The ‘Invasion’ mode is a game mode, where the pilots can roam freely in an open universe. There are no queues here. You just enter it, and fly freely - to your heart’s content and into whichever direction/sector you desire. In order to enter the Invasion game mode, click on the [LAUNCH] Button and then select the ‘Attacked Sectors’ tab. Choose one of the ships equipped in your combat slots by clicking on it and then click on ‘Undock’. You will launch from the station of your side of the conflict.
This guide will deal with the following aspects of the Invasion mode:
- Conditions for taking part in the closed beta
- The sector distribution
- Travelling between the sectors
- Docking to your station
- Safe Logout
- Warp gates
- Fuel
- Missions
- Daily random missions
- Storymissions
- PvP vs. PvE
- Station Protection
- Karma
- Losing/Repairing your ship in this mode
- Duplicators
- Crafting
- Collecting ressources
- Blueprints
- Aliens/Biomorphs
- Squadplay/Wings
Concerning Updates: Please write me a private message, if you have something to add, or if there is anything wrong. I will edit/update this guide as soon as possible.
Invasion
Sidenote: Even though this mode is still a closed beta, you are allowed to make videos.
1. Conditions for taking part in the Closed Beta
You must fulfill one of the following conditions for participating in the closed beta:
- You have a special invitation
- You have the Strikeforce Prometheus achievement (Buy Galactic Standards for a total sum of 6.000. Standards received from DLC packs count towards the sum.)
- You have the Universe Conqueror achievement (Awarded for collecting 1000 achievement points)
2. The Sector Distribution
The ‘Attacked Sectors’ are more or less divided among the three sides of the conflicts: Jericho, Federation and Empire. Most of the sectors are under the control from one of these factions. However, there are a few very dangerous sectors, farther away from the home stations than any other sector, which all sections are fighting in, but not controlling it. There are said to lurk a lot of strong pirates in these dangerous sectors.
When you click on the ‘Attacked Sectors’ tab, it will show your first a general view of the sectors:
Underneath, you can see the sector distribution in detail:
Jericho
Federation
Empire
As you can see on those screenshots, each ‘home station’ has a number of sectors which are directly adjacent. These sectors are under the control of the the specific faction. There are also a few sectors a bit farther away, but still in the same territory - those are more dangerous, but still more or less under control of the faction. However, these are open PvP areas, while you are under ‘Station Protection’ in the sectors closer to your home station. More information on ‘Station Protection’ farther down in this guide.
There also are neutral sectors:
They don’t belong to any of the factions and shelter the most dangerous kind of pirates. It is recommended to not go there on your own, unless you have a death wish.
If you hover with your mouse over the sector nodes, you will get specific information on that sector. In particuliar:
- Name of the sector
- Position
- System
- Whether or not ‘Station Protection’ is active
- Minimum Shiprank
Since some sectors are so dangerous, you cannot travel in them unless your ship is of rank 10 or higher. This prevents newer/unexperienced pilots from venturing too far on weak ships.
3. Travelling between the sectors
Important: When you enter the Invasion mode for the first time, make sure you have set a key in the keysettings for warping/jumping/picking up ressources. It is the ‘C’ button by default. However, if you reallocated that button for something else, you will have to adjust your key settings.
3.1 Docking to you station
First thing to know about travelling usually is, how to get back home. Once you launched into the open space and flew around for some time, you will feel the need to return home safely. For that you always need to come back to your home station. Successfully docking to your home station will bring you back to your hangar view. In order to dock to your home station, press the C button when in a 500m-radius of the docking portal.
3.2 Safe Logout
Press ESC and select ‘Safe Logout’, which will you disconnect from the game after a few seconds. Your current sector, cargo and fuel are saved. The next time you start the game, you automatically continue in the Invasionmode with your ship.
3.3 Warpgates
The only way to actually travel between the sectors are the warpgates. For jumping through one warpgate, you will need fuel. For one jump, 20% of your fuel is consumed. You jump in the same manner like docking to your station. Get close enough(~500m) and then click the C button.
