destroy strategy has never worked for any team I've been on. On the other hand, two or three times I've been on teams that completed it with the one by one strategy. I'm not saying that one strategy is better than the other, just that Jay has a valid point with the DPS - if your team can't kill fast enough, I don't think any strategy is going to save you.
This is a hard sell for me. Let me hypothesize this... 5 Captains familiar with each other and with voice comms can do CSE with good cooperation. Comms is 75% of the battle. The last 25% is your strategy. Thus the Cubes Last strategy can be perceived to work, but what you're really observing is 5 good captains with comms working together.
Having seen pug after pug fail at this strategy, I can say this really highlights the importance of good communications and, at least, average pilots. I don't want to go so far as to say it is a bad strategy--but rather it isn't a *better* strategy than just starting Right and working your way around.
I'll call our strategy Go Right, Sweep Left. With very minimal preparation (not too much fussing about builds) we consistently clear CSE with Optional in under 10 minutes by simply starting on the Right and then clearing around to the Left one cube at time. Initially we send 1 attack ship Left and 1 Center while 3 go Right. The attack ships clear the first couple of spawns while the main group takes out the probes and cube. Then everyone races in to clear all mobs. Then we settle in to killing the Center probes and cube (now 4 ships in the main group). Clear mobs again. Now all 5 focus on the Left probes and cubes. This method provides a snowball effect as more and more power can be brought to bear on the targets while simultaneous eliminating risk from flanking attacks. When Negh'Vars spawn, everyone shoots them down immediately. This method has a bit more risk up front with decreasing risk as you progress where the Cube's Last method increases risk of failure as you progress (folks are more spread out, easier to miss spawns, widely dispersed firepower at the end, and all-important communications are necessary). Go Right requires very little communication... just an initial assignment of who is guarding Left and Center while everyone else goes Right--much like Khittomer Accord.
But again I'll state that any 5 escorts in good communication and a basic understanding of CSE will be successful. Which strategy may be a matter of taste. I prefer Go Right, Sweep Left.
Other notes... Go Right, Sweep Left works best with no more than 3 cruisers. Quick destruction of Negh'Vars and faster mobility is necessary and a cruiser heavy group is just too slow and too low DPS.
This is a hard sell for me. Let me hypothesize this... 5 Captains familiar with each other and with voice comms can do CSE with good cooperation. Comms is 75% of the battle. The last 25% is your strategy. Thus the Cubes Last strategy can be perceived to work, but what you're really observing is 5 good captains with comms working together.
Having seen pug after pug fail at this strategy, I can say this really highlights the importance of good communications and, at least, average pilots. I don't want to go so far as to say it is a bad strategy--but rather it isn't a *better* strategy than just starting Right and working your way around.
I don't think it requires voice comm.
The 10% strat is good for really low DPS teams, but not really necessary for a lot teams.
Right Probes > Mid Probes > Mid Cube > Split & Defend > Right Cube > Defend > Left Cube
or
Probes right to left, then Cubes left to right (or opposite).
Are my preferred methods.
Most teams that I see fail the optional have 1 or more players who seem to not respond to chat at all or multiple (unneeded) Kang defenders who all refuse to do anything but guard kang, or both.
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.
This guide's awesome - thanks so much, but this section's a bit too restrictive. I started infected space elite last week and the first couple of times were perfect using the same strategy as normal. Earlier today someone went apeshit on me because i killed a generator before the others were at 10%. To me, we lost the optional because we weren't paying enough attention to the nanite probes, not the 10% thing.
STO's a pretty casual game, i don't think it's right for new people attracted by F2P to be freaked out of elite STFs by griefers. If you're playing with friends that's one thing but the 10% thing is asking too much for 5 strangers to coordinate when things are happening too fast to even type in the chat unless you stop firing because there is no 'team lead'.
Anyway, just my opinion i don't mean to disrespect.
This guide's awesome - thanks so much, but this section's a bit too restrictive. I started infected space elite last week and the first couple of times were perfect using the same strategy as normal. Earlier today someone went apeshit on me because i killed a generator before the others were at 10%. To me, we lost the optional because we weren't paying enough attention to the nanite probes, not the 10% thing.
Thing is, the 10% strategy on inf space elite is far easier than the alternative even with low coordination. You don't have to pay any attention to the nanite spheres at all, if executed correctly. This saves a lot of time. Also, those spheres are pretty durable on elite, so you can no longer count on someone to solo them or to grav well/repulsor them away long enough.
