Syndication
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"In the outer reaches of Gallente space, you are enlisted on a mission to escort a Federation Senator's son on his way to a holoreel shoot. En route, the boy is kidnapped by pirates. The chase is on, and you must enter the seedier parts of free-wheeling Gallente society in order to find him. Along the way, you'll encounter embedded Scope reporters, upstart Minmatar gangs, retired flesh merchants, and dubious Black Eagle chicanery as you search for the missing boy."
Requirements
"Syndication" is the Gallente Epic Arc. To begin requires 5.0 standing with either Impetus Corporation or the Gallente faction, but once begun, standing is not checked again for the duration of the arc. It is somewhat more difficult than L4 missions. I did it in a Machariel. Strongly recommend at least the equivalent of a Gist-C shield booster for tanking purposes, almost all stages involve what would be considered heavy DPS in a level 4 mission.
Note that each step *does* count toward your next L4 storyline mission for the Gallente faction, although the storyline may not actually trigger until you complete a normal L4 mission.
Also note that once any epic arc is completed, you can repeat it 3 months later. If you 'Quit Mission' at any step before completing the arc, however - which heavily damages your standing with whichever corporation you're currently working for in the arc, but only trivially impacts your Gallente main faction - you can restart the arc from Step 2 immediately.
This walkthrough is initially authored by Phineas Qwinn. (Just call me Qwinn :) For the record, I completed the arc solo with less than 4.5 million skillpoints... but I wouldn't recommend it, I've played a lot in the last few months and the ship I did it in was worth about 2 billion ISK with mods included, so don't take that to mean this arc is easily done with few skills in a tech 1 ship. It isn't.
Enemies
After one completion of this arc with the high security path and Safe Return conclusion, the following faction standing changes were observed:
- The Syndicate: -3.0%, -3.0%, -3.0%, 17 losses of 0.025% or smaller due to "Combat - Ship Kill"
- The Syndicate: 2 losses of 0.0% due to "Combat - Aggression"
The Missions
Step 1: Impetus
Agent: Roineron Aviviere, beacon in Dodixie
Standing Increase: +6.5102% Impetus Corporation at Social III
The agent is at a beacon in space in Dodixie. He will send you to Gian Parele in Tolle, who is at a beacon named "Impetus Tolle Studio", 4 jumps away. This mission can be accepted remotely.
Step 2: The Tolle Scar
Agent: Gian Parele, found at "Impetus Tolle Studio" beacon in Tolle
Standing Increase: +6.5102% Impetus Corporation at Social III
Mission Location: Tolle
Enemy: Rogue Drones.
Recommendations: EMP damage.
Microwarpdrive: Works (Retribution Expansion)
Pocket 1: Rogue drones spawn and auto-aggro as you approach within 20km of acceleration gate. No unusual drone aggro. Single group: 6x frigates/destroyers, 6x cruisers/battlecruisers, 2x battleships
Pocket 2: All rogue drones present and auto-aggro upon arrival after activating pocket 1 gate. No unusual drone aggro. Single group: 5x frigates/destroyers, 6x cruisers/battlecruisers, 7x battleships
Loot: About 1000m3 of refinables, and typically lousy (for drones) salvage. Two drone structures drop no loot.
Step 3: Priority One
Agent: Gian Parele, found at "Impetus Tolle Studio" beacon in Tolle
Standing Increase: +6.5102% Impetus Corporation at Social III
Mission Location: Carirgnottin (one jump from Tolle)
Enemy: Minmatar (no standing loss).
Recommendations: Thermal damage. Fit afterburner and salvager if possible, there's a fair amount of ground to cover and the salvager is required for mission completion in pocket 3.
Pocket 1: No enemies. Proceed through acceleration gate 46km away.
Pocket 2: Arrive 42km from next gate. Single spawn appears during approach, all at a range of 12-20km. 6x frigates/cruisers, 4x cruisers/battlecruisers, 3x battleships. Multiple frigates target paint your ship, take them out quickly as they significantly increase incoming DPS. The gate is not locked and can be used even if there are enemies in the pocket.
