User talk:Vyn3623

Hi Vyn,

I am wondering how you established that small fragments were "teleporting" back to the CE to heal it. That seems like a hard one to test.

I agree with you that it is clear that destroying large fragments near the CE causes healing -- that was easy to prove using a gravity well on the CE when large fragments were spawning. The old idea that fragments spawned from weapons fire are only temporary graphics glitches does not survive the gravity well test.

On a side note, I am thinking it is time to erase the comment that the scatter volley method is the easiest and most commonly successful method of killing the CE. I have been in a group of about 17 ships that tried it, and it was not easy. It would seem that the scatter volley method requires phenomenal DPS to kill all small fragments as soon as they spawn.

--Amicus 06:59, 24 February 2012 (UTC)Amicus


 * The teleportation was observed when I was able to circle the entity at mid distance without aggro, and noticed that its health was increasing much faster than natural regeneration as Large Fragments were being blown up farther away, while players were complaining about the Small Fragments disappearing after spawning. When I personally lead off a group of Large Fragments and dispatched them at range, the players left circling the entity then complained about its health jumping up as well.


 * I will admit that these are not rigorous tests, and it is possible that players were just confused, or that the graphical engine was simply turning the new spawns invisible to maintain performance, but I think there is enough evidence to suggest teleportation that it is worth mentioning at least. I can soften the language in the article if you think that would be more appropriate. In the meantime, I will try to gather more evidence for or against teleportation as the opportunity arises.


 * As for recommended methods, I have seen the entity brought down to ~10% health in both brute force formation attacks and circle kiting. Both efforts failed multiple times in the end, but it was always because someone smashed head long into a group of Large Fragments or opened fire on them. If players are able to focus their attention on steering their ship with the appropriate amount of engine power, then the entity should be quite easy to defeat in principle even without extraordinary amounts of coordination.


 * If I could actually beat the entity a couple of times, then I will feel more comfortable changing the recommended strategy, but there's nothing to stop you from editing it right now. I agree with you that the scatter volley method seems suspect, and is probably impossible in any public game, but I don't have any better alternatives to at the moment either. If you have another way of defeating the entity, I would love to see it on the wiki too.


 * Vyn 10:09, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Ah if you are looking for the easy method, I posted on that on the wiki already -- see the notes on the page on the Tractor Beam Repulsor method. I have lead now five sorties by my fleet against the CE in the last month using that method; on average it has taken each time about 4.5 minutes to kill the CE that way. At the bottom of the wiki page is a link to a video of our record breaking time of 3 minutes, 11 seconds. I was advised that my attempt at the Scatter Volley method failed because that method depends on all participants flying escorts. With repulsors you still need 20 ships to do it; but you can have a mix--not all of them must be escorts. Best if you have 5 science ships with at least 2-3 repulsors each, that is how many we had when we broke the record. Tried it with just 3 ships repulsing and it took us longer -- over 5 minutes; with only 3 ships repulsing they must work harder at coordinating the relay on the repulsing.

I have many times destroyed Large Fragments at a distance from the CE and observed the small fragments disappear (at distances of more than about 25km from the CE they do not even appear to spawn). The earlier posts on the STO forum insisted that these temporary small fragments created by weapons fire were harmless graphics glitches. In my own attempt at the Scatter Volley method and observing the results of gravity wells, I determined that at least when these "temporary" small fragments were spawned near the CE they were not harmless -- they healed the CE. I am behind you on you on that point -- it is good to have it down on the wiki as fact.

You are the first person I have seen state on a forum that even the small fragments that disappear at distances of over 10km from the CE heal it. I don't know on that -- could be; certainly reasonable to offer it as a caution. Given you are kind of alone on this so far -- I might suggest phrasing your position as a theory that could use more testing.

--Amicus 07:10, 25 February 2012 (UTC)