Anarchy Online is going to push a new raid zone in where players will be fighting the alien threat. You will need the Alien Invasion expansion to be able to enter the new zone.

The Alien threat is growing in the outzones and the Unicorn Company have again requested the help of all seasoned alien hunters to assist them in battling the alien menace!

An even larger concentration of alien activity has been located deeper into the outzones and this time the most seasoned of veterans will need all their skill and organisation to take out this alien threat.

Keys and Access

Those who have completed the keys from the existing alien playfields will be able to trade in their key parts to recieve their access to the new raid zone.

In addittion once granted access players will recieve a beacon device that allows them to transport directly from ICC to the outzone staging area and skip the transport shuttle queue

NOTE: You must have the alien invasion expansion to access the alien playfields

Mission Raid Gameplay

The new playfield, known as Sector 42, offers an even greater challenge then any of the existing playfields.

This means that organisation and tactics will have to be deployed. The aliens have learnt to adapt to players previous tactics and have deployed various mechanisms that will scale their response based upon the number of players present.

The objective in the playfield revolves around attacking a series of well protected alien defense towers.

The playfield is open for players with the key to enter at any time. Showing your key to the Unicorn official gives you twenty minutes to enter, leave (willingly or otherwise!) and re-enter as often as you like. Once you enter you have an hour and a half within the playfield to fight as many aliens as you like before being recalled to the staging area. You will also be timed out from re-entering for a period of time up to nine hours (a maximum of seven and a half if you stayed in the playfield for the full hour and a half)

Be warned however the aliens don't take these assaults lightly, once they detect an attack on their towers they will eventually send in bombers to destroy all players in the playfield.

Once a raid has actually destroyed the first tower the Unicorn guard that grants access will despawn for a period of time to prevent players getting caught in the bombing inadvertantly and also prevents players being able to recycle their raid force with fresh recruits once an attempt on the towers is being made. So make sure you have enough in your raid force before you try to take down the towers!

If no raid force is in the process of atempting the towers then players are free to fight the other aliens in the playfield as much as they like until an attempt on the towers is started.

Design Notes

This playfield is unlike any other challenge we have presented to players! We also wanted to take the feedback we recieved from the first alien playfields and improve the experience even further for the players attempting this new playfield.

The new timing system should ensure that players can attempt the raid on their own timetable without being able to farm it all day long. We don't want to detract from the alien city raids totally, but the new playfield allows players much greater freedom to be able to enter and fight aliens for an hour and half every nine hours on their own schedules. It should also ensure that once a raid force choose to try and go the whole way and attack the towers that they shouldn't be able to be griefed or harrassed by other raids.

We also took the feedback that players prefer when a well formed raid completes the objectives rather then just a weight of numbers zerg so there are some mechanics in place to tailor the aliens response to the number of players present, so finding the right balance on raid size will be key to your chances of completing the playfields objectives, too few and you might run out of able bodies by the end, too many and you might not be prepared for what the aliens throw at you in return!

The rewards will drop from the main boss of the playfield. We have not heavily populated the drop tables of the regular alien forces in the playfields as the intention is not to provide an equipment farming zone, again we did not want to detract too much from the alien city raids. However given the much greater access it should provide a viable option for players to get some axp outside of city raids if they wish up to twice a day.

We are also very excited about the style of the content itself and cant wait to see the players attempt this challenge. Completing the playfield will require tactics, timing and co-ordination much more so then any of the previous playfields or high level content.

The aliens also have a few new tricks up their sleaves as well, but we will let you discover those for yourself!