Railjack – Prio 1: Crewships

[Toran]

Killing Crewships is crucial for a quick success and as little stress as possible in any current Railjack mission. Sadly only few Tenno care or know about that. Here’s a detailed guide to prepare you for the job (in case you have to step in and your fellow Tenno know jack, again…):

Grineer Crewship Setup:

All Grineer Crew Ship share the same layout:

• At the stern (its behind) and between the three thrusters is a hatch to enter (X)
• In the center is the reactor you need to destroy in order to kill the crewship. In higher sectors it’s protected with an energy field you can disable by hacking the console in front oft he reactor (so have ciphers ready, so you don’t have to waste time here) – AND DON’T FORGET TO KILL THE REACTOR AFTER HACKING! (common mistake)
• Further ahead in the bow is the pilot. Kill him too, so the crew ship won’t continue flying while its destruction countdown is running. You can get close and press X to finish the pilot and take the seat. Don’t do that, that’s what amateurs do – the crewship sucks as support and you halt the mission progress by not destroying it.
• The crew ships have two gunners: one to the right of the reactor, the second if you walk down the stairs before the reactor and follow it to the bow below the pilot.
   

Kill Methods:
There are currently only two kill methods:

• Enter the Crewship and destroy its reactor
• Use the Artillery Gun (Gunnery 5 needed) under the Railjack’s cockpit (entrance in the wall behind the pilot) – coordinate that action with the pilot! The artillery gun has to charge up and the pilot has to stop moving the ship. In the last second the effects will blind your aim, so it’s best to lead the target fort hat.
  
  Pro Sniping Tip (voice chat): after aligning the ship for a far distance shot, the pilot steps off and the Railjack will stay absolutely still

Anything else doesn’t work. You can kill the crew ship’s health and its engines for a while, but after a few seconds it regenerates again. So don’t waste ordonance or tactical attack skills on the crew ship.

If the battle is calm, the pilot can get close however, and kill the engines for a safe standard approach via Archwing.

Approach Methods:

• Manual Archwing Flight:
  Don’t fly straight towards the Crew Ship. It has nasty cannons and rockets that might strain your Amesha quickly. Fly diagonally to one of ist side so you see incoming fire. Use your blink to evade, not to just boost!
• Slingshot (Gunnery 4, Archwing Warhead needed):
  Standard Range (Gunnery 4): ca. 2070 meters / Max Range (Gunnery 7): 3110 meters
  
  With Archwing Warhead (Gunnery 4 intrinsic) you can use the mass accelerator (access: top floor, back) of the Railjack to slingshot directly into the Crewship and penetrate its hull – INSTABOARDING!
  
  For that, the pilot has to get you in range and align the railjack to the crewship. You again center your crosshair over the crewship and yellow brackets appear to confirm the target. Press the left mouse or shoot button to start the accelerated approach.
  
  You will be invulnerable for the flight time and the pilot can move off to evade or fight elsewhere.

Slingshot Procedure – stomp em like a pro (Average duration: about 30 secs)

• Pilot and Slingshot Gunner (in voice chat) call out for crew ships
• As soon as a crew ship is spotted, pilot approaches and aligns the Railjack for an unobstructed, close to center view while you enter the slingshot tube
• Click standard attack as soon as you see the yellow hud brackets around the crew ship to start the slingshot and board
• Get to the reactor, (hack the console in higher levels), destroy the reactor
• Move to cockpit and activate Recall Warp on entering
• Kill the pilot and other crew till your Recall Warp kicks in
  
  Example clip:
  https://youtu.be/QU_ncK8ZsDE

Why not kill the gunners? In Veil missions Crewships drop healing clouds, that currently only the host can see. While it's possible to kill a healing field with Archwing guns, it's hard to direct your fellow Tenno to do so. It's rather futile too, as the crewship will spawn new ones. So it's most effective to just kill the crewships as fast as possible since this kills all heal fields released by that ship for good.

Tips:

• Get Tactical 4 (Recall Warp) ASAP it allows you to use your omnitool from anywhere outside of the Railjack to teleport back!
• Pick your strongest Warframe for the action. While the reactor seems to be equally weak in all crew ships and sectors, the enemies aboard will be rather high in the later sectors. Alternatively, you can bring a good CC Warframe and skip the fight aboard completely. The reactor is easy prey for a Riven-Modded weapon or badass shotgun.
  
