This guide is intended for players of all levels that are either having trouble with missions, or want to know how to use these missions to their fullest extent. I have included guides to every mission I'm aware people had trouble either figuring out how to complete, or being unable to complete it because of the mission difficulty.
To get people to help with your mission, you need to add them to your formation and start the mission or use the Warp to Mission Map button on your screen in town to start it. Only the form members on the same map as you will get the mission invite.
I have attempted to mark those missions which occur on a special instance of the map. These are called mission maps, and are identified by the (mission) tag next to the map name in the upper right part of your screen next to the radar. Maps that have multiple versions of a mission map don't have different names for them, so they are usually identified by the mission level.
Another thing to take note of is these mission maps may or may not be shared. This means that both nations have the same mission, and they both do the mission on the same map. There are a few odd exceptions where the same mission is done on mission maps that are seperate. These are marked in the mission description.
Kills for missions also may or may not be shared. I have tried to mark down which ones do, so if you want to try to get help you can. There are sometimes ways around this if they don't immediately share.
Unfortunately since I'm a career ANI guy I've only been able to provide information for missions that ANI have access to.
Standard missions are a decent way to make some extra money or alleviate grinding boredom, but they can also slow you down a lot. This is especially true early on when trying to do some of the standards will take you at least twice as long to get to the next level as it would if you were grinding on easier mobs. The general rule is, don't do standards on mobs that are red colored. Those are too hard to hit yet, it's better to go back once you're a map or two beyond those. Also, make sure that you're doing the mission in a way that you don't lose money. If you're dying so much that it's costing you more than what you get for completing it, it's not worth it yet.
As for specific missions, there are two on the ANI side that I want to bring to your attention. The first is the timed rock elimination mission. This can be kind of difficult to complete if you aren't used to flying your gear yet. So even if the mobs themselves are not too tough, you might want to wait a bit if you fail it the first time. This one is not a big deal though.
The other one that I constantly hear about is the Shirne standard mission in Relic. Shirne is a boss, not a normal mob. This means it's very tough compared to other stuff in the map, and is intended for higher level players. It spawns somewhere from every half hour to 45 minutes after it's killed once, appearing in a random spot in the map. Each channel has it's own Shirne instance. Although it's possible to take one out on your own when you first see it, you're likely to run into another player who is higher level hunting the boss. A lot of these guys have no problem taking it for themselves, wasting all the time you spent on it. The mission itself is from very early versions of the game when there were very few bosses or high level maps. The reward is riciculously low for how long it takes to complete, killing 10 of them for around 100k SPI. So if you're a completionist, wait until you get into your 70s or so before you take this one on. It can take a while and isn't worth it, but you can say you did it at least. Given that there are much, MUCH harder standard missions tacked on at higher levels, if you're hoping to complete all of them you'll probably be out of luck.
Mission Master is a new feature in the Episode 3 part 2 patch. If you open up your mission window and don't see it, your version doesn't have this yet. This is a very convenient way to ask for help. Once you click on the help button on the mission screen, it sends a form invite to everyone online with the Mission Master option activated. This can be a problem sometimes for people if they're in the middle of fighting something. However, don't hesitate to use this. If they choose to accept, they'll be added to your form, automatically breaking out of their own form. If the person has a mission running at the time, such as a standard mission, it won't allow them to join the form, although this bug may be fixed in the future. Once you start the mission the person will get an invite on any map that they're on. Not all missions have the mission master option.
Being a mission master has rewards to it. If it's enabled, you'll get an invite to any mission you've completed yourself. Completing a mission with someone gives Medals, which can be combined into certain items. This is why you shouldn't hesitate to use MM whenever you can. The items are as follows:
5 medals - Temporary formation buff for 30% SPI increase from mobs for 1 hour
10 medals - Temporary formation buff for 30% item drop increase from mobs for 1 hour
15 medals - Temporary formation buff for 30% experience increase from mobs for 1 hour
40 medals - An item that will increase XP by 2 million points. At high levels the XP buff item for 15 medals is much more useful.
These missions are referred to as the "Episode 2" missions, which was the original version of the game when it first became a PvP MMO. "Episode 1" was only released in Korea, and was PvE only, with only one nation. The game has changed a lot since the first Episode 2 missions were made, so there have been a lot of changes to them over time. Changes continue to be made, so I'll attempt to keep the information here as close to the latest changes as possible. If there's old information, I may not be able to update it so you'll have to excuse me for that.
Enrollment Test [Lv. 12] (ANI)
Mission Map: Reynard level 12 - Not a good map to keep, complete the mission.
This is usually the first mission people run into that causes a bit of a problem. The objective is to kill 4 different mob types, but they might not be around right away. This can be a real pain. The best place to do the mission is around the volcano in the upper left portion of the map. The way the mission is supposed to work, once you kill one of the mob types, the next one spawns. However, this doesn't always happen. So, you may end up having to start the chain over. The mob is supposed to appear and attack you. If it doesn't appear after 10 seconds or so after you kill the previous one, take a look around and see if it appeared a bit away from you. If it doesn't, you have to start over. The order is Support->Ground (This one will spawn on the actual ground) ->Bomber->Fighter. Watch out for the fighter as it can do a lot of damage if you don't take it out quick. You start losing money for any death that isn't to another player at this point, so try to conserve if you can. This particular one isn't very dangerous though.
Harmony of Water and Fire [Lv. 15] (ANI)
Mission Map: Reynard level 12 (same as the level 12 map) - Don't keep this map.
The mission map itself isn't very useful at this point. To find the traces, press M to bring up your map. They're marked on there. Fly to the location marked and look near the geyser cracks. They don't always spawn right in them, you might have to look around. If you still don't see them, check your radar in the upper right corner of your screen. If you're around the trace, you should see it on the radar screen. The other problem with this mission is the trace in the volcano. There is occasionally an error that prevents the trace from spawning. This usually happens when several people are doing the mission. It's rare, and all you can really do if it happens is come back later. Make sure to check your radar as it might be there but hard to see.
