Give it another try

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RainerPrem
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Give it another try

Post by RainerPrem » Mon, 4. Sep 17, 15:59

Hi,

Seeing X4 has motivated me to give Rebirth another try. Having read all those tips I took my time to buy heavy shields, the fastest available engine and a bulkload of different missiles before attempting to board the Taranis.

At the moment I'm rather frustrated, because around it are three PMC Suls with a big load of - I assume - fighter drones. My shields are depleted every time before I even reach the Taranis. And the the big things are shooting at me, so it only takes five seconds or so before "Game over".

Any tips how to avoid dying again and again?

cu
Rainer

Alan Phipps
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Post by Alan Phipps » Mon, 4. Sep 17, 16:02

Avoid the PMC drones by parking just about inside one of the friendly supporting force capitals and let them shoot at the drones/Suls and take all the shots meant for you. Pop out to resume the fight again when the odds are less stacked against you.
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lostboron
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Post by lostboron » Mon, 4. Sep 17, 16:18

You could try an easier target. Once you have a capital ship, you can try to direct it towards the suls.
If you really want to do it all by yourself, get a lot of astrobee, tristar and novadrone missiles. For the novadrones, you need to know your target well to be able to direct them towards the most problematic turrets, from a safe distance. You can also target the reactors to buy some time.
Use the astrobees against the drones, it works well but you might need a lot of them. Or you could destroy the drone launching pad with a novadrone if you know where it is.
When you get close to the suls or taranis, use the tristars to quickly destroy the turrets. Seek shelter at the back of the taranis where it cannot hit you easily.
Destroy every turret, shield, jump drive and drone launch pad and reduce hull a lot before you attempt boarding.
Most importantly: make sure there is no "friend" in the area that would destroy the taranis when you are boarding it.

Alan Phipps
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Post by Alan Phipps » Mon, 4. Sep 17, 16:22

IIRC, the pre-hacked Taranis target is neutral to the friendly forces supporting you, so they won't attack it.

You don't need to destroy every surface element on the Taranis either as they have been hacked and so play no part in the defence against boarding, nor do they add (much) to the target's boarding defence score. You can take the target fairly intact (apart from the engines, jumpdrive and hull?) with quite a weak squad of green marines as long as you do what boarding assists Yisha demands.

Caveat: The above is all from a few versions ago - probably 3.51.
Last edited by Alan Phipps on Mon, 4. Sep 17, 16:33, edited 1 time in total.
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RainerPrem
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Post by RainerPrem » Mon, 4. Sep 17, 16:32

Alan Phipps wrote:Avoid the PMC drones by parking just about inside one of the friendly supporting force capitals and let them shoot at the drones/Suls and take all the shots meant for you. Pop out to resume the fight again when the odds are less stacked against you.
Hi,

there are *no* friendly force capitals. The only non-red ship is the one that gave me a lift, and there are no places to hide. Should I land on it again?

cu
Rainer

Alan Phipps
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Post by Alan Phipps » Mon, 4. Sep 17, 16:34

Hmm, there should be some others jumping in to help. Yes use the one there if you can until other options arise. I didn't land, I just bravely hid nearby or in one. :D

I wonder if this mission has changed since 3.51?
Last edited by Alan Phipps on Mon, 4. Sep 17, 16:36, edited 1 time in total.
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RainerPrem
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Post by RainerPrem » Mon, 4. Sep 17, 16:35

lostboron wrote:You could try an easier target. Once you have a capital ship, you can try to direct it towards the suls.
If you really want to do it all by yourself, get a lot of astrobee, tristar and novadrone missiles. For the novadrones, you need to know your target well to be able to direct them towards the most problematic turrets, from a safe distance. You can also target the reactors to buy some time.
Use the astrobees against the drones, it works well but you might need a lot of them. Or you could destroy the drone launching pad with a novadrone if you know where it is.
When you get close to the suls or taranis, use the tristars to quickly destroy the turrets. Seek shelter at the back of the taranis where it cannot hit you easily.
Destroy every turret, shield, jump drive and drone launch pad and reduce hull a lot before you attempt boarding.
Most importantly: make sure there is no "friend" in the area that would destroy the taranis when you are boarding it.
Hi,

I don't see any capital ship for myself in the near future. Is there even a chance to buy one in Albion? This is still early in the campaign.

