Stronger Defense (Rhi Atmosphere)

otakuboyt · July 2013

OK, I have no idea what I am doing wrong.

I have played this game since beta (off and on) and the Elachi seem to be giving me more trouble than an STF with people AFK. Note I hit Lv50 at about "Small Packages" (combo of vet reward and DOffing)

In my latest issue, I have been toughly trounced repeatedly in this mission. I keep checking and I'm on normal difficulty.

When it loads up, I first though AH COOL a surface shuttle mission AWESOME!.

But I keep getting ganged up on and killed.

I'm using the commander's Gig with

Caustic Plasma Beam Array Mk.XI Accx2
Photon Torpedo Launcher Mk.X [CrtH]
Positron Defector Array Mk.X [Stl] (Improves Sheild and Hull HP)
Standard Engines
Resilent Sheild Array Mk.XI [Dis]
Red Matter Capacitor
Shield Batteries
Shield Emitter Amplifier Mk.X [Eng]
Shield Emitter Amplifier Mk.XII [Sci]
Plasma Infuser

I'm a Science Captain and I have brought either my Borg Tac which adds Fire at Will or my Borg Eng with adds Power to Shields.

Sometimes I can get past phase 1, but by then all my allied units are dead and I'm trying to take on a walker on my own. (Without a tow cable

)

Is the mission bugged or am I missing something. Sadly, I can't skip it because it seems I need the breather item.

Thanks

tenkari · July 2013

compare the gig's stats with those of the c-store shuttles.... might want to pick one of those up, or you can try and as k fleetmates or friends to help you with it.

otakuboyt · July 2013

This toon has access to the Class F, Type-10, and the Scorpion

I really can't see any of them doing any better. :mad:

seitei1 · July 2013

You could get(Or re-get?) the Efficient Impulse Engines, if you'd like, from a mission.

There's no such thing as 'Shield Emitter Amplifier' for Engineering. You're probably thinking of the Field Emitter, which raises Shield Power Setting. Regardless, you could switch out the Science Amplifier for a Field Generator, which you can get as Green Mk 11 from a mission you've already done.

You need to play tank as much as possible, set your Shields to 100. Your allied fighters SHOULD respawn as the wings are completely destroyed. If they're not, it's a bug.

otakuboyt · July 2013

seitei1 wrote: »

There's no such thing as 'Shield Emitter Amplifier' for Engineering.

Might be a bug, but I have it. Maybe it was a bug when they changed around all the consoles. I found it on my main's bank, which onto itself it a cavalcade of oddites. :rolleyes:

Edit: The console it DOES NOTHING

Meanwhile, I bit the bullet and picked up the Aegis set. It cost about 7 million, it was cheaper than making it

Sadly, I used my last pre-dilithium crafted set on an alt I no longer like and plan to delete

seitei1 wrote: »

you could switch out the Science Amplifier for a Field Generator

I think I have one of those in my fleet bank, thanks

I'll give it another try tomorrow evening. Any other ideas would be helpful.

Thanks

tenkari · July 2013

yes that engineering console could be put to better use... such as armor.

psychickitty · July 2013

This is to the OP and people having issues.

I hope you are actually using the shuttles own beam weapon or another shuttle beam weapon because if not you don't have 360 firing.

Also....I want to suggest...ditch the torpedo....your best bet is to have either 2 of the 360 degree beam weapons or one beam weapon and one cannon.

otakuboyt · July 2013

Update:

Caustic Plasma Beam Array Mk.XI Accx2
Plasma Beam Array Standard Issue-S
Aegis Graviton Deflector Array
Aegis Hyper-Impulse Engines
Aegis Covariant Shield Array
Red Matter Capacitor
Shield Batteries
Monotanium Alloy Mk.X
Field Generator Mk.XI
Plasma Infuser

Yeah it looks like the allied fighters are not coming back out. However, I now can kill 2 or 3 before the swarm overruns me. :rolleyes:

reginamala78 · August 2013

Just took my first crack at this mission. Figured "Okay its the intro-to-shuttles mission for the Rom faction. Piece of cake." Went in to this with the Tiercel shuttle with only the stuff it came with, as stock as it comes.

