Col Legno has been hard at work working on a new way to get Tech 21 skills. It's a 1-2 man squad mission set for players in standard tech 20 setups, and, like Olympus can be done daily.

Right now we have to manually reset your mission (to give it the "Daily" mission effect) because the tag isn't working quite yet. So let us know in this thread when you need us to do that.
What we want to know (and what we want you to try and break) is:
* If you can start and complete the missions
* If you can solo or two man them in standard tech 20 setups.
* If the difficulty of the roaming AI and Mini-Bosses is too high or too low.

So, dust off those App Wards and Lions. It's time to break stuff!
Hop onto test.starsonata.com Port 3032 to give our new missions a shot! The missions start in Olympus Entrance. Post any constructive feedback, questions, and your experience with the missions below.

Also I am currently on test right now and teleporting people to Olympus, giving them fuel, etc. If you're bored and want to test, hop on!

i was going to test it out but i just found out that my berserker on test server is reeeeeally outdated. i'm a few hundred levels back and dont have any of the gear needed to test this so if you could update it that would be great

We can't do a sync at this time, however if you're willing to hop on IRC:

http://02.chat.mibbit.com/#starsonata@i ... a.com:7777

Drop me a PM on there with what you're in need of and we'll see what we can do.

Thanks for the input on the stingrays, I've edited their spawners to make more of them and have them swarm. I also beefed their shields and increased their RoF. I will keep playing with them until we have them hard enough to be a challenge but not impossible.

The visages for Hermes and the Rams are in and just awaiting a patch.

For the ice picks - Some of the ai you're supposed to kill or "cap" are normal ai spawns. You will need to range out farther from olympus to find them.

Some other things I've done (some of which may not appear until the next test patch):
I made the hull of the roaming ares warriors lighter - they were having thrust issues and flying off into nowhere.

I edited the missions so the only mission you can get initially is Discreet Reconnaisance. Only after you have this mission the other missions will appear.

I edited some of the spawners for the Keryx missions that weren't working earlier.


Thanks everyone who's helping to test! I hope you guys are having as much fun with this as I am.

just curious. i enjoy the idea that we're being more accessible but why exactly is this needed? =P

Partly that....partly, as an SD I've gone to oly a few times, but I end up mostly either hanging out dead or feeling fairly ineffective compared to other classes. I've been on a lot of runs on my shm in which there are SDs, Seers, FCs, Gunners afk in travel ships. I don't know about all of them, but I'd much rather be actually playing.

-TG

also, would one be allowed to do these missions as well as an oly run in th same day?

I assume they have more t21 content that is to come in, but need more players with t21 skills so t21 doesn't become an impossible goal for smaller teams and or become a more casual thing.

Eventually they plan on introducing tech 22 content. Right now the game is lopsided with a lot of people at the very low end, and a lot of people at the very high end. If they are to retain the mid level players and give them a chance to catch up and participate in the new high end content, they need to give them a way to get those skills in one or two man setups which are feasible for members of a small team.

This would also give an actual market for "starter" t21 ships. Seriously, how many people actually bought/built/used a delquad? I see AWCs, Wattages, PWaves, and Heph machines all over the place. But I hardly see anyone using a Delquad or a zebu titan. Granted, these ships are vastly inferior to olympus ships.

Also consider this. If it's now viable for every character you have to acquire t21 skills, they can also flesh out the entire t21 ship line and drone line with dedicated ships for base building and transport (think t21 version of dark freighter/emp behe), storage, ships made primarily for fast travel, perm drones, base kits and gear, etc. I don't think anyone would want to seriously grind out oly runs on 3 to 5 different characters just so their support focus char can use a t21 freighter, their other support focus character can deploy permanent t21 drones, and their EE can use some new t21 base kits with hull bonuses or some such.

*Raises hand, I built a delquad, still need t21 to be able to use it though :/ And I thought that Zebu titans were just supposed to be a trophey ship, like the super phunka?