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kronin#4685 kronin Member Posts: 325 Arc User
I have not yet attempted the new one. I am still stuck on "Time and Tide". When I first tried that mission, I had no idea how to build a decent ship, and didn't have much good equipment, anyway. I have learned a lot about builds, slapped on some mk xiv gear, and I'm now able to play most PVE content. But I still don't stand a chance against the not-cool vomit cone of death. I mean, I last a little longer. I can even take one or two of them out. But I can't beat this thing. So, here's my question. Are all featured missions this insane? Or is it just "Time and Tide" that's somehow crazy-tougher than any other mission I've ever played?

Comments

  • markhawkmanmarkhawkman Member Posts: 35,231 Arc User
    You can avoid the cones by flying around them. The Na'kuhl point the cone at where your ship was when they activate it, but can't track your movement, so you can just fly to the side and ignore it.
    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
    My character Tsin'xing
    Costume_marhawkman_Tsin%27xing_CC_Comic_Page_Blue_488916968.jpg
  • seaofsorrowsseaofsorrows Member Posts: 10,918 Arc User
    edited April 2016
    I keep seeing people post this, and I'm not sure why. They are big red cones that take several seconds to fire, the best way to avoid them is as said above.. simply move out of the way.

    If you can't get out of the way in time, try hitting brace for impact or using something like Polarize Hull to lessen the damage. You can also hit 'Rock and Roll' from the Pilot tree if you have it and avoid the damage completely.

    Just remember, that often times, the quickest way to avoid it is going forward toward the enemy ship instead of side to side. The beam is cone shaped and the farther out you are, the longer you have to fly to get out of the zone, it's quickest to aim toward the ship and go straight through it.

    Other then that, they're just typical AI ships, avoid the cones and dispatch the ships.
    Insert witty signature line here.
  • davefenestratordavefenestrator Member Posts: 10,501 Arc User
    Also try Evasive Maneuvers and keeping your normal throttle speed high.
  • markhawkmanmarkhawkman Member Posts: 35,231 Arc User
    yeah, I always stay at full throttle vs them. Move or die.
    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
    My character Tsin'xing
    Costume_marhawkman_Tsin%27xing_CC_Comic_Page_Blue_488916968.jpg
  • kronin#4685 kronin Member Posts: 325 Arc User
    Thank you for your replies, and for doing so rather quickly. I have tried most of these suggestions, except for the abilities that I don't have. When I say "not-cool vomit cone of death", I am talking about the ship and/or scenario, not just the ability. Those ships seem to have other abilities and be tough in other ways. I will try keeping my speed maxed next time I try this scenario. I still maintain that this scenario is way tougher than anything else this game has thrown at me. Are the other featured missions usually that way, or is it just this one?
  • markhawkmanmarkhawkman Member Posts: 35,231 Arc User
    the only other abilities the Na'kuhl have that are worth noting are the temporal shadow trick and their radiation cloud torpedoes. The shadows must be killed before you can resume blasting the ship that created them. The radiation clouds torpedos are best countered with a combination of Hazard Emitters and avoiding the clouds. Well, also the torpedoes are destructible so AoE powers can take them out before they hit you, thus not spawning the cloud around your ship.
    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
    My character Tsin'xing
    Costume_marhawkman_Tsin%27xing_CC_Comic_Page_Blue_488916968.jpg
  • seaofsorrowsseaofsorrows Member Posts: 10,918 Arc User
    Featured Missions are no more or less difficult then any other mission. They are just currently 'featured' meaning you get the weekly Featured Reward (The skill point or the upgrade tech) for completing it the first time. The featured missions then get moved into the regular story arc and are not altered in any way. Featured Missions aren't easier or harder then any other mission, this one is just giving you fits for some reason.

    Staying at full impulse is a great point, I don't have any issue with them, but as others have said, I never stop moving.
    Insert witty signature line here.
  • kronin#4685 kronin Member Posts: 325 Arc User
    I think there is something wrong with "Time and Tide". I forgot to mention that the game lags when I try to fight that stupid vomit cone destroyer. In addition to the abilities mentioned above, that ship can put this bubble around my ship that messes me up big time. It also hit me with a gravity well. At times, when it doesn't even look like that ship is doing anything, my hull just seems to melt like butter. If I blink, my shields are gone. I just got my first genuine tier 6 ship from the Z-store, and decked it out with mk xiv weapons, and I still get stomped. Yes, I am having fits about this mission. I've tried everything you good people have suggested, and nothing works. this mission is like 20 times harder than anything else the game has thrown at me. I've never had to drop a mission for any reason, including it being too tough. Maybe I'm just being stubborn, but I want to beat this vile mission. *sigh* Sorry, I just had to rant. Maybe I should just drop the mission. I really want the Pastak for my admiralty fleet, but this mission is taking the fun out of the game. There better not be any more missions this stupidly tough.
  • nephitisnephitis Member Posts: 456 Arc User
    edited May 2016
    Avoid the plasma clouds... and well. Hmmm...

