Hey all,
So, despite being around since the Beta, it was only last night that I did an Assassination mission for the first time. Note that I'd tried to do them in the past, a long time ago now, but they were a bit buggy and I never had a target actually show up pr the mission ended the moment I jumped into the target sector. That's why I'd avoided them for so long.
Last night, I decided to unlock an Engineer I'd just never gotten around to, Zacariah Nemo, but first I needed the invite, so I flew off to a station with Party of Yoru presence in the T'u Tu system. I took my "all rounder" Anaconda, not sure what missions I'd be taking to earn reputation with them. However, when I got there, nothing but assassination missions were available...if I exclude the donation options. I was hesitant do take one as I'd had bad experiences before, with them simply not working. But I went for it.
I actually took two missions, one was Deadly rank - my current combat level - and the other was Elite, though I hadn't really paid attention to the fact that it was a Wing mission lol. I arrived in the system, scanned the Nav Beacon, and immediately got jumped but a single Federal Gunship (IIRC) before I'd even scanned the guy to confirm he was the mission target. He got some solid hits on me, but I'm in an engineered Anaconda, so I shrugged them off and turned to engage. Made short work of him - it wasn't a well- spec'd ship - and some locals also helped. Nice.
I went back into SC to find the location of the next target - the Elite Wing mission one. Entering the instance there were seven ships total, four of those in a Wing were my target - well, the leader of that group was. My primary target was an FDL, who was escorted by three Vultures. I'm in a multi-role, but still well-shielded and nicely armed, Anaconda of course, so I didn't really anticipate any issues.
I was a bit over confident there lol. These ships were heavily engineered, and even my Anaconda - which has a bias towards Thermal damage weapons - really struggled to get through the FDL's shields, all the while he, and his three allies, were pounding my ship. Fun. Thankfully, some local security ships jumped in and helped out with the fight - though by then I'd already taken down the FDL and two Vultures, but my shields were low.
That was FUN. Wanting to take more of these missions, I returned to my home station to pick up my Corvette, before heading back to T'u Tu. When I got there, the Party of Yoru had THREE Assassination Missions available, one was rated Dangerous, the other two were Elite Wing missions. I took them all.
Jumping to the target system, the first target (the Dangerous mission one) jumped me at the Nav Beacon - in a Corvette. Nice. I was quite looking forward to some Corvette on Corvette action. My first few shots showed that this guy wasn't that well shielded - far weaker than the FDL's and Vultures I'd faced earlier - and my meagre three lasers (2 C2 and one C3 Engineered Beams) were burning through his shields quite quickly. Then the locals started helping out too and he was dead. Hmm, shame, I'd hoped for a harder fight - it's rare to see other Corvettes, in fact I never had outside of CZ's before - excluding other Players of course.
I moved on to the next mission...one of the Wing ones. Once again I was facing an FDL and three Vultures - I wonder if this type of ship are deliberately spawned by the game - rather than random - as they are a good counter to my current ship, being rather fast and nimble. Regardless, once again, these guys are quite heavily engineered. I go for the FDL first - I can always bug out when he's down, mission complete - and even with several seconds of 100% hits with my beams, his outer shield ring hasn't even changed colour - those are some tough shields. I continue working on him, and finally get through to his hull - I can now open up with my C2 Corrosive and Emissive Multi-Cannons as well as my main two C4 Multi's. I chew through his hull quite a bit faster than I did his shields, but he was still very tough. I move on to the first of the three Vultures. I've already taken a bit of a pounding by this stage, my shields are at around 40-50% - my outer ring is gone, the middle ring is getting redder. I've also taken some hull and module damage, due to at least one of the ships having shield penetrating weapons. I'm still more than in the fight though.
I take down the first of the Vultures - hard to hit, spamming Chaff like crazy, and very resistant shields - shockingly so in fact. I take him down, but not before my own shields are gone - those three Vultures were hitting me hard. Two to go. I could bug out now, the mission is done, but I need to kill these guys, they scratched my paint! lol. I eventually take out the remaining two Vultures, but not before they've taken me down to 54% hull and I have numerous module malfunctions. I WON however, so that felt good. My ship was knackered though lol.
With all the materials floating around, I go to deploy some Limpets....but my controller is dead. I check other systems and quite a few are badly damaged - my Module Reinforcements did their job though and kept them alive - barely.
