Shields are far too common

[a razor named qualia]

I just got a personal mission where everyone in a 30 crew Sovereign ship had shields. There was no way for me to easily fix that because no weapons penetrate shields, and self-charging subverters and crashbeams are too uncommon. Even with two subverters, and a couple visits back home, I had no way of negating all the shields of all the crew without triggering an alert.

Challenge, especially in late game, is fine, but this is ridiculous.

Aside from the perfect loadout (a self-charging high-capacity long range subverter) this mission is completely unfun because everyone is immune to damage, there are too many people to kill, the timer is strict given the size of the mission and the only way to actually accomplish anything without a self-charging subverter/crashbeam would be to make tedious trips back and forth from a friendly station to recharge/rebuy subverters.

Armor serves a similar purpose on a similar level, but...

- Armor piercing longblades are common in the Misc. Shop, usually for cheap. Subverters and crashbeams are common but have limited uses and can be functionally used for other things as well. Unless you get a self-charging one, which is rarer still.
- Armor is rarer, you'll never see a mission with everyone in armor anyways.
- AP guns and ammo are relatively common, there are no weapons that can pierce shields.

So if I got this same mission with an entirely armored crew, it'd be infinitely more fair. I would have no shortage of tools to dispatch everyone on the ship no matter the situation, which is not the case with shields. Yet shields are everywhere and armor isn't.

[Sentient_Toaster]

Glitch traps, breach grenades, regular guns (when used to breach the ship by shooting fuel canisters), all let you kill 'em. You don't strictly need crash beams and subverters.

More importantly, you don't need to even fight them all on a personal mission, and not necessarily even on a hijack (e.g. if you can separate part of the ship from the rest). There are multiple gadgets that let you bypass enemies entirely, between pickpocketing them for keys, using key cloners, subverters to unlock if you can't clone or steal keys, swappers to end up on the other side immediately... down to stealing a different ship and blowing a more convenient entrance in the side of the ship, or using the Brick to smash another entrance in.

[[Ч]The Dixie Flatline]

What's the alarm timer requirement like? I can't imagine it's that bad. You can easily herd crowds of shielded guards with gunfire and then crashbeam/subverter them en masse, dump them out a window, detonate a portion of the ship, etc., to say nothing of bypassing them entirely with slipstreams, stealth shields, and teleporters. I think you might be failing to fully utilize every tool at your disposal.

[William Shakesman]

There are random layouts you just won't be able to get through without an alarm or eating a lot of teleporters but that's usually rare. Part of the fun in this game is dealing with guards you can't just deal with in a flurry of wrenches and blades. If you can't kill everyone, you still have a lot of tools to get through the ship. You might have to fast forward watching patrols for a while, you almost always have to space a few people to get the job done, you might have to raid chests on other ships for a while to get some nice gear, but it's certainly doable through methods other than slowmo shoot everyone on the ship.

[N'wah]

I challenged myself to do a personal mission as early as possible. I had a liberation almost ready and I got an economy boost so I could buy my mission faster. I could do my personal mission after 3 other missions. I went into the mission with no armor piercing and nothing to deal with shields. I had a regular gun, two 5 capacity stealth shields (Non rechargeable) I bought them for 7 credits or so each. ANd I think I had a single side winder ( I sold all my other items so I could buy my missions faster). All of the guards had heat sensors and shields. And guess what, it was easy. My mission was to Assassinate a guy on the other end of the ship. You can literally just stealth shield and steal keys until you get to him. And then lure him over with the sound of a gun and break a window. Two things to take away from this. You can solve most mission (Besides Hi-jack) With stealth shields. And Shielders aren't really a problem.

[minetime43]

i feal your pain

[a razor named qualia]

Originally posted by Sentient_Toaster:

Glitch traps, breach grenades, regular guns (when used to breach the ship by shooting fuel canisters), all let you kill 'em. You don't strictly need crash beams and subverters.

