A Memory
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A Memory is a quest in Secrets of the Frontier's Watcher Beyond the Walls module.
Opening
The quest automatically begins once the player recruits Sierra during A Promise. She must be in the fleet during the quest. While in hyperspace, the player will occassionally find sensor ghosts that will fly towards them, emit a ping (with a !!! indicator) and try to lead them to a specific system.
Step-By-Step Walkthrough
- Follow the sensor ghosts to the Tia'Taxet binary star system in Hegemony space.
- Sierra will request a comm link and comment on the presence of sensor ghosts dancing around the system.
- Inside, find the derelict ISS Athena, an Aurora-class cruiser, and interact with it.
- Sierra will comment on strange signals and ask to perform a deep phase dive with the player on board, warning that no other ships can follow.
- (Optional) Expend one story point to inspire Sierra to deploy "harmonic phase tuning", allowing one phase frigate to come along.
- Perform the dive, and engage.
- Win the ensuing battle. Advice on the battle itself is provided in the Battle Strategy section below. You can fail this battle and retry as many times as needed.
- Sierra will automatically speak to you afterwards, completing the quest.
Battle Strategy
The battle triggered when performing the dive is a near-exact replica of the Nothing Personal main-menu mission - already deployed are a set of independent ships facing off against a Hegemony fleet. There are a few differences:
- The player joins the battle in Sierra's ship, most likely the Pledge-class.
- The rest of the player's fleet suffer a debilitating Dimensional Instability debuff if deployed, severely harming their offensive, defensive and movement capabilities to the point of near-uselessness. If Sierra was inspired to employ harmonic phase tuning, the first phase frigate deployed does not suffer this penalty.
- The independent and Hegemony forces have officers, with skill levels tilted in the Hegemony's favor. Allied ships use their default loadouts from Nothing Personal.
- Sierra's ship will automatically retreat at 0 hull, failing the battle.
- The ISS Enki, the allied Venture-class cruiser, need not survive the battle.
The battle poses a challenging scenario, as the Hegemony forces are absolutely superior in a head-to-head battle. The enemy flagship is the HSS Phoenix, an Onslaught-class battleship, which can easily obliterate any of the player's limited set of ships it can close in on. As in the original Nothing Personal, the player must leverage their ships' superior tactical maneuverability to win.
Tips
| Destroy the enemy escort ships first, then strike at the heart of their fleet. | ||
–Nothing Personal briefing | ||
General
- It is often best to immediately place an Avoid order on the enemy's Onslaught flagship. Early on, its escorts can ward off flankers and allow it to safely bring its ruinous frontal firepower to bear.
- Eliminating the rest of the enemy fleet, however, opens the Onslaught up to attack from all 6 player ships, and its lack of rear defenses means it can be easily destroyed by their combined effort. Remove the Avoid order once it is safe to attack the Onslaught.
- The challenge is typically destroying the enemy fleet before the player's peak performance time runs out. This can be eased by installing Hardened Subsystems on Sierra's ship for a less strict time constraint.
- Use Eliminate orders to direct your allies to quickly destroy isolated ships, and Capture orders on the objectives to gain their benefits and possibly split up the enemy fleet.
- Harmonic coil tuning allows for an allied phase frigate to be deployed, which makes the battle significantly easier. The Shade's EMP ability can wreak havoc on the enemy fighters and help disable larger ships. The Afflictor's Entropy Amplifier can temporarily amplify damage against a target ship, making it significantly easier to burst down.
- The allied Venture-class is very durable and can be used as a distraction early in the battle without severely harming one's ability to kill the Onslaught later.
Sierra
- Ensure you are comfortable flying Sierra's ship personally, and its loadout is to your liking. The default Tempo autofit works well for this quest.
- Your piloted-ship skills are irrelevant for this fight, as Sierra's will override them. Skills that affect your fleet still apply and can prove quite useful.
- The Pledge is incredibly difficult for the Hegemony fleet to pin down, and can outduel most of the Hegemony's ships if it catches them alone. Utilize its Concord Shift system to strike at vulnerable targets and escape when the enemy fleet tries to fight back.
- Priority targets for the player's ship include the four Condor-class carriers, the Gryphon-class cruiser, the two Hound frigates, and the two Lasher frigates.
- The Condors tend to hide behind the Onslaught and provide fighter support from afar. Circle the enemy fleet and eliminate them using Sierra's ship. If the Onslaught tries to help them, simply place the Condor between you such that it blocks the line of fire and you can destroy the Condor safely. If swarmed by fighters, take some time to back away and thin them out.
- Several enemy ships are armed with Sabot SRMs and Reaper-class torpedoes. With good timing, Sierra's phase capability allows one to dodge these missiles (by phasing through the Sabot's flechettes, or through/away from the Reaper torpedo), rendering the enemy Gryphon an unusually easy mark for her ship, if somewhat time-consuming to destroy.
- Enemy frigates pose little threat to Sierra's ship or your more combat-capable allies (such as the Aurora, Falcon and Tempest) and should be quickly dispatched to clear the field. They often stray from the fleet to try and capture the objectives dotted around the field, and can be dispatched easily.
Rewards
- Sierra levels up to level 7 and increases reputation with the player
- The ISS Athena's wreck becomes salvageable