Traces of the Gigantic God (Part 1) [Lv.18] (ANI)
This mission can give some people trouble as the completion condition is confusing. Once you get 1 of each of the items from the mobs you have to kill, head back to town. Use a town portal item or suicide into the ground if you don't want to fly back to the gate. Once you're in town, head to the factory. Check your map by pressing M to find it's location. Click on the counter at the shop, and drag both items into the screen that pops up. Click combine and the mission is completed. Make sure you're not using the laboratory, as that's for adding bonuses to existing items, not for changing the item type. You're going to have to hang on to the crossbow or ancient arrows (depending on your nation) until the final mission for them is done at level 38. The crossbow is famous for being useless, but it has a few uses if you have the A-gear type.
Traces of the Gigantic God (Part 2) [Lv. 24] (ANI)
Mission Map: Ardor level 24 - This map is decent to grind on but ardor is rarely that crowded, so you might not want to keep it.
The next mission in this chain causes problems sometimes too. Your objective is to kill a certain mob and get a drop. The problem is, the mob doesn't appear right away. You have to kill traces in the lower right corned of the Ardor map to make them spawn. Even then, they don't always spawn. This is made even more frustrating by the fact that the area is swarming with Zanonvalders and Lucanose, which are very dangerous at this point. Once you kill a trace, look around. In the next few seconds, a mob will spawn that looks like an Ammon from Edmont. In other words, brown flying bug. The mob has a yellow name, not to be confused with mobs with gold names. The mission item drop is random, although the frequency of the drop is pretty high. It shouldn't take more than a couple kills to get the mission done. Once you complete it, go and combine the new item you get with the xbow so that the item doesn't take up an extra inventory space.
Mission Map: Ardor level 26 - Pretty good map to grind on until you're near 27 if you want, but it's the same as normal ardor.
This mission used to be a lot harder since the item you need wasn't listed on the map, and there was only one of them in the very bottom left corner hidden under some bones. Luckily there are now several on the map, and they're all marked on the big map when you press M. This is only part of the mission though. To head to the next part, collect one of the items and head into the city gate. You'll end up in a new mission map.
Mission Map: Chaos level 26 - Mobs here are kind of tough at this point, but some people like it here for a bit. Up to you.
This new map is a copy of a map that you can go to once you're level 57. The mobs are not the same, as you're fighting machines and not giant space squid. The objective here is to survive to get to the other end of the map, and enter the gate to complete the mission. The fighters here are very aggressive and can do a ton of damage with their homing missiles. You may want to try to sneak along the sides, or just boost as fast as you can and try to make it before you die. You could use a few C repair/shield kits to get you through. These are kind of uncommon for you yet, but later on you get more than you know what to do with. Their only use is for grinding and missions like this, so don't hesitate to use them if you want to finish this.
Mission Map: Ardor level 27 - You don't have the option to keep this map, you're towned when time runs out.
This is a money making mission, and once you start it you can't cancel it. You can make around 1.5-2M SPI if you get enough competent help with it, since the kills share. Your objective is to kill as many mobs as you can in 5 minutes. The only mobs here are fungers (3k SPI), zanonvalders (5k SPI), and lucanose (7k SPI). Generally these aren't really that dangerous to you anymore. If you don't care about the money and just want to get the mission over with, you'll probably make 200-300k or so if you're fast enough. If you want help, ask on one of the global chats and let people know it's the 27 money mission. If they want a cut, ignore them since you really don't get much anyway.
Hell Froze Over [Lv. 28] (ANI)
This can be a REAL pain. The mob you need to kill here is the Aralion, the ground mob. Unfortunately it's still slightly red at this point and is fairly hard to hit if you have low accuracy weapons. If you keep within about 400m it has trouble hitting you. This takes a lot of practice and if you switch sides when it fires it can still sometimes come back and hit you. This wouldn't be that bad if the drop rate for the item you need wasn't VERY, VERY LOW. Some people end up killing 100 of these things before they finish. If you have trouble you can ask someone to help you kill them, since the drop will share. This mission is a headache, and should have been fixed years agoi.
Operation Cooling Magma (Part 1) [Lv. 33] (ANI)
This can be a little difficult if you're not used to killing large mobs. The objective is to kill the water tank mobs that are in several places around the map. Fortunately, they don't move much and you can just put on a slow engine and make attack runs at it since it doesn't attack. Unfortunately, the many missile mobs around the tankers DO attack, and can do a ton of damage. So, you have to do your best to not draw attention while you're killing the tanks. If you still have trouble you can ask for help since the kill shares.This mission doesn't take that long on your own though, so you should probably save yourself the trouble of hunting for help.
Operation Cooling Magma (Part 2) [Lv. 34] (ANI)
Mission Map: Plains level 34 - Not that good a map, but you can use it to grind coffles if plains safe maps are crowded.
This can be pretty tough. You have to kill crystals that are in 5 places around the map. However, these crystals are in the middle of those nasty launcher rings. There are 2 crystals in the north rings, 1 in the east, one in the west, and one south. So, you have to figure out how to get close enough to kill the crystals without getting hammered by the launchers. There are 2 ways to do this. You can either approach from high alt above the rings, and turn around and go back up high once you get to 700-800m or so. This can take a long time, but it's the safest way. You have to get pretty close to the launchers now to draw their attention. The other way is to take out 2 or 3 launchers in front of the crystal and approach from the front. You have to be careful to move back once the launchers are going to respawn if you can't kill the crystal in time. Kills appear to share on this mission so you can get help if you're desperate.
Operation Cooling Magma (Part 3) [Lv. 35] (ANI)
Mission Map: Plains level 35 - Better to just finish the mission since you'll be grinding relic at this point, and that's much better.
