Missions & Complexes

I'm a new-ish player, and like a lot of other noobs I started right on on the "Blood Stained Stars" epic arc right after I got done with my initial training. Also like most other noobs, I ran into a brick wall on the Dagan mission. Judging by the plaintive messages from other noobs over the years, I'm not the only one who had no end of grief killing this guy.

I did finally manage it, so I wanted to post this "how I did it" message for other players.

First, you're not going to defeat this guy in a frigate, so forget even trying. Unless you have massive skills (unlikely for most noobs), you're simply not going to be able to deal the amount of DPS you need to in a frigate. Dagan has a beastly tank, and can rep about 100 points of damage per second. So you have to deal > 100DPS to take him down. Also, if you get in close (depending on which faction you chose in the prior mission), Dagan can neut you out (drain your capacitor) if you get in closer than 10km.

The funny thing about Dagan is, he's not particularly dangerous to you once you take his escort out. He doesn't deal an outrageous amount of damage, he's slow, and can be kited quite easily as long as you keep your distance. But again that problem looms: the only way to beat him is to break his awesome tank, and you're not going to do that in a frigate (or even a destroyer unless you have high skills).

If you want to complete the mission quickly, finding a friend or kindly stranger to help you is the best course of action. Trust me on this one: you're going to need help to take him down if all you have is a frigate. I cannot stress this point enough -- trying to take Dagan down in a frigate is a waste of time. You'll expend tens of thousands of rounds of ammo at him and barely make a dent.

But let's say you want to do it solo. That was the choice I made (though if I had to do it over again I would have just buddied up with someone.) That required skilling up into a cruiser hull and pumping my fitting and drone skills.

Here is the fit I used to take Dagan down. It was almost ridiculously easy once I came at him with a cruiser:

Ship: Caldari Moa, Railgun Fit
Highs: 5x250mm Prototype Gauss Gun (w/ Antimatter Charge M ammo)
Mids: 10MN Afterburner I, Stasis Web I, Medium Shield Booster I, 2x Medium Azeotropic Ward Salubrity Shield Extenders
Lows: 2x Magnetic Vortex Stabilizer I, Reactor Control Unit I, Damage Control I
Rigs: 2x Medium Ancillary Current Router I, Medium Core Defense Field Extender I
Drones: 3x Hornet I

Using this loadout, I took Dagan out in about two minutes. It's not a great fit, I know, but it worked great in that mission. I didn't take so much as a single point of damage.

Downside: this fit isn't cheap, especially for a new player, and it requires some skills many new players may not have (rigging especially). It may take you longer to earn the ISK for the loadout than it will to train the skills - that was certainly true in my case.

Anyway, I hope this helps people who do the "Blood Stained Stars" epic arc as new players.

Gratz on completing the Arc solo.

I believe the whole point of that mission is to fleet up with someone or as in your case, upgrade your ship class.

As for forming a fleet, there should have been a few other new players within the same system experiencing the same problem. Only need to fleet up with one other player to complete the mission. The two of you could easily help each other out and in the process maybe form a friendship, run some other missions or exploration sites together, start a Corp, etc.

As for upgrading ship class, a Cruiser will definitely make short work of Dagan. However a Destroyer should have worked to complete that mission. I believe players gain the Destroyer Skillbook a few missions or so before they meet up with Dagan.

Anyway, hope you had fun and liked the arc. In 3 months you can run it again.



DMC

I didn't know that. Back when I completed all of the Career Agents they didn't give out a Destroyer, just Frigates and an Industrial Transport ship.

So the Career Agents also give new players the Destroyer Skillbook as well? Seems kinda premature to me, especially since new players are barely skilled to use Frigates.

Guess that's one way to increase Industry in this game.





DMC

now you get a destroyer skillbook as reward for the next-to-last mission in advanced fighting arc and a destroyer as a gift when accepting the last one.

Any of the destroyers should be ok against Dagan if you a use close range high damage fit.

As the mission leaves you fighting just Dagan at the end you even have the option of warping out and fitting less tank and more damage mods and even faction ammo if you are having problems.

I think part of the issue is that the tutorial agents and the SOE arc don't tell you about damage mods. You should have SEEN the the things I slapped into my coercer when doing that arc as a newbie.

Get a Gnosis yourself and you will kill Dagan regardless to his EWAR (as I remember he jammed me a lot, so the biggest problem was not to tank him but to be able to do at least some damage on him to break his tank)

I'd add Drones to the mix. Don't underestimate the value of having that additional attack vector (drones as added DPS, not as primary).

I blitzed 90% of the arc in a kestrel, the hauling ones i did in a badger
its all a matter of skills and how you fly your ship the more you fly it the better you get at it
or in some cases the more you lose it, at least kestrels are cheap

Killed Dagan with an Algos fitted with Level 1 drone damage amplifier and maxed Level 5 drone skills. Easy breezy.