Pocket 3: 2x frigates/destroyers, 5x cruiser/battlecruisers, 3 battleships at a distance of 23km-37km from arrival point. No aggro. Shuttle wreck 49km away needs to be salvaged for mission completion after all enemies are dead. Not sure if frigates have any special attacks, I killed them first. DPS in this pocket is fairly heavy, I had to warp out once in an omni-tanked Machariel with a Gist-X large shield booster. The cruisers were surprisingly tough to damage, tanked about as well as the battleships, so should probably kill the BS first. You can salvage the shuttle before all the enemies are destroyed.
Loot: Not much, about 350m3, but lots of Republic Fleet insignias: Commander II, High Captain I, Private III and Midshipman II and III.
Step 4: The Averon Exchange
Agent: Gian Parele, found at "Impetus Tolle Studio" beacon in Tolle
Standing Increase: +6.5102% Impetus Corporation at Social III
Mission Location: Averon (two jumps from Tolle)
Enemy: Mercenaries
Microwarpdrive: Works (Retribution expansion)
Single pocket. 6x Pator 6 cruisers send you a message and warp out, followed by 3 waves of spawns.
Spawn 1, all within 5km: 3x Merc Commanders (cruisers), 5x wingmen (four of them webbed me instantly), 5x elite fighter frigates. They orbit very very close, and due to the extreme webbing, drones are vital here.
Spawn 2, at approx 10km: Appears when all of Spawn 1 is dead. 4x mercenary lieutenants, 5x mercenary corporals (all medium size). Spawn 3 does generous DPS, so probably a good idea to not kill the last rat in this spawn until you've regained some cap and tank.
Spawn 3, at approx 25km: Appears when all of Spawn 2 is dead. 3x mercenary commanders (medium), 5x mercenary overlords (battleships). The battleships hit hard but go down quickly to thermal damage, so target them first. Mission completes when the last battleship is dead.
Tip: Start moving using your afterburner or microwarp drive as soon as you arrive to the location to put some distance between you and the enemy. By the time I was done with spawns 1 and 2 I had put about 80km distance between me and spawn 3. At this point, I stopped my ship, launched sentry drones (Bouncer II) and took out all enemy ships rather quickly with no problem tanking the incoming damage (I used one Large Armor Repairer).
Loot: About 1200m3, typical merc loot, nothing special.
Step 5: A Different Kind of Director
Agent: Gian Parele, found at "Impetus Tolle Studio" beacon in Tolle
Standing Increase: +6.5102% Impetus Corporation at Social III
Report to Eron Viette at Stetille II - Impetus Publisher, 8 jumps away. Note that you'll really only be there for one mission, so you might just want to bring your tractors and salvagers in cargo rather than bring a dedicated salvaging ship.
Step 6: Assistance
NOTE: Don't let the low reward fool you - this mission can be insanely difficult. Or very very easy, depending on your tactics. See below.
Agent: Eron Viette, in station Stetille II - Impetus Publisher
Standing Increase: +6.5102% Impetus Corporation at Social III
Mission Location: Stetille
Enemy: Mercenaries and Minmatar (no standing loss).
IMPORTANT: This mission requires you to kill 3 waves, but the last two waves are trivial, just one battleship in the second wave and two BS in the third wave. The first wave is where all the action is. When you warp to the location, you'll need to approach Audalle Roire who is approx 30km away. When you get within 20km or so, he will speak to you, and the first wave will spawn fairly close, within 15km, and close quickly. The wave is just a few ships at first, but more battleships arrive every few seconds, until there are 12 battleships total. The DPS you will receive initially seems tankable, but ramps up -very- fast to insane levels. Don't even think about it - as soon as the first few ships arrive, JUST INITIATE WARP OUT IMMEDIATELY, and good luck with your tank holding if you delay at all. There were no warp scramblers the two times I did it, but do expect webbing. Then warp back at 100km distance and start moving away as soon as they're in range, sniping from as far as you can - for your projectile users, use arty, even if you're in a Machariel. Their ships are fast and will catch up to even a 180m/s BS well before you can take them all out. At greater than 70km, they'll miss you altogether. At greater than 50km, the damage is tankable without too much trouble. Much closer, and the DPS will start climbing sharply again, don't be shy about warping out again and come back at 0km if you need to - the remainder of the wave should now be a good 100km from the starting point, and you can repeat the process. Do it this way, and it'll be easy - I handled it rather easily and painlessly in a Maelstrom. Try even briefly to tank the 12 BS's at close range, and, well, I hope your ship was insured. Oh, yes, a signal amplifier or sensor booster to extend your targeting range is probably a good choice for this mission as well, since you really want to stay as far away as possible. And, needless to say, an afterburner wouldn't be amiss either, if you can stay far enough away you shouldn't need to tank much at all. Even MWD should work, though I haven't tested it - but I'd just do regular AB anyway, the signature increase likely isn't worth it.
