Serpentis Extravaganza

1:39pm 2010 Sunday 30th May 2010 Can't see the problem here. I've done every level 4 mission in a Myrmidon battlecruiser. My character is 4 months old.

5:35am 2008 Tuesday 4th March 2008 Serpentis Stronghold structure looted me after some long time of T2 drone shooting:
Ta3 Perfunctory Vessel Probe ; Small Inefficient Armor Repair Unit , Surface Cargo Scanner , Magnetic Field Stabilizer I , Heavy Electron Blaster , Small Nosferatu , Warrior I, Iridium Charge S.
Mission done in dominix without any agro problems only the 2 linked group in second stage, but no agro at warp.
In last stage, sentry does never agro with Spider Drones. I shoot the named ship before I finished with sentries and spiders.

my Domi : sentries warden ! and drones kinetic, 5 of each.
350mm x4 and 2 drones link augmentor
100mn ab 2, 4x Cap recharger 2
2 large 'accommodation' , cap power relay, 2x kinetic +1 thermic ardener, +1active hardenner
and now rigs ! : CCC, ANP, ACR

5:54am 2007 Friday 29th June 2007 I'd agree with the last poster, I used a Domi fitted mostly with T2 stuff, and it was a doddle - took me about 1.5hrs for bounties of 14mill. The salvage wasn't fantastic compared to some other missions, but OK. I have 2 LAR tech 2's, never even used the second one! If all the groups had aggroed me together on the 3rd part, I prolly would have had to use it, but they didn't - took the 1st group out, then aggroed the 2nd and 3rd together, to take them out quicker.

K Kinnison.

6:15am 2007 Thursday 21st June 2007 I did Serpentis Extravanza after RevII, and the drones didn't cause the whole third stage to aggro.

Good news. Piece of cake soloing it now in my t2 Domi.

AR

3:52am 2006 Wednesday 4th October 2006 I did that mission solo in a BRUTIX. I fly this ship now for a while and did some l4's successfully. Serpentis Extra is hard earned ISK. To all young BRUTIX pilots: this needs training and special tactics. Don't jump in this mission without a good fitting setup, 5 well skilled med drones and: good skills and experience!!! I have to mention that I don't use t2 hardeners yet but a Repper II and BC skill IV. So I am sure this baby can deal more l4's with better t2 or faction fittings and higher/optimized skills.

The 3rd complex is quite hard for a BC. You get agro when warped in. The best method is to turn left to escape course immediately and kill the posse of Bc's hunting you. A bigger problem is a group of three BS. They forced me to warp out. In a BC you have to live with spreaded loot over 100km and more. But for that I quit the mission and come back with my 5x Tractor VEXOR loot ship.

Overall Serpentis Extra was quite fun and I did lots of screenshots I will check out for more details about the actual mission setup.

Presidente

6:59pm 2006 Saturday 23rd September 2006 Last night I did it solo in a Domi for the first time with no warpouts.

Setup

3 X Dual 250mm rails, large and med Nos
5 X f-10 Cap rechargers (cant remember the exact name sorry, but non named should work fairly well too. Will edit this post with the exact name soon)
2 Kinetic and Themal hardeners, 1600 Plate (Rolled tungsten) an LAR II and a Large vestment reconstructer (that I never had to turn on, both annoyingly and amasingly)

I usually have a second plate and another heavy Nos but I pulled the Nos last night for the second repper as I was worried about the DPS. I'll probbaly use a med repper in future, and that should allow me to fit the second Large Nos (if not I can put in a large vestment to claim back power)

Anyway, first stage no real problems. Seemed to be 4 spawns and one did agroo me when I came in, no worries though. Second had a lot of battleships floating around but they seemed to be fairly passive even when they flew quite close to me.

3rd stage was the one I was not lookign forward to. Before I had had problems with a second group of drone agressing my drones when I launched and then turning on me, and I could not deal with the DPS. This time I flew upwards away from them drawing the BSes, BCs and frigs that agroed me away from them, a slow process without an AB. I was also firing away with my Nos and Rails, which killed a couple of frigs and BCs. I basicly chose a course upwards away from the main NPC. After a few minutes I released my drones and there was no problems with secondary aggression. I did not seem to have flown that far, but I did not take any notes of how far away I had flown. After that the mission was plain sailing.