    Something that truly works is to divert all power to weapons and then, behold, divert to engines and not shields or aux that many builds seem to incorporate. Slap on an hyper impulse engine from one of the reputations and you will find yourself flying across space faster than practically anything.

    It will provide you with extra defense if you lack sufficient defense. Both the Iconian and Aegis engines provide a defense bonus. It will make their beams miss you more often and you can almost outrun torpedos and easily avoid the plasma clouds and plasma wave cones with the speed and mobility gained by doing all of this. It also makes combat and flying significantly more fun. You can also focus on the Intel and Pilot specialization trees for defense and turn rate.

    Oh I forgot to say you can also get a warp core with the Weapons->Engine mod instead of Weapon->Shields or Aux and you will have engine power above 100 and still 125 in weapons. Fast escorts with high impulse modifier will be able to hit speeds up to 100 in combat, and other slower ships will hit speeds from 65~90 and that's fast and fun.
  • antonine3258antonine3258 Member Posts: 2,391 Arc User
    Cone of death joins the proud tradition of 'pluses of death' from the Vaad. The Krenim in that mission had a temporal analysis ability which causes weird effects (one of the lockbox consoles duplicates it) like minimizing speed.

    Area of effect abilities like torpedo spreads and gravity wells can minimize the work of trying to find the temporal distortions.
    Fate - protects fools, small children, and ships named Enterprise Will Riker

    Member Access Denied Armada!

    My forum single-issue of rage: Make the Proton Experimental Weapon go for subsystem targetting!
  • jaguarskxjaguarskx Member Posts: 5,945 Arc User
    Perhaps you should zoom out a bit to get a better sense of situational awareness. If you are zoomed in too close, then it can be difficult to tell where to go to escape the "vomit cone". Engage at close range if you can since the closer you are to the Nakhul ship the smaller the cone's area of effect.

    When the distortion ships are created, stop attacking the real ship since it will be immune to damage. You can use area of effect abilities to help in that situation like torpedo spread, beam fire at will, cannon scatter volley and gravity well. These distortion ships do not have shields so they are vulnerable to torpedo attacks.

    Choosing the right impulse engine can slightly improve your chances to avoid the vomit one. A hyper impulse engine is your best bet because they are efficient at high power level. Most people select the option to devote most of your ship's power to weapons. But if you need to evade the vomit cone, then you should switch to dumping power into engines to get a speed boost. You should look for engines with modifiers like [Spd] and [Turn].

    As for the warp core, you may want to take a look at a hyper injected warp core that allows engines to receive 130 max power rather than the standard 125 max power. More importantly, you may want to consider a warp core with the [W->E] modifier which give your engine a bonus of 7.5% of whatever power you are giving your weapons. This does not reduce power to weapons at all, it merely provides bonus power to engines.

    The [Eff] mod (for efficiency) will provide you with extra power to your subsystems in general. The lower the power level the more extra power your subsystems will receive. However, at 75 power or above you receive no bonus whatsoever. I am not sure if [Eff] has been renamed after the skill system was revamped.

    There is another warp core mod [SEP] for Starship Engine Performance which gave up to 9.9 additional power in the old skill system. Not sure if the mod is called the same in the new skill system and how the additional power bonus is calculated.
  • kronin#4685 kronin Member Posts: 325 Arc User
    Maybe that temporal ability is what's killing me. How do you get past that? I've tried fast ships, and they seem to get stuck and made useless. Sometimes I thought it was a glitch and something was wrong with the scenario. I really hope I don't need all that reputation gear, because that means it will be a while before I am ready to play this mission. I thought a level 60 character with a T6 ship and some mk xiv gear would be enough.
  • jaguarskxjaguarskx Member Posts: 5,945 Arc User
    You do not need rep gear to complete the mission.

    I completed Time and Tide as well as The Temporal Front with a level 60 KDF engineer on a separate free to play only account using only the free T5 Vor'cha Battlecruiser Retrofit I got when I hit level 40. That ship has basic Mk XII equipment; it has a combination of uncommon / rare beam weapons and torpedoes, and I believe the tactical consoles are either rare or very. There are no rep gear on that ship, but I am currently working on Omega, Nukara and Romulan reps.

    What I do have though is a little more than 2 years worth of experience. So I use tactics I developed over time to make up for having "junk" gear. While I do have some ultra rare Mk XII to XIV gear I have not felt the need to use them yet. I purchased them fairly cheap on the Exchange when they were Mk VIII a couple of months ago and was waiting for this past weekend to upgrade them.

