Overdrive Initiative Guide Phases 4 & 4A

This Friday's update for The Overdrive Initiative was a double header with phases 4 and 5 dropping simultaneously. Enjoy both ship and FPS combat in this week's missions!
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Thank you to the wonderful Anorii for the awesome backing music - Nebula One!

[@LoudGuns]

Just to note I've interpreted the SPK mission as a separate phase (Phase 5) but there is a dev post on spectrum saying it's all one phase. Compared with the other missions I would count this as another phase (different mission name etc) but tbh it's a semantic that doesn't actually matter - just check back each week until Invictus to make sure you complete everything for the rewards 👍

[@WayFastWhitey02]

Thank you for putting these guides out Guns! It really helps to know what you're up against before heading out on one of these missions.

[@LoudGuns]

No worries mate! They’ve been great fun to make 👍

[@justinmunzlinger8471]

I just did Kareah mission today and no one was prepared to bring a tigerclaw(which I didn't know there was some there), and that mission lasted a long while but managed to clear it. So glad I'm done with it. I did run with 3 other during the surveillance missions which was fun and easy with a group.

[@TheBod76]

According to a dev this is not phase 4 and 5, it is phase 4 split into two parts (part 1 is the 3 com array missions and part 2 is the kareah mission)! No idea why they chose to do it in this confusing way.

[@BizzMRK]

seems like a rather last minute change tbh with next weeks final mission being more of an afterthought since the Kareah one would have honestly been the perfect finale.

[@LoudGuns]

Ah that’s fair, not 💯 clear! Not that it really matters ofc

[@JoshSweetvale]

Because part 4 of 3 is a surprise! The storyline is that nobody, especially Crusader Security, expected Xenothreat to attack Kareah!

[@jackpowell9276]

Great video, it was fun joining discord to hit these events in a huge squad first time, and the PvP event you guys had. Highly reccomend the discord to anyone looking for a friend to do whatever in game.

[@mattjcook74]

Wow, great guides. You certainly take the guess work out of these dynamic missions!

[@CB-io8oi]

Enjoyed the variety this week

[@UHChibi]

Great stuff. Keep the videos coming

[@theg0z0n]

Thanks for the explanation my dude!

[@mentalward718]

Phase 3 has been my favorite so far. Those big space battles were so cool.

[@Voss44]

Cheers thanks for the guide!

[@refisherdesktop]

I know it's just my brain recalibrating to your accent but now I can't unhear you saying " ... or welcome to the channel. I'm Lambkins ... " 🙄😁

[@spcrowe]

Another quality job

[@LetsPlayBojangles]

I ended up having to accidently Solo the SPK mission. I had a buddy coming but through glitches, and me not knowing the mission started on its own when you get close it just kind of happened. I started fully loaded with 675 rounds and an LMG. The key is to never stay still and make sure youre never at an angle to have to fight multiple xenos at once. I never stood in the center outside of aborting the first hack and putting the chip in. I just did loops around the outside of the security station. Im used to try harding in R6 and counterstrike so it was right up my alley skills wise. 31 kills in total to complete the mission.

[@Ogata123]

The kereah part was great, the comms part less so. So far Kereah and the bunker mission have been the best

[@AW-po7jr]

Great work!

[@LoudGuns]

Cheers mate!

[@BizzMRK]

Phase 4 was split into 2 parts by CIG instead, first beeing the commlinks while the second being the kareah mission. Phase 5 next week is likely going to be box missions where you have to steal 3 boxes and deliver them somewhere, since that would basically cover pretty much every type of mission there is to do (aside from mining and salvaging) currently in the game.

[@MSFTJustice]

They say that but the "2nd part" was different than what is described as phase 4. Additionally, Phase 4 missions are titled "XenoThreat Surveillance". With the SPK mission is titled something completely different.

[@BizzMRK]

@@MSFTJustice I am convinced that the kareah mission was originally supposed to be phase 5 but that they changed it for whatever reason. Maybe they even simply screwed up and actually activated it too early and just went with it. The Kareah one would have been the perfect finaly for the mission chain rather than slapping another fetch quest at the end.

[@MSFTJustice]

@@BizzMRK I totally agree with that. I was also thinking it might end with that new event they are working on, blockade runner I believe its called

[@gunsmoke9030]

Kareha was brutal, got it done but limped home with major torso etc injuries wow

[@Dolfinator]

Is FRCN planning to schedule a binge event to run all 5 phases at some point?

[@LoudGuns]

I definitely plan to do one full run through on stream with one of my alt accounts. I might also do another as a “if you’re missing any” speed run.

[@Asgar1205]

So we‘re getting our F7As next week, right?

[@chrismoeller4517]

Gotta admit, I’m a little concerned about completing Overdrive and getting my F7A since I’m on the road until May 1. Even with hotel internet, I was able to get on with my laptop, but I am dogshit at flying with keyboard and mouse or game pad since I usually use my HOTAS. That, and the guys who got me into Star Citizen in the first place haven’t hardly played it lately. Do you guys think the event will still be available in May?

