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Thread: Toughest Imperial squadron?
Vegitaa
Tue Apr 05, 2005 2:58 pm
#14
IMHO....
Black Epsilon was my first Ace, this one was a bit tough as it was my first squadron, learning to fly and how to deal with missions. Couldn't solo it out of the box as a newbie pilot but with a partner made it through ok. Seems that BE has the most Gunboats but shorter escorts.
Imperial Inquisition was my second ace, of course I soloed the whole thing, you get a 2X master bonus plus I already had all the ships and components I needed to cruise through it. Total of 18 hours. This one in my opinion is kind of a mid inbetween BE and SS. Medium as far as how many GBoats you have to kill, and the escorts were longer than BE but shorter than SS.
Smugglers Alliance was my third Ace. This was a cakewalk! After aceing with Imperial ships and realizing that the tier one Dunelizard has 86k mass... solo'ed in about a day. There's some weirdness as far as going overt, and a few bugs related to kessel. The nuetral ships are a lot of fun though I must admit.
Storm Squadron will be my final Ace. I have already done all the SS 3rd and 4th tier missions helping other guildies and friends. They were by far the easiest.... they were also by far the LONGEST!!! What makes people say SS is hard? It's not because you ever have a mission with two Gunboats in it like BE, it's because you go on a two hour escort and end up failing an hour and a half into it. By far the longest escort missions in the game. Lots of AWings but IMHO that doesn't = hard, that just means you need to know how to get them.
Storm Squadron would definately be hardest for a newbie pilot. Long escorts and if you die along the way thats a big time investment down the drain.
Black Epsilon is hard due to the fact that there are missions with 3 Nova cruisers followed by 2 gunboats, SS has nothing like that in their path.
Imperial Inquisition would be my suggestion for anyone starting out as an Imperial pilot, plus the bonus of being able to run a mission and land at the Emporer's retreat.
If you really want to go for easy.. go nuetral. They have way more mass and everyship can hold at least two weapons (except the starter ship) Also, nothing Auto-aggro's you except opposing nuetral factions (ie Black Suns, Jabba's, etc..) Rebel and Imp NPC's ignore you until you fire a shot and hit them.
Menyor
Tue Apr 05, 2005 4:26 pm
#15
heh, good luck in doing SS in a day...i'm doing SS right now, granted it is my first pilot tree, but some of the missions are horrendously long. some of those escorts are about an hour long, and when you have 2 or 3 in a row...ugh, it takes a while. and when you get 2 long escorts followed by 2 novas that blow you away the first time you try the mission...it gets frustrating. but it is possible to solo. i've done it completely solo except for one mission that i could have done solo, i just did it with a friend for kicks. but it's possible to solo. the only thing is i don't know if you'd have time with all the escorts to do it in one day. good luck, tho! 
TomoRainer
Tue Apr 05, 2005 4:45 pm
#16
Frankly, I think BE is harder than SS. SS is extremely long--upwards of 90 minutes on some of the tier 3 and 4 missions--and it has a few rough patches, but BE just had so many gunboats. It was much more difficult to take those in an Interceptor without Bomberstrike than anything I faced in SS.
I haven't done Inquisition yet because I understand you don't get tier 4 loot from it, which is too big a bummer to go through.
I haven't done Inquisition yet because I understand you don't get tier 4 loot from it, which is too big a bummer to go through.
SickSix
Tue Apr 05, 2005 8:22 pm
#17
ok, i haven't done the others, but if SS missions are longer than Inquisition than i have no desire to try it.
My buddy went to get trained on his second lvl4 skill, so he is 4343imp pilot. then, he was given a mission. so i said, 'hey want some help' he said 'sure' because he really had no idea what was going to happen.
well it ended up being three of us. the third was a lvl4 freelance ship, and pilot. so it shouldn't have been that tuff, but
God was it LONG! ok, i can't remember everything, but the first part was taking out a pirate leader. a tier5 kimo. well we got through that. then i think he had to dock with a lambda, ok, not too bad. we were facing t4 kimos and syyk light fighters(tiny little buggers that i know hate almost as much as a-wings, almost)
well, eventually we get to this escort part. and it's WAVE AFTER WAVE AFTER WAVE of those little f'ing fighters. now, me and my buddy are flying bombers, so it's we are not dog fighters, we just slow down to about 300-400spd and turn inside of everything. but these little damn ships are hard to hit, and they spawn in waves of 6. and as soon as we finish one, the next wave immediatley spawns. this took forever! it was getting incredibly tiresome! and if there are missions longer than that, then i feel for whoever does them. talk about ruin the fun and excitement. that was extremely boring towards the end.
