Ground STF: Into the Hive - A Guide by Cyba Zero

This is a walkthrough and tips for successfully winning the 'Into the Hive' ground special task force (STF) instance. 'Into the Hive' is, at the time of writing, probably the hardest ground instance in the game, and can be considered to be harder on normal difficulty than any of the other ground STFs on elite. 'Into the Hive' on elite mode is for top-notch players looking for a real challenge. Hopefully this guide will help increase win rates for both difficulties on this extremely hard level!

General Notes on Special Task Force Missions

At the time of writing, all available STFs are versus the Borg, and need five players. STFs are meant to be more challenging than regular instances or missions, so come prepared. They also require strong cooperation between team members in order to win, so organising your own team tends to yield higher success rates than joining via the PvE queue. This is especially true of this STF, particularly on elite difficulty.

Normal difficulty STFs require players to be level 44 or higher; elite STFs require level 50.

Recommended Equipment

You will want your very best anti-Borg gear for this instance. Key points to note are:

1. Weapons with lower fire rates will effective for longer before the Borg adapt, reducing the need for remodulation. Pulsewave assault weapons are generally good against Borg, but for this STF you may find yourself wanting a bit more range.
2. If you do not have a remodulator, they can be ceated free via your replicator - but if you lack a remodulator, you probably have not fought Borg much, so trying other STFs first is highly recommended!
3. Melee weapons cannot be adapted to at all. (The exception is nanopulse edge lirpas/bat'leths, because they do plasma damage rather than physical.) Take care, though, because taking on the Borg in melee can result in untimely assimilation. Also, please be aware that you will also need a good ranged weapon, particularly in the final room.
4. Borg use plasma and melee attacks, so good resistances to plasma, physical and kinetic damage are useful.
5. Specialist gear from the Omega reputation system is also highly recommended, especially the Omega/MACO/Honor Guard sets.
6. Certain special items, such as the Shard of Possibilities and the Orphidian Cane, are very handy.
7. Hypos are a good idea for characters without healing abilities.
8. As of Season 8, the Dyson ground set is also good versus the Borg (although you will need a remodulator).
9. The Experimental Borg Device, acquired from a Defera zone-wide mission (not always active), assigned by the temple mission-giver, applies one of three randomly-chosen debuff effects to a single Borg. It has a thirty-second cooldown, the effects all last a decent portion of that time, and it works on bosses. The three effects are weapons mulfunction, confuse and shrink, with the weapons mulfunction being the most likely to occur. The device can also be used from your inventory, thus not taking up a valuable ground device slot. The only 'downside' to this device is if your team is too busy laughing at a miniaturised boss to play properly!
10. If playing elite difficulty, bring plenty of regenerators for injuries - you are likely to get downed a lot.

Strategy Advice

A good mix of character classes is best, as with any mission. Most important, however, is being good at avoiding hazards and being fast at reviving fallen players (where possible). One or two (or more) players tanking is invaluable, because sometimes fallen players cannot be safely reached immediately (e.g. due to plasma floors). Medic Kit MkX comes highly recommended for science officers.

Respawning should be avoided as much as possible in this STF, because respawned players end up trapped behind force fields. They can be rescued by using the relevant console by the force field, but this is often blocked or results in the rescuer going down trying to reach them. As such, you should ONLY RESPAWN IF THE ENTIRE TEAM IS DOWN OR IF YOU HAVE FALLEN IN THE PIT.

Also, camping does NOT generally work in this STF. Be prepared to move around... a LOT.

The mission can be won with only four people if your team loses a player, but it can be a struggle. Five is recommended, especially for elite difficulty.

'Into the Hive': Introduction

This ground STF pits a team of five players against the Borg Queen. She is a boss of a difficulty equivalent to a final boss on most games. Come prepared, and try this STF last: this is harder on normal than any other ground STF on elite. Only the very best teams can beat this STF on elite.

There are three main rooms. Hazards include plasma floors (instant death) and death bolts (kill your shields - or you if your shields are down).

Make sure you have plenty of time before you try this - it has been known to take 1.5hrs or more, although experienced teams can still finish it within half an hour.

Room 1: The Queen's Guards

The first room consists of walkways divided into two concentric square rings. The paths themselves are also divided up into squares - be warned, these are plasma floors. Also, mind the pit.

Plasma floors: occasionally, each plasma floor square will glow green and then discharge plasma energy. The initial green glow is your cue to get off it fast! If you do not, the discharge will kill you instantly. Walking onto an active discharge will also kill you instantly, so do not step on to revive someone on one until it has finished discharging.

Fortunately, in this room, every second square is always safe. Apart from that, there is no particular order in which the floors will discharge.

