Super confused - 1st space tech delivery absurdly hard?

[ganz]

Just got the game, started on normal, did the 1st mission to vaporize two ships, then tried to share space faring tech with a recommended race.

The tooltip noted this might be super easy if I haven't done this before, and might be done in a couple turns!

NOPE!

There are several dozen turrets scattered all over the deploy zone, and getting anywhere close to them unleashes hundreds of ships that shred me to pieces.

I am baffled - what am I doing wrong?  This can't possibly be the intended experience.

[BisonMD]

Jack up engine strength all the way and find a path that gets you to the drop zone, you can reach it in about 3 turns. Sometimes the placement and types of turrets make this impossible, but it hasn't taken me more than 2 tries to beat the delivery with less than 5 races spacefaring. Once the tutorial has given you the ship abilities you can get cloaking technology which makes you invisible to the turrets, trivializing these kinds of missions.

[ganz]

Gotcha, didn't realize it was reasonable to just go diving through so many turrets.  Thanks!

[Misery]

Gotcha, didn't realize it was reasonable to just go diving through so many turrets.  Thanks!

Particularly on the lower difficulties, this is often the best approach.... but look at the different turrets in your path before you run over them.  Never try to pass directly over a missile turret, as it can squash you in a single monstrous attack if you do this.

There's a muuuuuuch better way though, which is to get a cloaking ability of some sort and bring it into the mission.  Very first turn, use it.  After that, crank engines to max, and make a beeline through to the goal.  There's literally zero risk here; as long as you cloak on the very first turn, nothing will fire at you at all.


That being said, there's some definite problems with this mission type right now;  I'd figured this was going to be the case, but this didn't get changed during the testing period.  I'm gonna try to bring it to the dev's attention, because I keep hearing complaints about this mission type over and over again.  Heck, just a few minutes ago someone I know was asking me how in the heck to deal with it.

Actually, I think I'm going to go write this one up right now, before I forget.

[Logorouge]

Eh, the exact same thing happened to me. So I did a quick tech stealing mission to get stronger and the tutorial unlocked my special abilities. "Cloaking device? That would have been handy earlier."

[Misery]

Allright, I went and made a Mantis entry for this, which can be found here: http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=14290

As I mention on there I think this is a high-priority problem right now; it can give new players a very negative first-time experience, and that's very definitely a BAD thing indeed.

[zespri]

I was actually ready to put the game down because of this - thought that the game was not for me, and decided to check the forums one last time before I do this. (Checked it earlier but was not able to find any relevant info) and lo and behold - the top thread is about exactly my issue.

Going to give it another go now.

[Shrugging Khan]

Another fun but risky way is to get an afterburner, turn up engine power all the way, and just rush through. So far it always worked out for me, resulting in 2-turn victories... 

[Toranth]

Another fun but risky way is to get an afterburner, turn up engine power all the way, and just rush through. So far it always worked out for me, resulting in 2-turn victories... 

This works great until you accidentally beeline straight up the firing path of a Wall Turret... my first death, losing an easy mission in less than two seconds.

[Tridus]

If you are playing on normal and have a weapon like the energy blaster, set it to autofire and move in more slowly. The turrets are very fragile against an energy blaster and you can take a LOT of them out safely.

You'll definitely want to avoid the beacons because of all the ships they spawn, so you may have to go around the long way. But the turrets themselves can be taken out.

[pepboy]

As others have mentioned, the satellites are pretty weak long range, or you can rev the engines.  Based on my playthroughs I usually start with a cloaking device or a way to regen shields immediately, though they are not always equipped by default.  Either one can help you get through that last push.

[Draco18s]

Based on my experiences:

The first one you do always kills you.  Then you avoid it for a while and get access to your superweapons.  I mean, special abilities.  Then you drop in and do science drops/raids with impunity.

Then you do your first "destroy spy satellites" or similar mission, where there's baaasically nothing on the map...and get yourself killed for being too cocky.

Happened to me last night and one of my friends as well.

[Azurian]

First tutorial should be target practice taking out space buildings with no flagships and only small ships. Then once u get special abilities,  the flag ships get teleported in.

[6xsnake6x]

I also got obliterated on my first attempt. But then I discovered that you have to click on the quest (at the top of the screen) instead of heading to the planet and clicking on space tech option.