This is the first mini-boss mission you have to do. Unfinished Ordin can be a real problem for new players. It's 8 levels higher than the mission level and is thus difficult to hit. It has a nasty area of affect attack that does around 500 damage too, activating at seemingly random intervals. The way to solo this is to get a slow engine, and stay around the volcano. If you can keep laying damage on it consistently it'll go down in less than 5 minutes. Make sure to buy the new armor you get once you get 35, it helps a lot. Make sure you keep the point you get from leveling up in case your loadage goes over 80% when you equip it. This is also a good chance to use any C kits that you have. They are made for situations like this. The kill does share so you can get help with it, but it feels pretty epic to do it on your own the first time. So I recommend you do so.
Blade of Bygeniou [Lv. 37] (ANI)
Mission Map: Relic level 37 - Very dangerous map, normal relic is usually much better.
This is a tough, tough mission. This is the first appearance of the Shooting Star mobs, which reappear in the level 47 mission. The worst thing you can do is wade into the middle of this mess. Stay along the sides and try to lure the dangerous mobs over to you so you don't get surrounded by 10-15 of them. Generally if you strafe a lot you'll be safe friom the non-shooting stars. It takes a while but it's do-able. Kills do not directly share with this mission, so it's hard to get help. However, there are two ways that a higher level player can help with this. One thing they can do is get the attention of the shooting stars, and take some of the damage doers away from you. This way you can target the mobs on them without getting pounded. It's much easier to survive the shooting stars for the person that doesn't have to worry about firing back at them. But this can still take a really long time this way. The other way it can be done is for you to get 1 or 2 hits in on one of the mobs, then the higher level player finishing it off. As long as you don't die before the mob dies, you'll get mission credit for the kill. Usually you have to hit with advanced weapons, but I'm not sure if it would be the same for A-gears. You can get this ugly mission over with a lot quicker if you can explain this method to the person helping. They really have to pay attention to what you're shooting at though. If you damage several shooting stars before the person kills them, you'll be in a lot of trouble.
Traces of the Gigantic God (Part 5) [Lv. 38] (ANI)
This is a pretty easy mission, the hellflowers you kill have a random drop. The drop rate is a little slow, but you won't need help. This mission is the last one in the crossbow chain. Once you finish the mission, non-Agears get a rather crappy weapon. You can keep it as a trophy if you want, but you won't want to use it. You can NPC it now if you just want the space back. The A-gear version is alright, but since it's uncardable you'll probably have slightly better stuff at e5 by now. If you didn't spend any money on weapons yet, it might be a good thing to try.
Violent Blizzard [Lv. 39] (ANI)
The blackbox that you need for this mission is in the upper left corner. It's kind of hard to see. In that part of the map, there is a canyon. The canyon leads down into a really dangerous area with a ton of launchers and the VB core, a boss. The box itself is further to the northwest than the core. The best way to find it is to go to the corner, then head down into the canyon. Right near the corner there's a small ice bridge. Under that bridge is the box. If get close to the core, you've gone too far.
Valley of the Rock [Lv. 40] (ANI/BCU) (Sidestory)
There's nothing special about this mission, and it doesn't give any experience. But, this is your first sidestory mission and you need it to continue with the Rock's Nest missions later. Since it's your first mission in this category it's easy to miss. An important thing to note here is that there is no safe channel in rock's nest maps, although each side has their own bottom and middle. Top is a shared map. High level players from the opposing nations are constantly heading through here looking for bosses, since there's 1 spawn in each map. This makes the maps extremely hard to grind in, and can make it very frustrating to get your missions done in. Usually because there are so many enemy gears around and you can't port right to the map, it's tough to get help there. So if you have trouble with the opposing nation it's usually better just to wait until later.
Mission Map: VB level 41 - Most people don't like to grind VB so the normal channels are usually empty, so no reason to keep this one.
This mission is pretty easy, but some people have trouble finding the radars. In the northwest near the core crater, there are a lot of missile launchers around the edge. In between some of these are the radars. They're a little bigger than the others, just target them to tell them apart. Either kill the launchers or stay at long range to take the radars out. There are about 4 of them around the edge.
The Power of Rage [Lv. 42] (ANI/BCU)
This is one of the rare timed missions you can actually fail, so it's a bit of a pain. Sand Rocks are nasty enemies, and flying into a cloud of them will even hurt high level players bad. This is actually not that bad if you can lure out the rocks one at a time, and use a few C kits if you get hurt bad. Stay at long range and fire a shot, then move back and let the mob follow you. Then take it out before you move to the next one. B-gears aren't going to want to bomb these, take another temporary missile to do the mission with.
Like the 42 sidestory, you can fail this one if time runs out. So, it's important to know where you're headed beforehand and to keep away from the most dangerous spots. Flying back after dying can take a lot of time. B-gears doing this mission should bring along a temporary missile as some of these mobs are hard to bomb and you can't afford to slow down here. The dagons are easy to find a good place, the group right next to the gate works well. But since they're the most common one around the map, you might want to just kill a few of them before moving on. You might have to kill some to get them off of you when you go after the other mobs. There's are a couple spots that you can try bladewings in. The first place would probably be along the left side, luring them out from the middle of the snow field. You can also try the other side of the map, around the northmost mountain range. Friggs are a little more difficult to isolate, but not as dangerous on their own. You can get a few of them at the start of the canyon at the bottom of the map. You can go further in to catch them but there's not a very safe place. If all else fails, go high alt and try to lure mobs up to you. You often get a lot of unwanted attention that way, but if you're running out of time you may be forced to resort to drastic measures.
When the Tower Falls [Lv. 44] (ANI)
Mission Map: VB level 44 - If you're grinding VB at this level the map is decent to use for a while. It saves you some money warping back from town. The map is basically the same as normal VB though, so it's usually not worth keeping.
