“Khitomer Vortex” is a Special Task Force space mission requiring a team of five players.
Setup[ | ]
To reach a maximum efficiency in Khitomer Vortex, a team must consist of Escorts, Cruisers and Science Vessels. Players should assume different roles, according to their ships.
Mission[ | ]
When the team first enters the system, they have to defeat a Tactical Cube. This opening fight should not prove to be difficult, since the team starts together and will most likely fire on the same side of the Cube.
After the cube is destroyed, the mission becomes more difficult, requiring a consulting team to complete. The team has to destroy 2 Borg Transwarp Hubs, along with the Nanite Generators and Transformers. Meanwhile, both gates will keep spawning Borg Probes, that will try to reach a third gate, the Vortex, and fly through. The team has to keep shooting down these probes. If 10 probes fly through the Vortex, the STF is lost and players will get no rewards. If even a single probe flies through, the optional objective is also lost, but players can keep fighting to complete the mission.
The best setup for this STF is to have at least 1 player on each gate to destroy incoming probes. Preferably this is a high DPS ship such as an escort or a Raider. Although lower DPS ships, such as cruisers, can also do this job, they will have more difficulty shooting down every probe.
While the probes are being stopped, the other players must take down both gates as soon as possible. First they have to kill the Nanite Generators surrounding each Transformer. Once 2 generators out of the 4 surrounding a transformer have been destroyed, a Borg Cube will spawn. By timing the destruction of the second generator to a time in which the Probe hunter has no probes to shoot down, so that the players have an extra ship to defeat the cube.
Once both Generators around a Gate have been destroyed, the team should take down the Gate itself down to 10%. The reason for not taking the gate down altogether is that the other gate will stop spawning 2 or 3 probes, but will then send massive waves of probes and Borg Spheres. By having both gates first reduced to 10% (a rule known as the 10% rule), this massive wave will spawn only once, if it spawns altogether.
After both gates have been destroyed and the remaining probes and spheres also blown apart, the boss fight begins. In Khitomer the boss is Donatra, who commands the Assimilated Scimitar. This Dreadnought is a deadly weapon. Its armaments are devastating to any type of shields, and following torpedo spreads can destroy most ships that do not use Brace for Impact. Further more she can spawn Tractor Probes, but those should not prove to be too difficult, simply annoying.
The biggest weapon Donatra has is the Cascading Biogenic Pulse. This weapon can be an instant-killer for every ship that does not use Brace for Impact, Evasive Maneuvers, or has a low hull or shield strength. The Thalaron Blast will be used after Donatra cloaks. Previously she would only cloak if her current target comes closer than 5 km to her. However her AI had been altered [1] so that distance was no longer a factor, she would cloak at random intervals and thus disband the 5km rule.
There are other ways of breaking Donatra's cloak. Abilities such as Tractor Beam, Eject Warp Plasma or Fire on my Mark can disrupt her Stealth abilities, thus rendering her cloak temporary operational. Should she cloak, there are multiple ways of finding her. First of all, Science vessels can detect her if they get close enough, depending on their current Auxiliary power setting. Second, mines will follow the cloaked ship and keep doing damage, which gives the team an indication of where she is. Third, Hangar pets will stick on top of the Dreadnought, so players know her exact position, although being unable to fire. Using Boarding Party can disable her ability to cloak, but when she does and the crew beam back to the player's ship, they will indicate the location of the Scimitar. Also, if the player manages to hit her with a Hargh'peng Torpedo before she cloaks, the secondary explosion can also reveal her position.
References[ | ]
- ↑ Release Notes: April 4, 2013 - Systems - "The Scimitar's behavior has been extensively reworked to create a more dangerous and unpredictable encounter."