Tides of avarice: Taking on the VIG

[Blargenth]

So I'm following the protectyon story and I've paid off the syndicate adv satellite. But they still hate me and the 'kill this guy' mission is still active. I don't really have a very strong ship, my most combat-heavy ship being a Cobra. And I can't seem to just sell Protectyon to earn enough credits to buy a more advanced ship without pissing off my Teldari friend.

Am I stuck having them hate me? Should I back track so I can come back into his campaign more prepared? Or is his approval not worth backtracking to a much older save instead of selling as much as I can to finally build a fleet to take on the VIG?

Also what would you guys recommend to take on the VIG; in terms of ship type and size.

[jlehtone]

Someone did claim that they did the dirty deed with Erlking.

Myself, I had couple dozen destroyers and one fully armed carrier. (Well, I'd had had two, if I had not finished the mission before my Raptor did reach the sector.) I don't buy destroyers, so my fleet hasn't taken much credits to assemble. (I also don't dip into "plots" before I'm ready for anything.)


Can you live with the angry VIG for a while, or is that totally blocking your business plan?

[Blargenth]

Can you live with the angry VIG for a while, or is that totally blocking your business plan?

It kind of is, even outside of VIG territory they are harassing my trade route. A good night's sleep made me realize I should probably back track.

[Imperial Good]

The minimum needed to complete the mission when siding against Northriver is to pay-off VIG and destroy the target station.

• Paying-off VIG locks their reputation at such a level that they will not automatically attack your civilian (miner, trader, station, e.t.c.) assets. VIG probably will pirate you though.
• Destroying the station does not give an immediate benefit but is required to complete the mission sequence. Might be a good idea to do this last.
• Obtaining the Astrid is optional and the mission will disappear when the sequence ends. Boso Ta will help you by "hacking" the Astrid making the Northriver pilot bail sooner and more reliably than normal. The Astrid is fully reliant on its L tier shields and has very little hull, as such Ion Blasters (sold by ARG, anti-shield) are very effective against it. Nemesis and Katana should have little difficulty. Dragon might have some difficulty due to its low shields. May also be possible in Cobra and Falax frigates. I would not recommend a S ship as the decent laser turrets on the Astrid will likely such ships.

After the mission sequence is completed, your reputation with VIG is set back to what it was originally.

It is not required to purge all VIG space of their doom fleets, and instead some strategic play can be used to damage/assassinate just the target station before VIG doom fleets arrive. I have not done this approach so what follows is theories and speculation. A small wing of very fast S ships armed with Heavy Torpedoes might be able to significantly damage parts of stations and flee before their forces show up in strength. Sacrificial fleets/ships could be used as distractions to lure their defensive forces away from the target to buy more time for heavy ships like destroyers to work on the station. Strategically destroying defence module surface elements and deploying a few hundred Laser Turrets around the station might provide sufficient fire power to not only destroy the station but also keep the doom fleets at bay. It may be able to solo modules one-at-a-time by deploying mines in a dangerous way near them.

If you do want to purge VIG space of their doom fleets you will likely need a fleet and very powerful ships. It is almost possible to solo them with just a single Asgard but the doomfleets that patrol Windfall Aura Casino often win against you due to coming in too quickly for the TER L Pulse Laser turrets to shoot down. Erlking has been known to solo all VIG doom fleets without issue but requires you fly backwards using flight assist so the fighters ram your nose rather than engines. May also be possible with a fleet of L ships acting as bullet sponges while smaller ships mop up. There might be some approach involving laser turret spam since S ships often have issues with large numbers of laser turrets.

[Tempest]

If you do want to purge VIG space of space of their doom fleets you will likely need a fleet and very powerful ships. It is almost possible to solo them with just a single Asgard but the doomfleets that patrol Windfall Aura Casino often win against you due to coming in too quickly for the TER L Pulse Laser turrets to shoot down. Erlking has been known to solo all VIG doom fleets without issue but requires you fly backwards using flight assist so the fighters ram your nose rather than engines. May also be possible with a fleet of L ships acting as bullet sponges while smaller ships mop up. There might be some approach involving laser turret spam since S ships often have issues with large numbers of laser turrets.

Personally i've since backtracked from my own VIG purging plans.

Angry VIG is very, very, bad news. my Exterminatus fleet was 50+ Asgard, but i was in up to my neck in Barbarossa's, Losses OOS/low attention 2-3 Asgard's. [Losses unexceptable]

your best bet is starting out at +30 Reputation, queue all the stations in VIG space for forced-deconstruction, and hope the end-result is without significant losses. (dont take anything lower than 2 x XL TER shielding either)

those RIP Builder units will happily rebuild VIG stations though. (what a bunch of donkeys...)

[Imperial Good]

Angry VIG is very, very, bad news. my Exterminatus fleet was 50+ Asgard, but i was in up to my neck in Barbarossa's, Losses OOS/low attention 2-3 Asgard's. [Losses unexceptable]

Barbarossas can be ignored. Asgard can one-shot them from outside their range without even generating much heat. They do not even have L batteries to worry about.

The main issue is the S ship missile spam. Most of the missiles harmlessly hit a dead zone on your hull causing ignorable damage to your shield or even be shot down by point defences. However, some will hit at such an angle that they deal damage to the L turret banks and enough are shot that point defences cannot keep up. If that happens too often you lose L turrets. Once you lose L turrets it is game over.

As long as the S ships come in slow enough that your L turrets can keep them thinned out, you can solo. This meant I was able to solo the entire upper 2 windfall sectors with just a single Asgard. Due to the Barbarossas being the squad leaders, their fighter swarm comes in very slowly allowing the TER L Pulse Laser turrets of the Asgard to keep them under control without significant damage. The only place the Asgard cannot reliably solo is Aura Casino because it usually is patrolled just by fighter wings which all travel into you over a short period of time and overwhelm the Asgard's L turrets. The times I did manage to solo Aura Casino I was positioned near large objects limiting the attack angles of the S ships.

Once you throw in even just 2 Tokyo ships full of anti-fighter S ships as support a single Asgard is enough to take out all 3 Windfall sectors. You will lose S ships but they act as enough of a distraction to prevent the Asgard from being overwhelmed and reliably take the sectors.

Due to VIG's lacking economy, they cannot really rebuild their doom fleets once they are destroyed. As such after purging all 3 windfall sectors of their defence fleets you have pretty much free run of the place to do whatever you want to the stations there. Logically the best thing to do then is complete the mission to return VIG reputation back to normal and let your wharf and shipyards sell VIG hundreds of ships for massive profit.

your best bet is starting out at +30 Reputation, queue all the stations in VIG space for forced-deconstruction, and hope the end-result is without significant losses. (dont take anything lower than 2 x XL TER shielding either)

Starting reputation is irrelevant to the mission. All reputation you lose during the mission is scripted as VIG reputation becomes locked. Paying them will lock the reputation at a level above where they target your civilian assets. After the mission is complete your reputation with VIG is restored exactly to what it was before the mission began. You can exploit this mechanic to destroy as much of VIG as you like, and they will be completely fine with it after the mission is complete. VIG will even pay you to rebuild the ships you destroyed during the mission.

[Starlight_Corporation]

Thanks for clarification of the VIG plot, I have a large trade empire (but nothing build or stationed in Windfall) so was hesitant to start that mission-chain. But knowing above, rallying my Raptor fleet sounds like an excellent strategy (massive flak loadout + can load m up with heavy weapon fighters to take down a station fast)
Knowing I can lock the vig rep during the station destruction mission is great.