4 : Stop the Thief! (Mercenary)

[BarmaLINI]

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[Izz]

Spawns are pretty much as listed in the mission guide. I salvaged a fair amount of burned ckts and the like. Everything dropped loot though, pretty good haul.

Did the mission in a Scorpion, followed the suggestions about leaving the 1st spawn BS till last, BM'ing then warping back when reinforcments came.

Reinforcements were at 47km, but I warped and came in 100km away. Didn't have to warp out, but travelled away from the spawn the entire time.

Since I was fit with 4 Torp launchers, I went for the ships which got closest first (BS's if possible). I sent 5 T2 Hammerheads against the frigs and cruisers.

Mids were 2 Heat Res, 2 Kin Res, 1 Invuln (all T2); Xlarge S booster, Booster amp, and Large Cap booster (didn't have to use any cap charges)
Lows: 3 PDS T2, 1 BCS T2

(warped back with an AB, 2 Salvagers, and a tractor beam for the loot) pretty much an hour total for fighting and looting.

[woodstok71]

They must have dumbed this down pretty bad because this was a very easy mission for me in an apoc with 5 big pulse, 3 med pulse, 2 eanm, 1 kin, 1 therm hardener.

They did warp in at around 40 and did so when i popped the first bs, i still had some cruisers left when the bs popped.

When i first warped in i did align with gate and started moving towards it. the first bs popped before my shields were gone. no frigs ever got close enough to scramble, web or anything.

I usually sit still but started moving based on the posts in this thread. It might go different if i did.
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[Revenant Penance]

Guys, it's extremely easy if done correctly. The second group spawn right on top of the warp in beacon, so if you just sat there popping stuff, they spawn right on you. Simple move away from the beacon from the start. By the time you kill the first BS (kill this one last in the first wave) you'll have plenty distance from the 2nd spawn.

Cheers

Rev

[Zsinj]

All the battleships are equipped with short-range weapons, so get some range and you're fine.

[Trelennen]

As mentionned previously in the thread, the cruisers in reinforcements are Mercenary Commanders (85k, caracal type skin), not Mercenary Lieutenants. And indeed taking some range and it's all easy (although I do think I could have tanked them long enough in my Maelstrom to kill enough to be able to permatank the rest (cruisers would go done quite fast, and I can tank 3 Mercenary Overlords and 4 wingmen no problem for a long time (which I know after doing A Case of Kidnapping storyline with ease). As they orbit within web range, and you can use drones, it should really not be an issue (I'm using a mix of 1400s and 1200s).

Though it seems they changed it partially recently: I did it with my brother like a month ago, and reinforcements spawned on top of us, while definitely it seems it's no longer the case (I had almost lost my hurricane because got aggroed by the reinforcement, while I started to warp out as soon as I saw I had aggro...). But above all, they seem to have removed those 200+ environment items that used to make you lag for 1mn+ when the reinforcements appear or when you warp back. Now there's less than 10 of those environment items, and warp in + reinforcement spawn is perfectly smooth

When I'll have done a bit more level 4s and will be a bit more used to my mael (first time in a BS, not used to those sluggish ships :p) I'll see if my assumptions (being able to tank the reinforcements without warping out / back at range). The key here though is Thermal and some Kinetic tank (I used 2x invul II, 1x Thermal II, 1x DCII), for those Overlords deal a crapload of Thermal damage when they come up close

[hunevo6]

I just finished this mission- and i found it difficult. I was using a nighthawk and normally i dont see shields any lower then 98%, now they got me down to 50%- so the damage is pretty high. Pls note that i was lazy to check eve info so i had only a general all around res on shields. Right after warping in I killed the first machariel on top of me, well that invited his friends. I never moved never warped out, but my tank was stressed unlike in any other missions- so beware raven users.
I had resistance of: EM76, EX89, KIN89, HEAT80

next time i will put on a heat hardener )

cheers.

ps: otherwise the mission is fun- the rats come close so looting can be done wo moving to any cans- salvage sucks though- only a few parts

[darkd]

This is 1 off the easiest mission there is. In first post you already give the solution. Warp in at 100 and everything is dead b4 it gets even within 50k. I had to use my shieldbooster twice and that was just to recup from the hits from the frigs and a few heavy missile hit. The second wave spawns where the bs died so at 50k away. if you start heading in the other direction at that time nothing gets closer.