Or do I understand anything wrong?

cu
Rainer

RainerPrem
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Post by RainerPrem » Mon, 4. Sep 17, 16:37

Alan Phipps wrote:Hmm, there should be some others jumping in to help. Yes use the one there if you can until other options arise. I didn't land, I just bravely hid nearby or in one. :D
Having the fastest engine and the biggest shields, I *can* stay in a safe distance from those. Do they have an expiration date like the drones in X3?

cu
Rainer

Alan Phipps
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Post by Alan Phipps » Mon, 4. Sep 17, 16:42

Here's some support for my method.
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RainerPrem
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Post by RainerPrem » Mon, 4. Sep 17, 16:46

Alan Phipps wrote:Here's some support for my method.
Do those drone carriers have a limited number of drones? I noticed that I can take each one out with a single Starlight missile. I've got thirteen of them left, and if I can thin the herd, it could perhaps work.

cu
Rainer

Alan Phipps
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Post by Alan Phipps » Mon, 4. Sep 17, 16:51

They don't have an endless supply of drones, but they only launch them in small batches and hence keep the threat to you going for a fair while.

I'm more interested in what happened to the rest of the HOA capitals that are supposed to be helping you, to be honest. I think that there is a delay before they arrive though. Just hold out and see.
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RainerPrem
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Post by RainerPrem » Mon, 4. Sep 17, 17:00

Alan Phipps wrote:They don't have an endless supply of drones, but they only launch them in small batches and hence keep the threat to you going for a fair while.

I'm more interested in what happened to the rest of the HOA capitals that are supposed to be helping you, to be honest. I think that there is a delay before they arrive though. Just hold out and see.
I'll try. In the meantime I got a call from a woman telling me that I was behaving unacceptable near their station, and she was giving my data to the police ...

What the H***???

cu
Rainer

Alan Phipps
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Post by Alan Phipps » Mon, 4. Sep 17, 17:03

Sorry, your private affairs in real life are not relevant to the game ... :D

Oh, you mean in the game? I suppose the zone is PMC-owned or -allied. Since the PMC are there legally and I'm unsure whether your presence and your 'unprovoked' attacks on PMC property are as legal, she may have a point.
Last edited by Alan Phipps on Mon, 4. Sep 17, 17:14, edited 1 time in total.
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RainerPrem
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Post by RainerPrem » Mon, 4. Sep 17, 17:12

Alan Phipps wrote:Sorry, your private affairs in real life are not relevant to the game ... :D
Groan. Not funny at the moment. I sneaked in, destroyed the jump drive and got away again. But the next run I was killed again.

cu
Rainer

Alan Phipps
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Post by Alan Phipps » Mon, 4. Sep 17, 17:18

Wait, is there more than one Taranis in the zone? If so you could be hitting the wrong one in terms of eventual boarding. I found it best to wait until later when the obvious target ship is hacked and then Yisha tells you what needs to be destroyed.

You know the more I hear, the more I suspect that this mission may have changed since I did it in 3.51.
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RainerPrem
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Post by RainerPrem » Mon, 4. Sep 17, 17:24

Alan Phipps wrote:Wait, is there more than one Taranis in the zone? If so you could be hitting the wrong one in terms of eventual boarding. I found it best to wait until later when the obvious target ship is hacked and then Yisha tells you what needs to be destroyed.

You know the more I hear, the more I suspect that this mission may have changed since I did it in 3.51.
No. This is the correct target. There was a "the defense has been disabled" when I approached for the first time.

cu
Rainer

lostboron
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Post by lostboron » Mon, 4. Sep 17, 18:09

Alan Phipps wrote:IIRC, the pre-hacked Taranis target is neutral to the friendly forces supporting you, so they won't attack it.