This mission can be really tough if you don't have a good strategy. You're basically killing a mini-boss, which is a weaker version of the VB Core boss. Unlike the real core, this one doesn't spawn any friggs or have an Area of Effect attack. It also has no drops. It's still surrounded by missile launchers though, and has a pretty high regen rate. It's not that bad to solo though. The place to attack from is in back of the core, near where you found the blackbox in the 39 mission. If you're a M or A-gear, you can just sit back out of range of the launchers at about 1000m+ and pound the core to death in a 0 engine. Since the core is higher level you're going to want to bring something with decent prob on it. It can take a while but it'll go down, with your only problem being the occasional dagon that will wander near you. I and B-gears have a lot tougher time. It's possible to high alt bomb the core with a B if you have good bawoos, but this takes a lot of practice and I don't recommend it myself. What you will probably end up doing is starting out at your max radar range, firing until you get to about the edge, and then turning around and flying back. You're going to want to practice using strafe to turn around here, strafing away from the direction of your turn and strafing back when you turn around. This should give you a fairly sharp turn so you don't run into the walls. This can take a pretty long time. The kill shares for this mission, so a lot of people get a higher level gear to help them with it. If the core isn't up, it takes anywhere from 5-15 minutes to respawn.
Bark Domination Plan (Part 1) [Lv. 45] (ANI)
Mission Map: Bark level 45 - Excellent map, you'll probably want to keep this one until you're at least close to 47, unless you really like grinding relic or VB.
Easy mission, but with a great map. If you want to do any bark grinding, this is the best place. There's another bark mission map at 49, but this one isn't shared with BCU and so you'll never have to worry about being interrupted. If you can convince a M-gear to go with you to the map, then Call of Hero you back to the map when you cancel the mission, you can do all of your bark standard missions here.
Bark Domination Plan (Part 2) [Lv. 47] (ANI)
Mission Map: Bark level 47 - Don't hate yourself that much. Finish this mission and get out as fast as you can.
This mission is the return of the Shooting Stars from the 37 mission. Check out the strategy for that, since this is exactly the same thing except higher level.
Their Research Outcome [Lv. 47] (ANI/BCU) (Sidestory)
Mission Map: Rock's Nest Middle (ANI or BCU)
This mission isn't that tough, although some people have problems doing enough damage to the lab. You can always ask for someone to help you take it out. It's better just to use a slow engine. The map itself isn't shared although both nations have the mission. ANI and BCU Rock's nest maps are mirrored, so you'll be in your own nation's map. This makes it an ideal place to grind if you want to finish the level 45 mission now. If you want to grind in a rock's nest map, this is the best place because of all the opposite nation traffic hunting bosses. The Griffon boss also spawns in this map, although it seems to have a very poor drop rate compared to the real one.
Gaining Control of Core [Lv. 49]
Mission Map: Bark level 49 - Good map, like the 45. This one is shared though so you could end up fighting if you run into some BCU. Once you start to get into the shared mission/grinding maps like this, there's no way to tell whether you'll have to fight or not. There are no rules or truces, so you can grind here but be prepared to fight.
This mission has some similarities to the VB core mission, but it's much harder. Don't feel bad if you decide to get help with this one. If you want to solo it and this is your first time trying, you could potentially lose a ton of money dying. There is a good way to avoid this though. Make sure you're near 0% experience, then deposit your SPI in your warehouse. If you don't have enough SPI for the death cost, it costs you experience instead. However, this can't level you down so it'll stay at 0% if you're already there. A big problem with this is that you won't have enough money to reload, so you may have to bring another weapon with you if you run out on your main one. Make sure you remember to pick up your SPI once you return to town, since you don't want to accidentally be caught without money for reloads or end up losing XP because of an accidental death.
You're going to be flying in very close quarters for a while, so it gets really tough for newer players. Putting on an engine that goes around 0-50 m/s is necessary if you're going to solo this one. The mission objective is not on the actual map you get ported to, but a special underground map called Bark Undercity. This has it's own unique music too, and it's too bad that it's not a part of normal Bark. The tunnels are extremely narrow, so although you can fly through okay, if you aren't in a slow there's no way you can turn around. This can really teach you how to turn well if you spend a lot of time doing it. The method is called "hax turning", since people that are good at it have sometimes been accused of engine hacking before. If you get good at it, you're much better off. It's done by strafing with A or D in the opposite direction of the turn you're making, then strafing back the other way once you make it halfway through the turn. Holding down S to slow down increases the sharpness of the turn, but it goes a bit slower. The best tunnel to go into is the eastmost one, as you'll have a little more room to maneuver at the end. There's a destroyable barrier at the end near the Core, and it should be about 2 sections back, giving you slightly more room than the other tunnels. In the room with the Core. there's an open space but 3 extremely nasty missile mobs that will spawn again as soon as they die. It IS possible to get them to spawn in a place where you can go a ways into the room so you don't have to turn around in the tunnel, but it can be frustrating to set that up. If you're an A or M-gear with a 0 engine, you're all set here. You can just fire away at it until it dies, out of range of the core guards. I and B gears have it a lot tougher. You're going to want to make a short attack run with an advanced weapon, usually arrows. You can get several volleys off going slow before you have to turn around, hopefully not drawing fire from the guards. B-gears can fire bawoos too if they want since the core doesn't move. I don't recommend trying to GBM it to death at 49, but if you're skilled enough you can try it.
Enter the Moon [Lv.50] (Sidestory)
Easy mission, but it's important. There's no teleport for this mission, you've got to use the warp shop then fly. You head to the Den of the opposite nation, which is just past Bark City. This can be tough sometimes since Bark and the Dens are the major war maps in the game. If there's a war in your side's den, you can try to sneak through but it can be really tough if there are a lot of enemy gears. If you're in a real hurry and can't wait until later, you can head through Rock's Nest. Once you're on the other side of RN, you can head into the other Den from behind. There, all you have to do is kill 3 of the opposing nation's scout guards. If there's a war in the den, hang around where you see them spawn and take them out when they appear. Once you complete the mission, you get access to the moon maps. You can only port to the first map in your nation's chain, Denebola for ANI and Castor for BCU. You have to fly to the other ones. Check out a map guide for which maps you can go to there. It's worth noting that although the maps may be good for grinding, they're also constantly raided so if you just want to grind you want to have other options, like the 51 CotC mission map.
