Penumbra, Level 4 Epic Arc
Last edited by Dark_Missioner:
remote acceptance for Mission 9
Mon, 08 May 2023 12:20 UTC
remote acceptance for Mission 9
Mon, 08 May 2023 12:20 UTC
Chapter 2: Blackness Rising
Go to Chapter 1
Mission 9 - Meet Sinas
Report to Sinas Egassuo's Chimera in Astoh
Speaking to agent completes mission.
Mission can be accepted remotely.
Mission 10 - Right Tool for the Job
Faction: Gallente Navy
Mission type: Encounter
Space type: Normal space
Damage dealt: Therm/Kin
Ewar: Web / Scram / Sensor Dampening
Recommended damage dealing: Therm (best), Kin (secondary)
Data Analyzer and Hacking skill required to complete mission (check Tip #2)
Single Pocket (2 Groups)
Broadcast Tower Group (44km)
(Mixed Fleet with 3 time based reinforcement spawns every 2 minutes) Complete Fleet after spawns :8x Frigate (Federation Praktor Belos, Praktor Harpago)
7x Elite Frigate (Elite Federation Machina, Pelekus, Phalarica, Arcus)
5x Destroyer (Federation Arcus, Pelekus)
10x Cruiser (Federation Praktor Centurion, Praktor Legionarius)
9x Elite Cruiser (Elite Federation Arx, Auxilia, Liburna, Calo, Quadrieris)
5x Battlecruiser (Federation Praktor Bearcus, Federation Calo)
13x Battleship (Federation Covinus, Federation Praktor Phanix, Praktor Praeses, Praktor Polemo, Praktor Hexeris, Praktor Magister)
Tip : Time based spawns happen quickly. All ships will drop Gallente Navy Tags but be forewarned, negative standing hits incurred for Aggro / Ship Kill. Expect EWAR from Elite Frigates and Elite Cruisers. Probably a good idea to get help from friends before attacking this group :)
Federation Navy Shipyard Group (63km)
1x Elite Frigate (Elite Federation Manica) Warp Scram2x Elite Frigate (Elite Federation Matara) Sensor Dampening
5x Elite Destroyer (Elite Federation Arcus)
Blitz:
- Warp in, ignore (DO NOT SHOOT) Broadcast Tower Group and quickly maneuver ship into range to destroy Federation Navy Shipyard Group. You will incur one small Faction Standing loss for destroying the Shipyard group.
- No need to destroy the Broadcast Tower.
- No Standing loss on destruction of the Tower, and it can be destroyed to prevent additional spawns.
- Container can be Hacked with defenders present but NOT looted, so you need to destroy the Shipyard group.
- Container MUST be hacked AND looted in order to complete mission. Buying 1x FedNav F.O.F. Identifier Tag AC-106V:FNSBR from the market or contracts won't complete the mission.
Tip #2 : Bring a Mobile Depot and refit for a + data analyzer I/II on site so you don't have to re-ship. Level 3 in the Hacking skill with a T1 analyzer is sufficient to successfully hack the shipyard container. No ship-related hacking bonus is required.
Mission 11 - The Breakout
Faction: Gallente Navy
Space type: Deadspace
Damage dealt: Therm/Kin
Ewar: Warp Scram / Sensor Dampening
Recommended damage dealing: Therm (best), Kin (secondary)
Items Needed: Probe Launcher & Core Probes (Scanning), Data Analyzer (Hacking), 1x FedNav F.O.F. Identifier Tag AC-106V:FNSBR (Gained from Agent). <Items not needed if you buy the mission item off the market/contracts>
Note - Mission site (Federation Detention Facility) is a Cosmic Signature (Combat Site) which must be probed to 100% first before warping to it. The site will spawn in each system within the Constellation when mission is accepted and will respawn if someone else completes it.
Blitz : Buy the 1x Caldari Prisoners Of War (0.5m3) on Contracts or market and complete the mission. No need to search/probe, hack, or fight anything.
Mission Site = Two Pockets
First Pocket
1x Newly Constructed Acceleration Gate (95km)No NPC's most of the time. Sometimes it ends up with:
Group 1:
5x Frigate (Federation Praktor Belos/Machina/Harpgo)3x Destroyer (Federation Praktor Phalarica)
3x Elite Frigate (Elite Federation Lixa/Libertus) Warp Scram
Group 2:
6x Elite Frigates (Elite Federation Machina/Matara)4x Elite Cruiser (Elite Fedeartion Arx) Sensor Damping
Group 3:
7x Battleships (Federation Praktor Magister/Navis Praetoria/Polemo/Hexeris) Navis = Sensor Damping
In case spawn groups are present, a cloaky is best used to just fly past them to the gate. The 1x FedNav F.O.F. Identifier Tag AC-106V:FNSBR may not prevent them from attacking.
