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*spoiler* Guide - Crystalline Entity

SystemSystem Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
edited March 2010 in The Academy
"So were you sent to my officer huh.... *smiles* don't worry, I don't bite.

Please, sit and let me give you a quick run down.

Now... I am not going to bore you with details on it's history as I am sure you able to look that up at, memory-alpha . I can see it in your eyes.... you want facts! *winks*

Recently, the Crystalline Entity has been seen around Alpha Centauri Sector Block, near the Demil system. However, if your looking for a quicker route, contact the ship fleet officer on patrol at Teenbia System, who will give you further assistance.


To help neutralize the shards and make them null and void in your attack, you basically need a Rear Admiral Science Officer with the following....


1x Deep Space Science Ship
2 x Science BO's.
2 x Scramble Sensor skill lvl 2 & 3
2 x Sensor probes Mk X



First, Science bridge officer needs training in Scramble Sensor's skill, level 2 and 3. Second, has to have level 2. Sensor probes will add mere seconds but will give you the added time for a flawless interruption of the shards.



*blinks* Your still here? WoW, I give you credit on your patience, captain.


Anyway, with the skill set up above, you may consider using Science team 1 and 2 on your first bo and making sure your engineer has engineering team 1. Tactical can have both torps at high yield. This is the basic set up and will most likely be tweaked by more experienced officers out there, than I.


When you start fighting the CE, start with your Scramble sensor's 3 and after 20 seconds, you should be able to use Scramble sensor's 2 and after 20 more, the last SS2. Rinse and repeat till dead.

Simple huh! *chuckles*


Well, not quite.... *frowns* Often as not, getting people to listen at key points is problematic. You need their dps on the entity and whilst I and some guildies from PCGamer fleet, have actually 3-manned the CE, however, it still does take time.

At 35% it's best to ask people to stop sending in torpedo's or using mines or basically any form of AOE attacks that could hurt the large shards, which will break into smaller ones and thus return to the CE to heal it. So, if someone says stop, respect it and try your best to DPS without using those."


For the moment... I think that's all you need, captain.

*nods* yes... that's all you really need to know."

"Dismissed!"


Gentle rp fun aside, I hope this helps you and those around you, put an end to the nightmare that is CE! Feel free to add suggestions or additional ideas.


I will also add, a tactical officer, in same set up, with only 1 and 2 Sensor scramble skills, can lock it down, but his timing has to be perfect and they have to use 4 sensor probes mk x.



Good luck everyone!


Roddenyte@Auberon
Post edited by Unknown User on

Comments

  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    I want to start this post off on the right foot, so I'll applaud your efforts to be candid and even roleplay your way through your "strategy spoiler" guide. I'm glad someone can be so enthusiastic, even with something as clearly broken as the CE is, in a game full of broken promises.

    With that being said, I honestly believe it's a pretty bad idea to consider this a *spoiler* guide, but rather, an *exploit* guide. Before you get upset, please allow me to explain.

    The Crystalline Entity is a Tier 2 encounter. I highly doubt, with every fiber of reason and hope of accountability I still have with Cryptic and Atari (and believe me, there's not much left) that they designed a Tier 2 encounter to require a Tier 5 Science Vessel, with very specific abilities, in order to defeat it. Pardon the comparison, but it would be like World of Warcraft (pre expansions) requiring a level 60 Paladin to complete Razorfen Downs. For those of you familiar, you know what I'm talking about. For those not familiar, I'm merely emphasizing the amount of absolute overkill it is to consider this as intended design.

    It's for Tier 2 players. Tier 2 players should be able to defeat it. Tier 2 players CAN defeat it. The problem is at Tier 2, the mainstream majority of players have yet to learn about space combat tactics, and merely know that rushing in and pounding the spacebar until carpal tunnel sets in is the way to play the game. Space combat tactics aren't learned by most people until RA5 when there's literally nothing else to do BUT toodle around with their abilities and figuring out what is best to do when.

    The Crystalline Entity, in it's current design, should either be a Tier 5 encounter because of the space combat tactics it requires from a lot of people to defeat it, or should be dumbed down enough to be defeatable by mass Tier 2 casuals spamming the spacebar. That's really all it is.

    Now I'm sorry, but I've also got to tear apart your suggestion of Scramble Sensors and why I call this an *exploit* guide, rather than a *spoiler* guide. See, *Spoiler* suggests your giving away the secret info of how an encounter was designed to be defeated, or at least a minor variation thereof. Since this is a Tier 2 encounter, we already know they didn't really design it to require a single Tier 5 Science Vessel loaded down with the best science BOFF abilities. So we know we aren't talking about a spoiler, but rather, unintended design. When unintended design is then abused, it moves to the exploit category, particularly after it's been made perfectly clear that it's not designed to be defeated this way.