Castle in the Clouds [Lv. 51] (Sidestory)
Mission Map: Rock's Nest Top level 51 - Surprisingly good map to grind for I-gears, and nice if moon maps are raided for anyone. It's good rolling practice to get you ready for the real thing.
This mission is pure hell. At 51 it could potentially take you over an hour to solo, so I don't recommend it on any gear. Getting the egg kills is bad enough, but you have to get even close to take out the crystal, which has a lot of HP itself. And a real instance of the Rock Emperor boss spawns over your objective, which may be way too much for you at this point, and it'll chase you when you're trying to go after your objective. Both because of how hard it is, and how often people need help, it's very tough to get people to go with you on this sometimes. All I can tell you is try to be patient when asking. Eventually someone wiill help. However, they might not know how to effectively help with it. Although some high level M-gears can tank everything and go right in the nest to kill the stuff, it's not the best way to do it. I also don't recommend trying high alt bombing, because the condors are all over the place and will make your life miserable when you try to stay in once place. To do this mission efficiently, you need a gear with a 0 speed engine, so a M or an A. Forming on an A-gear is not preferrable, but you have to make do with what you have. If you don't know how to work with forms, see my starter guide which is also on Siegemode. If you are a gear with a 0 speed engine, you probably will still need help since you have to do a ton of damage.
Clear out the Rock Emperor first if it's up. The best way to deal with it is to lure it to your nation's gate. That way if you die you respawn right where it is. This also gets you away from the condors that are all over the map. After you finish it off, it's time to start the actual mission. It's usually better to start with the eggs, although it doesn't matter that much. A form with a 0 speed leader that's facing down at a target will move forward even when they're trying to stop, so you're going to want to be in a place that you can level out. There is a crack at the southern part of the mountain, where you can see 2 eggs from. You'll be killing these 2 eggs over and over, as by the time one dies the other will respawn. You will still get condor aggro, but as long as you stay far enough back from the nest you'll be okay. To get credit for an egg, you must have hit it yourself before it's killed. So, don't sit back and wait for someone else to do it for you. Once you get 10 eggs, you'll have to get a little closer to get the crystal. This is usually not a big deal in a 0 speed form, as you can level out easily to fire at the crystal so it's a lot simpler to deal with. It's got a lot of HP but no attacks so if you did the eggs you'll be fine taking it out.
She's Heeeeeeeere! [Lv. 51] (Sidestory)
Mission Map: Edmont Valley level 51 (ANI) or Tylent Jungle level 51 (BCU) - This used to be a really popular map to boss farm on, but the drops you get are much worse now. It's not really recommended to keep to farm, you're better off just trying to find gold mobs since they give better stuff than the queens most of the time.
This mission is a boss hunting one, and you need 2 queens. It's best to get help with this since they really have a ton of HP and since they're kind of bosses some people love to KS people doing the mission. Try to solo this at your own risk. Bring some C kits along, repairs should keep you alive. Only use the shield ones if you're in deep trouble. Otherwise you probably won't die on this mission if you have help. Get a mid or a slow engine for this as the queens move kind of slow. However, they also tend to spawn hornian spirits which can pound you pretty hard if you're in one place, or even in a slow. You can kill most of them and the queen usually won't spawn more. As long as you have help doing damage you should be fine here.
Mission Map: Edmont Valley level 51 (ANI) or Tylent Jungle level 51 (BCU) - This is the queen map, no reason to keep it now.
Very annoying mission. Seems easy at first, all you have to do is fly around and kill the tiny eggs with a few standard shots, and get 3 mission items. Unfortunately the drop rate is very low and makes the aralion mission look like fun. Just keep standarding the eggs to death, and ignore the bees that the eggs spawn. You'll finish it eventually.
Crimson Fire, Blue Thunder [Lv. 53] (Sidestory)
Mission Map: Rock's Nest Top level 53 - Not as good as the level 51 map but you could potentiall hunt condors here if you're desperate for a place to grind. Most people just want to say goodbye to their rock's nest missions by this point though. Keep in mind the Rock Emperor here is fake, and it doesn't have boss drops. The drops more resemble a gold mob of it's same level but I've never heard of it dropping stuff like skill cards. So keeping the map to boss farm isn't a good idea either.
Boss hunting mission, and you get a free full restat for finishing it. Keep in mind that this is the ONLY free one you get, so make sure you know what you're doing before you use it. The actual mission is easy despite it being timed. Rock Emp itself takes quite a beating so bring one or two people along to help on this one. The nest doesn't have the nasty ground mobs, so you can even fight it right there if you don't want to lure it. The restat can be put in your warehouse now, a change from older versions when you were stuck with it until you used it. If the boss isn't up when you get here, it's on about a 5 minute timer so just wait a bit and it'll be back.
A Planet Called Eopi [Lv. 54] (Sidestory)
This seems like a pretty easy mission when you get it. Just kill some stuff, timed mission in your first moon map. And most people make the big mistake of completing it too. The horrifying truth only emerges after the mission is completed, when someone says on global chat, "What does this Shining Letter do?". This mission is part of a chain of moon missions, completing at level 79. Until you finish that last mission, you are stuck with the letters in your inventory. You can't even put them in your warehouse. This is very frustrating, so it's recommended to wait until you get near 79 to do these. Keep in mind that to do the last mission in the chain you need a map that is only availiable if your nation was the most recent one to kill the opposing nation's mothership. So if you can't get the map you can't complete the mission either, and you'll be stuck short 5 inventory slots while you wait. So be careful when you start these.
Mission Map: Hornian King's Habitat level 55 - This would actually be a really nice map to keep for a while but for a big problem. Once you start the mission you can't cancel it, and it's on a timer. There are way to use the map with multiple gears but it's just not worth it. Use normal HKH when it's availiable instead.
