Peoples thoughts on the space missions.

[Neo_Psy]

I was just interested in what the rest of the community thought about space missions.

 

I personally feel as if the difficulty jumps from one extreme to the other. It starts off quite easy when you first dip your toe into the beginner missions, then very very quickly the difficulty jumps to the harder level. Of course, the game expects you to upgrade your ship to keep up with the steep curve. But I found that for a player with little resources, obtaining the upgrades is a- well pain in the backside frankly. And if you cannot depend on credits to buy the upgrades you have to grind a huge amount of fleet commendations. Which would not be so bad if the space missions you can actually complete at your tier did not award such a pitifully small amount of commendations for your time spent doing the easier ones.

 

Well today, I finally managed to get my hands on most of the purple grade 7 upgrades and also the utility abilities, such as the shield charger etc. But I am still finding the missions frustrating and difficult. I want to get better at it, and finish the grade 7 and up missions now, but honestly I feel my desire to do so waning, just because of the sheer tedium of having to try and try again. For example, one of the missions available to me now (I forget the name of it) I get to one point where all of a sudden an obstacle appears before me, and it seems whichever direction I swerve towards in an effort to avoid it, I still end up crashing right into it. Avoiding the damn thing would be trivial if the ship itself was not on a rail with limited manoeuvrability.

 

I could learn and beat the mission, but I am finding myself unwilling to continue. Especially since the rewards seem lackluster. The only nice thing is the XP from successful missions.

 

I just feel like there is no comfortable intermediate, it is either ridiculously easy, or irritatingly difficult.

 

Which is a shame for me personally because I really want to like the space missions.

Sorry for the rant.

Edited August 19, 2017 by Neo_Psy

[orangenee]

I remember last time I tried one of the Grade 3 or above ones.

 

All was reasonable until this corvette showed up and bang, bang, bang, dead. I was grade 5 across the board.

 

It really spikes after "grade 1 or above" doesn't it?

[Icykill_]

Take the space missions off rails and they would be great.

Or even better, make those maps GSF maps with the same goals and with half the MOBs. Then make one team defend and another attack. The team with the most kills and objective points wins.

[orangenee]

Maybe add some i-frames to the barrel roll at least.....

[WorldSmasher]

SpaceX is awesome! I wonder. Will Elon Musk really be able to lead the first private business to send probes, or even people to Mars? He's a real genius!

 

EDIT:

 

Oh... Never mind. I forgot about space missions being a part of this game. I've never done one - even once. And I'm a Founder....

 

You'll laugh when you read this. It's cause I don't want to put dings on my Starship..... (joking)

[SaveTheMonkeys]

I've always enjoyed them, although they do become boring after a while, since there are only a handful of templates with higher grade enemies as you progress.

The grade 7 missions are something else entirely. I've only ever cleared them on one character, and only then by dying a lot to rehearse the patterns. Your mouse, WASD keys and barrel-rolls are all important for dodging obstacles. The EMP blast and power conversion upgrades are essential, and timing is very tight - working out where to concentrate your attacks at various points is key.

One of them involves taking out 3 frigates, and IIRC, the key in that case was using the EMP as soon as they appear behind you. That'll do serious damage, and the EMP will be recharged by the end of the mission when you need it again.

[Zhedzaban]

I used to play them all the time when the game first launched as they were a great way to speed levelling up. But they quickly became repetitive and boring.

 

In my opinion they need to take them off the rails and make them multiplayer. It would be pretty cool to have a raid of 8-16 players with a trinity of ship types (fighter, bomber, repair ship) and you worked collectively to destroy a cruiser or space station etc.

[BlackSilverRoar]

I forgot all about space missions; Yes, it does get very erratic in difficultly and for a skimpy payoff. Space missions - No thx.

[aerockyul]

Luckily, as an achievement hunter, we're not required to do any of the missions for Grade 7 and higher. But those award the most commendations. I would like to finish them at least once, but I'll have to dig up guides on them because I last all of 30 seconds in them, with 100% fully upgraded ship slots. It's all about the movement at that point, and I don't know the secrets yet.

I'm relieved to have them all done. They were fun while they lasted, but it was definitely time-consuming and expensive.

[Asmodesu]

To be honest, I am the weirdo that loves the space missions. Something a bit different for me, and I kind of like the grind to get enough upgrades for the heroic versions even though I have never successfully completed one of the hardest bunch yet. Coming from someone who just got to 100 GC rank for the first time on a toon today, I am slow so a grind isn't so grindy when I'm patient and take my time doing stuff only when I feel like it.

[Neo_Psy]

Interesting, so it seems I am not alone in thinking the space missions could be so much better. The idea of taking them off the rails seems like a great start. I think perhaps I will focus more on PVP space fighting and regular PVP for now.

 

I'm sure I shall go back to the space missions again if I am ever feeling masochistic.

[cyrusramsey]

I thought they were an interesting diversion when I first tried them, but they were much too easy until they suddenly became impossible, with the way I'd been playing. It didn't feel interesting enough to me to learn how to get past that sudden bump, so never bothered again.

[Kheld]

I enjoyed the Space Missions a lot, but you do get tired of them eventually.

 

This game really needs a solo / group free flight PvE Space Mission section, this game is STAR WARS afterall, not Gear-Grind-Wars.....

[AlrikFassbauer]

I like them -. except the Heroics (those which give reputation).

The Heroics were always too difficult for me, even after several tries.