    We know how Scramble Sensors works. Basically it's just terrible coding that tells NPC's to attack anything BUT players. And since the CE sits there spamming what amounts to craploads of torpedoes at players that also heal the CE when its "torpedoes" hits a players, we can see why Scramble Sensors pretty much just makes the CE a big punching bag sitting in Monopoly's "Free Parking".

    And now I have to move on to the most disappointing part of my post: The Aftermath.

    As is the typical behavior of any game designer when they see their precious hard work is being exploited, they literally drop everything they're doing to "fix" said exploit. More times than not, this is accomplished NOT by fixing the encounter itself so it actually is defeatable as designed, because honestly, that would require ingenuity beyond that which put the broken encounter in the game itself. They fix it by breaking whatever it is that breaks the encounter. In this case, Scramble Sensors. It will either get changed to function entirely differently, not work at all, or replace it with a new ability that, for all intents and purposes, is nothing like what it replaced.

    As an RA5 science ship captain myself who loves to PVP, whose only defense against the swarms of klink carriers spamming me with entire fleets of non-one-shottable ships, is Scramble Sensors, I will be extremely upset that I will have to find another way to deal with already overpowered opposition.

    Why? Because someone posted a Tier 2 encounter *Exploit* Guide, that really did nothing to help fix a Tier 2 encounter, but rather, breaks something else for Tier 5 players. And really, how much else is there really for us at Tier 5?

    Thanks
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    @OP

    An innovative way to solve this issue. While I have to agree with one thing the above poster said, this encounter should be able to be defeated with tier 2 ships I would not consider bringing a RA5 friend an exploit. It should not have to be this way, but it is not an exploit.

    An exploit is a when you find a bug or feature that can be used in way it was not designed to and let you have an advantage you are not meant to have. While one could say it should not be necessary to bring a RA5 friend to the CE encounter it is not an exploit to do so.

    Using Scramble Sensors in this encounter won't bring the nerfbat to said skill, if anyone thinks so they need to take a big chillpill and take a walk in the fresh air as that's just paranoid thinking. Scramble Sensors works just as it is supposed to.

    They can, however, limit the rank for people to join this particular encounter. This is a quicker and easier stopgap for this issue, if they like to, while they may attempt to fix it in the future.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    It's not an exploit.

    This can be done at tier 2. Just make sure all 20 players are co-ordinated with "Jam Target Sensor's" and will set them off one at a time, every 5 - 10 second, pending on console's.

    My version simplify's things and why shouldn't a RA5 Admiral not help? We are federation and rank only matters when giving orders or taking them, else we all muck in.... no matter rank or class, wolf359 springs to mind.


    It's not perfect, but considering in beta and first part of live, we were ramming it dead with one shot, at least we are still finding alternatives on how to beat this encounter and at least, this time, it's being done honestly.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Kthang wrote:

    An exploit is a when you find a ... feature that can be used in way it was not designed to and let you have an advantage you are not meant to have.

    If that isn't an alternate way of describing exactly what his guide is saying to do, then I think you should stop using urbandictionary.com to get your word definitions, and rely on more practical sources. Funny how the only people who believe otherwise are the ones participating in the advertisement or behavior.

    I'm going to quite Benjamin Franklin:

    "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and
    expecting different results. "

    -Benjamin Franklin


    I started playing MMORPG's in the early 90's, starting with Swords of Chaos, MajorMUD, and various other text-based MUD's. My expectations of what Cryptic will do to fix this is not a result of paranoia, it's the result of two decades of experience playing MMORPG's, working for MMORPG developers and maintainers, and rarely seeing unintended design fixed and redesigned in a manner that is appropriate and meets player expectations the first time around.

    That's not paranoia, that's reality. I would be insane to believe Cryptic is magically different than all other developers I've played for or worked for over the past two decades.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    No need to use any dictionary to describe that issue. Anyone with even minimal experience in beta-testing knows what an exploit is. I suggest you try it some time, it might be an educating experience for you. And do please list all the games you've played, and all the experience you've had. In the end it really means nothing when you have clearly have no idea what you are talking about other than the unsubstantiated fear of losing your favorite skill.

    Feel free to respond as much as you like, but I have said what I needed to say in this thread and I will be moving on and play the game.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Auberon wrote:
    It's not an exploit.

    This can be done at tier 2. Just make sure all 20 players are co-ordinated with "Jam Target Sensor's" and will set them off one at a time, every 5 - 10 second, pending on console's.