Both nations have this mission but I honestly have no idea if the map is shared or not. The mission is on a half-hour timer, and you're supposed to kill eggs until time runs out. Fortunately, you don't have to kill a single egg to complete the mission. The mission is a "money mission" where you get SPI per egg you kill. But the eggs have enormous amounts of HP, and you get 12k SPI per kill. You're better off just grinding normally until the timer runs out.
Royal Audience [Lv. 56] (Sidestory)
Mission Map: Hornian King's Habitat level 56 - Not a good map to keep, explained below.
Another boss hunt. Kings aren't horrible but they can do a whole lot of damage compared to queens. So you'll want to bring help. However there are 2 other things that make this mission a royal pain, so to speak. The boss is on at least a half-hour timer, which means if someone did the mission before you, you'll have to wait a really long time to get it. This is why the map is useless to keep. If you don't see it, it sometimes wanders off to the corners of the map so look around a bit. If you don't see it around the middle it's usually not up though. The other problem is that the map is shared, so there is sometimes fighting between nations between groups trying to get the king. Other than that the mission is not that bad.
Turning Point [Lv.57] (Sidestory)
Not really that tough to do, although sneaking into Redline or Relic can be tough sometimes. To get the mobs in the enemy's map, it's usually easier to sneak in through Rock's nest rather than going through the dens and bark which are usually full of fighting. Ellos are all over relic but warvalders are only over the land parts of redline, to the south and western parts of the map. Cygnus are a lot harder to find, plus the fact that Bark has the most pvp out of any map in the game. If you manage to use bark here, a lot of the time it can be very slow to find cygnus. The best way to find them is to go to the very center of the map, and do slow circles around targeting the mountain areas. Eventually you'll lock onto a cygnus, then go kill it and repeat. Be careful not to start fighting them over the missile launchers. Also, sometimes large groups of cygnus appear. This is sort of nice for the mission but they group aggro and do tons of damage so be careful. If you're unable to use normal bark, there are a couple things you can try. One way is to try to find someone with a warp to one of the bark mission maps at 45 or 49. This can be tough to find though. The other thing you can try is to go to Rock's Nest Top, either the real one or the 51 mission map. There are a few cygnus on this map, which tend to hang out at very low alt around the map. This can take a long time but if bark is unavailable you may have to resort to this.
The mission itself is interesting. Once you finish it you get the warp to Island's Dream and the high level maps that follow. This includes the safe ID which each nation has, which is a second warp. The safe chain doesn't include some of the highest level maps, check a guide for the maps you can access. But because of the warp to bark, some people decide to keep this mission for the PvP advantage. It can get you to enemy maps much faster, and behind enemy camps in bark for ANI gears. It's a trade off, since you can still get to the maps behind ID by getting a Call of Hero to them, but you can't warp to ID itself.
A little trivia behind this mission: The mobs you needed used to be much deeper in enemy maps, Blackburn and Ardor respectively. The point, I believe, was to familiarize you with enemy maps if you hadn't been to them yet. Since SPs require you to be in enemy maps a lot more often now, it wasn't really needed anymore.
Mission Map: Island's Dream level 58 - Very useful map for B-gears. This is a good alternative for quite a while if normal and safe ID are crowded. However the map is fought over almost as much as any other mission map. B-gears that keep the Turning Point mission for the warp use this map to grind up. There's another map at 62 that's very similar to this one. Useful until you can grind alioth.
This mission doesn't need explanation, the mission map is the main thing.
Money mission. Like most timed missions you can't cancel once you start, and it lasts 15 minutes. The warp sends you to ID, but the trick is that you don't have to stay there. The best time to start this mission is when there's a big den war that's in a stalemate. Den wars are like a giant meat grinder, and it's easy to get kills even at lower levels just randomly shooting at enemy gears and sharing kills with allied gears. That being said, you won't really make that much money from this so don't worry if you can't get many done.
Beyond The Crater [Lv. 60] (Sidestory)
DON'T DO THIS MISSION UNTIL YOU'RE NEAR 79. Read the 54 sidestory for why. If you accidentally did the 54 mission, as a lot of people do, don't make the mistake twice with this one. Once you do the mission, it can be kind of confusing to figure out what you have to do. The fillaro mob drops both items you need, but both are random. Just keep killing them and be careful what part of the map you go into and you'll be done in less than 10 minutes.
Mission Map: Island's Dream level 62 - The second useful ID mission map. Basically the same as the 58 one except for the gate being in a different place. 58 is generally more crowded than this one, so if that's the case try moving on to this one.
The actual mission for this is kind of strange, but not hard. Once you get the kills you need, just head in the city gate. This sends you to another ID mission map, but this one doesn't have any mobs in it. There's another gate in the sky. Go through that gate and the mission is complete.
Annoying mission to complete. This is the only use for those escape ports you find in chaos, don't be fooled if people tell you otherwise. Getting 4 of them is pretty easy. The problem is that the mission doesn't finish yet. You have to head to the pad, and might have to land on it. I believe this only works in normal chaos, not the safe version.
Mission Map: Chaos level 68 - This is probably the most used mission map for grinding in the game. The best for I-gears, and useful for M-gears that have enough attack to grind on mobs with defense. This means there's more fighting for this map than any other map. As an I-gear myself, the map is nice to keep for a few levels but there's so much fighting that it's annoying. To quickly grind on this map, shoot at one of the Egma Schills and get them to chase you. They'll spawn 6 interceptors. Kill those, and repeat. You won't get as many golds this way but it's really fast at this level. This is not a boss farming map, the ES here don't drop anything.
This mission isn't impossible to solo. But it would take hours even if you didn't get KSed by some jerk. Get some help with this one. Remember that this map is filled with mobs, so you'll end up being surrounded by dozens of them. This means it's tough to stop or reload, so keep strafing and make sure you can get to somewhere safe if you need to change weps or reload. Because of this using a slow is a bad idea, so stay in a mid if you can. A-gears are out of luck in this mission, they have to rely on their form mates to do most of the damage. If you die, make sure your form mates know if the ES is at low life, since it only counts if you hit it.
