Regarding Mission: Operation Gama - "Flying Blind"

[Ricco]

I'm about to rip the ciruits outa my stupid shuttle. Are you saying I can never complete this mission in this shuttle (type s) ????? Has anyone ever disabled DS9's sensor clusters???? Ever???? I managed to make it to Epsilon and couldn't destroy the Gamma repair bees in time before the whole blooooody thing reset to Alpha again!!!!!! ??????

[Shellbie]

Originally posted by =(eGO)= ImperatorPavel:

Originally posted by Paladin:

You are correct, only the delta flyer have two station. I recommend fire at will for the Vault and torpedo spread for Operation Gamma.

The Vaadwuar Pythus could actually use both FAW and spread. It has an ensign tac station and an ensign universal. The wiki lists the boff stations of every fighter a Federation character can comission on the Delta Flyer page (presumably the other shuttle pages as well):
https://sto.gamepedia.com/Delta_Class_Shuttle

Back to the main point though, that mission is really annoying.

The Romulan mission called the best defense is even worse.

[ImperatorPavel]

Originally posted by Paladin:

Originally posted by =(eGO)= ImperatorPavel:

The Vaadwuar Pythus could actually use both FAW and spread. It has an ensign tac station and an ensign universal. The wiki lists the boff stations of every fighter a Federation character can comission on the Delta Flyer page (presumably the other shuttle pages as well):
https://sto.gamepedia.com/Delta_Class_Shuttle

Back to the main point though, that mission is really annoying.

The Romulan mission called the best defense is even worse.

Yeah, that's the one where you have to defend the colony with a shuttle against Elachi Walkers. There's a (rightly dead) version of that mission as a queue.

I usually slap a set on my shuttles. The Quantum Phase 3-pc is hilarious on my mirror danube.

[The Arkady]

Operation Gamma is beyond broken in that it doesn't scale to level well... or even marginally acceptably. If you somehow manage to run it at level 40-something like intended, it's actually pretty easy; with the current state of STO, players actually playing through all story missions will however be level 60-65 by the time they hit the mission.

In that level range, the mission is quite doable with a science captain in a good shuttle using satellite turrets and photonic fleet, though it'll usually be cutting it close on the epsilon wave (unless the turret and photonic ships all target worker bees over Jem'hadar).

If the mission is at all successfully solo completable at level 60+ with a tactical or enigneering captain, I'm not aware of the required tricks. As far as I can tell even tacs can't actually sustained boost dps enough to beat the clock on the third wave, so I don't see how engs could possibly have a way to succeed.

The Romulan mission is absolutely not worse, as its similarly broken level scaling only means you'll die a lot grinding your way through it; as far as I can tell, Operation Gamma is factually uncompletable for two out of three classes.

[Sandormen]

I guess its doable if:
1. reskilling
2. buying a different shuttle.
3. spending a fortune on various hard-to-get equipment for the shuttle.
4. sacrifice a chicken to your foreparents.
5. mount ice-packs on head.
6. several packs of cigarettes, and/or 'nervetonic'.

[Jaq]

It's easy: Torpedo Spread I. By far the best skill you can take on a shuttle mission. To make it extra overpowered, pre-load it and let the cooldown timer tick down near the end before triggering the repair bees, then you can quickly throw 2 speads out there and end most shuttle battles in the first 4 seconds. The only reason not to go double torpedo launcher in a shuttle is it makes target-locking more of a pain. Even with a beam attached I usually turn down the weapon power in favor of defense and maneuverability. The beam is just a sensor that points me towards what needs torpedo-spreading.

The only thing I don't like about shuttles is they're way too out of control to get a good dogfight going and stay on someone's tail. A couple extra skills would also be nice to add some build variety, but no more than that. With full size starships I often barely even watch the battle anymore, I'm just watching the cooldown timers on the 500 different skills on my hotbar hot-borgcube. May as well be a mobile game.