    My version simplify's things and why shouldn't a RA5 Admiral not help? We are federation and rank only matters when giving orders or taking them, else we all muck in.... no matter rank or class, wolf359 springs to mind.


    It's not perfect, but considering in beta and first part of live, we were ramming it dead with one shot, at least we are still finding alternatives on how to beat this encounter and at least, this time, it's being done honestly.
    If Ramming Speed was an exploit, then so is it. The only difference is instead of killing it in one shot without risk of failing at the encounter, it just takes a little while longer.

    The concept is exactly the same. You're removing the entire encounter design and just putting a punching bag in it's place to sit there and take a beating from 100% to 0%. Whether it takes 1 second or 1 hour to accomplish it is entirely irrelevant. The fact of the matter is you're going from Point A to Point Z, bypassing Points B thru Y entirely.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    I think your taking this a little too far.

    Kthang is right in his description of an exploit and you know that. Two decades of experiance, you should know that.

    This guide may not be to your personal liking, but it's a workable solution to a very difficult instance for many players.


    I would personally prefer to help players complete this, thinking it was a good experiance, than leaving it, thinking bad thought's against Cryptic's ineptitude on balancing it for the level they get the mission at. At Kthang said, in time they may limit the level of the player getting into this instance and thus, this guide will be null and void, but until then.... I say, let's help people complete the quest and have fun in their game, using the mechanics we are given, especially when even using this, it still taking time and effort of everyone involved.


    Relax and enjoy the game!
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    No matter what you say or think to convince yourself this is perfectly ok, it won't change my mind.

    I've seen the CE beaten like this when I went to do the mission. I had joined many instances before where it wasn't defeated, and went back a week later to try again. I warped in, saw thousands of fragments sitting around the CE doing absolutely nothing, and wondered what was going on.

    I know how the encounter works, and immediately realized something was not right. There was 10 of us in the encounter, everyone sittingat a full stop at 9km range pounding on the CE, all the while staring at thousands of fragments just "hanging out". I saw the Scramble Sensors going off and it dawned on me what was happening. The fragments aren't entities that decide on their own what to target and attack. They're "torpedoes", if you will, for the CE. The CE decides what to target with its fragments. Scramble Sensors told the CE to attack all NPCs, and ignore players (this is how Scramble Sensors works). There's no other NPCs in that encounter, so it had nothing to attack. Thus it just sat there attacking nothing at all, spawning thousands of "torpedoes", and took its beating from 100% to 0% like a quadriplegic, red-headed stepchild.

    This is NOT at all in their design vision of how to defeat this encounter. You know it. I know it. Anyone who knows the real strategy of defeating it knows this. Stop playing stupid.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Believe it or not, it's soloable in a well fitted science Tier5 and science CAPTAIN With:

    Photonic fleet: Hopefully you get a bunch of escorts

    A sensor scan debuff over 90%

    SCIENCE TEAM III

    A purple photon torpedo launcher mk X to constantly dps is better than quantums in this scenario.

    Two tricobalts in the rear to fire every 30 seconds to help limit shards/lag and damage the main CE until it gets to 30% (With consoles they deal around 30000-40000 with a STIII sensor scan enabled.

    Dual Antiproton/disruptor beam banks in the front. Antiprotons for the extra crit, disruptors for the extra chance to lower the damage resistance. If you go the disruptor route try to get purple mk x's. (Hard to come by)

    Overall, torpedo attacks are the best to use against the CE since it has no shields and they slam right in to the hull...skin...well whatever it is. This is why photons are more effective than quantums since they have a higher dps and you don't need to "hit hard and fast" like quantums are more akin to.

    Of course, you could also consider taking off one dual beam bank and replacing it with another photon or quantum launcher.




    Took around 1 hour 20 mins my first solo try. While I vowed NEVER to make my space bar cry like that again, I've revised my strat and could probably do it in under an hour. If I ever find an empty CE zone I'll record it.

    PS: Keep in mind while you're alone or have very few numbers you get a handful of ally NPC ships to assist. These on top of photonic fleet help you out do the natural regen of the CE which is 3% every 30 seconds.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Well, luta, fortunatly, only Cryptic developers can tell us how they designed it, to be handled. I look forward to them responding on an official step by step stratergy, but till then, like our friend Mr.Woe, we all do what we can, with what knowledge we got, to make the most out of the experiance. Sorry my version is not to your liking. Thanks for posting though, luta.