Pretty easy mission but it causes some confusion sometimes. You're after asteroids in DC which drop the mission items. As long as you know this you can finish this in just a couple minutes. Probably not worth keeping this warp unless you still have turning point.
Behind The Shadows [Lv. 73] (Sidestory)
4th mission in the moon mission chain. This can be an awful mission to do, and some people even resort to using stealth cards from MS wins to complete it. However, kills do share in this mission so if you get help you can finish it much faster. The drops are random and have a fairly low drop rate, so this can take quite a while. Make sure you have some time before you start this one, since it can last over half an hour even with help.
The (former) most important mission in the game. THE Money mission, and lasts 10 minutes. Because of the big change in this mission by the episode 3 part 2 patch that AR hasn't gotten as of this writing, this mission has huge change in importance. The 3-2 patch changes this mission to a flat 4m reward, and you don't have to kill a thing. If you are reading this BEFORE AR gets the 3-2 patch, you need to read the paragraph below or you'll regret it for the rest of your AR days. The reason that the monetary reward is removed is that event wars after the part 2 patch give SPI rewards from 50k-6M SPI for damage done and heals given in the maps the event wars take place in. This it so you get more money over a longer period rather than depending on luck and preparation for this mission.
Pre 3-2, this mission can make a TON of money. It involves killing the launchers and beams in DC, and you get 800k per kill. This means that you can make upwards of 100m, with around 150m for B-gears using 1 map. I highly recommend reading a seperate mission guide for this, since the set up can be very different for every gear. A-gears for example, would wait until 75 to do this mission to get +1 airsiege. You'll want to recruit help for this, as well as a M-gear to Call you to safe DC after you start.
Not a tough mission, but it really helps to have a 0 speed form lead that you can form on for this. The console you need to kill is at the very end of the engine room near the fantasy flow warp. It's up at the top of the sphere, just target around if you can't see it. It can be soloed but it would take a bit.
Mission Map: Fantasy Flow level 79 - Pretty good map to keep for a bit. Fantasy Flow is rarely that crowded in safe and this map is shared, so it's not the best for grinding in. It does have an instance of real Skadi if you're a boss farmer, however. It is also useful for getting real fantasy flow during Rakion base wars. The only warp in the map leads back to DC. But, if you cancel the mission it sends you to real fantasy flow. A M-gear with this mission could use it to bring their form there. Other gears won't benefit much from this. Even with these benefits, it's usually better to finish once you're close to 80 to get you there quicker. That level is a huge boost for any gear.
The mission itself is just killing mobs and getting random drops, very straightforward.
Ruler of Eopi [Lv. 79] (Sidestory)
The end of the moon missions, and goodbye to the annoying letters in your inventory. But the mission itself can be a huge pain to finish. The first thing you have to know is that it's hard to even start the mission. Your nation has to currently hold Eopi, which you can only have if you had the most recent mothership kill that month. If you fail the MS attack and succeed at the defense, you still don't get eopi. In addition, Ordin's spawn time is around 12 hours, which can vary several hours either way. If no one tells you it's up, you can have huge problems even finding it. So once you get 79, you're probably going to want to get your moon missions up until this point done as soon as you can, so if ordin is up you're able to get this mission done
You are definitely going to want several high level gears to help, one of them a M-gear. The boss you need to kill for the mission is the real Ordin, which looks just like the unfinished version from the level 35 mission. The damage it deals is not that devastating, although combined with the nasty mobs on the map you can die quick. It really takes a beating, and has a high regen rate which makes it important to deal as much damage as you can as fast as you can. If you run out of ammo and don't have a M-gear to CoH you back, it's 2 maps to the nearest pad. The best way to deal with Ordin is to lure it out to an area that isn't swarmed by mobs. The most popular spot is the gate, but there are a couple problems with this. People tend to lure mobs to the gate when they're leaving the map, and there are several mob groups close to the gate. If you have to spend a lot of time killing the mobs ordin will regen really fast. I've had the most success luring it to the bottom right corner. There are barely any mobs over there, and the only ones around are the relatively weak seraphs. Unless your form mates make the boneheaded mistake of luring mobs over there, you'll have almost no interference from mobs. The other advantage to using that spot is that it's much less likely other gears from your nation will show up to "help" and try to steal drops. If someone does manage to do this, you will still get credit for the mission when ordin dies. You just need a hit on it and the ability to survive until it dies.
After this mission, you get a random letter and another mission item to combine with. The letter you get is random. The weapons are mostly useless. The one that's considered the jackpot is the Omega Mount, which is by far the best weapon to use with the A-gear Hypershot finishing skill. It's pretty rare, but you might get lucky if you're an A. To combine the stuff, put all 5 letters in the factory and combine them. Don't look for the jewel from the 73 mission, it was replaced by your new letter. Then combine the slate you get with the mission gun/missile and you're done with the moon missions.
Mission Map: Fantasy Flow level 82 - Can be nice to keep for the warp to Volcano, and because the mission doesn't give bonus points it's a lot easier to keep than the 79 mission. Not a boss farming map, the skadi on this map are fake.
Easy mission by the time you're this level. You'll need help to down a skadi more than likely, but other than that it's not a challenge.
Mission Map: Lumein Volcano level 85 - Nice map to keep for a while if you like LV, but because the mission gives 2 bonus points it's really tempting to finish it right away. It's also a nice map to keep for rakion wars. I believe the Gigantic God in this map is real.
Not a tough mission to figure out, but it can take a bit. You need random drops, and the rate is kind of average. Keep away from multiple fates, they deal monster damage. Salamanders are best dealt with at long range for non-Bs. You can take along a radar adhesive on this one and lure out fates and snipe salamanders.
Kneel Before The Gigantic God [Lv. 88]
Mission Map: Lumein Volcano level 85 - Same as the 85 map, different objective. As mentioned before this map can be kept for the warp or the boss.
