New MU: Nubby questions

drazursouthclaw

Hey gang, hope you're all well.

I have a whole bunch of questions about the new Mirror Universe event, figured this is the place to ask them.

Full disclosure, I've done like 3 STFs in my life, so I have no real idea about PUG team dynamics etc. If I've asked something ridiculously basic, you can laugh at me all you want, just please answer it as well okay?

I know different people will have different answers, in fact I'm counting on it (so I can get an idea of what different types of people think).

1. The intro vid states that certain classes are better for certain things, Cruisers for the secondary relays, Sci ships for closing the portals.

Does this mean that if I go in (assuming I'm matching my ship to my career/class) as an Eng, that I should concentrate on the Secondary Relays?
And if I go in as Sci I should be concentrating on closing the portals?
And if I go in as Tac, should I be supporting the Eng/Sci folks, or should I just be ranging/roaming?

2. At the very start, should I be following the group, or going the other way so that we can get the Secondary Relays up quicker?

3. How do the Secondary Relays actually work? In one playthrough, I tagged all of them (because everyone else was pew pewing, which is fine by me) and it only got to Tier 3 of Defense. By my understanding, it should have gotten to Tier 5.

4. If I am Eng and tanking along like an employee (I'm not at boss levels yet ), should I heal the station if I get the chance? Or other players? Or myself? Or does it depend on the random group I'm in with? And if it does depend on that, then what should I be looking out for?

5. Does closing portals BEFORE the Dreadie comes have any effect apart from the amount of marks you get at the end? Like, if you close X amount of portals before then, then will only X portals open up afterwards? Or is it always a set amount of portals when the Dreadie comes?

6. When the Dreadie comes, I have taken to closing the portals because, as I understand it, that's what you're supposed to do. However, judging by most other players' actions, I should be attacking the Dreadie. Am I doing the wrong thing by closing the portals? Do they know something I don't?

(I know this sounds snarky, but it's a 100% genuine question, I swear. I just don't know how else to word it.)

7. This is more of a general thing: How does the Need/Greed/Pass thing work? Is there any difference between not clicking on anything and choosing Pass? Is there a right/wrong thing to click on, like a community standard, or what?

8. What's the big deal with Vauthli Station, story wise? Why are they attacking it, and not, say, DSK7 or Ganalda?

9. Exactly how much does it suck when somebody AFKs the map?

(That last question isn't so much a query as an opportunity for you to vent. Remember the forum rules though, I guess.)

Well, thanks for reading/replying/laughing/whatever, have fun out there, and thanks for any serious replies.

mandoknight89

1.) Everyone should do everything: enemy ships hinder your ability to close rifts, rifts open for a long time turn into ones that spew Typhoon Battleships almost as fast as you can destroy them. The work rate bonuses for Cruisers and Science vessels are significant, but once a portal proceeds past "Unstable" (or if there's multiple portals grouped together) it's DPS that you need.

2.) In my opinion? Split up. Take relays when they're available, but focus on clearing enemies and closing their portals. The area is way too huge for you to cover everything if you don't split up. If you and a teammate are near each other for any reason, though, one player should distract all the enemies within range so the other (hopefully a Science Vessel) can sneak on by and close the rift.

3.) The relays work like this: when you start a relay, it helps power up the station's defenses. The more relays you have, the faster the next tier of defenses come online. Once the next defense tier comes online, all the active relays stop, take a moment to recharge, and have to be turned back on again. A better-built station will help in both taking down the flagship and in mitigating the swarms of enemies from leaving portals open too long.

4.) Heal anyone that's close enough to affect, but your focus should be on the outskirts... the station has a lot of HP, making it hard to heal for any significant amount, and the best damage mitigation is damage prevention: don't let Typhoons swarm the station in the first place!

5.) Closing portals before the flagship arrives has no effect on how many portals you have to deal with in that round, but will keep the enemy count around the station lower and help increase the number of marks you earn.

6.) Close the portals. The flagship literally cannot die until you have closed all the portals. However, there's a bug related to closing portals that should be fixed in less than 12 hours: if the flagship is in its escape phase when you close the last portal, it can't return to get blown up, and thus you can't win the mission.