Edited August 20, 2017 by AlrikFassbauer

[Transcendent]

Of course, the game expects you to upgrade your ship to keep up with the steep curve. But I found that for a player with little resources, obtaining the upgrades is a- well pain in the backside frankly.

 

Luckily I ran all the space missions on rails back when you could buy the top upgrades from the cartel market.

[JepFareborn]

Luckily I ran all the space missions on rails back when you could buy the top upgrades from the cartel market.

 

Yeah I had purchased them off of Cartel Market years ago as well - and its a real p!$$3r that the game devs LIE about those upgrades being 'Unlocked for Character in Collections' as it so visibly and plainly states.

Edited August 20, 2017 by JepFareborn

[psandak]

OK so let's just get a few things straight:

 

Space Combat Missions were abandoned in favor of Galactic Starfighter (GSF). So the chances of them making modifications to the existing space combat missions is nil.

 

And even if they did go back and revamp the missions, they would not be able to take them off rails without significant resource investment for one very simple reason: 90% of the space you see in those missions is little more than mat paintings; we fly through a tube. To break out of that tube would be a monumental undertaking: it took Blizzard 6 years and 3 expansions to permit flying mounts in the original world of WoW for the same reason; the skies of Azeroth were not designed or intended to be flown through. IF they ever go back to single players space combat missions chances are it will be a complete scrapping of the existing in favor of new missions using the GSF models and code.

 

The Grade 7/Heroic missions were a foray into P2W...it did not go over well at all. Long story short, Originally grade 7 ship parts were only available on the CM (IIRC about half the parts were purchase direct only and the other half was buy the schematics off the CM and craft them using a cybdertech), and as many have discovered grade 7 parts are required to complete heroic space combat missions (even with G7 parts the missions are tough to complete). Therefore one had to pay to even have a chance to complete the heroic space missions; AKA a "paywall".

 

That said, I played them a lot at game launch because they were an easy source of credits that could repeat daily, and back then credits were a LOT harder to come by. I would purchase ship parts upgrades bit by bit (weapons first, then defensive upgrades), but once I got to grade 5 parts, all the missions except the last non-heroic one became easy (the challenge I would give myself was how much time could I spend not shooting anything because I had killed everything). When grade 7/Heroics came out I had the credits by then and bought the CM Only parts off the GTN (someone else bought the parts on the CM and posted them on the GTN). I tried the heroic missions and failed miserably. I almost got one of them done...and I gave up and never looked back; I do not even bother with the initial story mission when a character gets their ship for the first time.

[orangenee]

In light of that last post I guess my dreams of actually being able to complete the entire list are going to be riddled by excessive quantities of sedative or just not going to happen.

 

More redundant abandoned content. It's been "Manaaned".

[SnoowMeow]

The Heroic PvE space missions are hard, but not impossible. Make it easier on yourself and wait until you have all of the absolute best components before trying them.

Dulfy has a guide sheet for each mission that I found helpful:

http://dulfy.net/2012/12/13/swtor-patch-1-6-space-missions-guide/

 

Start with the "easy" ones. Crucial to success: manage your power properly, move with all of the wasd/mouse/roll buttons you have, stay on target, use your EMP and EWP cooldowns at the correct places only. Finally, and this is necessary on most of the Heroic missions, DO NOT crash into anything.

 

Cha Rabaa I found to be the hardest of all of them. I had to watch an expert's video and learn how to avoid the asteroids. I never use my blasters in that mission: missiles, torpedo, EMP only. I flew that mission twice without shooting blasters or missiles at anything at all, just flying to get the pattern down to avoid the asteroids. It's a pain, but it can be done.

 

For the achievement hunters, there's a mount you can buy (Tirsa Champion) only with max reputation with the space missions, BoL, and it is needed for the Gearhead achievement. I did the missions on two characters (1 imp, 1 pub) so I could grind up the reputation faster, since the heroics are on a weekly refresh. Once you can do the missions in 1 try consistently, you can do all 6 (plus impossible sector/ascendancy barrier) in about an hour per toon, and you'll max rep pretty fast.

 

Last tip - GSF also yields fleet commendations, which are required to buy many of the Grade 7 critical ship parts. If you don't want to grind Impossible sector for centuries to get comms (who does?), fly some GSF, and supplement with your favorite easy low-level space operation missions.

[Transcendent]

I had to watch an expert's video and learn how to avoid the asteroids.

 

Actually that's solid advice, YouTube had some very useful fly-through videos for pretty much all of the missions, especially from one player who had all of the missions listed (and was easy to follow / gave good advice).

 

Sadly can't find it, but no doubt some digging will suffice.

[merovejec]

Space missions were a great part of the game, at start they gave a lot of credits and XP which was then adjusted. I was grinding reputation for the achievement of the mount and really enjoyed them.

 

For the Heroic missions, yeah they r pretty tought but once you get the hang of it, it will seem too easy for you. After all its just repeating the same stuff over and over.

[Wolfgangpiffath]

Always liked them.

[Vagessel]

I agree their difficulty level skyrockets from zero to frustrating in a zip. I love the locales and the feel but I simply cannot do the higher levels and have not been able for over 5 years. They could be tweaked. Or the accessibility of the necessary upgrades could be tweaked. Preferably both.

[Foambreaker]

Three strikes and you're out?

 

However after rails and GSF is there really any point in another try?

 

Besides anyone that wants to play spaceships in an MMO is going to play a certain mature spaceship MMO which shall go unnamed.

[IntegrationArch]

Meh......

 

Joystick

https://youtu.be/2eehpN8TmBw

Edited August 22, 2017 by IntegrationArch