    @Woe, kudos m8 for a great idea. I remember my friend talking about you and the CE, which inspired me also. Hope my little set up meets with your approval. :)
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Auberon wrote:
    Well, luta, fortunatly, only Cryptic developers can tell us how they designed it, to be handled. I look forward to them responding on an official step by step stratergy, but till then, like our friend Mr.Woe, we all do what we can, with what knowledge we got, to make the most out of the experiance. Sorry my version is not to your liking. Thanks for posting though, luta.


    @Woe, kudos m8 for a great idea. I remember my friend talking about you and the CE, which inspired me also. Hope my little set up meets with your approval. :)
    They didn't do that with Ramming Speed, did they? No. Everyone went to bed and the next day there was a patch to fix it.

    This is what I expect will happen:

    Cryptic: The Crystalline Entity isn't a machine with targetting sensors (roleplay it out). This computer-attacking ability shouldn't be affecting the CE's ability to defend itself. We'll just make all non-mechanical NPC's immune to Scramble Sensors. While we're at it, any ship console ability which really just amounts to one computer disabling or effecting another computer, no longer works on non-mechanical NPC's.

    Grats.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    well im sorry to say this is not a exploit and for someone to say is just a dumbass. these are ingame BOFF'S used by everyone daily and for someone to say youre using a exploit to complete a mission clearly makes you a lil' nooblet.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Auberon wrote:
    Well, luta, fortunatly, only Cryptic developers can tell us how they designed it, to be handled. I look forward to them responding on an official step by step stratergy, but till then, like our friend Mr.Woe, we all do what we can, with what knowledge we got, to make the most out of the experiance. Sorry my version is not to your liking. Thanks for posting though, luta.


    @Woe, kudos m8 for a great idea. I remember my friend talking about you and the CE, which inspired me also. Hope my little set up meets with your approval. :)

    You pretty much have the idea down, yup. :) Always look for ways to improve you and your teams' DPS against it and you'll be swatting down CEs like flies.


    Side note you probably knew anyway: Energy weapons do more damage the closer you are. Sit at point blank range (within 1km of the CE, practically INSIDE it) and enjoy the curb stomping.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Appreciate the tip. I tend to fly between 3-5k out.... giving me time to move out of the way, if the stupid thing glitches and fades out. Not sure why it's doing that.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Auberon wrote:
    Appreciate the tip. I tend to fly between 3-5k out.... giving me time to move out of the way, if the stupid thing glitches and fades out. Not sure why it's doing that.

    When there are a lot of shards on screen, the game only recognizes and displays a certain number of the ones that are closest to you. What the number is, I do not know. Even on maxed out video settings you can only see a certain amount of objects.


    Getting point blank not only increases damage output, it also ensures it won't fade from sight.


    This also goes back to why I use Tricobalts. With two launchers (one firing every 30 seconds) you literally cut the lag/shards in half.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    What about when you get to 30% though.... using them near Large would cause problems wouldn't it?
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Auberon wrote:
    What about when you get to 30% though.... using them near Large would cause problems wouldn't it?

    That's when you stop using them. :D
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    ROFL - I asked for that didn't I.

    :D
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2010
    So you just use lasers at 30%.... Will you do enough dps alone?
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2010
    I think Dr.Woe has lost the thread lol
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2010
    Auberon wrote:
    So you just use lasers at 30%.... Will you do enough dps alone?

    Quantums+photonic fleet+whatever other npc ships+disruptors/antiprotons.


    That does enough DPS alone to outdo the regen.

    Go out of combat for 15-20 seconds between scrambles and switch out the tricobalts for something else like photons/more energy weapons for further pummeling.


    Next question. :D Come on, give me a tough one!
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2010
    If you set your throttle and engine power to where you are slightly faster than the crystals and keep moving, as long as you don't go head on in to one, they will never catch you. You will end up with a trail of of crystals following you. There is a finite number of crystals that can spawn, so by kiting then, you reduce the number of 'loose' crystals floating around. Just don't make tight turns for fly close to another player's ship.

    Herd2.png
    Canned anger
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2010
    The major problem with that is a factor that can irritate everyone.... that being "People".

    People don't like to listen. People have their own opinion's on how best to do something.


    What's been provided is a way to do the Crystalline Entity and to take the fragments out of the equation, so there is no need to kite them. If done correctly, you can sit there, at full power to weapons and the shards will just bounce off you. Only problem after that, is if your shardmaster mucks up. This is easier than being full speed, having to dodge everyone else's fragment trails.

    Hopefully, as Dr.Woe said, if your within 3k of the CE, it will never dephase and you can have full controlled shots on it at all times..... though it would take a more skilled player than I, to solo it. :)
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