Warning: You will incur Faction standing losses for destroying ships in this pocket.
Second Pocket
Initial Group (25km)
8x Gallente Warden Frigate (Federation Clavis, Hastile)Structures (Hack with Data Analyzer) :
8x Federation Dention Facility - each contains 1x Caldari Prisoner Of War (Mission Objective)
Warning: You will incur one small Faction standing loss for destroying the Warden Frigate group in this pocket.
Note - The Gallente Warden Frigates may not attack if the 1x FedNav F.O.F. Identifier Tag AC-106V:FNSBR (Gained from Agent) is in your cargohold (There is a bug where they may still shoot you but they hit for 1 damage). After successfully hacking a Detention Facility to save a prisoner, a short self-destruct timer will start. You may be able to hack another one before the Detention Facility self-destructs but only 1x Caldari Prisoners Of War is needed to complete the mission.
The Detention Facility structures will have a white container to Hack. If no Detention Facility structures are present or you see 8x blue containers, then that site has been completed by another player. Instead of waiting for respawn, just look for the site in another system.
Mission 12 - Whisper of a Conspiracy
Sinas sends you to a low sec system in Black Rise where he wants you to check out an Ishkone facility and see if they are exchanging prisoners of war with the Gallente.
Route can be either entirely high sec or go into low-sec so be careful. Warp to the mish site. Sinas says to check out the telescope. Once you reach about 10km from it, Sinas hacks it for you and you can open it to get the mish item, an Encrypted Data Node.
Mission can be accepted remotely.
Tip: Same drill as before. Nano Interceptor/fast frigate/cloaky frigate and beware of gate camps.
Mission 13 - Practical Solutions
Mission Type: Courier
Pick up Vira Mikano from an Ishkone Watch station and bring him back to Sinas so he can decrypt the Encrypted Data Node.
Mission can be accepted remotely.
Mission 14 - Forewarning
Mission Type: Courier to Deadspace Location (Low Sec)
Recommended Ship: Very fast frigate, interceptor or covert ops
Tip: Same drill. Nanofit and 2x WarpCoreStabelizer if possible. Watch out for gatecamps and player pirates.
Mission ends when you make the drop into the Conference Center.
Go to Chapter 3
Faction: Gallente Navy
Mission type: Encounter
Space type: Normal space
Damage dealt: Kin/Therm
Web/Scramble: NA
Extras: NA
Recommended damage dealing: Therm (best), Kin (secondary)
First Room. You warp in to find a Caldari Navy Yard with a newly built warpgate at the end. As you move towards it, at some point you decloak a Gallante Navy Sin (Dominix). At this time 5 Gallante Navy Nemesis(Frigates), 10 Gallante Navy Arazu(Crusiers), and 5 more Gallante Navy Sins warp in.
2nd Room, Just fly to within 20k of Outpost to complete mission.
Faction: Gallente Navy
Mission type: Encounter
Space type: Normal space
Damage dealt: Kin/Therm
Web/Scramble: web and scramble
Extras: Sensor Dampners
Recommended damage dealing: Therm (best), Kin (secondary)
For me there were plenty of elite frigs and also some elite cruisers: one group with only elite frigates at the Shipyard, but I got aggro from the (two) mixed groups at some point as well. Ishkur probably can do it, but I'm sure an Ishtar does much better! Removing the mixed group also gave me one respawn some time later of another mixed group, and when salvaging near the Broadcast tower another one! Furthermore a third respawn including 3 Navy Dominixes! Followed by a fourth respawn... You will lose standing for killing ships from these groups too! I counted at least 13 BS rats when I hacked the can finally (they did not aggro me).
It seems that Hacking at level 1 is not high enough to access the Federation Detention Facility. I have a message telling me that the facility is too complex... and the codebreaker won't auto-repeat. I still have the tag, I will try at Hacking L2 or L3 if it's not enough...
By the way, when scanning for the Facility, it will appear as a cosmic signature. You have to scan it down to 100% to be able to bookmark it. I had to use a Magnate and sister's launcher and probes, cause my skills at scanning are not very high.
Easily soloable in Tengu with 2x Sensor Backup Array II in lows. Got jammed twice during whole mission. Both stasis towers are extremely weak and practically insta-poppable, would advise to take them out first. With Tengu's tiny signature, torpedoes deal 5-10 damage, rest is also relatively harmless.