Vegitaa
Wed Apr 06, 2005 2:22 pm
#18
Menyor wrote:
heh, good luck in doing SS in a day...i'm doing SS right now, granted it is my first pilot tree, but some of the missions are horrendously long. some of those escorts are about an hour long, and when you have 2 or 3 in a row...ugh, it takes a while. and when you get 2 long escorts followed by 2 novas that blow you away the first time you try the mission...it gets frustrating. but it is possible to solo. i've done it completely solo except for one mission that i could have done solo, i just did it with a friend for kicks. but it's possible to solo. the only thing is i don't know if you'd have time with all the escorts to do it in one day. good luck, tho!
I agree.. the way the missions are "gated" in regards to time is why so many people claim SS is the hardest. As far as that goes I totally agree.
BE has the "hardest" in regards to big nasties (3 Nova's and a gunboat in one tier 3 mission) BE is the only squadron for Imps that has a gunboat in tier 3.
Imp Inq was not too bad (18 hours ttl solo) I found it to be middle of the road. Long escorts (not as long as SS) some big nasties toward tier 4 but no more than 1 Gunboat per mission.
SS... well.. I've helped folks, long escorts, lots of awings, but we'll see. Girlfriend is busy saturday, I have the day off with not much to do... sounds like an oppurtunity.
(ps... I know one person in my guild who solo'ed SS in one day, but then again.. Viduus is a nut!!! LMAO!!)
Washell
Wed Apr 06, 2005 4:10 pm
#19
TomoRainer wrote:
Frankly, I think BE is harder than SS. SS is extremely long--upwards of 90 minutes on some of the tier 3 and 4 missions--and it has a few rough patches, but BE just had so many gunboats. It was much more difficult to take those in an Interceptor without Bomberstrike than anything I faced in SS.
I haven't done Inquisition yet because I understand you don't get tier 4 loot from it, which is too big a bummer to go through.
How about 1 gunship, 2 nova's and 12 fighters at the same time in the SS T4 exit? The insane spawn rates during escorts? The large amounts of fighters in each wave? I did BE as my seventh ace, SS as my eight. SS really forced me to pay attention and fly.
BE had a lot of gunboats, but they're easy with the small company of fighters, if any at all that you get them. And Inquisition does give Tier 4 loot, don't know where that rumor started.
TomoRainer
Wed Apr 06, 2005 4:48 pm
#20
SS may have that in its tier 4 exit mission, but BE's got a couple like that down in tier 3. And SS does have some crazy spawn rates, but its missions never forced me to change my tactics--it just made me pay attention during escort missions rather than reading the forums.
BE made me adapt more than once. Parts of it were so tricky it made me come up with tactics so nuts they actually work in PVP. Sometimes SS came close to that level, but it never felt completely out of control the way those tier 3 BE missions did.
BE made me adapt more than once. Parts of it were so tricky it made me come up with tactics so nuts they actually work in PVP. Sometimes SS came close to that level, but it never felt completely out of control the way those tier 3 BE missions did.
LegioEmperium
Thu Apr 07, 2005 12:06 am
#21
SickSix wrote:
ok, i haven't done the others, but if SS missions are longer than Inquisition than i have no desire to try it.
My buddy went to get trained on his second lvl4 skill, so he is 4343imp pilot. then, he was given a mission. so i said, 'hey want some help' he said 'sure' because he really had no idea what was going to happen.
well it ended up being three of us. the third was a lvl4 freelance ship, and pilot. so it shouldn't have been that tuff, but
God was it LONG! ok, i can't remember everything, but the first part was taking out a pirate leader. a tier5 kimo. well we got through that. then i think he had to dock with a lambda, ok, not too bad. we were facing t4 kimos and syyk light fighters(tiny little buggers that i know hate almost as much as a-wings, almost)
well, eventually we get to this escort part. and it's WAVE AFTER WAVE AFTER WAVE of those little f'ing fighters. now, me and my buddy are flying bombers, so it's we are not dog fighters, we just slow down to about 300-400spd and turn inside of everything. but these little damn ships are hard to hit, and they spawn in waves of 6. and as soon as we finish one, the next wave immediatley spawns. this took forever! it was getting incredibly tiresome! and if there are missions longer than that, then i feel for whoever does them. talk about ruin the fun and excitement. that was extremely boring towards the end.
lol yeah in that one mission alone, we escorted 3 ships.... all of them taking FOREVER!!!... yeah, I have absolutly no desire to do SS if they're longer and harder than the Inquisition's. I have much respect for SS masters....
Zhentarim
Thu Apr 07, 2005 4:13 am
#22
Worst part of SS is by far the massive amounts of A-wings you have to fight the moment you reach Tier 3. You'll feel lucky when you are attacked by Y-wings, X-wings and B-wings on those insanely long escort missions instead of the constant A-Wing plague. 
Last night I reached the point where I have to go see the Grand Admiral in Theed (which is Rebel controlled on my server atm.
