Angel Vigil

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Locating & Difficulty

This is a type of hidden combat site that can be scanned down with scanner probes, and can be found in high-security systems around Aldrat. It's gate allows Battlecruisers or smaller to enter, and a (well equipped) Battlecruiser or HAC is my suggestion for what you should bring. (Addition: after completing in a Hurricane Dooobles notes that resists over 60% exp/kinetic, robust T2 tank with substantial buffer, exp/kinetic dmg dealing, web, and tracking gear are ESSENTIAL; the incoming damage is very high and the mobs kite.)

Loot: For the initial exploration site (two pockets)

• 5M isk in bounties + loot, salvage, possible implant.
• Asteroids for mining listed in each pocket.
• (Addition: Dooobles - Commander can drop Domination faction or implants, I received 220mm Domination Autocannon.)

On warp in, you arrive at an acceleration gate. Previous Explorers have commented that one of the gates requires a passkey. Alternatively, it can be bypassed by convincing the commander to unlock it. The overseer guards his shipyard vigorously.

First pocket

No web or scram reported on two separate runs.

Initial Wave:

• 10 turrets (Angel Tower Sentry)
• 3 Gistatis Primus (BC)
• 3 Gistum Liquidators (Cruiser)
• 1 Gistatis Smugler Guard (Frigate)

Second Wave:

• 2 Gistii Impaler
• 2 Gistatis Tribuni
• 1 Gistatis Smuggler Commander - Gate unlocks when Gistatis Smuggler Commander is destroyed.

It is possible to blitz this pocket by heading straight for the smuggler gate, shooting it and destroying the Smuggler Commander.

Miners: This pocket contains around 30 Plagioclase, 16 Pyroxeres, and 45 Veldspar asteroids. There are also 6 cargo containers - each containing a small amount of ammo.

Second pocket

On warp-in:

• 4 missile turrets (2 Heavy, 2 Light) SHOOTING THE MISSILE TURRETS TRIGGERS WAVE A
• 2 stasis turrets SHOOTING THE STASIS TOWERS TRIGGERS WAVE B
• 3 Gistum Phalanx (Cruisers)
• 4 Gistior Defiler (Destroyer)
• 2 Gistior Haunter (Destroyer)
• 3 Gistatis Primus (Battlecruiser).

Wave A:

• 2 Gistum Marauder (Cruiser)
• 6 Gistatis Primus (Battlecruiser)
• 3 Gistum Liquidator (Cruiser)
• 4 Arch Gistii Ruffian (Frigate - Target Painting)

Wave B:

• 2 Gistor Seizer (Destroyer)
• 2 Gistor Defacer (Destroyer)
• 2 Arch Gistii Ambusher (Frigate)
• 3 Gistatis Primus (Battlecruiser)
• 2 Gistatis Legionnaire (Battlecruiser)

Wave C: (Triggered by shooting Pat's Shipyard)

• Pat Wead (Faction Cruiser)
• 3 Wead Fighter (Frigate)
• 3 Wead Guardian (Battlecruiser)

On shooting 'Pat's Shipyard', this is emoted in local - Pat Wead: Alright, that's it. You barge in here uninvited, mess with my subordinates, and now you have the nerve to attack my shipyard! I see I'll have to take care of our little problem myself ... Pat Wead and his cohorts have exited the shipyard, ready for action.

Strategy

Before shooting any tower, focus on lowering the number of enemies in the pocket. The incoming damage is quite substantial so something with a decent tank, or warp-outs are necessary. You will be webbed down to ~10% velocity or less (14.0 m/s in a BC), so speed tanking isn't possible. After the area is cleared of most of the enemies, shoot one of the stasis towers. This pocket can easily become tank-melting if you target the turrets before clearing the initial ships. After all the turrets are gone and everything's dead, shoot 'Pat's Shipyard' for the final spawn and kill him off. There are multiple cargo containers in the pocket (containing a small amount of ammo, one had faction ammo). A large number of Veldspar asteroids are in this pocket.

Pat Wead dropped a Low-Grade Halo Beta when I ran this. (*Pat Wead drop for Dooobles Sept 22, 2010 - Domination 220mm autocannon, Domination Copper tag, 1000 Angel faction ammo)

Blitzing this pocket is possible but fairly impractical. Shoot Pat's Shipyard and kill Pat. You will probably want to kill all initial ships as you will be moving at the snail's pace of 14 m/s and the damage will be significant. Then kill stasis towers and Wave B. Ignoring missile turrets and Wave A will still allow you to complete the site and qualify for a potential escalation.

Blitz info edit: As stated above you only need to shoot the smugglers gate in the first pocket once to spawn gate keeper (smuggler commander) and the gate is open once he is destroyed. Do it quickly as his DPS is quite high.