Spawn 1: Spawns when you approach Audalle Roire, see note above. Frigates: 3x Mercenary Wingmen (web), 4x Mercenary Elite Fighters. Cruisers: 6x Minmatar Pator 6. Battleships: 12x Mercenary Overlords.
Spawn 2: 1x Mercenary Overlord. Spawns when one of the battleships in Spawn 1 is killed, no way to know which is the trigger. Killing this ship completes the mission objective.
Spawn 3: 2x Mercenary Overlord. Spawns when Spawn 2 is killed.
Step 7: The High or Low Road
Agent: Eron Viette, in station Stetille II - Impetus Publisher
Standing Increase: +0.0666% Impetus Corporation at Social III
At this point you must choose to continue along one of two different branches, one that stays in hisec and the other in losec. For the initial writing of this walkthrough, I am choosing the hisec route. Perhaps in 3 months I'll fill in the losec route, if no one else gets to it first. In the meantime, it is reportedly possible to do all of the combat in the losec route in a PVP fit assault frigate, which I can't ride yet. In 3 months I should have covops and assault frigs and can try it then. For now, I can help the other carebears.
Hisec Path Step 8: Into the Black
Agent: Eron Viette, in station Stetille II - Impetus Publisher
Standing Increase: +6.5102% Impetus Corporation at Social III
Report to Mourmarie Mone in her ship in space in Noghere, 8 jumps from Stetille, 7 jumps from Tolle and Dodixie.
Hisec Path Step 9: Poor Man's Shakedown
Agent: Mourmarie Mone in Noghere.
Standing Increase: +5.2081% Federal Intelligence Office at Social III
Mission Location: Chamerout (two jumps from Noghere)
Enemy: "Independent" Minmatar (no standing loss)
IMPORTANT: Save a location in pocket 2, so if you have to warp out you can get back, or you can wait over down time for the mission to reset to get a second gate key. The issue is that the Shanty Town key you acquire in pocket 1 -is- consumed when you take the gate to pocket 2. If you have to warp out of pocket 2 for any reason, such as running out of ammo (happened to me) or you simply take too much damage, you cannot get back in the pocket without a book mark. For projectile users, I advise autocannons as a lot of enemies orbit close, but also an afterburner because some of the BS's in pocket 2 do a lot of damage (looks like EM to me, for the record, which I did have a hole in) and stay at far enough range that it's very difficult to break their tank - which is, by the way, what caused me to run out of ammo and then require warping out due to damage when my drones weren't enough to finish the job.
Pocket 1: No enemies on arrival. You need to blow up the various structures - "Asteroid Micro-Colony Minor", "Minmatar Bunker" and "Habitation Module - Residential" - one at a time. Some will drop cans with trade goods. Others will spawn 1-3 cruisers and 1-3 battleships. None of them are difficult to kill. Eventually one will drop the "Shanty Town Gate Clearance" key (watch local chat for the message indicating it has dropped). This will unlock the gate to the 2nd pocket. Pocket 1 as a whole is quite easy. WARNING: The key -is- consumed upon use. Don't bother blowing up the Asteroid Installation or the very tough Asteroid Prime Colony, they contain nothing.
Pocket 2: Same idea, blow up structures, but the ones that spawn rats contain less cruisers and more battleships, and some of them - the "Independent Veterans" in particular - are quite a bit tougher than the ones in pocket 1. Blow up structures one at a time until one spawns the Elder. Killing him completes the mission.
Loot: Approximately 800m3. Loot quality unimpressive, but by far the best salvage of any step of the arc so far, over 5 million. Plus all the trade goods from the structures.