Even though you only need 20% of your fuel to jump, you cannot jump at all, if your remaining fuel is less than 25%.
3.3.1 Good-to-know: After every jump through a warpgate, all your modules and ammunitions are restored and cooldowns reset. Also, you are invincible for 10 seconds after spawning from a warpgate!
3.4 Fuel
Fuel is required for jumps through the warpgates. With a full tank you can do about 3-4 jumps, before you will need to fuel up your ship. Fuel can be found in several ways:
- You will often find fuel in ship wracks from ships you destroyed
- You can find fuel next to turrets (doesn’t matter if they are pirate turrets or from some other faction)
- You can find fuel floating near permament ship wracks, which always are at the same spots on some maps.
These fuel tanks you can collect give you a certain random amount of fuel restored to your ship.
Another important aspect of fuel is that without it, your ship’s energy stops regenerating. So even without fuel you can fly around, but your energy is regenerating really slow.
You can stock up on fuel by collecting fuel tanks, when your tank is already full. They will store in the cargo slots for later uses. Once in need of fuel, you can eject the fueltank and fuel up then. For ejecting cargo, see the section on ressources.
4 Missions
You will get new missions with access to the new game mode. There are two different types of missions:
4.1 Daily Missions
Those missions give you credits and synergy for your ship, if you complete them. You can see them by going to the ‘attacked sectors’ map and clicking with your mouse on the blue exclamation marks. In these random missions you usually have to destroy a few pirates, protect a convoi or find some cargo. These missions ‘respawn’ daily.
4.2 Story Missions
I call ‘story missions’ those, which you can do just once for every side of the conflict. They will first of all introduce you to the game mode, make you acquainted with the crafting system, the travelling, etc. You recognize them by the yellow exclamation marks on the sector map. These missions can give your credits, synergy and some ressources as well.
Good-to-know: If you fulfill a mission, and get killed afterwards, that mission still counts and you will get the rewards for that mission.
5 PvP vs. PvE
This game mode is a mixture of PvP and PvE. You can other players, and yet, for example, get attacked by pirates at the same time. There are not just two sides fighting each other, like in normal PvP. It is possible to fight it out ‘free for all’, meaning that for example 3-4 different squads meet up and fight until only one squad remains. However, there are some things to pay attention to:
5.1 Station Protection
Station Protection has been implemented to protect newer players, or those who don’t want to fight other players. This measure is intact in the surrounding sectors of the home station. However, you need to activate it in your game settings:
In the screenshot you can read a description of how it works. If you deactivate the Station Protection, you can attack NPCs even at your home station and any other players, who also disabled this option.
5.2 Karma
You can positive or negative Karma, whenever you kill someone. It doesn’t matter whom you kill, your karma will change.
- If you kill pirates, you get positive karma points - depending on the level of the pirates
- If you kill friendly ships, you get negative karma points
- You get/lose more karma for killing players than NPCs
If you reach a certain level of negative karma, you won’t be able to dock the home stations anymore, since you are regarded as a pirate yourself (needs still to be verified).
If you attack friendly NPCs ‘by accident’, meaning you just hit them once, your status changes from ‘friendly’ to ‘aggressor’ for about 30 seconds. If you don’t attack them again within these 30 seconds, your status will change back to being friendly. If you attack/kill them again within these 30 seconds, you will be marked as a criminal for 300 seconds and all the ‘friendly’ NPCs will try to hunt you down within this timespan. Every time , you shoot a friendly NPC, the 300-second timer restarts the 300 seconds - even if you didn’t kill them.
Careful : The timer will also restart if you don’t shoot them, but if you are in range of the NPCs and they shoot you. And you can’t jump or dock at stations while you’re an aggressor. And you can’t dock while you’re a criminal - but you can still jump.
You don’t lose karma if another player shoots at you first, but you manage to kill him. You will only lose karma, if you attack first and also kill the pilot.