I decide it's time to head back, visiting a local station first to claim bounties and...my FSD won't spool up. It's dead. I get a message pop up - it was gone before I could read it - but it said something about my FSD. Trying again, it worked. Nice. My bounties for this were double my repair bill, so that's not too bad. Plus I have the main bounty for the mission to collect too.
So, that's my story of last night. I did several more Wing Elite level Assassination Mission last night, similar results each time. I win, but I'm badly beaten up, which is GREAT!
I've not faced NPC's this tough outside of a CZ, so they must be really heavily engineered. I'm amazed how resistant the FDL's and Vulture's shields are. Sure, I only have three Beams (2x C2, 1x C3) but they're Engineered for Efficient - and I fight up close (<500m) for maximum effectiveness where possible - and they're oversized for a little more oomph, yet they really struggled. I have both an Engineered FDL and Vulture myself, with fully G5 Thermal Resistant Shields and additional boosters - giving 50-60% resistances across the board - yet my shields fall much more quickly than these guys shields did. What's their secret? Lol.
As for their ability to kill my shields, well, the Corvette is fairly tanky, with just over 5,000 shield health, 58% thermal resistance and over 60% for other resistances. That was a lot of guns shooting at me though, six Class 3 lasers (beams they looked like) from the three Vultures, plus whatever the FDL had. The shields are about as good as they can be, without going Prismatic - which I cannot currently - and I'm making good use of some Guardian Shield Boosters too. I do need to work more on the Armour, as for some random reason (likely not paying attention) I went Light weight on my Military Grade Alloys. I also need to check both my Hull and Module Reinforcements.
Anyway, long post, I know. Just wanted to share as it's been a while since I had fun and challenging combat when in one of my big ships. That's why I often jump into a small ship to fight, for the Danger and that I need to be on the ball. Going to try these mission in my Krait II next, which has less than 20% of the shields of the Corvette. However, it's faster, very manoeuvrable and has Chaff too. Plus it freezes up when hitting a target thanks to Thermal Vent of two of its beams - hopefully that'll reduced the hits coming from the guys I'm not directly shooting at.
Scoob.
So, despite being around since the Beta, it was only last night that I did an Assassination mission for the first time. Note that I'd tried to do them in the past, a long time ago now, but they were a bit buggy and I never had a target actually show up pr the mission ended the moment I jumped into the target sector. That's why I'd avoided them for so long.
Last night, I decided to unlock an Engineer I'd just never gotten around to, Zacariah Nemo, but first I needed the invite, so I flew off to a station with Party of Yoru presence in the T'u Tu system. I took my "all rounder" Anaconda, not sure what missions I'd be taking to earn reputation with them. However, when I got there, nothing but assassination missions were available...if I exclude the donation options. I was hesitant do take one as I'd had bad experiences before, with them simply not working. But I went for it.
I actually took two missions, one was Deadly rank - my current combat level - and the other was Elite, though I hadn't really paid attention to the fact that it was a Wing mission lol. I arrived in the system, scanned the Nav Beacon, and immediately got jumped but a single Federal Gunship (IIRC) before I'd even scanned the guy to confirm he was the mission target. He got some solid hits on me, but I'm in an engineered Anaconda, so I shrugged them off and turned to engage. Made short work of him - it wasn't a well- spec'd ship - and some locals also helped. Nice.
I went back into SC to find the location of the next target - the Elite Wing mission one. Entering the instance there were seven ships total, four of those in a Wing were my target - well, the leader of that group was. My primary target was an FDL, who was escorted by three Vultures. I'm in a multi-role, but still well-shielded and nicely armed, Anaconda of course, so I didn't really anticipate any issues.
I was a bit over confident there lol. These ships were heavily engineered, and even my Anaconda - which has a bias towards Thermal damage weapons - really struggled to get through the FDL's shields, all the while he, and his three allies, were pounding my ship. Fun. Thankfully, some local security ships jumped in and helped out with the fight - though by then I'd already taken down the FDL and two Vultures, but my shields were low.
That was FUN. Wanting to take more of these missions, I returned to my home station to pick up my Corvette, before heading back to T'u Tu. When I got there, the Party of Yoru had THREE Assassination Missions available, one was rated Dangerous, the other two were Elite Wing missions. I took them all.
