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Friday, September 19, 2014

Frostbite - Tips after a day

To start, I have a new poll.  There has been some discussion on the "goodness" of using leaked data from the preview server.  When invited to the server, I have not leaked any data myself, but I have utilized the info that others have leaked to publish raid preview articles before Kixeye releases the official info.  I have always gone back & checked my info after the official info is released.  Since I'm not beholden to Kixeye - I'm beholden to my readers... I would like you (my readers) to vote on whether I should continue using leaked data to publish early info, or wait for the official preview.  If you have any other thoughts, please leave a comment below.

There's a few tips & tricks available on Frostbite if you look, and I don't have too much original here, but I'll summarize.  

For Lower Level Players (below 50):

To start with, the world map fleets are not for you - they are too hard.  This is a big change from the previous raid... where the fleets were the only targets you could hit.  But, I have found that the Frostbite Recon campaign is fairly easy to beat with the Strike Missile N BB-A fleet that I described in a previous Battle Pirates for Noobs article.  I ended up adding Laser Targeting 1 instead of Solid Fuel Booster.  It was built to be instant repair for raids, and so I can hit the campaign target, repair each ship at my dock, and go back out for the next one very quickly.

The campaign targets break down as follows:
Mission 1: 3 Light Cruisers
Mission 2: 3 Light Cruisers, 1 Turret
Mission 3: 3 Light Cruisers, 2 Turrets
Mission 4: 3 Light Cruisers, 2 Missile Cruisers
Mission 5: 4 Turrets, 2 Missile Cruisers (and buildings)

Completing this campaign is worth about 113,000 points, and takes about 30 minutes with the fleet I used.  I also tried a Ballistic (Impact/Ripper) BB-A fleet, and a Cutlass BC fleet.  The Ballistic didn't do as well because it has shorter range and the turrets have walls protecting them (this fleet does fine against Missions 1 & 4).  The Cutlass fleet didn't do as well because the Coax turrets defended fairly well against the lower Cutlass fire rate, and lower building damage.

With the ease of getting through that campaign, I have revised my prize targets for this raid.  In my previous article, I suggested that low level players focus on the normal campaigns for better prizes.  But I think the following prizes are worth picking up, given the ease of getting points:

Tier 3:  Assault Torpedo V (500k points)
Tier 2: Strike System 2 (200k points), Stealth Attack System 2 (175k points)
Tier 1: Vortex Torpedo T (30k points)


I plan to use the Strike System 2 as an upgrade on my BB-A fleet, and the Assault V with Stealth System 2 might be nice on Stalker subs.

If 905k points is too much, Strike System 2 should be your first priority, and if you can't get the points for Assault Torpedo V, get Assault Torpedo X instead (don't get SAS 2) (I prefer the extra damage over 3 range).

If you really want to put in the seat time, the sky is the limit, and you could go for some of the higher level prizes like Strike System 3, Assault Torpedo B, or even the Interceptor hull.

The other thing I was able to do was beat the first run of the Death Grip campaign.  It took much of the 12 hours, but I now have Maulers to build.

For Higher Level Players (above 50):

I ran through the Forsaken Siege campaign once using my Harlock Carriers.  I got just over 4 million points for 38 coins repair... which is OK, but not great.  I was hoping the UAVs would be very effective against the ships, but the tradeoff is that they take a while to kill the turrets, and the Executioners are very damaging (even while dragonfly debuffed).  Nuke Cruisers will likely do better, since they will kill the turrets faster.

One tip is to kill just a part of the Forsaken Assault campaign base.  There are a few videos out there if you look, but I'll diagram it - this is from the lower right area of the Assault base.  In the picture below, you want to kill "Cluster 1" and avoid "Cluster 2".

Cluster 1 is worth 438,899 points, and I killed it with my Nuke Cruisers with just under 50 minutes of damage.  For me, this is about double the point/coin ratio as doing the Siege campaign.  I could also do that a few times and repair offline (for no coins at all).

Cluster 2 is worth 246,400 points, and I took 40 minutes of damage, so the point/coin wasn't as good (but not terrible if you want to go quicker).

It is possible in Assault to tease out and kill some Nighthawks with almost no damage.  Sit at the "Safe Spot" and activate the Nighthawks with a decoy sub (send it around the top .  Zombie repair the sub and repeat.  This got me 76,122 points, but it took a while - my R5 Battlecruiser with Sonar 3 couldn't see the Nighthawks from the safe spot, so my ships (Torrent MCX) would only fire when the Nighthawks surfaced.  If you plan to hit the whole Assault target, this might be a worthwhile prep if your hitter fleet doesn't have good anti-sub capability.

Some people are having success against the various fleet targets...  They also pay a LOT of resources if you are interested in that. 
25: 2 Interceptors, 3 Nuke Cruisers, 1 Kodiak:  34,254 points
Harlock Atlas: 7 minute repair.

41: 5 Interceptors, 1 Proto-nemesis, 3 Interceptors: 96,977 points
Harlock Atlas: 50 minutes repair

43: 6 Nuke Cruisers, 5 Kodiaks: 150,787 points
Harlock Atlas: 13 minutes repair

45: 5 Interceptors, 4 Kodiaks, 3 Nuke Cruisers: 182,310 points
Harlock Atlas: 23 minutes repair

47: 5 Interceptors, 4 Kodiaks, 3 Nuke Cruisers, 1 Proto-nemesis: 301,906 points
Harlock Atlas: 2h 42 min repair.  (they all swarm right away and cornered me.  Trying to take notes wasn't helping)

The fleets with the Proto are certainly tougher - the Proto itself doesn't seem that tough, but end up doing a lot of damage.  Overall, I find these fleets not worth the damage, but other fleets might do better.  Phalanx coverage would help reduce damage.  A good sub driver might be able to find some exploits - remember the Thermal range of the Interceptors is only 68.

On the prizes - the Executioner seems fairly deadly in these bases, maybe more so than Javs despite my analysis (putting it similar).  Get it if you can.

Good Luck!

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