Task force 78 reconnaissance of the Crystalline Entity

[Deven Scott]

Task force 78 reconnaissance of the Crystalline Entity


Tonight I took TF-78 on a recon of the Crystalline Entity in an effort to learn more about the encounter. TF-78 learned a great deal and some of those officers will share their knowledge with the rest of the fleet. Well lets get to brass tax shall we, the CE is tough and is going to require team work at its best to knock it out.

What we know
1: Shards will heal the CE if they are shot and destroyed.
A: We will need escorts or science ships to gather up the shards and kite them around at a safe distance from the rest of the fleet these ships will need a support ship to reenforce their hull and shields.

2: Shards act like mines and their damage bypasses your shields and goes into your hull.
Its important to know that the shards will follow a target until they get close enough to detonate, as far as we know shard detonations do not heal the CE.

3: The CE does have a beam attack, if your shields are strong you should be able to take the damage from the beam weapon that the CE will hit you with.
Also keep in mind that at some point around 30% life it will heal back up to 85 % life.
I am not sure how this is done except by possibly detonating shards close to ships.

4: Possible ideas, We had no way to test if Scramble sensors works on the shards but I have heard it does. Ramming speed as far as I know does not and I am not sure about
abandon ship. Another tactic was to have cruisers stay at least 7 to 8 klicks out from the CE with science and escorts staying around 6 to 9 klicks away. Quantum torpedoes seem to do well so the CE is weak against kinetic attacks .

This Tactical report was brought to you by TF-78 and the 7th MD and officers who helped gather this information thanks guys and gals. I hope this log helps the 7th this weekend.

Major. Belladonna
Ens. Brenner
Ens. Deanta
Ens. Cissp

[.Belladonna]

Additional notes:

1: Shards do not seem to disengage, even when you have left the 10km range of the CE.

2: Jam sensors does seem to work on the CE, but does not seem to effect the shards already in play.

3: An obvious reminder, the shards do not dodge you. so if you are following someone or on a collision course with them and/or the CE...you will hit them (and in turn heal the CE)

I will add more if I learn of anything else.

[Myles Keogh]

Excellent work! I was eagerly watching fleet chat last night as your testing played out. Again, excellent work!

I wish I could find the thread on STO that I read about how to kill the CE - there were a bunch of folks who said "Scramble Sensors" works pretty well on it. Wish I knew for sure, as I don't have that skill on a BOff yet, and am planning to re-train some of my BOff's.

[Ezreq Blodvaerd]

Here is what I have heard....

Large Crystals form small (3) crystals when destroyed.

Small crystals will heal the CE if they kill you. Escorts, stay away!!

You are pretty safe to circle above or below the CE's poles, as long as you can stay in a tight turn and have some speed.

Crusiers should engage the crystals, while Escorts attack the CE directly. Science ships heal the Escorts or cruisers.

My thoughts:

If Target Sensors does work, this is probably the way it does.

Escort has a crystal on his/her tail. He pulls them towards the cruisers, circling a few KM out.

Target crystal with Target Sensors, and the crystal will break off from the Escort and lock onto the nearest cruiser.

Target sensors directly on the CE will have no effect, except for protecting the individual ship that fires it.

I have this skill and I can try it out when I log on next time.

[Captain-K.Tillis]

Thx for the tip

[Deven Scott]

It was brought to my attention I stated in my post that Escorts should gather all the shards. Please understand this is something that is just not feasible. Reasons as to why it is not is due to the limited amount of structure those ships have . I do recommend that Cruisers kite or lead the shards around while the Escorts are on the CE and Science ships pull double duty repairing ships and scrambling sensors.

Again all this info is for the Fleet command so they can make an informed decision, if anyone has any ideas for tactics against the CE.

Thanks guys hopes this helps.

[FiGiN]

Great information!

Recommend small tactical teams formed based on ship class prior to entering the instance. Escorts can tool for total offense, provided healers are nearby.

Also, if CE is weaker against kinetic attacks, recommend multiple torp slots. I'm sure most of us usually only use one at at time but it is possible if you've never tried it before.