7.) In pickup games, it's effectively Need (chance to get loot)/Pass (no chance for loot). Honestly, Need/Greed/Pass isn't the right loot method for this game, despite being forced on you in every queued mission. Theoretically, you should "Need" loot that's useful to you, "Greed" loot you want to sell (this makes you pass up on the opportunity for a roll if anyone selects "Need"), and "Pass" everything else. However, since 99.9% of the loot you'll pick up is worse than gear from the Reputation or Fleet systems, and everyone wants a chance at getting the item (so they can sell it to the vendors for EC), everyone picks "Need" regardless of whether they really need it or not.

8.) No idea. Obisek is using it because apparently he's bored with the Vault or something.

9.) It is all the suck. Unfortunately, leaver and AFK penalties aren't in place in the mission at the moment, and it needs to be tuned to penalize the AFKer his multidimensional transporter as well...

markhawkman

1: not really. It means that the interact timer is shorter. I think about half as long. If you have a chance to close a portal DO IT! IMMEDIATELY! Seriously, non-closure of portals is the only way this mission will become hard. Not that you can actually fail.... unless it glitches. You don't need to clear the ships from an area, in fact if a team mate has the enemy distracted, you can close the portal before killing them.

2: I've found it to work best if the team is split 2/3. A single ship tends to get bogged down and not accomplish anything.

3: it speeds up the timer a little bit, thus increasing the rate that it gains stages.

4: there's an optional for keeping the station from taking damage. BUT, the station won't explode. It'll just go into repair mode for a while, I once saw it happen twice in one match, guess why? (portals and their non-closure)

5: only marks

6: close the portals.... always close the portals. The Dread is easier to kill with no portals left.

7: I usually use greed, unless I actually plan to use the item. I see no reason to "need" vendortrash.

8: we don't know.

9: the same as any other mission. Except that they'd have to go very far out of their way to NOt get splatted when AFKing this.

drazursouthclaw

Great replies! Thank heaps, both of you.

I have a much better idea of what I should be doing now. I now know enough to know how bad my first few runs were, and enough to feel sorry for anyone that was lumped in with me.

Still, I'll be better, more focused, next time I jump in.

Thanks again!

theraven2378

Another bit of advice, keep an eye on the station hp, if it starts dropping, be sharp on the heals for the station.

noroblad

There is a strategy post, read it.

Some quick additions to the many good thoughts...

1) all it means is sci close portals faster, eng power stations faster, and tacs are supposed to kill faster.

2) read the strat post for some ideas.

4) while players are expected to be mostly self healing these days, help if someone is in trouble -- its a team and everyone is not uber. Also, yes, heal the station!

5) everything effects marks --- station powerups, kills, and portals closed all help.

6) close all portals can bug it. But yes, close some of them to reduce the trash enemy & limit the boss's escape mechanic. LEAVE ONE OPEN AT LEAST.

7) Everyone rolls need all the time period. So basically, NGP is broken because 99.998% of the players are unwilling to pass on a mark VI purple item that their lowbie team mate could use because they could sell it for like 10 EC... The system works but the players are broken, in other words.

8) You will see if you play the missions that obrain has dominated his timeline/universe/whatever it really is and wants to conquer ours too. Its not the station, its that the mirror leader is an imperialistic expansionist jerk that wants to take over everything known to exist.

9) it costs you marks but 3 good players can probably get a good score, if not a top score. And you get your daily thingy for the project. It is lame but you never know, it could be a 10 year old and his mom made him take the trash out (galaxy quest style). It could be an old idiot like me who's wife needs a jar opened. Could be nature called at a bad time, etc. This is a great map for AFK people: they are very likely to die; with any luck, repeatedly.

markhawkman

theraven2378 wrote: »

Another bit of advice, keep an eye on the station hp, if it starts dropping, be sharp on the heals for the station.

I don't bother myself, I'm usually too far away to heal it anyways. I tend to skirt the perimeter and try to close portals before they have a chance to spawn Typhoons.