Losing to Win: Solo Interception Fissure

[nslay]

This brief guide serves as both feedback (implied) and as a workaround to play solo interception fissure. Although I guess most players will figure this out! Why would you play this? To collect traces (e.g. with no relic equipped), rank weapons, and get some relics in the process. Why else?

Average round time with this strategy: 5-6min.

The idea is that you let the enemy win for more than half the round until you can collect enough reactant (around 7-8). Then you can start winning.

1. Capture 2 towers.
   • You may also partially capture a 3rd tower (neutral) multiple times to edge ahead the enemy by 1-2%. You don't need to do this though!
   • Enemies are spread out. Deploy a specter at the first tower and it will kill some corrupted that may drop reactant while you are away.
2. Collect up to 7-8 reactant.
   • Usually you have 7 reactant by the time enemy has 50-60% progress (when 2 towers are captured).
3. Capture 3 towers.
4. Collect 10 reactant.
5. If time remains, capture 4 towers.

 

Here are some screenshots of the strategy and what you can expect from Solo Interception Fissure. I think this is completely reasonable.

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Oh man! I am so owning that enemy at getting 10 reactant before 100% progress!

 

Here's what happens if you don't let the enemy win more!

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See that? 9/10 😞. I didn't let the enemy win more. I need to lose more to win at collecting reactant!

[Traumtulpe]

How to play solo interception: Don't.

That's how I do it anyways.

[SpringRocker]

That happens all the time on that intercept map, with lith relics, and with a full squad all the time. This has nothing to do with solo.

There's a reason why someone usually says to ignore C or D. Also people sometimes immediately leave if someone else brings something like an Equinox or Saryn, they usually kill everything too quick that it can't be corrupted to drop traces.

[nslay]

1 hour ago, SpringRocker said:

That happens all the time on that intercept map, with lith relics, and with a full squad all the time. This has nothing to do with solo.

There's a reason why someone usually says to ignore C or D. Also people sometimes immediately leave if someone else brings something like an Equinox or Saryn, they usually kill everything too quick that it can't be corrupted to drop traces.

It happened on Uranus Neo fissure too. Next time I do solo Intercept fissure, I'll take a screenshot. This happens on all of them.

[nslay]

7 hours ago, SpringRocker said:

That happens all the time on that intercept map, with lith relics, and with a full squad all the time. This has nothing to do with solo.

There's a reason why someone usually says to ignore C or D. Also people sometimes immediately leave if someone else brings something like an Equinox or Saryn, they usually kill everything too quick that it can't be corrupted to drop traces.

Below are pictures on Europa. They match my earlier solo Venus and Uranus Interception experience. This is also using the strategy outlined above!

Just to be clear, in a 4 player Interception fissure mission - no matter the map - you can pick up 10 reactant with a perfect 100%/0% progress score. You do not have to wait for spawns like this. The thing you note about Interception with other players is not true even if players are killing the non-corrupted enemies (which usually happens in random pugs where even this doesn't happen). The only time I've seen a player miss picking up 10 reactant is when they join the game in the middle of a round. Heck, you don't even need a strategy... just shoot everything and watch the tower indicators for take over attempts. But you need a bizarre losing strategy in solo!

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So you can see the progress at 8/10 reactant. You have to wait for enough spawns. It's a non-issue with more players.

Edited February 16, 2020 by nslay
Earlier Uranus experience

[DrakeWurrum]

12 hours ago, nslay said:

To collect traces (e.g. with no relic equipped)

Reactant doesn't give you traces.

Opening relics gives you traces. You see this by the simple fact that once you collect 10 reactant and open your relic, you will actually see the number of traces you gain as if you picked up a resource at the bottom of your screen.

This is why the best way to farm traces is to get a resource booster and also use the kavat (and then also hope to get lucky with a double resource weekend). You want to time it so that when you have the kavat buff is when you get your 10th reactant.

--

As to the complaint of this thread, I've never had this issue. I always 100% focus on getting 10 reactant before I bother worrying about beating the mission objective. This means I'm focused on killing corrupted enemies and I don't really pay attention to much else. I've had this issue in group fissures, though, because of players map-clearing far too quickly.

 

I do think we need a better system, but I'm not clever enough to come up with one. I think I would much prefer to go to "fissure" missions where I farm traces as a resource, and then use those traces to crack open my relics right there in the orbiter. But that's probably a terrible idea, since then you couldn't get stuff from other people's relics.

Edited February 16, 2020 by DrakeWurrum

[Fiddlestixxx]

10 hours ago, SpringRocker said:

they usually kill everything too quick that it can't be corrupted to drop traces.