//FiGiN

[Anton Mercer]

PLEASE NOTE: ANY and ALL ships that currently have mines equiped PLEASE REMOVE THEM. Mines are horrible as the home in on crystals thus destroying them and acting lick a ship hull thus splitting the shard into the small healing ones.. Destroying the large crystals by mines leaves the fleet un aware that they have broken into smaller shards. ALSO NOTE the CE does NOT heal UNTIL the small shards reach the main entity so there is STILL THE CHANCE OF SHOOTING THEM DOWN. Fleet members MUST communicate this if they are hit by a large crystal and see the appereances of small ones. Escorts will most likely be the ones tasked with destroying them before they reach the main entity as they are the only ships with the proper firepower.[/i]

[Jakkyl]

Ty gentlemen for a great heads up on the CE !

[Morgan Shackelford]

I've done this a few times on my own, and have come to the conclusion that:

1) It is definitely not a 'smash and grab' encounter - some level of coordination and tactics will need to be used
2) there are multiple methods of winning
3) there are conflicting reports of how the encounter actually works.

Now, my understanding is that there are 2 shard types, large & small. Large shards, when destroyed, send small shards back to the main entity - these small shards will heal it. A lot. I have also heard that the simple act of getting yourself killed by any means causes a self heal to the CE; but as far as I am concerned this is unconfirmed.

There are, therefore, 2 main strategies that can be employed:

1) Kill everything in sight. Wipe out the large shards as they spawn, and definitely the small ones that break off of these kills. For this type of strategy, other captains have stated that it is actually quite beneficial for everyone engaged to be dropping mines. There are going to be a lot of shards, and having huge minefields setup around the CE will help take care of any small sharps that the general fleet might miss.

OR

2) Don't kill anything but the CE. The theory being that killing the shards is more trouble than it is worth; have the entire fleet set max power to engines, get everyone circling the CE in the same direction as to avoid collisions, and kite any shards that aggro on you. You can circle anywhere from 7 to 10 km out and be ok, as long as you are paying attention to whats behind you, and what might be in front of you as you zoom circles around the entity - because as long is it is working, it seems to work great, but the second a couple of ships get hit, it can go badly very fast. If everyone has 20-25 shards chasing them, and even just 1 guy goes down, he usually leaves behind a group of 20 or so shards that now have no target - and they may decide to aggro on you and come at you from an odd vector. There is also the potential for a group of shards to spawn in front of you and lock on to you, which can take some fancy maneuvering to avoid.

I can't say which method really works, as I have only ever been in on one kill that actually was legit - there seems to be a timer in play where eventually the CE just dies on its own. Most PUG instances never seem to get themselves on the same page, with half the captains using strat 1 and the other using strat 2, and a whole other contigent of folks who seemingly have no clue what they are doing.

I would recommend that everyone bring mines in their inventory so that if we want to try that approach, we will have them on hand. My gut feeling is that the 2nd strat would work better, but - who knows. We'll just have to get in there and figure it out.

[Anton Mercer]

sparrow794 wrote:

For this type of strategy, other captains have stated that it is actually quite beneficial for everyone engaged to be dropping mines. There are going to be a lot of shards, and having huge minefields setup around the CE will help take care of any small sharps that the general fleet might miss.

No offense mr sparrow but ive seen this tactic in place and it doesnt work. The mines for some reason act as a ship themselves so when a large shard is destroyed by mines the shard breaks into the small ones when it really shouldnt. Having minefields will only intercept that large shards and break them apart closer to the CE then we can take them down thus faster healing. Plus with all the mines around shards will break without us knowing as well and thus we will be unaware of small shards heading back toward the CE. Therefore I do not wish mines to be used but if u want to try it for yourself be my guest

[One of None]

I would recommend forming Teams with a Science ship in each team if possible, that way the science ship can keep track of the other four ships health and heal them as needed. It is way to difficult to fire on the CE and shards and look around for injured ships to heal.