  My prefered Warframe for Railjack: Wukong (speed, hard to kill, clone as bodyguard/backup)
• Have energy pizzas ready: when boarding the crew ship, any buffs will be gone. In case your low on energy, simply use a pizza.
• Rhino’s Roar seems to buff turrets and the artillery gun too, so if you plan to use the artillery gun often, Rhino might be a good choice
• Crew ships need a few seconds to explode, new crewships usually spawn only a couple of secs after. In a good crew, it’s better to leave the side turrets to the other Tenno (even if you are the better gunner) aslong as there are Crew ships on the mission counter

Edited January 1, 2020 by Toran
updated Slingshot range

[XzWasPzX]

Destroy crewships asap, as soon as they appear, this is a basic tip/rule for RJ. Really the people allows the crewship to attack the RJ? Dont understand it.

[DawnMad]

I would like to also add that once you should break the containers inside Crewships. Those drop good amount of loot and it only takes a few seconds to do so.

 

A method I use is to once I board the Crewship directly run to the its gunner and shoot him once so he gets up from that turret. After that, since that Crewship is mostly harmless against my team and if Im sure there is no other Crewships outside either, I start killing the grineer in the Crewship to farm some intrinsics for my team.

 

Do at your own risk and read the chat for your teams callouts.

Edited December 20, 2019 by DawnMad

[XzWasPzX]

hace 1 minuto, DawnMad dijo:

I would like to also add that once you should break the containers inside Crewships. Those drop good amount of loot and it only takes a few seconds to do so.

 

A method I use is to once I board the Crewship directly run to the its gunner and shoot him once so he gets up from that turret. After that, since that Crewship is mostly harmless against my team and if Im sure there is no other Crewships outside either, I start killing the grineer in the Crewship to farm some intrinsics for my team.

 

Do at your own risk and read the chat for your teams callouts.

I use operator to destroy crewship's reactor, so everything around opens itself. This way i can perform 2 tasks in just one. 

[Askorti]

I generally play RJ with my max range Vauban, and when I board a crewship I sprint to the generator, throw a vortex and then I can do stuff at my leisure, because pretty much the whole crew is suppressed for 20 seconds. First thing I do after that is killing the gunner and the pilot.

Recently I had a mission where someone boarded a crew ship and it just kept firing on the railjack for good half a minute because the dude didn't kill the gunner...

Edited December 20, 2019 by Askorti

[DarthIronclad]

btw crewships have 1 pilot and 1 gunner,the pilot is at the bow(obviously),and the gunner is at the lower starboard part of the crewship.

Also when sometimes the away crew decides to not deal with the crewships asap,i have to have my RJ stay a bit far back to stay out of range of the crewships...and the away crew is drawing the agroo of the fighters,so they rarely get in effective range of my guns...which can be a bummer for me and my gunners...

[Toran]

vor 24 Minuten schrieb XzWasPzX:

I use operator to destroy crewship's reactor, so everything around opens itself. This way i can perform 2 tasks in just one. 

Great idea, the Propa Scaffold should work perfectly for that.

 

vor 23 Minuten schrieb Askorti:

I generally play RJ with my max range Vauban, and when I board a crewship I sprint to the generator, throw a vortex and then I can do stuff at my leisure, because pretty much the whole crew is suppressed for 20 seconds. First thing I do after that is killing the gunner and the pilot.

Recently I had a mission where someone boarded a crew ship and it just kept firing on the railjack for good half a minute because the dude didn't kill the gunner...

I wonder if there's a method to disable the healing cloud in Veil missions before actually destroying the corresponding crew ship. 

That's why we focus on quick destruction.

Can someone confirm that killing the gunner disables the healing field too?

Edited December 20, 2019 by Toran

[ant99999]

23 minutes ago, DarthIronclad said:

btw crewships have 1 pilot and 1 gunner,the pilot is at the bow(obviously),and the gunner is at the lower starboard part of the crewship.

Actually there are two gunners iirc. One is on the starboard side, another is at the bottom, beneath the reactor.

[DarthIronclad]

7 minutes ago, ant99999 said:

Actually there are two gunners iirc. One is on the starboard side, another is at the bottom, beneath the reactor.

never knew about that...may have missed some containers because of this,thanks for the info.

[Mrguilty1]

15 minutes ago, Toran said:

Great idea, the Propa Scaffold should work perfectly for that.