You can see the karma level of every pilot in his profile:
You get karma level +/-1 by reaching +/- 1000 karma points. Karma level +/- 2 ist reached at ~30.000 points I think. If someone has precise numbers, please provide me with them.
It is possible to reset your own karma for 500 GS.
6 Losing/Repairing your ship
If you lose your ship in a fight, you will get back to your hangar screen. You need to repair the ship and all cargo is lost. There are two ways of restoring a ship:
- A Premiumship can be restored once where it was destroyed. You will be asked if you want to restore the ship, when you are destroyed. This only works once per flight.
- You can buy a Duplicator in the Armory:
- They cost 200 GS, but they will save your ship and its cargo, if you have been destroyed.
- You can also craft them yourselves with the nessecary ressources, without spending GS.
The Duplicator will disappear from your inventory, once used.
Please note: These duplicators are very useful. In this game mode, you have the possibility to fly around for hours, collecting valuable ressources, etc. Now imagine, you get killed and don’t have one of these things… All your time and effort will be lost. So be prepared for such a case! They are worth it!
7 Crafting
The crafting system, introduced for the first time with this new mode, allows you to produce your own Mk.IV ammuntion and Mk.V weapon systems or other modules. In order to produce something, you generally need a blueprint the necessary parts for constructing the item.
7.1 Collecting Ressources
Where you can find ressources:
- Shipwracks (containers)
- Asteroids
You will usually find raw ressources, which still will need to be refined, before you can acutally use them. All ressources, which you brought back to your home station are automatically transferred into your armory. You will find them there and they are divided into ‘raw’ and ‘parts’:
If you want to see more information about the ressources you found, what they can do and how they are used to produce special equipment, hover with your mouse over the item you want to know more about and a small pop-up window will inform you on its properties:
Good-to-know: If your cargo slots are full, search for a Cargo Drone. You may find a small drone usually somewhere near a warpgate or a few hundred metres before you reach the gate, which can send your cargo home for 20% of its overall value. Once used, they disappear. But they have a 1-minute respawn timer.
Cargo Drone:
You can eject cargo in two ways. You either press ENTER to start the chat, so that you can see your mouse and then right-click on the cargo slot and click ‘eject’. Or you open the tactical map with TAB and then right-click on the cargo slot to eject.
Itemradar : In the armory, you can purchase a ‘Spatial Scanner’ for Galactic Standards, which allows you to use a special area scan for items. Your critical hit chance is also increased by 7%.
7.2 Blueprints
Blueprints are needed to produce the special items, once you got all the ressources. They are one-time items and disappear once you have used them. You can buy the blueprints in the Armory for credits.
For more information on a blueprint, hover over it with your mouse, like you did for the ressources.
For more information on crafting, visit the [Crafting Guide](< base_url >/index.php?/topic/23434-invasion-crafting-guide/).
8 Aliens/Biomorphs
The Aliens are out there! More information to come soon! Stay tuned! Follow the Developer Blogs to learn more about them!
The only things known so far:
- There is a sector called ‘Unknown Sector’
- You can access is through one of the missions or randomly while jumping through warpgates
- Biomorphs and Hunters keep spawning in intervals (hard to kill alone! Squad up!)
- Also look at this: [First Encounter](< base_url >/index.php?/topic/23475-invasion-first-encounter/)
9 Squadplay/Wings (not sure about everything. Please correct me, if I’m wrong about sth.)
In the Invasion mode you can also form squads to fly with your corporation mates or friends. Just like in normal PvP, your squad members appear in green on the radar and the HUD interface. You cannot attack your squadmates. However, if one of your squadmates becomes a criminal, your entire squad is regarded as criminals.
About Squads/Wings:
- You can reconstruct the ships of your teammates, by flying close to their shipwreck.
- Even though are in a squad, you may jump to different instances of the same sector - depending on server occupancy rate.
- A corporation officer can form a wing with up to 8 members, who then fly together in the open space
- Two wings from the same corporation are not allied. For example, Engineer heals don’t work in between two wings. They can fight each other.