Okay, so I attempted KA for the first time last night, and my group soundly got our butts handed to us on the first part of the mission twice. We had four tac officers (two in cruisers, two in escorts) and one sci officer (in a science ship). I felt like with that group, we should've been more than capable of handling this part, so I am very confused as to how we failed.

I had the sci ship, a cruiser, and an escort take the left gate, while I and the other escort took the right gate. We never made it much past the second wave of probes and spheres, so I am asking here for some insight from those of you who have done this before. In particular:

1. Is it okay to use abilities like Eject Warp Plasma (or other AoE abilities), or will that aggro the spheres too soon?

2. Did I split up the group incorrectly? I read a guide here on the forums that 3 and 2 was the way to go, but given how many probes and spheres came through in each wave and how tough the spheres were, I'm having a hard time picturing how this is possible (even though I know it is).

3. I never used any AoE attacks myself (even turned auto-target off to prevent accidentally firing on a sphere), yet I got aggroed by spheres several times while still shooting at probes. Is it possible that they aggro if a probe's explosion damages them?

4. What should a sci ship be loaded for in this part?

5. I read that some spheres might go through the gate - if you kill all the probes in a wave and the next wave is already incoming, is it better to ignore the remaining spheres from the last wave and concentrate on the probes from the next?

Thank you in advance for any help offered.