) and the last mission I did was frigging' tough - It was a major space battle where I had to hook up with a detachment of NPC Tie fighters and an Imperial Gunboat against a horde of Rebel A-wings and two Rebel Gunboats. I barely managed to get away to repair myself at the Space Station and return to the fight in time to take out the last Rebel gunboat 
All I can say to SS greenhorns at present time is:
Bomberstrike is your friend
Hyperspacing on delivery missions is not a sin
Bring friends!!!
Last night I reached the point where I have to go see the Grand Admiral in Theed (which is Rebel controlled on my server atm.
) and the last mission I did was frigging' tough - It was a major space battle where I had to hook up with a detachment of NPC Tie fighters and an Imperial Gunboat against a horde of Rebel A-wings and two Rebel Gunboats. I barely managed to get away to repair myself at the Space Station and return to the fight in time to take out the last Rebel gunboat All I can say to SS greenhorns at present time is:
Bomberstrike is your friend
Hyperspacing on delivery missions is not a sin
Bring friends!!!
Washell
Thu Apr 07, 2005 5:02 am
#23
TomoRainer wrote:
BE made me adapt more than once. Parts of it were so tricky it made me come up with tactics so nuts they actually work in PVP. Sometimes SS came close to that level, but it never felt completely out of control the way those tier 3 BE missions did.
Did BE as my first Imp squad, so no benefits from prepped ships under a previous mastery. Tough, enjoyable missions nothing really hard or tactic changing for me. I did SS with prepped ships, trained 3222 and hopped into my TIE bomber with L10 RE'd engine, L8 RE'd reward shield, L8/L10 RE'd guns and the 5 common used droid commands. And still found SS to be tougher.
I think we differ in opinion because I have no problems with Gunships or Couriers, but a TIE Bomber is a really bad choice to do the freaking amount of A-Wing opposition in SS missions in, even with a L10 engine and EO3.
Could we agree that BE is tougher if you prefer to fly light fighters and SS when you prefer them big and heavy?
Vegitaa
Thu Apr 07, 2005 8:26 am
#24
Washell wrote:
Could we agree that BE is tougher if you prefer to fly light fighters and SS when you prefer them big and heavy?
I think thats a very good distinction! Storm Squadron has loads and loads of AWings. Not too mention those escorts are just obscenely long.
BE had at least 3-4 Gunboats and Nova's throughout Tier 3. (Go disable this Nova, escort it, go blow up this Nova, go Disable that Nova and Escort it, then go take out a gunboat. Thats a single Tier 3 BE Mission.)
Nova's and Gunboats aren't the hard part for 2nd or 3rd ACE's (they're evil for a newbie pilot though). Storm Squadron I think drives people through the roof because those missions just seem to never end!
BE took me a week and I needed help, it was my first pilot prof. Imperial Inquisition took 18 hours and I solo'ed it, Smugglers Alliance took about 16 hours solo. I figure Storm Squadron (without any ships already in my Datapad with high cert'ed gear btw) should take about 16-18 hours total depending on how long the escorts are.
Rishathra
Thu Apr 07, 2005 5:06 pm
#25
Washell wrote:
BE had a lot of gunboats, but they're easy with the small company of fighters, if any at all that you get them. And Inquisition does give Tier 4 loot, don't know where that rumor started.
It started because of a bug in certain escort missions, and I've had this happen to me in other squadrons as well from time to time. Basically if you are in a fast ship with a good engine and Engine Overload running, its possible to complete the patrol before the enemy you are supposed to fight while doing the patrol spawns. This tends to break the mission giver dialogoue, and in the case of the Inquisition, at tier 4 you basically just run that broken patrol 4 times and you're done. The trainer doesn't acknowledge that you completed the mission so he just gives it to you again.
jimbrown
Thu Apr 07, 2005 11:19 pm
#26
SickSix wrote:
wait, how are we defining hard?
because i could not even come close to soloing a single lvl3 mission, in the Inquisition. Now, when i brought my buddies along that already had a skill or two in lvl4, then it was really easy.
and all my 'duty' missions are in dath now. I can't even do them hardly because of the random pirates and crap that agro me. its easier for me to go to Kessle and go 1v1 with T5 b/y/x-wings than it is to do duty missions.
i hate a-wings
you hate a-wings, i hate TIE interceptors, it all balances out.
well, unless u bring freelance pilot into the picture.... FREELANCE PILOT HAS ZIP NADA AND ZILCH FOR FAST PVP SHIPS HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA/fartHAHAHAHHAHAHAH
/target imperials
/slap
/taunt
/laugh
BTW i did crimson pheonix in rebel... there was only one mission i needed help with (with the obvious exception of the corvette)
the rest i either got first or second try.