Hisec Path Step 10: Underground Circus
Agent: Mourmarie Mone in Noghere.
Standing Increase: +5.2081% Federal Intelligence Office at Social III
Mission Location: Castlemon (one jump from Noghere)
Enemy: Serpentis, Angels (so bring thermal and explosive ammo for this one)
Pocket 1: Two groups. First group is 6x Serpentis cruisers called "Lustadores" that do not aggro when you engage the second group. Second group is 3x Angel Cruisers, 3x Serpentis Cruisers, 4x Angel Battleships, 3x Serpentis Battleships. The closest is at approx. 30km range. No auto-aggro, either on first entry or even if you return after attacking and then warping out. DPS is quite heavy within 40km range, recommend moving a good distance out (over 55km) and sniping. Even at that range, they hurt considerably. Once group 2 is dead, close in for group 1 as they will frequently sensor damp, killing your targeting range. A couple of the habitation modules drop tourists and various trade goods. Pleasure hubs in this pocket only drop drugs. I did not check any of the walls, bunkers, lookouts or elevators.
Pocket 2: 7x Serpentis cruisers, 3x Angel cruisers, 3x Serpentis battleships and 3x Angel battleships. Immediate aggro from all enemies. I speed tanked the mission at 500m/s at around 50km range from the closest, which was a pain as the Serpentis ships repeately sensor damp, but I had a signal amplifier so it was bearable, might not have been if I hadn't had that. The DPS *seemed* considerably lower in general than it was in the first pocket, but I didn't experience what would happen attempting to sit still and tank at close range. Once they're all dead, take out the Ringmaster Pleasure Hub, it takes a while to beat it down. When you do, a can full of drugs drops, and the Ringmaster pops out in a cruiser, not hard to kill, and you get the item you need from the wreck. No other structures in this pocket dropped anything at all.
Loot: Meh. Bout what you'd expect from mixed Angels and Serpentis. Ditto for the salvage. Got 17 million in bounties though.
Hisec Path Step 11: Intaki Chase
Agent: Mourmarie Mone in Noghere.
Standing Increase: +5.2081% Federal Intelligence Office at Social III
Mission Location: Pemene (three jumps from Noghere)
Enemy: Mostly Gallente, plus 3 Minmatar cruisers (no standing loss)
Single pocket. Blow up the Intaki Control Tower, which takes a good bit of damage to bring down. Destroying it spawns 2x frigates, 5x cruisers and 5x battleships. Two of these battleships are triggers for 3-4 additional "veteran" battleship spawns.
These Veteran Battleships are -very- fast and within 20 km they do obscene damage. Even doing 500 m/s in a Machariel with AB, they easily caught up to me and I had to warp out, as they easily broke my tank once they got close. Definitely another long range sniping mission, and will probably require at least one warp out to reestablish distance from the veteran BSs. Do not be shy about warping out, they pile on the damage very quickly, and your normal instincts about how long your tank can survive may not be correct for these enemies.
These battleships seemed to turn around and fly back to their spawn point (even though they still had you locked) once they got some distance from it (somewhere in the 60 to 100 km range, sadly I didn't measure it precisely). This behavior could probably be taken advantage of. Another good strategy (that worked for a pair of Myrmidon pilots--after we lost one of them, sadly) was to use a Small drone to get initial aggro and speed tank the crazy fast battleships, and then use other Medium and Heavy drones plus distance sniping to kill them.
Mission completes when every enemy is dead. None of the other structures contain anything.
Hisec Path Step 12: Rat In A Corner
Agent: Mourmarie Mone in Noghere.
Standing Increase: +4.1632% Federal Intelligence Office at Social III
Report to Ascain Adeset in station Mesybier X - Transtellar Shipping Storage (two jumps from Noghere)
Step 13: Places to Hide
Agent: Ascain Adeset in Mesybier
Standing Increase: +0.0341% TransStellar Shipping
When you arrive and speak to Ascain Adeset, you have your second decision of the arc to make, and this one has 3 options. One of them, "Octomet Plantation", is in losec and the mission text suggests doing it in a heavy frigate or battlecruiser. The second, "Oldest Profession", requires travel through losec but the mission itself is apparently in hisec. The third choice is "Little Fingers", the hisec choice, and for this walkthrough that's the path I'll continue to take. Again, I'll try out the losec options in 3 months, or if someone else wants to do and document them here before that, go for it.