See, I didn't even know this was a thing! I just thought any enemy on that map had a chance of dropping reactant. There was no explanation for this, so thank you for the info. Now, all those times the mission "bugged" and didn't drop enough reactant make sense. This game has enough bugs and poor explanations so that sometimes we just assume things are bugs because we have no in game explanations on what's even going on.

[nslay]

6 hours ago, DrakeWurrum said:

Reactant doesn't give you traces.

Re-read first line.

Here, I've cropped it for you.

19 hours ago, nslay said:

Why would you play this? To collect traces (e.g. with no relic equipped), rank weapons, and get some relics in the process. Why else?

 

[nslay]

5 hours ago, Fiddlestixxx said:

See, I didn't even know this was a thing! I just thought any enemy on that map had a chance of dropping reactant. There was no explanation for this, so thank you for the info. Now, all those times the mission "bugged" and didn't drop enough reactant make sense. This game has enough bugs and poor explanations so that sometimes we just assume things are bugs because we have no in game explanations on what's even going on.

It isn't a thing. In multiplayer Interception (even on that map!), this doesn't really happen. In a random pug where everyone is shooting everything corrupted/non-corrupted, you still reach 10 reactant faster than you can in solo Interception. You could even get a perfect 100%/0% progress score and still collect 10 reactant. What I described happens all of the time in solo regardless of the map (due to low spawns!). So you can't start capturing all the towers until you've collected nearly all the reactant!

Do you really think I was killing everything too fast with Revenant using an unranked Vectis Prime? Honestly...

Edited February 16, 2020 by nslay

[nslay]

Here's 5 rounds of Umbriel, Uranus.

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You can see my progress and the enemy's progress at 8 or 9 reactant. Had I played Interception the proper way, I would have never collect 10 reactant in time.

So that's five rounds on Sealab Tileset. It's full of walls and has 2-3 levels. There's no way for me (Danse Macabre) to have to killed every non-corrupted too fast on this map. Note the Vectis Prime... that's not going to be wiping rooms of enemies either.

[nslay]

Here's 4 rounds of Xini, Eris. Apparently there are no more bonus relics?

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The first two rounds I probably could have won playing the normal way. My progress + enemy's would be less than 100% at 8 reactant. Might be tight to get the last 2 reactant though!

[mac10smg--Toa_of_Green]

On 2020-02-16 at 12:24 AM, DrakeWurrum said:

Reactant doesn't give you traces.

Opening relics gives you traces. You see this by the simple fact that once you collect 10 reactant and open your relic, you will actually see the number of traces you gain as if you picked up a resource at the bottom of your screen.

Uh, can you tell me how you intended for this to be taken?

Because if it was “If you don’t have a relic once you get 10 reactant, you don’t get traces”, then that is false; you get traces when you collect 10 reactant regardless of whether or not you have a relic equipped.

[Fiddlestixxx]

On 2020-02-16 at 8:23 AM, nslay said:

It isn't a thing. In multiplayer Interception (even on that map!), this doesn't really happen. In a random pug where everyone is shooting everything corrupted/non-corrupted, you still reach 10 reactant faster than you can in solo Interception. You could even get a perfect 100%/0% progress score and still collect 10 reactant. What I described happens all of the time in solo regardless of the map (due to low spawns!). So you can't start capturing all the towers until you've collected nearly all the reactant!

Do you really think I was killing everything too fast with Revenant using an unranked Vectis Prime? Honestly...

Didn't bother to think about that part. Thanks, smart guy. I just saw the part where there was some reason why you would sometimes get only 9 reactant in a mission and enemies would stop spawning and then no one can open their relic. I guess I was just eager to believe there was some explanation besides crap coding.

[DrakeWurrum]

On 2020-02-16 at 7:13 AM, nslay said:

Re-read first line.

Here, I've cropped it for you.

 

That... that doesn't change my response. Your line mentions collecting traces with no relic equipped.

But you don't get traces without a relic equipped.

[HunterDigi]

8 minutes ago, DrakeWurrum said:

That... that doesn't change my response. Your line mentions collecting traces with no relic equipped.

But you don't get traces without a relic equipped.

You get traces without relic too.

Have you even tested what you keep repeating? I did, as soon as I got 10 reactant it gave me traces: https://i.imgur.com/q4edXGp.png

[nslay]

54 minutes ago, DrakeWurrum said:

That... that doesn't change my response. Your line mentions collecting traces with no relic equipped.

But you don't get traces without a relic equipped.

You're mistaken. You do actually get traces without having a relic equipped. This is my primary way to get traces when I don't want to spend relics (e.g. like doing solo Interception fissure)!