Jumping to the target system, the first target (the Dangerous mission one) jumped me at the Nav Beacon - in a Corvette. Nice. I was quite looking forward to some Corvette on Corvette action. My first few shots showed that this guy wasn't that well shielded - far weaker than the FDL's and Vultures I'd faced earlier - and my meagre three lasers (2 C2 and one C3 Engineered Beams) were burning through his shields quite quickly. Then the locals started helping out too and he was dead. Hmm, shame, I'd hoped for a harder fight - it's rare to see other Corvettes, in fact I never had outside of CZ's before - excluding other Players of course.
I moved on to the next mission...one of the Wing ones. Once again I was facing an FDL and three Vultures - I wonder if this type of ship are deliberately spawned by the game - rather than random - as they are a good counter to my current ship, being rather fast and nimble. Regardless, once again, these guys are quite heavily engineered. I go for the FDL first - I can always bug out when he's down, mission complete - and even with several seconds of 100% hits with my beams, his outer shield ring hasn't even changed colour - those are some tough shields. I continue working on him, and finally get through to his hull - I can now open up with my C2 Corrosive and Emissive Multi-Cannons as well as my main two C4 Multi's. I chew through his hull quite a bit faster than I did his shields, but he was still very tough. I move on to the first of the three Vultures. I've already taken a bit of a pounding by this stage, my shields are at around 40-50% - my outer ring is gone, the middle ring is getting redder. I've also taken some hull and module damage, due to at least one of the ships having shield penetrating weapons. I'm still more than in the fight though.
I take down the first of the Vultures - hard to hit, spamming Chaff like crazy, and very resistant shields - shockingly so in fact. I take him down, but not before my own shields are gone - those three Vultures were hitting me hard. Two to go. I could bug out now, the mission is done, but I need to kill these guys, they scratched my paint! lol. I eventually take out the remaining two Vultures, but not before they've taken me down to 54% hull and I have numerous module malfunctions. I WON however, so that felt good. My ship was knackered though lol.
With all the materials floating around, I go to deploy some Limpets....but my controller is dead. I check other systems and quite a few are badly damaged - my Module Reinforcements did their job though and kept them alive - barely.
I decide it's time to head back, visiting a local station first to claim bounties and...my FSD won't spool up. It's dead. I get a message pop up - it was gone before I could read it - but it said something about my FSD. Trying again, it worked. Nice. My bounties for this were double my repair bill, so that's not too bad. Plus I have the main bounty for the mission to collect too.
So, that's my story of last night. I did several more Wing Elite level Assassination Mission last night, similar results each time. I win, but I'm badly beaten up, which is GREAT!
I've not faced NPC's this tough outside of a CZ, so they must be really heavily engineered. I'm amazed how resistant the FDL's and Vulture's shields are. Sure, I only have three Beams (2x C2, 1x C3) but they're Engineered for Efficient - and I fight up close (<500m) for maximum effectiveness where possible - and they're oversized for a little more oomph, yet they really struggled. I have both an Engineered FDL and Vulture myself, with fully G5 Thermal Resistant Shields and additional boosters - giving 50-60% resistances across the board - yet my shields fall much more quickly than these guys shields did. What's their secret? Lol.
As for their ability to kill my shields, well, the Corvette is fairly tanky, with just over 5,000 shield health, 58% thermal resistance and over 60% for other resistances. That was a lot of guns shooting at me though, six Class 3 lasers (beams they looked like) from the three Vultures, plus whatever the FDL had. The shields are about as good as they can be, without going Prismatic - which I cannot currently - and I'm making good use of some Guardian Shield Boosters too. I do need to work more on the Armour, as for some random reason (likely not paying attention) I went Light weight on my Military Grade Alloys. I also need to check both my Hull and Module Reinforcements.
Anyway, long post, I know. Just wanted to share as it's been a while since I had fun and challenging combat when in one of my big ships. That's why I often jump into a small ship to fight, for the Danger and that I need to be on the ball. Going to try these mission in my Krait II next, which has less than 20% of the shields of the Corvette. However, it's faster, very manoeuvrable and has Chaff too. Plus it freezes up when hitting a target thanks to Thermal Vent of two of its beams - hopefully that'll reduced the hits coming from the guys I'm not directly shooting at.
Scoob.