Hisec Path Step 14: Little Fingers
Agent: Ascain Adeset in Mesybier
Mission Location: Mesybier
Standing Increase: +3.2551% TransStellar Shipping at Social III
Single pocket, normal space. Four waves, each one appearing after the last one is wiped out.
Wave 1: Warping to 0 puts you within 20k of 5x Gallente battleships, which aggro immediately. They do very heavy damage at close range, so I afterburned away and sniped from 80km, where the damage was minimal. The battleships are quite slow, about 100m/s.
Wave 2: 4x Elite Frigates and 4x Elite Battleships. The BS's are insanely fast, easily running down my machariel at 500m/s. Didn't seem to do that much damage though. The last frigate and the last battleship each dropped a can. One contained a legal drug (Amphere 9) and the other a Tattered Doll. The frigates are actually slower than the battleships and were easily sniped from a distance.
Wave 3: 6x rookie battleships. Extremely easy even at very close range.
Wave 4: 4x elite cruisers. They were very fast, but I was 90km from their spawn point and had no difficulty sniping them down before they got close.
Loot: Perhaps I was just lucky, but I got excellent loot (several meta 4's) and salvage (over 7 mil) from this mission.
IMPORTANT: Unfortunately I didn't think to blow up any of the structures in this mission before turning it in. As a result, I did not get the "Carry On Token" that allows you to bypass two pockets of enemies in the following mission.
Step 15: Carry On
Agent: Ascain Adeset in Mesybier
Mission Location: Osmeden (two jumps from Mesybier)
Standing Increase: +3.2551% TransStellar Shipping at Social III
Enemy: Gallente
Warping to the location reveals two acceleration gates. One of them leads directly to pocket 3 and requires the "Carry On Token" obtainable from structures in the previous step. I forgot to blow up the structures, so I follow the longer path (which I'd want to for the purposes of documentation anyway, so no big loss)
Pocket 1: 6x Cruise Missile Batteries, 3x Cruisers, 8x Battleships. One veteran of each type of ship. The enemy is 50km away, and aggroes immediately. I took out the missile batteries first. Overall a fairly easy pocket.
Pocket 2: 2x Cruise Missile Batteries, 2x Heavy Missile Batteries, 8x Cruisers, 6x Battleships. Enemy is 20km and aggroes immediately, damage is considerable, recommend getting some distance. The battleships are quite slow. Again, I took the batteries out first, and again, the pocket wasn't particularly difficult.
Pocket 3: Where you wind up if you used the Carry On Token. 4x frigates, 4x cruisers, 8x battleships, 3x freighters, 2x industrials. No aggro, 50km distance. Take out the veterans first, the damage from the amateur/rookie ships is negligible even at close range. Also not a very difficult pocket, or mission overall for that matter. The freighters take a -long- time to bring down, by the way, along the lines of a tough structure.
Loot: None of the structures drop any loot. Salvage was quite good, over 8 mil. Freighters dropped many goods - in my case 1200 water, 3520 oxygen, 47 scientists and 29 exotic dancers (woohoo!)
Step 16: Studio I
Agent: Ascain Adeset in Mesybier
Mission Location: Osmeden (two jumps from Mesybier)
Standing Increase: +3.2551% TransStellar Shipping at Social III
Enemy: Gallente
NOTE: Base reward for this mission is 30 million ISK, with approx 1.5 mil bonus.
Pocket 1: 4x frigates, 5x cruisers, 5x battleships, at about 50km range. Aggroed immediately. Take the veteran/elites out first, they hurt a lot more than the others.