In second room I suggest heading towards Pat's shipyard (obviously slowly due to webs) and take out the dessies and cruisers first (remove the dps). Once they are gone, shoot the shipyard to spawn Pat's wave as the bc's and Pat's wave don't have enough DPS to break a decent tank. Destroy the weed frigates and bc's while you wait for Pat to get closer. Once Pat is close, take him out and scoop wreck, and hopefully receive escalation. While slow boating to wreck (which is usually only 5000m away if done correctly) shoot other ships at your discretion - but never the towers. I find this easy to do in a Loki with a DC2, explosive deflection field 2, shield boost amp 2 and med shield booster running. Even though it seems a slow way to do the mission, it is still faster than shooting everything.

Escalation: The Big Blue

This is a series of escalations. Each has a chance of spawning the next stage or ending. They start with an escalation from Angel Vigil when you destroy Pat Wead.

Popup: Scanning through Pat Wead's logs reveals that this druglord was surprisingly well connected, long lists of buyers and sellers throughout the neighboring regions would make this document a dream read of any law enforcement agent in the galaxy, if only all the vital parts were not in some completely alien code. No matter how much you let your central computer chew on this stuff, you get no feedback on any names or places, execpt perhaps one... this seems to be a hasty entry from almost a year back, not in code. At least the coordinates do reflect a true point in space.

The initial escallation from Angel Vigil is thought to be around 10%, but each stage escallating higher is thought to be around 75%. High level angel drops are possible at each stage.

The Big Blue (Stage 1)

Faction: Angel Cartel
Mission Type: Exploration - Escalation
Space Type: Normal
Damage Dealt: Explosive/Kinetic
Web/Scramble: Arch Gistii Outlaws
Extras: Domination Smasher - Target Paints
Recommended Damage Dealing: Explosive/Kinetic
Recommended Ships: Battlecruiser with robust T2 tank, Kinetic/Explosive resists over 60%

Loot:

• Total: +/- 3.0M
• Bounties 1.6M
• Loot 538K
• Salvage +/- 1.0M
• Loot from Commander drop (initial author) Implant Low-Grade Halo Alpha, 1000 faction ammo
• Loot from Commander drop (Dooobles rewrite, Sept 22, 2010) - No faction or implant, 1000 Angel ammo
• Structures drop no loot on multiple attempts - likely worthless.

Wave 1:- New spawns can target your drones.

• 6 Frigate (Angel Salvager - Gistii Nomad)
• 4 Destroyer (Gistior Seizer)
• 1 Destroyer (Gistior Trasher)

Wave 2: (About 30 seconds from warp in)

• 4 Elite Frigate (Arch Gistii Hijacker/Outlaw) - Web/ Scram
• 4 Battlecruiser (Gistatis Tribunus) - Trigger

Wave 3: (Trigger - Killing last Battlecruiser from Wave 2)

• 4 Elite Frigate (Arch Gistii Ambusher)
• 3 Cruiser (Gistum Liquidator)
• 1 Commander (Domination Smasher) - Target Paints

Destroying the Commander will either end the expedition (if unlucky) or give you a popup to the next escallation. Escalation popup: Among the debris of this old factory, you find a homing beacon next to a container bearing the Salvation Angel seal. It looks as if they have been going through the rubble, gathering whatever the attackers have spared. It seems the beacon is malfunctioning and periodically sending out some garbled messages, something that is not so remarkable in itself, but the messages are getting answered... your instruments quickly nail down the location of the responder.

The Big Blue (Stage 2)

Faction: Angel Cartel and Drone
Mission Type: Exploration - Escallation
Space Type: Normal
Damage Dealt: Explosive/ Kinetic
Web/ Scramble: None
Recommended Damage Dealing: Explosive/ Kinetic
Notes: New spawns can target your drones, structures drop no loot

Loot:
Total: +/- 3.8M
Bounties: 1.3M
Loot +/- 1.2M (Includes minerals from Drones)
Salvage: Widely variable based on commander slavage
Commander drops noted: Low-Grade Halo Delta, (2nd run - Low-grade Halo Omega)
Commander drops noted (25.07.2011): Cynabal BPC (~180mil), Arch Angel Nuclear M x1000, Domination Stasis Webifier (~100mil) and some T1 items

Pocket 1 (Only one pocket)

On arrival you get a message in local: Broken Message: Th* is *nder invegrrrrrrr rrrrrr rrrrr by DED. It seems someone has disabled the warning beacon.

Wave 1 (10 sec after warp-in)

• 3 Elite Frigate (Arch Gistii Raider)
• 3 Destroyer (Gistior Defacer)

Wave 2 (About 30 seconds after warp-in)

• 2 Elite Frigate (Arch Gistii Raider)
• 2 Cruiser (Gistum Defeater)
• 4 Drones (Drone Salvager - Atomizer Alvium)

Wave 3 (Destroying all non-drone ships in previous waves)

• 2 Frigate (Gistii Outlaw)
• 3 Frigate (Gistii Thug)

Wave 4 (Destroying all previous non-drone ships)

• 3 Elite Frigate (Arch Gistii Raider)
• 2 Battlecruiser (Gistatis Legatus)
• 1 Commander (Domination Crusher)

Destroying the second battlecruiser will either end the expedition (if unlucky) or give you a popup to the next escallation. Escallation popup : "Another Salvation Angels beacon and this time fully functional probably put here by a surveying ship. It gives directions to another location not far away."