    It all boils down to tactics and knowing when to do certain actions. Flying various types of ships across many captains from Birds of Prey (my favorite ship), Raptors, Escorts, Battlecruisers, Cruiser and Warbirds probably benefited me as well since that technically means I need to adjust my tactics based which captain I am playing. Unfortunately, tactics are something that takes time to develop and is extremely difficult to convey in text.
  • antonine3258antonine3258 Member Posts: 2,391 Arc User
    edited May 2016
    Maybe that temporal ability is what's killing me. How do you get past that? I've tried fast ships, and they seem to get stuck and made useless. Sometimes I thought it was a glitch and something was wrong with the scenario. I really hope I don't need all that reputation gear, because that means it will be a while before I am ready to play this mission. I thought a level 60 character with a T6 ship and some mk xiv gear would be enough.

    Seconding I've done it with Mk XIs. Takes longer, certainly.

    What's your bridge officer loadout? The temporal ability is debilitating, but not always fatal - are you stopping? It seriously increases the effectiveness of all firepower on you
    Fate - protects fools, small children, and ships named Enterprise Will Riker

    Member Access Denied Armada!

    My forum single-issue of rage: Make the Proton Experimental Weapon go for subsystem targetting!
  • kronin#4685 kronin Member Posts: 325 Arc User
    Sometimes I get stopped cold, other times it's like the game just lags. As for my bridge layout, I am using the following. Tac: Torp high yield, beam- fire at will, torp spread, cannon rapid fire. Sci; hazard emitter, tractor beam, tachyon beam. Eng: Eng team, reverse shield polarity. Uni/Sci: sci team, jam targeting sensors, gravity well. Uni/Eng: emergency power to shields. My ship is the Flambard. I could tell you more about my build. I'm sure there are ways to improve it, but like I said, it does fine in other missions. What can I do about this temporal ability?
  • markhawkmanmarkhawkman Member Posts: 35,231 Arc User
    Are you really using a mixture of Cannons and beams?

    As for the distortions, torp spread is great, they have no shields so torpedoes eat them alive. FaW is also good.
    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
    My character Tsin'xing
    Costume_marhawkman_Tsin%27xing_CC_Comic_Page_Blue_488916968.jpg
  • kronin#4685 kronin Member Posts: 325 Arc User
    Currently, no, I am not mixing beams and cannons, but I may in the future. Is that a bad idea?
  • markhawkmanmarkhawkman Member Posts: 35,231 Arc User
    Well, cannon powers don't work with beams, and vice versa... I mentioned this because you have both cannon and beam powers.
    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
    My character Tsin'xing
    Costume_marhawkman_Tsin%27xing_CC_Comic_Page_Blue_488916968.jpg
  • jaguarskxjaguarskx Member Posts: 5,945 Arc User
    My ship is the Flambard. I could tell you more about my build. I'm sure there are ways to improve it, but like I said, it does fine in other missions.

    Hmmm.... In terms of overall power, Romulan have a bit of a disadvantage because each subsystem get 10 less power compared to Fed / KDF / other faction starships because Romulan ships use Singularity Core which gives the ship some abilities in exchange for 40 points of power. One such ability is the Singularity Jump which causes the ship to jump forward by 5km while leaving behind a weak gravity well in the spot you were at. The jump is always 5km regardless of your singularity charge level which affects how much damage the gravity well charges. Simply use Singularity Jump to get out of the "vomit cone" area of effect.

    Something else you can do with Singularity Jump is to approach the Na'kuhl distortion ships that spawns from the main ship (which is immune to damage at this time), activate torpedo spread, jump when you are very close to the distortion ships, then fire your aft torpedoes.

    The Flambard has the Dampening Wave Emitter console. If you know you cannot get out of the "vomit cone" area of effect, then use the console. It disables nearby ships, causes minor radiation damage and more importantly it dramatically reduces enemies' damage output for a short period of time.

    You also have the evasive maneuvers ability than can get you out of the way. Switching your ship's power profile to engines instead of weapons will make you fly faster.

    Lastly, you can acquire Deuterium Surplus and engine batteries which can improve engine power for a short period of time.

    http://sto.gamepedia.com/Deuterium_Surplus
    http://sto.gamepedia.com/Engine_Battery


    Get a Hyper Injection Singularity Core which can increase engine power based on your current singularity charge level.

    I would imagine the Flambard feels a bit sluggish when you fly it due to the power penalty for Singularity Abilities. One way to offset might require you to respec your captain's abilities. The abilities that allows you to move / turn faster and have more available power are all engineering abilities. You need to decide how many points you want to devote to engineering without taking away too much from science or tactical.