Pocket 2: 9x cruisers, 11x battleships, at about 55km from gate warpin, immediate aggro. Some of the cruisers can drain cap, so take those out first, then target anything else "elite" next. Note that once in if you bookmark you can warp to it from outside, don't need to take the gate. Once they're all dead, start working on the Studio - I recommend doing so from as far out as you can deal decent damage, so that the coming spawn doesn't appear on top of you. When you hit hull, a tough spawn of 6x elite frigates and 6x elite battleships appear. The BS's are very fast (I estimate about 1000m/s) and hit very hard once within 20km, so blowing them up until they get within that range and then warping out to reestablish distance is prudent. I took the frigates out first at a distance so can't report if they web or anything else at close range.
Loot: Nothing special, other than a (I presume useless) "Holoreel: Wanted For Love" that dropped in a can from the studio. Salvage was about 4 mil, expected better from such a huge number of battleships, perhaps I was just unlucky.
Step 17: Showtime
Agent: Ascain Adeset in Mesybier
Mission Location: Adacyne (three jumps from Mesybier)
Standing Increase: +3.2551% TransStellar Shipping at Social III
Enemy: Gallente and Minmatar
Single pocket. Every enemy in this mission is elite. Warp in 60k from 5x battleships, 3x cruisers and 5x frigates. Kill the frigates first, then *all but one* of the cruisers, then *all but one* of the battleships, as the last cruiser killed spawns another 5 cruisers, and the last battleship spawns 6 more battleships plus a named BS "Rosulf Fririk". Now, in previous missions you might have gathered that my main technique was sniping from as far as I could get, and you'd be right. But this mission I couldn't do that way, the tanks on these guys are too tough to overcome from a large distance in the time their missiles can break a good tank. And since it was mostly missile damage, the incoming DPS isn't much worse up close than it is at a distance. So for this one, it was autocannons all the way and getting in their face. Still required some warpouts, but at least I was able to kill the initial spawns one at a time this way.
Another way to crack this mission is to fly a Heavy Assault Cruiser with an afterburner. With this approach, speed is your friend. Don't use a microwarpdrive, however, as that will increase your signature radius and make you much easier to hit. Orbit the battleships at 500 m/sec or more and they won't be able to do much damage - but you have to keep transversal velocity high to avoid damage. An armor-tanked Ishtar loaded with Ogre II drones is perfect for this - but watch when you engage Rosulf Fririk, as he will switch targets and start killing your drones.
Anyways, once you're down to the last cruiser and BS, kill the cruiser, then the 5 new cruiser spawns, and finally the last BS to trigger the last major spawn. Funnily enough, the final spawn of 6 BS's plus the named was incredibly easy, I just orbited with afterburner at 15km around each battleship and melted them with my autocannons, and they couldn't touch me (granted, this was in a 500 m/s Machariel, might not work in a painfully slow Maelstrom, heh). At any rate, when Rosulf Fririk dies, he drops a can containing the goal you've been chasing all this time. Time to go back to Merybier and claim your prize!
Loot: Decent salvage and loot.
Step 18: Where's The Line?
Agent: Ascain Adeset in Mesybier
Standing Increase: +0.0352% TransStellar Shipping
And now comes your final choice in the arc - send the kid you spent all this time rescuing back to his family, or give him back to the bad guys. Saving him gets you the quest "Safe Returns", which does involve one last bit of combat and gets you a "Black Eagle Drone Link Augmentor", which extends drone range by 26km (This is better even than a Tech 2 DLA and requires much less skill to use). If you choose to give him to the Syndicate, you get the quest "Everybody Has A Price" which nets you a Syndicate Cloaking Device, which is a better Improved Cloaking Device II, with better sensor recalibration time and shorter reactivation delay. Both prizes are nice.,
"Safe Returns" gives faction standing to Gallente. "Everybody Has A Price" gives faction standing to the Syndicate.
He went with "Safe Returns"
"Good" Path Step 19: Safe Return
Agent: Ascain Adeset in Mesybier
Standing Increase: +3.2551% TransStellar Shipping and +11.5% Gallente Faction at Social III. No derived standing hits, positive or negative.
Reward: Black Eagle Drone Link Augmentor, 26 km bonus to drone range.
Mission Location: Enedore (9 jumps from Mesybier)
Put the kid in the can, and you get a spawn of 2x frigates, 2x cruisers and 7x battleships. Speed tanked with autocannons, not too hard a fight. Mission is flagged as complete once spawn appears, so it's not necessary to fight the spawn.