More importantly, you don't need to even fight them all on a personal mission, and not necessarily even on a hijack (e.g. if you can separate part of the ship from the rest). There are multiple gadgets that let you bypass enemies entirely, between pickpocketing them for keys, using key cloners, subverters to unlock if you can't clone or steal keys, swappers to end up on the other side immediately... down to stealing a different ship and blowing a more convenient entrance in the side of the ship, or using the Brick to smash another entrance in.

Glitch Traps are, by and large, limited in number and so we face the same problem as with Subverters/Crashbeams At best I could deal with five guards, assuming they don't have keycards I need. That's one squad on a map with many.

Breach grenades trigger the alarm, and can also create more problems.

I'm not denying that they can be dealt with (They can), I'm denying that they're fun to deal with especially in such large numbers. On a large ship filled with shielded enemies it becomes an exercise in tedium to even deal with the minimum amount you have to just to progress (Kill the bear minimum you can't bypass easily)

Originally posted by ЧWhiskeh:

What's the alarm timer requirement like? I can't imagine it's that bad. You can easily herd crowds of shielded guards with gunfire and then crashbeam/subverter them en masse, dump them out a window, detonate a portion of the ship, etc., to say nothing of bypassing them entirely with slipstreams, stealth shields, and teleporters. I think you might be failing to fully utilize every tool at your disposal.

The timer was something like 30-40 seconds. This would be doable but it was a large ship and squads seemed to end up specifically in places that would ♥♥♥♥ me up when I had a time requirement. I also didn't have teleporters (I never happened on any with good attributes) but I did bring a long range Sidewinder, which didn't do much good unfortunately.

As for not using all my tools, I will admit to not knowing you could use Subverters on multiple things at the same time but I couldn't lure most the guards anyways since I didn't have anything that could lure them (My fault on that front). Even then I'd have to contend with a timer, and the rest of the guards who I couldn't lure all at once.

[Mamenace]

I am still pretty new to this game, and I was struggling with a simmilar mission. I loaded up on Crashbeams and still could not get through the mission and was very frustrated.

I found out you can land on the target ship and scout out where your objective is, any guards with required keys for the objective, and the pilot. Then I left and found another random ship with guns and hijacked it. Then I flew back to the target with the new ship and matched speed and began shooting (right click), aiming for the captian but avoiding the objective, once you start shooting the alarm will go off but if you can kill the captain it will stop. I reboarded, and instead of 30 shielded guards I only had to kill 4, copied the key and rescued the objective. There might be better late game ways that I haven't learned yet but this made it 100x easier.

I think the whole point of this game is there is multiple ways to skin a cat. If you run up against a brick wall, start playing as another character and learn different aspects of the game (I found defctor missions good for learning because you can restart). If something is just impossible, there is probably another way that you are missing.

[Battleseed]

QQing about shields is far too common.

[madhaha]

Originally posted by Porkachu:

I challenged myself to do a personal mission as early as possible. I had a liberation almost ready and I got an economy boost so I could buy my mission faster. I could do my personal mission after 3 other missions. I went into the mission with no armor piercing and nothing to deal with shields. I had a regular gun, two 5 capacity stealth shields (Non rechargeable) I bought them for 7 credits or so each. ANd I think I had a single side winder ( I sold all my other items so I could buy my missions faster). All of the guards had heat sensors and shields. And guess what, it was easy. My mission was to Assassinate a guy on the other end of the ship. You can literally just stealth shield and steal keys until you get to him. And then lure him over with the sound of a gun and break a window. Two things to take away from this. You can solve most mission (Besides Hi-jack) With stealth shields. And Shielders aren't really a problem.

I set myself the same challenge and completed it in 2 missions. Stealth shields are dirt cheap (15 for a high cap) and I think I managed to loot a Slipstream and a Swapper. Stealthed past the unnecessary guards, used the slipstream to steal keys and make quick progress. Swapped my target to stand next to a window before ending it with a wrench throw. Constraints are meant to inspire creativity.