[Jaq]

Derped my way through the start of the mission in a standard Danube runabout, just to make sure nothing had changed since I last played it. No special equipment or skills used, at least not correctly. I was saving Rock & Roll to troll a kamikaze fighter for my dramatic finish, but clicked the wrong button and prematurely rocked and/or rolled.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tjz8H900K6o

Gear was all mark XII, mostly jem'hadar starter stuff and random reputation reward flotsam. I don't actually recommend the 2 torp setup, it didn't work as well as I remembered. But even unoptimized and with shoddy piloting, this is pretty easy. Advanced difficulty is do-able too, you just might have to respawn after taking out the worker bees.

[The Arkady]

The problem is, with the state of STO right now, players actually working through things in order will hit this mission overleveled but undergeared. They'll be level 50+ for certain, most likely 60+ unless they completely ignored doffing and reputations, but they likely won't have any gear worth speaking of unless they got mad lucky on random drops and their first few rep gear boxes.

[Jaq]

But it's a shuttle, so there isn't much gear to equip. You really only need a level appropriate photon torpedo launcher and shield array. I spent 7k on a throwaway blue photon tac console, just in case. Couldn't be bothered with 47k purples, which are still pretty cheap.

I think maybe the mistake some people make is following the old starship standby of max power to weapons all the time. That's a waste if all it's powering is a single beam array. The fewer weapon bays you have, the more you should focus on torpedoes. Move all your best projectile officers to active duty to keep them coming out faster. Send more power than usual to shields and engines. Tuck in behind your target and stay there, where neither their cannons nor torpedoes can target you. Although sometimes they cheat and fire torps anyway.

Using the freebie Type 8 shuttle with no bridge officers or tac consoles is the real challenge. I could see a newbie going in blind with that ship finding this mission nearly impossible. I might test that out if my Jem can still get that shuttle for free. Regardless, a runabout only costs 34k energy credits.

[Sandormen]

Originally posted by JaQMarius:

But it's a shuttle, so there isn't much gear to equip. You really only need a level appropriate photon torpedo launcher and shield array. I spent 7k on a throwaway blue photon tac console, just in case. Couldn't be bothered with 47k purples, which are still pretty cheap.

I think maybe the mistake some people make is following the old starship standby of max power to weapons all the time. That's a waste if all it's powering is a single beam array. The fewer weapon bays you have, the more you should focus on torpedoes. Move all your best projectile officers to active duty to keep them coming out faster. Send more power than usual to shields and engines. Tuck in behind your target and stay there, where neither their cannons nor torpedoes can target you. Although sometimes they cheat and fire torps anyway.

Using the freebie Type 8 shuttle with no bridge officers or tac consoles is the real challenge. I could see a newbie going in blind with that ship finding this mission nearly impossible. I might test that out if my Jem can still get that shuttle for free. Regardless, a runabout only costs 34k energy credits.

You are saying many wise words... ...-I still sacrifice a chicken to my foreparents, thou'... XD

[Ricco]

LMAO at this silly question thread. Thanks for all the cool answers, and I hope to see all of you again this Christmas on Q's Winterwonderland. I miss the gingerbread village and the snowmen and that hypnotic music that brainwashes us to come back again and again.

[jozenone]

Wow. Just mutilated this mission with the Cardie Intel Set. Turrets practically one-shot the bees. A lucky disruptor wave took out the whole second wave.

[Ordinary Dark]

cloak helps but I actually never failed at it

[Ricco]

Awesome!!! I'll try that sometime :)

[f u n n y d u d e]

Originally posted by Ricco:

I'm about to rip the ciruits outa my stupid shuttle. Are you saying I can never complete this mission in this shuttle (type s) ????? Has anyone ever disabled DS9's sensor clusters???? Ever???? I managed to make it to Epsilon and couldn't destroy the Gamma repair bees in time before the whole blooooody thing reset to Alpha again!!!!!! ??????

What an ffing frustrating mission! This is what makes me leave games built for addicts