Wow that is a LOT of guys shooting at me, and me without chained EPTS. Aaaannnd they seem to be respawning. Lovely.

So first question, am I supposed to actually spend time and money gearing a silly little shuttle now? Seriously?

Second question, more general-concept. Its a big open plain with the walkers outside the city. What good is a mile-long starship if I can't use it to orbitally-annihilate my enemies? Or enter the atmosphere and provide the ultimate in fire support? Why play fair?

reginamala78 · August 2013

leadme2kirk wrote: »

I always swap items on my main ship and swap them back afterwards. Even doing this that mission, at level, is challenging and I just wanted it over with asap. Cryptic wants us to die a lot for some reason and hit the respawn button over and over again.

I dunno, I only died once at it (high-yield plasma tend to do that), but then I just aborted when it became clear that the hostile shuttles were endless and my stock weapons weren't making much of a dent in the walker. Figured I needed to rethink my approach to find the correct solution if head-on was going to make me work for it.

Its just disappointing when you run into a story mission that you can't simply adjust on the fly to make it work because you brought the wrong gear or something. Too easy is dull of course, but its disappointing when you have to be psychic or look stuff up ahead of time so as to have the right layout, it really robs a story of its cinematic-ness and flow. This isn't the NES era after all. I shudder to think what that mission must be like for a new player who attacks it at 28 with just the random mk6 stuff they've scavenged up to that point. Yikes.

bhthephoenix · August 2013

When I did the mission I spent the 30k on a shuttle and used that with gear I had received from playing. The only difficult part was figuring out where to go and getting stuck. I dont recall having any real problems.

arkhaman · August 2013

Not sure what power levels people are running at, but I've recommended to my Fleet members that they run high shield power for this mission (if they aren't already). Engine power was the secondary choice. If things are still a bit tough, I recommend they go with EptS1 as their ensign ability.

I didn't have much trouble with my Scorpion Fighter, using 2 torps up front with high shield power and High Yield torp for the ensign ability.

reginamala78 · August 2013

Tried it again with a Kestrel using two photons that still keep missing even with the Accurate trait and [acc]x2 mods, an isometric charge that keeps missing, and shields at 117 total power. My choices for the ensign are TT, ST, EPTW, or PH, none of which seem to be much help but I'm not wasting expertise changing skills for one mission. I'm still running into several problems.

One, the walker's escort shuttles keep coming. Are they endless spawning or can I wipe them out so I can focus on the walker at my liesure? And how do I hit the ******n things anyways when they're all tiny and doing evasive besides?

Two, the helper shuttles keep dying. If I'm supposed to be protecting these people, thats just unacceptable. How do I keep them alive so they can be useful?

There's always a solution to every mission that turns it into a cakewalk. I mean I can do Operation Gamma in the stock Type-8 shuttle no problem, so this mission has no business even slowing me down. What's the trick that I'm just not seeing?

krrja · August 2013

This is one of those missions where going in plasma beams blazing makes you the only target for any enemy in range. Those who report not having trouble are likely taking on smaller groups of enemy shuttles at a time, using the commands for the friendly shuttles, or both.

By targeting an enemy and commanding your support squadrons to attack, they take the initial aggro. Then, when you yourself enter the fray, commanding them to guard you, they then target enemies that are shooting at you. This alone makes the shuttle and equipment you have fairly irrelevant.