This mission is killing the Gigantic God knees, which is not that different from killing the head or the core really. High level B-gears could solo it but it's not recommended. GG aggros at much furthe out than before, so it's really tough to high alt bomb it. There is a trick where a M-gear can hang out in a space behind the GG and draw aggro, but it's tough to describe exactly where. It's fairly impossible to tank everything without using that. Once you're 88 you probably have experience with GG already but you can test that out if you're not aware of it.
The "new" series of missions, known as Episode 3. This is a new chain connecting Edmont Valley and Bach Mountain Chain. The missions are basically straightforward, although there are more than a few keyboard bangers in there. Experience rewards are lousy, about 3% at the level of the mission, but the SPI rewards are decent. You really need to get to about 80 before you get anything good.
First "mission" of the Pandea missions. You need this one to start but you get absolutely nothing for doing so. It finishes right when you start it but you need the 52 mission you get afterwards to open up the first map in the chain. Once you get the first one, you can warp to most of your nation's Pandea maps from the shop.
Atus Beach Search [Lv.52] (ANI)
Mission Map: Atus Beach level 52 - Interesting map with lower level versions of the Atus mobs. The real mobs are mid 70s, so you can't grind on those yet. If you need a map to grind around this time, you can try this one. I haven't had a lot of experience with using it myself. Mobs are pretty easy though, unless you go near the slayers which will mess you up good.
The mission itself isn't tough but takes over 15 minutes to do, so make sure you have this one done right away if you want to go to a SP in this map. You CAN get a CoH to maps beyond Atus in the chain, you just won't be able to go to the map itself. Trying to get a call around this level is tough though, since a lot of Ms will ignore lower level gears. So it's usually best to get this one done and rely on other maps if you want to do SPs in the chain.
Enemy in Sight! [Lv. 65] (ANI)
Mission Map: Slope Port level 65 - Since it's timed you can't keep this map, but since slope is a nightmare you wouldn't want to.
This mission sucks. Timed mission where you need to kill 30 mobs in 10 minutes. This wouldn't be THAT bad by itself, unless you're a M-gear, if EVERYTHING IN THE MAP didn't chase you all over the place and shoot missiles at you. The kills don't share as far as I know too, so that makes it even worse. Since the rewards for these missions suck, you can wait until you're higher level until you try to finish this one. Once you go, it's nice to have M-gear help even if you are a M, since you'll take a lot of damage and need to spend all your time killing things and not running around just trying to survive. Bring a lot of kits too, at least B types. Try to find a good spot to kill one mob at a time, trying to keep less than 5 mobs on you at once. Any more and you might not be able to survive no matter how many kits you use. Good luck with this one.
Destruction of the Shrine Munitions Bas [Lv. 69] (ANI)
Mission Map: Atus Beach level 69 - Good mission map to keep, since the pandea rewards suck anyway. This is a real instance of atus, so the mobs are the same level as real ones. It helps a lot to have sometimes when the normal one would get crowded during HH or something. It's not critical to keep or anything, but can be a nice change although the kit drops are almost non-existent.
3rd Phase of <Operation Assault> [Lv. 75]
The second horrible mission in the pandea section, a lot of people are stuck with this for a while. This is the infamous "symbol killing" mission. It's very far into enemy maps, and especially cruel to ANI players since you have to kill it in nubarke. Nubarke is a great map for grinding B-gears, so there's almost always BCU here to mess with your mission. Bring help. The other major, MAJOR pain with this mission is that getting credit for killing the symbol can be tricky. There are 2 ways to do it. One, when the symbol is almost dead, have your form mates leave the form. This will make it so their damage is gone, so you'll still get the credit if you finish it off. The other way is to have your form mates town. This can be used if you have a way back if something goes wrong, or if you just want one try then giving up. As always the rewards stink, so unless you're near 80 there's no pressing need to finish this. If you're really desperate, you can get the mission fairly easy during offensive MS wars, and after a nubarke SP win.
4th Phase of <Operations Assault> [Lv. 77]
Mission Map: Slope Port level 77 - I suppose this map could be useful if evade/defense cards drop here in AR after the Part 2 patch, but otherwise you have to be a masochist to grind here.
As an I-gear, I hate this mission more than any mission in the game. Not only is this the hated Slope port, but you have to kill a mission map version of the Black Widow. This boss doesn't drop anything, and has much less HP than the normal version. I hate this boss so much, since it's main attack will 1 hit most I-gears since evade won't work on it. Defense will reduce the damage it does, but since you're taking 9k per hit it's going to mess up anyone really badly. High level B-gears with chaffs are a godsend on this mission since they can absorb one of the big attacks per chaff. If you can solo this mission, I hate you.
Extracting Special Energy [Lv. 80] (ANI)
The mission itself isn't worth mentioning, but the reward is a Seraphim Bible which you can either use or get some good money for by selling. It's usually a good idea to complete your pandea missions up to this point once it's available.
The Hidden Weapon Of Vattallus [Lv. 84] (ANI)
Mission Map: Portsmouth Canyon level 84 - Actually a really nice mission map, but because the mission gives a Gematria Scripture for completiong most people don't keep it. PMC is relatively safe for a high level map, so if the normal PMC is crowded this is a good substitute, especially if you're grinding alone. Since B-gears don't really need scrips except for selling, this is a great alternative map to grind on rascals in.
The mission itself is killing a mission map version of echelon. It doesn't have the HP or the ungodly regen rate of the normal echelon. It's rumored that killing the cordobas all over the map will cut down the regen of echelon, but since this one doesn't nearly have the HP the normal one has it's not worth trying. The missiles are really hard to see since they're transparent and against a white background, so you might die when you get hit 3 times for 4k damage. But this is much easier than the 77, so as long as you get competent help you should be fine.
Straightforward mission, just killing mobs. This is the Turning Point of Pandea missions though, warping you to Sunshine Born. Incredibly useful to keep, since the reward is awful anyway. 87 gives you another warp here so if you get to 87 you can finish this one.