Originally Posted by Folcwin

Today 12th Fleet officers launched four successful operations against the infamous Crystalline Entity in the Alpha Centauri sector block. Each time destroying the creature in fleet actions recorded at under 4-5 minutes in total duration. (See our record breaking time of 3 minutes 11 seconds of gameplay on Yutube at http://youtu.be/2xEhs5ZG4AM.)

So how did we do it in so little time? Well, we did not use Scatter Volley. We did not kite fragments. We did not prohibit kinetic weapons. Nor did we yell at people in local.

The important factors in the smashing victory were as follows: (1) we had 15 ships concentrating DPS solely on the CE; (2) in addition to the 15 DPS ships, we had at least 2 (preferably 3 and no more than 5) science ships, equipped with 2-3 repulsors each, chain firing tractor beam repulsors to keep the fragments away from the DPS teams, especially during Stage III of the Entity's hull points; (3) we banned all targetable weapons/abilities (e.g., mines, tricobalt devices/torpedoes, boarding parties, photonic fleet, fleet support, etc.); and (4) we tried to keep everyone in a small group at a distance of more than 5km from the CE (preferably 7km to 9km). I believe that having our few science ships concentrating on killing fragments using mass kill/area of effect weapons (especially gravity well) in Stage I and Stage II was somewhat helpful; as was banning all mass kill/area of effect weapons within 10km of the CE in Stage III. Everyone in the expedition did come equipped with their own copy of tractor beam repulsors, but that precaution turned out to have been unnecessary as long as we had three science ships chain firing repulsors (nonetheless I would recommend the procedure for PUGs, since they are more difficult to organize).

Originally Posted by TFR_MACO_Specialist

Congratulations guys and thanks for the video. You've given me the motivation to organise another attempt with our fleet and i shall be directing all participants to read this post and watch your film first.

Originally Posted by Folcwin

Go for it! Not that hard if you have about 5 science ships relaying repulsors. With only 3 Science Ships, we have found it takes additional work to coordinate the repulsor relay. I am not actually certain that it can be done with only 2 ships doing the relay -- theoretically it should be possible. You may want to have some of your DPS ships bring a copy of repulsors 1 just for back up, especially if you are running with less than 5 ships on the repulsor relay.

To set up the private instance you need to first set up an instance for any of the other fleet actions and then choose the Crystalline Entity as the map.

Originally Posted by TFR_MACO_Specialist

So we are talking about beam boats DPSing from 7-9 Km away and sci ships closer replusing the shards away from the beam boats basically, is that correct?

Originally Posted by Folcwin

Not that complicated. Have everyone gather around one ship and then try to stay around 7-9km distance. Science ships might gravitate toward the front, but that was not something we worked on. No need to bring only one type of weapon. Cannons, torpedoes and beams all work (but do not bring mines, tricobalts, or high yield plasma torpedoes as they are a big problem at Stage III and you need to be doing consistent damage to overcome the CE's innate healing).

You want the majority (e.g., 3/4) of your ships to be firing at the CE the entire time with focused fire abilities like beam overload, rapid fire, torpedo high yield. You can keep the fragment numbers down for Stage I and II with a few ships using Gravity Well and mass kill weapons. No mass kill weapons once the CE gets below about 40% hull points (i.e., no Gravity Well, no fire at will, no scatter volley, no spread torpedoes, no photonic shockwave, no warp plasma). Use only repulsors for fragment control in Stage III.

Originally Posted by Hakaishin

, "lol PvE fleet" on each of my videos (to include my numerous PvP videos).

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