STANTON

[shubn]

Screenshot by ysignal on a different outing

This is a salvage mission that was added in 3.19. The buy-in is pretty steep, at 150k aUEC, but the payoff should be worth it. That is, if you're doing it with a crew. It's a lawless mission that anyone can take, so there might be other players, and perhaps NPCs as well. There is a chance of valuable cargo you can steal and sell, though it's not guaranteed. If you're counting on the cargo alone to make a profit, you're essentially gambling. Though word on the street is that this gambling can pay in the long run. If we bring a Reclaimer and/or some Vultures, plus some people on defense, either manning the Reclaimer turrets, or in fighters (or ships that are combat- and cargo-capable, like a Cutlass, Corsair or Constellation for instance), or both, it could be a fun and lucrative endeavor.

[icycalm]

What’s the minimum number of players you consider viable? It sounds like it’s 4.

[shubn]

We could also try 3, but that's the absolute minimum to operate the Reclaimer, meaning we would have to switch to defense if trouble arises and may have to retreat entirely depending on the type of trouble. 4 feels like a good minimum.

[icycalm]

There are some complications.

-Only I have a Vulture. So if we're just going with Vultures, it won't cut it. From the sound of things, you need 3 Vultures minimum if you're going all-Vulture, so we'd need 2 more people buying Vultures, and since it's not available in-game yet, they'd have to do it with cashmoney.

-Only Adjudicator has a Reclaimer. So if we're going with the Reclaimer, Adjudicator would have to be in the team.

So the conditions to launch the mission seem to be:

1. Have at least 4 people in the team, and

2. One of them must be Adjudicator.

Another possibility is 2 people buying Vultures, and then all 3 of us being in the team.

I am not a fan of trying this with only 3 people. That would mean no defense, and then we'd probably only succeed if there were no hostiles, which would be a boring scenario to hope for. So I'd rather we saved the mission for when we have at least 4 people, and a more complex operation.

When a team is ready to launch the mission, discuss between you what exact ships to use and how to divide the players. This can't be stipulated in advance because we don't know who the players will be and what ships they own. Everyone can chime in on this, but if there are any officers present, they should have the final word, plus they will have operational command in order to determine how to approach the site, who will do what and in what order, when and if to engage, and when to leave, and so on.

Once a team has run the mission, report back here with the results as a debrief, and to help us refine our approach.

I am looking forward to this! It sounds like a mid-complexity mission like Ghost Hollow. Less complex than a Dynamic Event, but more complex than the typical mission, and it can be launched at any time. We need to list out these missions and get good at running them, so one thread per such mission is a good idea.

[icycalm]

7-player Assault on In the Wake of Disaster #1 with shubn and The Cult
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWJ7NzwySpA



Video is almost 10 hours but that's because the first few hours are shubn playing alone or doing random missions with one or two others. If you want to catch the actual event from the start, 7:33:00 is a good jump-in point as we're just about to get out of quantum at the destination. shubn is piloting the Hammerhead, so he has a good view of the whole operation. Note that before that point there are a couple hours of prep that were quite trying due to a confluence of logistical, organizational and technical issues (bugs). Nothing out of the ordinary, really, every big event/mission takes a lot of prep, and the more players are involved the more it takes because more gear/vehicles/coordination etc.

So we ended up getting 7 players for this (and 1 clone! Adjudicator was multiboxing for the first time in CULT history!), way above the minimum 4 we were aiming at, so instead of showing up with a Hornet for support we had a freakin' Hammerhead. First we sent the Hammerhead in by itself, almost fully crewed, with a view to wiping out anyone there, and we were all super-excited about that, but unfortunately no one was there. So then we called in the Reclaimer and it got to work with 4 people aboard, almost fully crewed (full crew is 5). Meanwhile recoil checked all the wrecks in EVA and found a little cargo, about 50k's worth, and some rare eggs that you are supposed to sell in specific places apparently. We still haven't sold those afaik.

With the Hammerhead patrolling and not much going on, I went back to ArcCorp and brought my Vulture, and with recoil's help we hull-stripped about 100k worth of material, while the Reclaimer brought in about 500k. Neither ship's cargo was maxed out, so if we had stayed longer we could have got closer to 1M perhaps, as there were 3 large ships to strip. Not a bad deal at all, even though we were occupying 7 people for it, plus the 150k buy-in. There are faster ways to make money, but this was fun because of the size of the operation. You really need security because the mission 1) Takes a while, and 2) It is available to everyone on the server so the chances of getting jumped are way higher than in a normal mission.

Could you take this mission as a solo or duo and hope to get lucky that no one else shows up? I wouldn't do this as I'd be extremely bummed out if I blew 150k for nothing. Even worse if I'd been stripping for a while and THEN got jumped, so on top of the money I'd lose a lot of time too. Plus, the jump there takes quite a while in itself (had to upgrade the Hammerhead's quantum drive to make it there in a reasonable time).

So I wouldn't do this mission without at least 4 players with 3 of them on a Reclaimer and 1 fighter, or at least 2-3 Vultures and 1 fighter. And 2 Vultures would barely turn a profit, so really a 3rd is necessary I feel, unless you can manage a second trip.

Ultimately, this is a mid-complexity mission like Ghost Hollow, and like it I wouldn't play it more than once or twice a month, and with quite a few people. And if I had to choose which one to do more frequently, I'd pick Ghost Hollow, since it doesn't have a steep buy-in. I could see myself dropping in Ghost Hollow solo for a tense adventure or just to test my luck, but I would never do that with Wake of Disaster.

Note that I ensured we joined a full server before taking the mission (110 players), but since it took us a couple hours to prep, I think by that time the server had dropped to 75 or so iirc. That, and the fact that the buy-in is steep and the payout not that great, were probably the reasons we had the place to ourselves. Either way, this is without a doubt the biggest and most fraught salvage mission in the game so far and I look forward to another run in a few weeks, and hopefully we'll meet some resistance then—and the greater the resistance, the greater the potential payoff, since you can strip the wrecks of any enemies too. One more Vulture wouldn't hurt either, and with its impending inclusion in in-game shops in 3.20, we should be able to easily swing that.