In any case I think the key is really to get away from close proximity of the original spawn mix before letting rip with your drones. Next time I get the mission I'll try and get a definate distance, But 40kms should be a good guestimate for now.

2:35pm 2006 Wednesday 13th September 2006 Oh, for lvl 4 domi users, if you gonna do the last stage, either:
1.)Tank the entire room (2x LAR II, 3x t2 therm & 2x t2 kin hardeners w/ heavy cap booster)
2.)Fly REALLY (I think I was out like 120-150km not exactly sure on the exact distance) far away and then release your drones and make sure they don't fly too close.

Oh, and Large Smartbombs are your friend.

12:51am 2006 Friday 8th September 2006 What an introduction to the world of lvl4 missions eh?

First two stages were fine to solo in my raven. Wondered why I brought along a cap/shield transfer boat until I slipped and aggro'd another group at the end of stage 2. Still, managed to clear up the mess without using any transfers. Cool.

Jumped into stage 3 and 3 BS insta-aggro'd so I started taking them while letting the drones loose on those frigs and HOLY CRAP everything aggro'd. By this time my support arrived so I thought "no problem" (I was a little paranoid so brought along something capable of sustaining a large cap transfer and 2 large shield transfers). All was going fine until I let the support's drones out to help with the frigs. Oops. Support boat have no reppers... Warp out time :)

So yeah, It's all doable solo (and I have pretty/very bad raven skills) as long as you DON'T USE DRONES!!!. At least until you've cleared everything else up.

Might be an idea to aggro a group, kill the BS/cruisers and see if you can get away with droning the frigs after while everything's nice and close.

Plentiful loot, around 1500m3 (plus 10 cap 800's and 100 crap metal which got left) but only one item worth more than about 100k

Raven:
6x Arbie cruise
2x Tractors
--
2x+2x named hardeners
1x XL Booster 2
1x named ab
--
2x BCU
2x PDU
1x named nanofibre

Yes I'm impatient. I like my speed :) Think for solo lvl4's I'd best switch the ab for a painter (so I can better use medium drones against frigs) and the nano I'll probably replace with another PDU unless anyone can think of something better to use the slot for.

Megathron cap/shield transfer boat:
1x named large cap xfer
2x named med cap xfer
2x large shield xfer
2x named med shield xfer
1x tractor
--
1x sensor booster
1x painter
2x CR2
--
7x CPR

Think I'll keep him around a while yet until I get myself comfortable ;)

3:01am 2006 Friday 18th August 2006 Never though to take list from the wallet great idea there.

7:39pm 2006 Monday 14th August 2006 Ship setup (Apocalypse):

6x dual modulated heavy energy beam I, standard and multifrequency crystals
2x dual light pulse II, infrared and multifrequency crystals

1x 100mn AB II
3x f-b10 cap recharger

2x LAR II
2x named thermic hardener
1x named kinetic hardener
2x CPR I

5x hornet I
5x vespa I

-------

Just completed it, this is the rat list taken from wallet balance:

Gate 1:

4x guardian veteran
2x corelum chief guards
3x corelum chief safeguards

3x guardian veteran
1x corelior soldier
3x corelior trooper
2x corelum chief sentinel
1x core port admiral

3x guardian veteran
5x corelatis platoon leader
4x corelum chief sentinel
1x corelum chief infantry
1x core baron
2x serpentis personnel transport

Prison dropped some prisoners (heh). Aggro at warp in, but maneageable.

Gate 2:

3x guardian veteran
2x core baron
1x core commodore

2x coreli defender
2x guardian veteran
2x corieli protector
2x corelior soldier
6x coreliatis squad leader
2x coreliatis wing leader
2x corelum chief scout
1x corelum chief spy
2x core flotilla admiral
1x core port admiral

The second group aggroed all together (ouch), so keeping distance recommended - AB when necessary.