    Impulse Expertise = Increased speed and turn rate; there are 3 levels
    Offensive Subsystem Tuning = +4.8 weapon and engine power
    Engine Subsystem Performance = Another +3.2 engine power
    Warp Core Potential = + 3 power to all subsystems
    Improved Warp Core Potential = Additional +2 power to all subsystems
    Warp Core Efficiency = The lower the power level in each subsystem the more "bonus power" you receive. +0 to + 10 bonus power; +0 at 75 power and above.


  • tecbulltecbull Member Posts: 48 Arc User
    Especially if flying a cannon build, I've found flying high over or under and coming in from aft is quite effective. the cone doesn't fire aft, and you can get a flanking bonus. You can pound away with cannons while the BFAWers are grabbing all the aggro forward.
    Oil, because Matter-Antimatter reactors haven't been invented yet... Please Hurry!
  • kronin#4685 kronin Member Posts: 325 Arc User
    FINALLY!!! I beat this vile mission! Thank you to all of you who helped. Much appreciated, to say the least. I used the Flambard with the quantum phase set, and the rest of the weapons were mk xiv phasers. The singularity core and the impulse engines were the fastest I could get. Gravity well, tachyon beam and constriction anchor were good friends of mine, but especially that singularity jump. I love Romulan singularity cores. Thanks again.
  • antonine3258antonine3258 Member Posts: 2,391 Arc User
    Glad you got through it!

    Now you get to deal with even more Na'kuhl in the next mission (they love plasma, watch for mines in the ground, and always shoot the distortions or keep your boffs on a tight leash)
    Fate - protects fools, small children, and ships named Enterprise Will Riker

    Member Access Denied Armada!

    My forum single-issue of rage: Make the Proton Experimental Weapon go for subsystem targetting!
  • jaguarskxjaguarskx Member Posts: 5,945 Arc User
    Okay, now that you completed Time and Tide, you need to brace yourself for the next mission, The Temporal Front. It is a more difficult mission since you need to deal with multiple ships in the final battle that can you the "Vomit Cone" on you. I think at one time I had 3 of them directed at me at once.

    You also need to deal with the Na'Kuhl on the ground which can be difficult because the shields they use can create distortions of themselves, The distortions must be killed first because while the distortions are around, the specific Na'kuhl projecting them is immune from damage. You also need to deal with crawling bio-toxin mines. The gas masks you get from one of the Elachi missions can come in handy or you can wear environmental suits... which does not offer much damage protection.

    This mission is actually worth playing through multiple times because of the rewards. Each time you complete it you can select either the armor, shield or weapon; the weapon is not that great in my opinion. You can equip your captain and your away team with the armor and shield which are pretty good, but that means you need to complete it 10 times.
  • davefenestratordavefenestrator Member Posts: 10,501 Arc User
    For Temporal Front my science captain had good success using Hyperonic Radiation (DOT + AOE) and Exothermic (AOE), along with him and 2 science boffs all using Nanite Health Monitor.

    My tac captain who did it first still has 2 tac boffs, 1 science, 1 eng. So many respawns. I really need to change his away team.
  • iamviperswhipiamviperswhip Member Posts: 62 Arc User
    I am not sure if it is possible to strafe around targets in this game, so I mostly use single beams instead of dual beams for two slots on the front and any on the back, just for targets like this so I can fly in circles around them until they are dead, occasionally showing them my rear for a bucket of torpedoes. Still, I am hardly the best or most experienced player, but I have done this mission a few times and only died to the cone when I got cocky (mostly when tons of other players piled in).
  • kronin#4685 kronin Member Posts: 325 Arc User
    The next mission is ... harder? Why are they doing this to us? I think I'll go play other content for a while. "Time and Tide" was not fun. I mean, it was when my low level characters beat the thing. But once I got a character high enough level, the difficulty curve shot up way too far. A little tougher than other missions would be ok, but this was ridiculous. *sigh* Anyway, thanks again for the help, and thanks for the warning about the next one.
  • jaguarskxjaguarskx Member Posts: 5,945 Arc User
    Well, you are not going to be alone for the mission.

    The USS Pastak will be with you for all space combat parts of the mission. Though on a couple of rare occasions the USS Pastak would not engage enemies until the final battle. Except for the final battle enemy ships appear three at a time, the other exception would be one ship that is trying to escape.

    I don't know how many ships are in the final battle since I never bothered to count, but they are generally separated in two groups somewhat near each other so you do not need to fight them all at once. Additionally, one other Federation starship will appear as reinforcement.
  • davefenestratordavefenestrator Member Posts: 10,501 Arc User
    Yes, it was the ground combat that took out my tac captain with tac boffs the first time I played it. The space parts didn't seem harder to me.
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