If you worry about you own DPS, take down the rooks/buzzards first, then redock and swap Sensor Arrays for damage mods. I didn't bother, but could probably save a few minutes in the long run.
Just kill the small group. The main group will not aggro. You can then hack the container without interference.
after I had to warp out several times due to the Sensor Dampening stuff, I used FoF Cruise Missiles. After I arrived at the location and fired my first missiles I noticed that NONE of the ships even bothered to target or shoot me. They just sat there and got shot... could finish the mission quite easy.
Chapter 2 - Blackness Rising
Mission 14 - Meet Sinas
Report to agent in high sec system
Mission 15 - Right Tool For The Job
No blitz for this mission. Can't access the can/shipyard while NPC's are in area. Mission requirement is destroy Communications Array, destroy all hostile forces, hack into shipyard and collect mission objective (FedNav Tag). There's only 1 Manica NPC and it does do warp scram. Destroying the Communication Array first probably delays or stops the reinforcement spawns.
Initial Group:
4x Federation Praktor Cruiser (Centurion, Legionarius)
12x Elite Federation Frigate (Arcus, Phalarica, Matara, Machina, Manica)
All wrecks drop Gallente Federation Tags. I received two different negative Faction standing hits for ship kill:
1x -2.4%
1x -0.018%
Mission 16 - The Breakout
No NPC's in 1st pocket. No aggro from 8 Gallente NPC Frigate's in 2nd pocket. No need to destroy them for mission completion. Accessed cans from exploded Prison structures after completing mission due to large amount of Prisoners and Janitors dropped.
Mission 17 - Whisper Of A Conspiracy (low sec)
Courier mission, pick up item and return to agent.
Mission 18 - Practical Solutions
Courier mission, pick up item and return to agent.
Mission 19 - Forewarning (low sec)
Courier mission, drop off item and return to agent.
Chapter 3 - The Bottom Line
Mission 20 - The Knowledge To Act
2 different branch options:
Home In Peace - Courier mission, pick up item in low sec. - Nugoehuvi path
Slipping Away - Report to Agent in high sec. - Hyasyoda path
Mission 21 - Slipping Away
Report to Agent in high sec system.
Mission 22 - Across The Line
The perma jamming in this mission is unbalanced. Even with T2 ECCM and Sensor back-up modules fitted for 49 points of sensor strength, still couldn't break the jamming. Had to refit Loki as missile boat and use Faction FoF missiles.
FoF missiles will auto target the closest NPC within range so keep watch on your target NPC range.
After trigger spawn, when warping out and back, Caretaker will always aggro first and approach very quickly, basically taking all the FoF missile aggro. NPC group will advance out and back from spawn point twice. Caretaker will stay out at boundry limit.
I made bookmarks and warped to them within the mission site. Lead Caretaker to one side, then warp to other side to work on Frigs and Cruisers. Cruisers are very tough.
To quickly complete mission, just have a friend fleet up and take out the Frigs and Cruisers. No standing hit for ship kill.
Check your Faction standing and file petition if no increase is gained.
Even in a Tengu with all skills level V and an ECCM *overloaded* (78 points of sensor strength) it isn't enough to interrupt the continuous jamming from the Cruisers.
Auto-Targeting missiles for the win... or, any other weapon that doesn't require lock to kill the targets.
Note that I did not get webbed or scrammed by any of the frigates. Overall, an easy mission if you're prepared for it.
Last time I ran this mission I only got 2 negative standing hits to Gallente for ship kill. This time I got 7 negative standing hits to Gallente for ship kill.
1x -2.4%
4x -0.02%
2x -0.018%
CCP must have increased the amount of negative standing hits incured in this mission. I'm not a happy camper.
Chapter 2
Mission 9 - Meet Sinas
Travel to Agent
Mission 10 - Right Tool For The Job
Blitz worked great. I got one negative standing hit for Ship Kill (-0.0095 %) to Gallente.
Mission 11 - The Breakout
Combat - Exploration / Hacking
No NPC's in 1st pocket for me, No aggro from group in 2nd pocket
Mission 12 - Whisper of a Conspiracy
Low sec Courier mission - Pick up 1x Encrypted Data Fragment
single pocket - 1x Damaged Radio Telescope (contains mission objective)
Mission 13 - Practical Solutions
High sec courier - Pick up 0.5 m3
Mission 14 - Forewarning
Low sec courier mission - Drop off report 0.1 m3
Jumping out and back in resulted in the broadcast tower group not aggroing again.
The remaining group will aggro whenever you start approaching the container, though, so bring a bit of tank or be very fast so they don't hit you much.