 

I wonder if there's a method to disable the healing cloud in Veil missions before actually destroying the corresponding crew ship. 

That's why we focus on quick destruction.

Can someone confirm that killing the gunner disables the healing field too?

In Veil Proxima missions , Crew ships have the ability to throw out a White Shield ( Similar to the ones Nullifiers have right now ) , these Shields heal all the ships that are located inside these shields. Sadly as far as I know only the HOST can see these shields (Bugged for everyone else ATM) , so whoever is the Host , should put some guns that has a high fire-rate on Pilot guns section , and actively hunt these shields to avoid enemy ships getting healed constantly (Sometimes the ships gets bugged and they heal forever even though they're not in the shields anymore , which makes them practically immortal)

 

And also

Is a good addition if you want to 1-shot Crew Ships on Veil Proxima with Frontal Artillery.

The key condition to 1 shotting a Crew Ship is , someone with high Puncture Weapon , aka Plasma damage (Railjack specific damage type) has the ability to Reduces enemy max health and armour value, [similar to corrosive and viral procs]) *While on Archwing*

This strips all that extra armor Crew Ships have and allows the Forward Artillery to 1-shot really consistently on any Veil Proxima mission , even without Forward Artillery!

[Loza03]

The only reason not to destroy a crewship is to get aboard, kill the pilot, and either pilot it yourself, or return to your own Railjack in order to have it be used as a decoy.  It's surpsingly effective and helpful having one out even if you're not flying it, as it can reduce fighter and crewship focus considerably since many enemies will attack it instead of the 'jack. You will want to dispose of it sooner rather than later though, as new ships may spawn since you haven't 'completed' that objective, so it's a degree of risk/reward. 

This is most useful as a solo tactic, but if well-communicated I can see it having benefits in multiplayer.

[Skaleek]

Fyi when you hijack a crewship it forces more to spawn. Useful if you are trying to complete a mission quickly or farm crewships (which you should be).

[Rejutka_Lupex]

I was about to start a similar thread.

I'm by no means far enough to have crewships that do anything other than shoot and spawn boarding parties, but they're still annoying as hell.

 

Go in, destroy the reactor, get out. Don't dawdle around killing everyone first. Every second the crewship is in the field, it's another gun shooting at the railjack, and worse, perhaps even absorbing some shots that might otherwise have hit a valuable target (a crewship that is boarded should be considered dead, so no use wasting ammo or time on it).

 

Also, somewhat related - I hope DE will add in more information. It would be useful to always know that someone is in the slingshot or being shot out of it. Since the slingshot can't aim much, I try to keep the ship steady - meaning I'm an easy target for the crewship. Having to ask if they're underway is another waste of time...

(I know, teams should communicate. But unless you have a full crew of people from your clan, that is not realistic.)

[Toran]

vor 21 Stunden schrieb Rejutka_Lupex:

I was about to start a similar thread.

I'm by no means far enough to have crewships that do anything other than shoot and spawn boarding parties, but they're still annoying as hell.

 

Go in, destroy the reactor, get out. Don't dawdle around killing everyone first. Every second the crewship is in the field, it's another gun shooting at the railjack, and worse, perhaps even absorbing some shots that might otherwise have hit a valuable target (a crewship that is boarded should be considered dead, so no use wasting ammo or time on it).

 

Also, somewhat related - I hope DE will add in more information. It would be useful to always know that someone is in the slingshot or being shot out of it. Since the slingshot can't aim much, I try to keep the ship steady - meaning I'm an easy target for the crewship. Having to ask if they're underway is another waste of time...

(I know, teams should communicate. But unless you have a full crew of people from your clan, that is not realistic.)

Gunnery 7 really helps there with the slingshot. 2.7km Slingshot range is a lot. My clan mate and I usually are able to pull it off out of aggro range or far enough that the ship isn't under direct threat.

But you're totally right about Jackrail needing more indicators for both host and client. Once you're in a station you have no info about the other crewman. Is someone at the guns? Is someone in the slingshot? How far is my current target? And why can't we mark targets?

Railjack is great already, but it still has a lot to improve. It's an unpolished gem with a lot of dirt on it.

Edited December 21, 2019 by Toran

[Toran]

Am 20.12.2019 um 15:31 schrieb Skaleek:

Fyi when you hijack a crewship it forces more to spawn. Useful if you are trying to complete a mission quickly or farm crewships (which you should be).