The Big Blue (Stage 3)

EDIT: was in low-sec for me (25.07.2011)

Loot: (What it dropped for me)

• Total: 4.7M
• Bounties 2.5M
• Loot 521K
• Salvage 1.7M
• Plus 1000 Arch Angel Proton M

Faction: Angel Cartel

Mission Type: Exploration - Escallation

Space Type: Normal? (No warp in gate)

Damage Dealt: Explosive/ Kinetic (Need Confirmation)

Web/ Scramble: None

Extras: Arch Gistii Nomads target paint, Domination Crusher target paints

Recommended Damage Dealing: Explosive/ Kinetic (Need Confirmation)

Recommended Ships: Drake

Notes: New spawns can target your drones.

Pocket 1 (Only one pocket)

Spawn 1 (Warps in after about 15 seconds)

• 4 Elite Frigate (Arch Gistii Nomad) - Target Painters
• 4 Elite Cruiser (Arch Gistum Liquidator)

Arch Gistum Liquidator's shield/armor weak spot is explosive at 72% (EM is 90%, Kinetic is 79% and thermal is 85%).

Spawn 2 (Trigger - Timed - 30 seconds ?)

• 3 Battlecruiser (Gistatis Primus)

Spawn 3 (Trigger - Destroying the last Arch Gistum Liquidator ?)

• 2 Elite Frigate (Arch Gistii Ruffian)
• 3 Battlecruiser (Gistatis Praefectus)
• 1 Commander (Domination Crusher)

Destroying the Commander will either end the expedition (if unlucky) or give you a popup to the next escallation. Escallation popup : "Luckily your instruments got a lock on the escaping ships destination."

The Big Blue (Stage 4) LOW-SEC

Loot: (What it dropped for me)

• Total: 2.25M
• Bounties 1.5M
• Loot 750k
• Salvage - I did not salvage since it was low sec
• 18 Blue Pill

Faction: Angel Cartel

Mission Type: Exploration - Escallation

Space Type: Normal? (No warp in gate)

Damage Dealt: Explosive/ Kinetic (Need Confirmation)

Web/ Scramble: Arch Gistii Hijacker

Extras: Arch Gistii Ruffians target paint

Recommended Damage Dealing: Explosive/ Kinetic (Need Confirmation)

Recommended Ships: Drake (PVP fit)

Notes: This takes place in low sec so a ship you are willing to lose and fit for pvp are reccommended. A clean jump clone might be wise. Destroying the web/ scramble ships quickly may be even more important in low sec systems (But that may be the trigger for the next spawn). New spawns can target your drones. Bring a lot of ammo for the Drug factory.

Pocket 1 (Only one pocket)

Upon warp in the 'Drug Factory - Angels in Heaven' and a few other structures are all that are visible.

Spawn 1 (Warps in after about 30 seconds)

• 4 Angel Heavy Missile Battery
• 4 Elite Frigate (Arch Gistii Hijacker/Rogue) - Web/Scramble
• 4 Elite Frigate (Arch Gistii Ruffian/Nomad) - Target Painters
• 3 Destroyer (Gistior Shatterer)
• 5 Battlecruiser (Gistatis Tribunus)

Spawn 3 (Possible spawn?)

• 2 Elite Frigate (Arch Gistii Impaler)
• 4 Battlecruiser (Gistatis Legatus)
• 3 Destroyer (Gistior Shatterer)

Spawn 4 (Taking the Drug factory 1/2 into structure - this takes a ton of damage to accomplish) (Took me 868 Scourge missiles doing 229 damage (to the structure) each.)

• 1 Angel Hauler

Spawn 5 (about 10 seconds after the Hauler spawns)

About 6 - 8 ships including one cargo vessel. These warp off quickly. (Before I could target one.)

Final Notes: Destroying the Angel Hauler drops the main loot and completes the expedition (18 Blue Pills for me, but I have heard up to a Dramiel BPC) Finish destroying the lab nets you a few T1 modules, items, and some ammo.

Since I was in low sec, I fitted a cloak - Using the cloak means losing all targets and your deployed drones become inactive and can not be returned to the drone bay (You can only scoop them to the cargohold).

You can leave the area and return if you have not triggered the Angel Hauler or your expedition timer has not expired.

Final completion popup : With all this Blue Pill out of circulation, you probably just sent some thousands of BP munches on a cold turkey. Then again, you could perhaps make nice profit selling it to them yourself. Choices...Choices...