There is just one crucial bit of coordination involved, but it's not as bad as one'd think, even without voice comm. All you have to do is to get everyone to each pick a gen and take it down to 10%, stop firing afterwards. There are 5 of you, so the last person can help one by one. Then, once they're all low enough (someone can just take a look by flying around and checking), all he has to say is "Go". A pug can pull this off easily even without super DPS ships, and you don't even have to talk to each other again afterwards.
If you pop generators one by one, the difficulty goes up. Now you need to have enough DPS to split forces; some need to destroy the nanite spheres, others deal with the transformer, and some switching back and forth depending on where they're needed. This actually might require more coordination and better gear than the 10% strategy. If you draw a good group of people with good DPS, this is easily doable as well, but why take the risk.
i usually do space, but recently have been trying out the ground elites now that i have ran through the normal level several times. why do players quit so often???? my latest pet peeve. on ground players seem to quit about 20 times more often or more than you see in space.
i usually do space, but recently have been trying out the ground elites now that i have ran through the normal level several times. why do players quit so often???? my latest pet peeve. on ground players seem to quit about 20 times more often or more than you see in space.
I honestly haven't seen it that much. Maybe you just end up with the wrong crowd?
I have played this mission 1000 times and telling people to clear the center 1st is just wrong, why? because you are surrounded by drones and one misfire can cause you to be flanked. I have suggested from my experience to start at the ramp and take out the flanking borg... that's the bottom right and left.... after that take out the center and start the activation process from the bottom right clockwise. This is the proper way to complete the last part. because of the advice of this thread many teams who go into this STF fail. try my plan and see that it is superior to your ideas. ty
The problem I always have in the space stf's is the plasma dot and damage kills me the most and sometimes very fast. Anything I can do to help avoid this? I use hazard emitter's II that helps sometimes but not all the time.
The guides still seem to be fine (haven't read them all in detail). When in doubt just try to watch your team members and do as they do (and hope they know what to do).
Comments
Also, when I get around to typing it up I have a modification to clear procedures in rooms 3 & 4 of Infected Ground following further testing.
There are shortcuts you can take to shave time off the mission, but if I can already beat the optional with seven or eight minutes left, I consider the existing strategy to be sufficient. If you can present me with a strategy that is both more reliable and easier to execute, I would certainly be interested in that.
OK history lesson, during WW I the way German stormtroopers attacked was to strike, move fast & if they came up against a well defended postion they went around it. They over-ran the main line of defense with the pockets of resistance being mopped up by heavy infantry/tanks that followed the Stormtroopers. Lesson over.
So why not use the same principle, easy targets (normal & infected drones) take them out; Tacticals, Heavies & Elites ignore them. Theorectially it should free up enough time to get the optional done, while at the same time clearing a path through the mobs so that if anyone needs to respawn they can get back to the team without getting agrro from every drone on the map
One other thing with the mission, the first turret why does everyone keep shooting the damn thing after the charge is set? It's going to blow and you're not going back so move on. It saves maybe 10 seconds , but add that to the 15 seconds you get from bypassing each Tactical etc, it soon adds up to a significant amount of time you've gained to complete.
Something else I noticed, but again haven't really had chance to fully try out. Mines do a damn good job of being an anti-Heavy Torpedo net. If you've got a big ball of green fire heading your way, just turn, drop and run and let the mines do the hard work. So, in theory at least, throwing up a mine field say 3 km away from the Kang could be useful in catching any torps that the BoP's etc get off
Some form of voice communication helps dramatically. I prefer teamspeak over the in game voice program.
Indeed, I though prefer Ventrilo (for some oddball reason Teamspeak makes people incomprehensible scramble with my headset...; and my fleet anyway uses Ventrilo for pretty much everything, half the fleet nowadays don't type a single word anymore).
I used Vent with my old fleet, and when it got folded into another fleet started using TS. Vent worked WAY better than TS - TS lags STO out like CRAZY, while Vent had no such problems.
I have the exact opposite reaction with vent although niether of them lag out STO for me. Vent would just lag out and then 30 sec later you would get all the voice at once and on several occasions vent would just stop working and I had to restart my computer to fix it even if I just tried to restart vent....
I have to agree with JayGamma. I'm still relatively new to the new STFs (I quit for a while and have recently come back...again), but I've run Cure Space on Elite several times exclusively with PUGs and the simultaneous destroy strategy has never worked for any team I've been on. On the other hand, two or three times I've been on teams that completed it with the one by one strategy. I'm not saying that one strategy is better than the other, just that Jay has a valid point with the DPS - if your team can't kill fast enough, I don't think any strategy is going to save you.