They spawn anyway. I think they're just on a timer. So far, I have seen four crewship at a time if no one cares about them, and that's a very messy situation in Veil sector...

[Skaleek]

1 hour ago, Toran said:

They spawn anyway. I think they're just on a timer. So far, I have seen four crewship at a time if no one cares about them, and that's a very messy situation in Veil sector..

You can overspawn them using the method i described.

[Butterfly85]

Blowing up the ships are fine, but if something rate drops then you'll want to call that out and keep the ship going so your squad mates can get in on it.

[Lost_Cartographer]

When it comes to crewships, you can actually kill the pilot, grab the controls, and the ship is considered "captured."  Even the AI on the turrets should stop hounding your allies.  It's easy to forget - or for many to simply not know - that the interior of our ships ARE NOT inside the actual ships themselves, but separate little maps WAY outside of the bounding area we're flying around in.  The crewship AI has parameters tied to the presence of the pilot and gunners, but if you "capture" a crewship, the actual crewship AI itself will consider Tenno friendly, though hostile gunners leave their posts so it won't fire on any of your enemies automatically either.

Coincidentally, because the actual interiors of our ships are way far away when we enter open space or another interior, if no one's on board the rail jack when it's boarded, the boarders go inactive.  The only thing that's ever always active is the open space AI (and probably why RJ grineer troops are so limited in number - split computing resources.)  Ergo, everyone should be okay to disembark and raid that galleon if there are no other threats to the railjack itself.

Edited December 21, 2019 by Lost_Cartographer

[Rejutka_Lupex]

On 2019-12-21 at 11:42 PM, Lost_Cartographer said:

Coincidentally, because the actual interiors of our ships are way far away when we enter open space or another interior, if no one's on board the rail jack when it's boarded, the boarders go inactive.

Good point and something that everyone should know, because it can lead to a VERY dangerous situation.

 

I've (played solo) raided a station while my railjack was parked "safely" underneath it (so the ship killer couldn't reach it).

I'm strolling through the station to finish the mission. Then I return to my railjack - and find that there are SEVERAL boarding crews onboard. And either while I removed them or before, they placed at least TWO bombs on the ship.

 

Naturally the messages from the cephalon are misleading, as he never indicates that there is more than one bomb...

(One of them went off, causing several hull breaks  - interestingly NOT where the bomb was.)

 

I survived, but it was close. I wonder what would have happened if I died there. MIssion over, got the screen-obscuring rewards, but not the "mission success" yet.

[Butterfly85]

Bring Carrier to RJ, his looter mod from Simaris takes care of crates for you. It's quite handy if you're in a battle and up against it and need the crewship dead yesterday

[(PSN)DoctorWho_90250]

19 minutes ago, Butterfly85 said:

Bring Carrier to RJ, his looter mod from Simaris takes care of crates for you. It's quite handy if you're in a battle and up against it and need the crewship dead yesterday

So does Octavia's mandachord.

[mrpyro12345678]

Grineer Crewships apparently are really nice at fighter interception, I just kill the pilot and fly around killing interceptors, while those interceptors have no idea what's going on. The gunners also come off the guns to fight me in the cockpit, so I fully secure the Crewship apparently.
Those fighters must be really weak against explosives now that I think of it...

[nslay]

Capture just 1 Crewship and leave it to absorb a lot of aggro from fighters (stays captured even when you leave it!). Blow it up after that portion is complete.

I think the turrets on Crewships are awful, but I haven't been leveling gunnery. I find Cyngas is faster currently.

[(PSN)ATPEngineerGming]

Many people do not kill the two elite lancers manning the turrets meaning that they will still fire on players leaving the Gokstad.

[SordidDreams]

On 2019-12-20 at 1:13 PM, Toran said:

an energy field you can disable by hacking the console in front oft he reactor (so have ciphers ready, so you don’t have to waste time here)

Pro tip: It's impossible to fail the reactor shield hacking. You can just cancel out of it and the shield will go down anyway, no need to play the minigame or waste ciphers. That will almost certainly get patched, but enjoy it while it lasts.

Additional tip: Once the reactor is destroyed, the ship can be destroyed with regular gunfire. Doing so is quicker than waiting for it to explode on its own and causes the drops from it to pop out immediately instead of after a few seconds.

Edited January 1, 2020 by SordidDreams