[@JaK_Winter2099]

Honestly I doubt it. I would try to get into a party of other players. Most can be completed as long as your in a party. The 3rd set of missions may be a little harder for you because you need to kill 4 hammer heads. Definitely want a party of players. I suggest getting into a discord like this guys or asking for help in game

[@chrismoeller4517]

@@JaK_Winter2099 Yeah, I was afraid of that. Thanks.

[@WJS145]

When you finish phase 5, is it supposed to continue to appear. Cuz phases 1-4 don’t appear once completed. So I just wanna make sure I have it all completed.

[@LoudGuns]

I haven’t seen it again on my main, friends can still share it with you but I don’t think you’ll get it twice

[@WJS145]

@@LoudGuns darn, ok. Thanks. Cuz I did it with a friend and completed it. But noticed I still got the Emergency contract once and awhile.

[@nunya2400]

how many total phases are there? and is next week going to be the last phase?

[@tynrova9639]

6, we are on 4 at the moment.

[@CritRz]

Tried several times to do the SPK part with two different groups on two different servers, US and EU. Every time it wouldn't give us the first abort button to stop the hack. Eventually, I went to a third server (EU) and had to solo it. Not as many people were wanting to group up as they seem to want to for the other missions. In any case, I only had to take out about 30 to 40 baddies while hacking the system. I am not a great FPS player, so I would think most players will be able to solo it without issue.

[@LoudGuns]

Very much depends on the server frame rate - we had a run earlier where 5 of our guys hit trouble because of a low pop server and the AI were clapping (it was honestly the best fun I’ve had though!)

[@CritRz]

@@LoudGuns I'm sure that if the server frame rate was higher, I would not have been able to solo it. I rarely end up on fast servers though, so I figured it would have been a "normal" experience. It would have been a lot more fun if it ran correctly with a group though. Hopefully, in the future, we will get more group missions that are less buggy. Server meshing???

[@realobamagaming]

solo is difficult without taking a medship with you like the medical pisces or cutlass red. i suggest creating a party with 4 people in total with one bringing a medship to the station. if you really are concerned about long term holdout potential, might as well park a carrack/890j somewhere and treat T2 injuries.

[@RavingNut]

I smashed through Overdrive phase 4-5 with a 5 player group. But, I never got to fight on the station for phase 5. My team completed it before I got inside (thanks Bolon drive, you slow POS)

[@Power5]

Missions have been fun, but doing them 3 times with only difference being the amount of NPC spawn is lazy. We ran Phase 4 with 3 ships and it was too easy. Just hanging out waiting for enemy to pop into existence, then take them out with less than a capacitor mag. We were in big ships though as we expected more than vanguards as the "big" boss ships. I did see a valkyrie one time but those are fairly easy to pop as well in NPC HP levels. If it was 1 mission for each phase, your plan to do them all back to back would be the most fun way to enjoy it since it would have variety. 5 bunker uploads was a bit much in a row mostly because they were identical. Would help if they had more than 1 bunker layout though. Surprised they have not made more yet like when they changed all stations to be unique. Hope we get that with 3.23 with the new DCs.

[@Meat2432]

When I did mission five, it was a PVP Hellscape

[@LoudGuns]

We had a run at it last night that turned into PvP at the end, but honestly it was so much fun. Somebody took down one of our guys at the end so we just opened up on everyone there and had a fantastic fight. Good to see a lot of laughs and gg’s in chat afterwards as well.

[@AW-po7jr]

So I did the surveillance missions, I had a lot of Bugs. It took me like 3 hours

[@jamess405]

I thought there was a post saying 4 was just a 2 parter or was that lies?

[@LoudGuns]

It’s pretty confusing tbh - there was apparently a dev post on spectrum saying it’s all one phase, but they very much act like different phases (different mission names etc). All in all though it doesn’t actually matter.

[@RainOfFodderco]

Do we know when the event ends yet?

[@realobamagaming]

last phase should start this friday, i don't know what to expect in this phase and no one knows as cig initially intended the kareah part to be phase 5 but now they fused it with phase 4 together as one phase.

[@kishkin8743]

Sadly, not my gameplay style and the reward is meh, but it looks cool for those that are into this part of SC.

[@justalex4214]

Spk was phase 5? Are you sure? I thought it was just the true final mission of phase 4 after the 3 rather easy relay missions.

[@LoudGuns]

In truth no I'm not sure - it struck me as Phase 5 because previously "a phase" has been whenever we get a separated mission name. That said it's a semantic which doesn't really effect anything.

[@shawnc5188]

Phase 4 mission 3 is hard to solo, unless you are Ace Rimmer and can kill a swarm of XT (Arrow, Sabre, Vanguard Warden n Valkyrie) in seconds.

[@LoudGuns]

I may have missed said post (it’s pretty unclear as in any other week each of these would be a phase - different mission names etc). Still doesn’t matter all that much! 😂

[@PEBJr2533]

Ran all of them solo with an Inferno. Everything goes down quickly with it.