Friday, November 13, 2015

Revenge Raid - One Day In

Trigger, turn, kite, kill...
Trigger, turn, kite, kill...
Trigger, turn, kite, kill...
Trigger, turn, kite, kill...
Trigger, turn, kite, kill...
Trigger, turn, kite, kill...
Trigger, turn, kite, kill...
Trigger, turn, kite, kill...
Trigger, turn, kite, kill...
Trigger, turn, kite, kill...

Yeah that's my raid.

For players with the right fleets, this is the easiest raid since the first Reaver raid, where anybody with an Engine Disrupter Arbiter and a decent MCX fleet could just hold them out of weapon range and kill all the Reavers for free.

By right fleets, I mean a fast Missile hull like a Rhino, Proto-hunter, or V2H. something with Solid Fuel Booster 3/Guided Missile System, and Blades / Harriers / Disrupters.

Your basic enemies are:
Kodiaks with "Knife Missiles": These are like Blades but with slightly shorter range of 95 (when boosted)
V2C with launchers: They have range 93 launchers and Scourge-like torpedos (with 88 range).  The launchers also have a (mild) slow effect.
Reapers: These also have the Knife Missiles that only fire when surfaced, and the upgraded Drac torpedos.  Their stealth isn't that good - sonar can be used to see these well outside of their missile / torp range.

With that sort of fleet (which isn't rare and you should have been working on something like that), you can enter an A or B target, trigger a group of Dracs, turn away and keep them out of range while killing them.  

URF shows you how in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8qrMPui5cc
(yeah it freezes around 4 minutes, but you'll have the idea well before then.)

For me, I'm using my Hunter/Rhinos/Aegis and only taking damage when I mess up.  Last night I had 24 million points and had only spent 17 coins.  

I find the A targets are taking me about 5 minutes each to beat, and paying about 2.75 million points total for the set + completion bonus.  The Scourge bonus target is a target from the Siege campaign last raid - the one with the Daggerfish & 4 Viperfish in a "plus" formation along with a few Stonefish hidden around. It goes pretty quick and is worth almost 800k points.  I'm usually skipping them just because I can do the drac targets with such low damage, but the Scourge target isn't too bad for a player with a good fleet who wants to speed things up some. 

For crews, I'm kind of waffling between the offensive crews (Dead-eye / Wolfpack) that will help me mess up less frequently (through faster kills), and the defensive crews (Sea Serpents / Steelheads) that will help me take less damage when I do mess up.  I think I'm liking Sea Serpents the best with the extra evade and turn speed.  I'm definitely saving my Grease Monkeys for another time.

Some thoughts on alternative fleets:
Crusaders with Arbalest: Doable, but since my range was only 95, not 98+, I ended up trading fire & taking much more damage.
Drone Decoying: I tried my Firebat Monarch with the Crusaders - they ignored the drones once my ships were in their range, and the drones died pretty quick anyway. 
Subs: Any subs will be able to sneak up on the non-thermal ships.  However, with the 92 thermal range of the V2-C, even players with Scourge Torpedo subs won't be able to kill those for free.  Players are having success combining sub hits with other surface ship hits.
Fusion Cruisers: with D98U, these should do well but I haven't seen many players trying it.

Getting the Payload targets just doesn't seem worth it - to do so you generally will have to charge into a group of Drac ships and take a bunch of unnecessary damage.  For the B sets, the payload ships only seemed to be worth about 6k points each, so I figured that hitting them all while doing a set would only increase your overall points payout by 10%.

Some players have expressed skepticism that I colored those new prizes Green in my "What to Get" article.  It is correct that short range Scatterguns will be difficult to use effectively.  My quick summary/justification is:
Heavy Cruiser: Will be a beast of a tank hull
Heavy Scattergun: Needed to make the Heavy Cruiser into a full-on beast of a tank hull with the speed and defense boosts.
Scattergun D81-M: Quick build with a speed boost.  I'm sure these will come in handy somewhere.  If you really have a problem with the Uranium, go ahead and skip it.  Just remember this will only fire from subs that are surfaced (unlike the Cobra).

I don't have too much more to say here - I'll keep it short... I haven't noticed any mid-raid changes from Kixeye, so I'm quite pleased about that.

As I was writing this, they announced that we will be getting Drac Armadas. The briefing specifically said they would not be spawning. They have also announced that there will be no gold sale

I'm not too fussed about either one... I guess if you don't want to hit the Armadas... don't.  I was actually sort of hoping for a gold sale as my balance is getting low... but I think I'll be making it through this raid without needing more gold anyway.  

Stay on target Kixeye.... steady there.... steady....



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