[CmdCriton]

I found this mission to be one of the easiest and quickest lvl 4 missions ive ever done. The mission took 20 minutes including the looting and flying there and fro.

My setup is the usual. Fly in with the Nightmare -> agro everything you can -> my alt flies in with the Raven -> launch all the drones and let the drones take out the small ships while you concentrate on the big ones.

Ok i'm sure not everyone is capable of using an Omni tank with a resist of 87%-90%, nor does everyone have the possibility of flying missions with an alt.

Bottomline: If you can get an Omni tank of >85% then its a piece of cake. Missions like these are best done with a HAC or an Omni Tank BS (Abaddon or Domi)

[Mad Jock]

Well I've just done this mission and after learning the hard way by losing my Drake with almost 19,000 shield hit points. I've never had a problem before but this one made me warp out. Unfortunately, once back in again and taking a fair amount of shield damage and preparing to warp out again I realised that I was WARP SCRAMBLED! It would appear that Shadow Mercenaries can scramble and most other frigs will webbify you. With all the damage info appearing at a very high rate the notifying message that I was scrambled went unnoticed. Be aware of this please.
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Cheers..........Mad Jock

[kinnison]

Does anyone know what damage type the Shadow / Shadow's Goons do? I was using 2xkinetic II hardeners and 2xThermal, and they blew through my armor extremely quickly, even with 2 large repper II's going! I warped out in time fortunately - thanking my damage control unit once again! (40% structure gone)
Usually I can tank an awful amount of damage in this setup. I can only presume they're doing a different type of damage.

[WardenWolf]

Just did the mission tonight. I didn't have to warp out. I run a sustainable tank on a Raven Navy Issue. I was tanked with 2 Thermal, 1 Kinetic, 1 EM hardener, and shooting 7 Siege Missile Launcher II's with Inferno Torpedos. The reinforcements are very scary until you realize that the battleships are made of paper. You can dramatically reduce the amount of damage you take VERY quickly.

I popped the 3 battleships while having my drones start to work on the scramming frigates. Then I started in on the cruisers. My shields were at 61% by the time I reached equilibrium. To reach equilibrium, I had to kill all the battleships and 2 or 3 cruisers. It was a bit unnerving, but I stuck to the plan and just started taking them down. I had started with a full load of torps when I killed the spawn trigger. I reached equilibrium by the time I had to reload.

Disclaimer: Kids, don't try this at home. I have insane skillpoints in missiles. I have Rapid Launch V, Target Navigation Prediction V, Torpedos V, and Torpedo Specialization IV, along with pretty much every other missile skill at IV or V. I have all applicable engineering skills to IV or V. Everything on that ship is Tech 2. When I hit them, I am doing very nearly the absolute max damage possible. Unless you're VERY confident in your skills, and have a good ship to back it up, don't do what I did. Warp out, and warp back at 100 km, or you WILL lose your ship.

[Ico]

I just did this in my cerb. Do like it says: warp in, make a bookmark, warp at 100. Kill the little stuff, then cruisers, then the big guy. By that time, you've kited them out such that you can take everything in the second spawn out before they really have a chance to hit you. I think my shields got down to like 98% at the lowest. This is an incredibly easy mission.

Oh, and here's a tip, in case someone wasn't aware of it: NPCs will never pod you. A really easy way to make a bookmark is to fly to the mission in your pod. You have all the time in the world to size the situation up and make your bookmark.

[Argel]

My problem with this mission was not the difficulty level but the fact that it was bugged twice in succession. First time I got stuck in warp, unable to stop or move while my tank was chipped away - lost the ship. Second time, having re-equipped, the connection dropped when I tried to warp. I had been playing all afternoon without a single connection problem so I find it suspicious that it dropped at exactly the same point as the first bug hit me.