You don't need to destroy every surface element on the Taranis either as they have been hacked and so play no part in the defence against boarding, nor do they add (much) to the target's boarding defence score. You can take the target fairly intact (apart from the engines, jumpdrive and hull?) with quite a weak squad of green marines as long as you do what boarding assists Yisha demands.

Caveat: The above is all from a few versions ago - probably 3.51.
Right, I did not realize the OP was talking about the campaign. That Taranis should be much easier to board than a regular one. But then, as often in the campaign, allies might be there to help, or not - for some reason...

RainerPrem
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Post by RainerPrem » Mon, 4. Sep 17, 18:33

RainerPrem wrote:
Alan Phipps wrote:Wait, is there more than one Taranis in the zone? If so you could be hitting the wrong one in terms of eventual boarding. I found it best to wait until later when the obvious target ship is hacked and then Yisha tells you what needs to be destroyed.

You know the more I hear, the more I suspect that this mission may have changed since I did it in 3.51.
No. This is the correct target. There was a "the defense has been disabled" when I approached for the first time.

cu
Rainer
Well, finally I managed to do it. Dragging the drones away from the Taranis, then racing in to find a safe place in the bowels of the ship to destroy the engines. I got 50 recruit marines and one 5-star officer and do I didn't have to destroy any more targets. No casualties. and then suddenly all enemies disappeared and several HoA ships appeared.

Now I wait until my price is repaired and refueled.

cu
Rainer

RAVEN.myst
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Post by RAVEN.myst » Mon, 4. Sep 17, 18:48

Alan's tips are up to date - there have been no significant changes in the last few revisions. I am in fact doing a re-play myself (to test using a warehouse as my Albion-side economic support), and have recently taken that Taranis. To sum up:

- Bring along a decent captain, a (preferably 5-star) engineer, and a decent defense officer to occupy the ship once you succeed.
- Upon arriving at the battle site, just be patient, hang back a little (I like to hover around the Arawn), and allow the Hearty forces to dispose of those pesky Suls. (Feel free to take pot-shots for fun if you like, but it's not strictly necessary except for recreational purposes :P )
- Once the coast is clear, move in and take out the Taranis's jumpdrive and engines. If you forget to and move straight into the boarding phase, Annoyisha will direct you to dispose of those in any case.
- The Taranis is severely nerfed, so it's not necessary to take the steps normally required for boarding (in this sense, this objective completely fails in its "tutorial" role), so the weapons can be left alone.
- During boarding, Annoyisha will direct you to destroy various surface elements as she would in a normal boarding op - it's advisable to do so (if even only to greatly reduce the time to complete the takeover - I'm not sure whether failing these mini-objectives will cost you marines.)
- The only hiccup at this stage is that the targets are picked randomly, and if a capital shield generator is picked (and the Taranis has THREE of them, so the odds are not insignificant), then you will have to wear down the shields before the objective time-up - you're most unlikely to be able to do so, so either wear down the main shield in advance, or save the game just before boarding and reload to get more favourable diversion targets.
- When the ship turns green - well, I'm sure you know what to do then.

Please note: The captured ship has no jump fuel, so you'd be advised to allow it to be fully repaired in the safe spot where it gets taken to before attempting to move it anywhere; alternatively, you can task another capital ship under your control and with at least one CLURV to transfer some fuel across (I'd suggest doing this remotely, as your immediate presence *may* cause the transfer to get stuck, though this is usually also fixable by leaving the vicinity.)

Final step: enjoy your new ship, but be advised that PMC forces and stations will shoot at it (and any other military craft of yours) on sight, so either pick a quiet time to sneak it through to DeVries (again, best done in absentia, or keep it around Exhaustless Mines if you have built or plan to build anything there.

Happy hunting! :)


EDIT: Ah, never mind - I see you came right with this already!
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Alan Phipps
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Post by Alan Phipps » Mon, 4. Sep 17, 20:38

So maybe the only real difference between your experience and what (I think) I recall happening for me is that my HoA support forces turned up to the battle before the boarding attempt. Odd.
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