[Lactose the Intolerant]

Why are you killing everyone? Go buy a slipstream or a stealth shield or couple of sidewinders + a key cloner and you'll breeze through these missions.

[obliviondoll]

Also subverter grenades will let you clear a room with normal weapons.

[LupisLight]

I just finished my first personal mission last night on a extra large glitcher ship full of shielded guards. My only way of dealing with shields were the two one-shot, self-charging subverter beams I had found (got lucky with that), and even then it was tricky. I would have been dead had it not been for the teleporters I brought along.

I'd like to point out that once you've taken out the captain and canceled the timer, you can always leave the ship, go back to a friendly station to recharge your stuff, then come back and finish. (In case your Crashbeam/Subverter is rechargeable). The ship won't dissapear as long as the mission is still active.

And as has been mentioned, unless it is a hijack mission, you don't actually have to take out ALL of the guards, just stealth your way through and maybe deal wit the few who are really troublesome. Stealth Shields, Slipstreams, Teleporters, and Key Cloners are all helpful for this. Heck even really loud guns can be useful as distractions. If a lot of guards hear a gunshot, they will all converge on that location, clearing paths that they were blocking before.

Stealth is an important part of this game. Yeah, on easier missions you can often take the 'Predator' approach and clear out everyone on the station one by one, but there WILL be times when most of the guards are shielded and stealth is a neccesity to procceed. 'Infiltration' is the name of the game. It's just part of the fun for me.

Finally, my favorite part of this game is that you aren't forced to do any mission too hard for you. There are always easier missions available if you want a more casual experience or don't have the eqiupment neccesary. And even the crates on easy mission ships can have good equipment in them. As for the personal mission, you can always leave it off until you've grinded for better equipment. That was my approach, anyway.

[Aquillion]

There's a lot of options. You don't have to take out every guard.

1. Use teleportation, slipstreams, or stealth shields to bypass the guards.

2. Use your subverters to open doors, key copiers to grab their keys, or pickpocket them for keys (teleporters, slipstreams, and stealth shields help with this, too.)

3. Use the Foundry Brick to smash an entry to the ship near your objective. Then you only have to deal with the few guards in that area.

4. Once you have your objective, smash a window and leap out of it, and use your pod to catch yourself. You can even position your pod right outside the window beforehand if you're nervous.

Also, it's all right to wait on your personal mission if you don't feel you have enough equipment. Buying mystery crates can get you self-charging items that help - obviously a self-charging subverter or crashbeam, but a self-charging teleporter, slipstream, or stealth shield can make it pretty trivial, too.

[a razor named qualia]

Originally posted by Lactose the Intolerant:

Why are you killing everyone? Go buy a slipstream or a stealth shield or couple of sidewinders + a key cloner and you'll breeze through these missions.

I wasn't killing everyone. I had made it a point to go around some particularly troublesome guard packs, but others were straight up in the way and couldn't be dealt with any way aside from killing them. Just as an example: There was a pack of four by a keycard door I had to go through, with no other route.

I did have a stealth shield so I could go around that one pack. What about the others?

[obliviondoll]

Originally posted by Sergeant Burden:

Originally posted by Lactose the Intolerant:

Why are you killing everyone? Go buy a slipstream or a stealth shield or couple of sidewinders + a key cloner and you'll breeze through these missions.

I wasn't killing everyone. I had made it a point to go around some particularly troublesome guard packs, but others were straight up in the way and couldn't be dealt with any way aside from killing them. Just as an example: There was a pack of four by a keycard door I had to go through, with no other route.

I did have a stealth shield so I could go around that one pack. What about the others?

Swapper? When a guard on the other side of the door patrols nearby, trade places. They get confused, and stick around where you put them, wondering what happened. You bypass the keycard door, and the guards (sometimes one jump like this in the right spot will get you past 2 or 3 layers of security in one step).