Gate 3:

3x corelior sentinel
1x corelior infantry
1x coreliatis squad leader
4x coreliatis platoon leader
1x core vice admiral
1x core admiral
1x core high admiral

2x corelum chief protector
1x corelum chief defender
1x core rear admiral
1x core flotilla admiral
1x core admiral

4x guardian veteran
3x coreliatis squad leader
1x coreliatis platoon leader
1x core grand admiral (should be Krayek Sarpanti)
2x serpentis heavy missile battery

Group 1 aggroes at warp in. Did it twice, the first time as soon as I opened fire, the second group aggroed, I warped away with my tank crumbling even with 2x LAR T2 working. The second time, I warped in and started flying away in the opposite direction, opening fire only with group 2 and 3 at 40 km. No additional aggro this time.

First time I do this mission, so I can't say if it's harder than before, but the list look very different and tougher. Was good fun, 2.30 hours plus looting ... can be surely done faster with kinetic weapons instead of wimpy lasers.

10:20am 2006 Sunday 13th August 2006 Ship used : Raven
hi slots : 6x cruise II with std wraths, 2 named heavy nos
mids : large SB II, 3 thermal 2 kinetic hardeners (named tech 1)
lows : 5 nmaed tech 1 PDU's
drones : 5xvespa II 5xhobgoblin II
support : Raven (6torp II's with std juggers, 2 lge shield trans, 1 ballistic control, tech 1 relays/rechargers)

First level : no probs - they all behave !

Second level : no aggro on arrival (!) but i bet that is just luck / arrival on the right side of the beacon. I aggroed the nearest group and the second group also locked me, but the tank listed above was fine so no probs really

Third level : weirded out! Locked first group shot all the escorts no probs. Started on last 3 BS on cruise - ok, then dropped out the Vespas to speed things up a bit, and the whole of the level aggroed me. I don't think my tech 1 tank would have held (TBH I am not sure tech 2 would have held up against the whole level).

So thank goodness I had an alt with a shield transferring raven ready to warp in.

This is the second time i have done this mission - first time i brought the support raven into level 3 from the start, and as soon as i used him in the first spawn (to help kill the BS already agressed on my main) the whole level aggroed the support raven and i had to warp both of them out.

My advice : don't solo this. Use a second combat ship to shield transfer and boost firepower for speed, but only let the support ship into the third level once the whole level has aggroed the tanked ship. Of course, a logistics cruiser might not get aggroed (no weps) but with no offense things will take longer.

Like the other guy who posted I am afraid i haven't noted ship types, but your list seems not to have sufficient numbers, plus all the new named ships are in (including battlecruisers and destroyers).

Having said that, as you would expect, the advice on tank and offense to use is sound. But to keep your blood pressure sensible on level 3 I would suggest support :)

11:09pm 2006 Wednesday 9th August 2006 I should have included my ship setup with my original post so here it is
Dominix
low slots
2x thermic hardners 2x Kinetic hardeners named t1 named t1 LAR 1600mm Crystalline plate 1 MAR2
med slots
Heavy Cap booster t1 Large cap battery t1 1 cap chargers t1 2x drone navigation comps
high slot
4x drone range augs 1 laser for agro. 1 Tractor beam
5 Sentry drones Kinetic
5 Heavy drones kinetic
10 Med drones kinetic


This has definitely changed with the new mission patch.

The first section is essentially the same.

Second is considerably rougher. 3 spawns that i can tell was with friends (they engaged on warp in) so didn't get solid info on the spawns for the second Deadspace.

Aprox 6frigates some scramblers/webbers 4 i think. around 20 cruisers total and 2-4 BS's please excuse my rough numbers group was killing really fast =)

4-6 Corelatis Wing Leaders 2 Core Flotilla Admiral's 1 Core Port Admiral

The spawns don't agro on warp in but we got 2 of the spawns agro when we shot at the first 1.

Third Spawn is 3 BS's Core Commodore's 3 frigs Guardian Vets

3rd space is rougher too not sure how much worse than original as i've never done that one b4 will send in a Screenshot of it got one on warp lots agro on warp in 6-10 BC's and 3 BS's o think plus 4 frigates and the other spawns agro shortly afterwards