Late-game solo PvE: Wave Defense, Outposts, and Daily Challenges
- Solo Outposts and Daily Challenges are for Ops 51 and above. Solo Wave Defense starts at level 45. Build the Outpost Control Center first: claim its construction schematics from your Gifts at Ops 51.
- Solo Wave Defense lets one player bring up to three ships. Level 45 and above face waves one to three. Level 50 and level 60+ face waves one to five.
- Solo Outposts are a long, mostly idle fight. After you win, Retaliation Attackers come every five minutes. The longer you hold the Outpost, the better the rewards.
- Daily Challenge Goals give you three V'Ger targets a day. V'Ger hostiles ignore Cutting Beam and Chain Shot.
Solo Wave Defense is a one-player version of Wave Defense. It is made for G4 (level 45+), G5 and G6 players. You bring up to three ships and face three to five rounds of combat. It uses a new hostile, Apex Raider, so a crew that cleared the old mode may need changes. Solo Wave Defense may not count toward regular Wave Defense events or missions.
The Outpost Control Center unlocks at Ops 51. You need it before you can use Solo Outposts. Build it with the schematics from your Ops 51 Gifts. Upgrade it with Outpost Control Cores. Common Cores drop from PvE chests when you beat Solo Outposts, or you can buy them in the store. Rare Cores come from the Outpost Battle Pass or the store. Upgrades give more Outpost loot, more weapon damage against Outposts and more Hull Health for Federation, Romulan and Klingon ships. You get two Outpost ship slots when you build it, and a third at building level 40.
A Solo Outpost is a PvE fight that is separate from hostiles and Armadas. Start an attack with an Outpost Strike Directive. You can get one free every two days from an in-game gift. If you win, you take temporary control of the Outpost. The opposing faction then sends Retaliation Attackers every five minutes. The longer you hold the Outpost, the better your rewards. It is a multi-hour, mostly idle fight, not a quick clear. Retaliation Attackers are not Hostiles or Armadas, so standard PvE and Armada crews are less effective.
FULL DETAIL — 4 MORE SECTIONS
A harder Elite version of Solo Wave Defense exists. You enter with the same Section 31 Private Cipher Keys from the faction store. You can bring up to three ships. When your first ship enters the system, you have 10 minutes to prepare before the waves start. Enemies are tougher and move quicker, and each wave has more of them. Speed crews may struggle, so bring your best combat builds. The payout is almost double a standard run. Elite is also the only source of GS-31 Recon Data.
The Outpost Control Center also adds a Material Fragment Generator. Fragments build up over time to a storage cap, and you exchange them for refined Ore, Crystal and Gas. Outpost kills do not count toward the daily PvE hostile limit. While you hold an Outpost, other players cannot target you, and they cannot interfere with the Retaliation Attackers. You cannot swap the ships in an Outpost mid-run. If you remove all of them, the Outpost resets and you must conquer it again.
Players at level 51+ get three Daily Challenges a day. They are an Easy Challenge, a Hard Challenge and, once you have built the U.S.S. Excelsior, a U.S.S. Excelsior Challenge. All three are against M86/M87 V'Ger hostiles. Difficulty scales from level 51 to 80. The Easy and Hard challenges rotate daily with new targets or requirements. The Excelsior challenge stays the same every day. Challenges earn Challenge Credits and V'Ger Challenge Track Points. The Easy Challenge asks for a simple goal, such as dealing a set amount of Iso Damage to certain V'Ger hostiles. The Hard Challenge asks you to defeat stronger, higher-level V'Ger variants. The Excelsior Challenge needs the U.S.S. Excelsior and its special loop hostiles.
V'Ger hostiles are rebuilt versions of older hostiles. They have new abilities and blacklisted-officer rules, and they ignore Cutting Beam and Chain Shot. A crew that relies on either needs a real rework. Open the Daily Goal screen after the daily reset, check the day's challenges and adjust your crew. Then destroy the required V'Ger hostiles. Claim your Challenge rewards on the Daily Goal screen. Then open the V'Ger Challenge Track screen to collect any milestone progress. The Challenge Track resets every week. You can reach the first five milestones for free.