This is a hard sell for me. Let me hypothesize this... 5 Captains familiar with each other and with voice comms can do CSE with good cooperation. Comms is 75% of the battle. The last 25% is your strategy. Thus the Cubes Last strategy can be perceived to work, but what you're really observing is 5 good captains with comms working together.
Having seen pug after pug fail at this strategy, I can say this really highlights the importance of good communications and, at least, average pilots. I don't want to go so far as to say it is a bad strategy--but rather it isn't a *better* strategy than just starting Right and working your way around.
I'll call our strategy Go Right, Sweep Left. With very minimal preparation (not too much fussing about builds) we consistently clear CSE with Optional in under 10 minutes by simply starting on the Right and then clearing around to the Left one cube at time. Initially we send 1 attack ship Left and 1 Center while 3 go Right. The attack ships clear the first couple of spawns while the main group takes out the probes and cube. Then everyone races in to clear all mobs. Then we settle in to killing the Center probes and cube (now 4 ships in the main group). Clear mobs again. Now all 5 focus on the Left probes and cubes. This method provides a snowball effect as more and more power can be brought to bear on the targets while simultaneous eliminating risk from flanking attacks. When Negh'Vars spawn, everyone shoots them down immediately. This method has a bit more risk up front with decreasing risk as you progress where the Cube's Last method increases risk of failure as you progress (folks are more spread out, easier to miss spawns, widely dispersed firepower at the end, and all-important communications are necessary). Go Right requires very little communication... just an initial assignment of who is guarding Left and Center while everyone else goes Right--much like Khittomer Accord.
But again I'll state that any 5 escorts in good communication and a basic understanding of CSE will be successful. Which strategy may be a matter of taste. I prefer Go Right, Sweep Left.
Other notes... Go Right, Sweep Left works best with no more than 3 cruisers. Quick destruction of Negh'Vars and faster mobility is necessary and a cruiser heavy group is just too slow and too low DPS.
I don't think it requires voice comm.
The 10% strat is good for really low DPS teams, but not really necessary for a lot teams.
Right Probes > Mid Probes > Mid Cube > Split & Defend > Right Cube > Defend > Left Cube
or
Probes right to left, then Cubes left to right (or opposite).
Are my preferred methods.
Most teams that I see fail the optional have 1 or more players who seem to not respond to chat at all or multiple (unneeded) Kang defenders who all refuse to do anything but guard kang, or both.
This guide's awesome - thanks so much, but this section's a bit too restrictive. I started infected space elite last week and the first couple of times were perfect using the same strategy as normal. Earlier today someone went apeshit on me because i killed a generator before the others were at 10%. To me, we lost the optional because we weren't paying enough attention to the nanite probes, not the 10% thing.
STO's a pretty casual game, i don't think it's right for new people attracted by F2P to be freaked out of elite STFs by griefers. If you're playing with friends that's one thing but the 10% thing is asking too much for 5 strangers to coordinate when things are happening too fast to even type in the chat unless you stop firing because there is no 'team lead'.
Anyway, just my opinion i don't mean to disrespect.
Thing is, the 10% strategy on inf space elite is far easier than the alternative even with low coordination. You don't have to pay any attention to the nanite spheres at all, if executed correctly. This saves a lot of time. Also, those spheres are pretty durable on elite, so you can no longer count on someone to solo them or to grav well/repulsor them away long enough.
There is just one crucial bit of coordination involved, but it's not as bad as one'd think, even without voice comm. All you have to do is to get everyone to each pick a gen and take it down to 10%, stop firing afterwards. There are 5 of you, so the last person can help one by one. Then, once they're all low enough (someone can just take a look by flying around and checking), all he has to say is "Go". A pug can pull this off easily even without super DPS ships, and you don't even have to talk to each other again afterwards.
If you pop generators one by one, the difficulty goes up. Now you need to have enough DPS to split forces; some need to destroy the nanite spheres, others deal with the transformer, and some switching back and forth depending on where they're needed. This actually might require more coordination and better gear than the 10% strategy. If you draw a good group of people with good DPS, this is easily doable as well, but why take the risk.
I honestly haven't seen it that much. Maybe you just end up with the wrong crowd?
This was my post!
This thread was started by Naldoran! And it is still awesome.
Thank you
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=281651
Should probably subscribe to this one instead.
Come join the 44th Fleet.
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