Remember, this is a mission with swarms of opponents, don't let them all shoot at you at once.

wobbleside · August 2013

I feel like I totally cheated for this one. PD console makes short work of the elachi shuttles. After not scratching the walkers I just started charging in HY plasma and then ramming speed at each walker. :rolleyes:

corjet · August 2013

If you want to go Op - then try the Delta Flyer <VBG> I arm it with either the standard beam array, and sometimes with the Bio-Neural warhead or the rapid transphasic with the breen set. Or go nuts as I did since I do the STF version and get the Heavy Escort Refit for the [Console - Universal - Point Defense System]. Usually I can almost wipe out an entire fighter wave with one shot. LOL I go with the Delta flyer since it has 2 BOff stations and that can really help. If not totally Op then I go with the Kestral since she can cloak and I use that to heal up, but I do arm her similarly especially with the Bio-Neural warhead since that will fly and shoot at the mobs especially the walkers.

As krrja said: "By targeting an enemy and commanding your support squadrons to attack, they take the initial aggro. Then, when you yourself enter the fray, commanding them to guard you, they then target enemies that are shooting at you. This alone makes the shuttle and equipment you have fairly irrelevant."

oldkirkfan · August 2013

wobbleside wrote: »

I feel like I totally cheated for this one. PD console makes short work of the elachi shuttles. After not scratching the walkers I just started charging in HY plasma and then ramming speed at each walker. :rolleyes:

+1 The Point Defense is your best friend in this mission. It chews through the Elachi better than your main weapons do. (It's just as good against the swarmers in Operation Gamma)

jonsills · September 2013

I was running a Kestrel, with the stock plasma beam and plasma torp. The stock beam has a 360-degree field of fire, which helps, especially when it's set to autofire. The Elachi ships are not infinitely-spawning - there are just a lot of them. Your supporters, however, do respawn after a while. The technique I used was to tell the squadrons to defend me when there were only other shuttles to deal with (that causes them to target the nearest Elachi ships), and to either attack the target or defend me when going after a walker. (Also, if it looked like I was about to die, I'd try to die next to a walker, so I'd damage it with the explosion.)

Other than that, I had an engineer in the BOff position, so I could fix the ship on occasion, and used Quantum Absorption a lot. Died a few times, but the most frustrating part for me was when my ship, and the supporting squadron, would occasionally just stop moving forward. We could turn, and shoot, but we were hovering in midair. The first time that happened, with Ael t'Pirinath's run a couple of days ago, I gave it a few minutes, then filed a bug ticket and quit. Ran her through it again last night, and it happened twice, but corrected itself in short order.

ursusmorologus · September 2013

Forget the shuttles, use runabouts, they are waay better than the free shuttles. They dont cost much money either just a couple hundred thousand ECs is all.

The free weapons have lousy accuracy and miss the fighters way too much. Go buy a beam array with [Acc]x2 from the exchange (they are pretty cheap--all the end-game people use the rom rep plasma weaps), or if you are really poor you can do the Mockingbird episode with a Fed alt and get one of the free Mk XI [acc]x2 weapon. Add on a good hard-hitting torpedo like the Breen cluster or the Hargh'peng and you will be able to kill almost anything, use your beams to make a hole and the big boom to kill them. You can get some decent purple Mk XII gear on the exchange too. I use the Aegis set on all my runabouts, since the full set boosts defense and resists pretty well, but you can do alright with good loot gear too.

Engi can heal his own shields and hull and can slot a tactical BOFF, but the other two classes need to look at using something like EPtS1 or HE1 as the BOFF ability. If you cant run and heal, then you are going to die a lot.

eatsmart · September 2013

Couple of tips:

Borrow your main ship's gear. Its just for one mission, you can swap it back after.
Put another energy weapon in the 2nd weapon slot, dont use torps on a fighter unless its for a set bonus.
Focus fire on a single shield facing on the walkers, they have high shield regen. Rear is probably the easiest to keep on.
Check you're set to full power to weapons. (Obvious I know, but a lot of people forget that the shuttle is a new ship too)
Grab a stack of 20 deployable energy turrets, and drop one after you've got agro from the fighter groups.

Stronger Defense (Rhi Atmosphere)

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