Your goal is to kill off the Queen's guards. There are eight groups in total, one in each corner of the two concentric square rings (four inner, four outer). Each group consists of four drones, and can be awoken by activating the pillar in their corner. One person should activate the pillar while everybody else stays on the adjacent plasma floor. Beware: the plasma floors on which the pillars are situated are NOT safe ones, so watch for the green glow! Once a pillar is activated, the team has a time limit to kill all four of the drones in the associated group.

Repeat for each of the eight groups of drones. If you are fast enough, you also get the optional objective reward.

Elite difficulty: there is an extra group of drones patrolling the room. If one player stays in the entry zone while the remaining four players finish off the patrol, the patrol can be removed before the timer for the optional starts. Also, the eight groups of guards contain more powerful drones.

Room 2: Disrupt the Hive

Enter the room together (stragglers will be blocked by a force field, so make sure you enter together to get all players in).

Interact with the computer node in the centre of the room to begin a progress bar. Unfortunately, this also starts the death bolts. There are, however, no plasma floors here.

Death bolts: targeting circles focus down on your location. They will track with movement. When they become a point, a circular zone is marked around you and you (and anybody else) have about a second to get out of this zone before the bolt hits. Assuming you do get out, you will have a short period of respite before targeting begins again. Bolts kill your shields, or you if your shields are already down! The best tactic is to keep moving. Reviving is best done during a respite period, although it can be done during targeting if you are careful with timing. You may also end up with multiple targeting systems tracking you if people are down.

When the progress bar reaches half, drones will start entering the room, forcing you to deal with both them and the death bolts. If everybody goes down (or is stuck behind a force field), you have to start room 2 from scratch.

Once you beat room 2, head down the corridor to room 3. Do not worry about the drones, they will ignore you.

Elite difficulty: the corridor drones will NOT ignore you, so prepare to get swarmed! The drones are weak but very numerous, so loose some area of effect attacks on them and they should not cause too much trouble. If necessary, advance carefully down the corridor in stages, destroying the groups one by one as they exit their alcoves.

Room 3: The Queen's Chamber

Congratulations - you just got past the warm-up!

Now for the hard bit...

Again, make sure you enter together. You should see a large room, square-tiled, with a decent number of drones arrayed in front of the Borg Queen.

Mind the pit applies here, too, so try not to fall off the edge.

The Borg Queen is a nasty boss. You will have to endure three rounds of minions, and four rounds of her. Failure during any part (all players down simultaneously), will send you back to round one. You will want to keep as many people up at once as possible. Also, the Orphidian Cane will work on the Queen, except in the final round. The Experimental Borg Device is also effective.

Round one: clear out the drones. Watch out, they are quite numerous. There are elite tacticals and medical drones among their number.

Round two: fight the Queen. Beware of plasma floors from here on in! They are larger, and discharges last much longer than those in room 1. Any floor can discharge at any time. The number discharging simultaneously will also increase through the rounds. You may find your team scattered, and downed members may end up on or blocked by discharging floors. Also, the Queen likes stunning you a LOT, making it hard/impossible to avoid hazards at times. Note that it is sometimes possible to revive somebody lying on the very edge of a plasma floor, if they manage to limp off before their 'disabled' state wears off.

Round three: more drones. You know the drill - just mind the floors this time!

Round four: Queen again. Death bolts from here on in!

Round five: more drones, but joined by an elite tactical assimilated gorn with a minigun tail - and all the hazards, of course.

Round six: Queen. She will not regenerate again; instead she loses the lower half of her body.

Round seven: Queen's top half, hanging from the ceiling by her cables - though she can still attack you with them, as well as floor spikes if she gets too close. She also moves around a lot more, now, and most of the plasma floors will be discharging near-constantly by this point.

Elite difficulty: the Queen's waves will spawn drones part-way through. Of particular note are the medical drones, who will heal the Queen if not removed quickly. Also, due to the stat increases of the enemies on elite, most teams are forced into the cover of the four pillars in the corners of the room. Engineers with mortars are handy for clearing out the drones in this situation. A science player (tanking) can just about manage to dash between corners to revive/release players as needed, but only teams with exceptionally high DPS can survive in the open (usually by way of engineers using the enemy neutralisation kit).

If you manage to beat round seven, VERY WELL DONE (even more so on elite). You win, and you are a very good player, on a very good team. Clearly, resistance is not futile!

Bugs

Occasionally, the Queen can fall into the pit, preventing progression to the next stage of the boss battle. If this happens, the entire team should die and respawn, which will reset the boss battle back to stage 1 and put the Queen back where she should be.

The cut-scene between the final two waves of the boss fight does not turn off the room hazards while it plays, sometimes causing the team to be downed while they cannot act. Unfortunately, there is no workaround.

[tengert_lanes]

Good weapon Borg can't adapt to, is in R&D Ground Weapons Level 15 there is a TR-116B Rifle that does physical damage (ignores 100% shields)

[Snyper]

just thought id say hi to an ally. so hello. lol

[raistlin1111]

thanks

[Gamther]

nice