UNC: Geth Incursions

The geth have begun setting up a number of small outposts in the Armstrong Cluster of the Skyllian Verge. You must eliminate these outposts before the incursion becomes a full-scale invasion.

Acquisition
This assignment is acquired by simply traveling to the Armstrong Nebula. You will receive a transmission from Admiral Hackett detailing four geth outposts that need to be destroyed. This assignment can also be gained by hacking one of the geth terminals at the ExoGeni building on Feros or by hacking into a terminal in the Genophage Labs on Virmire.

The four outposts are in the Hong, Tereshkova, Vamshi and Gagarin systems on the planets Casbin, Antibaar, Maji, and Rayingri, respectively.

General Tactics
On most of the worlds this assignment takes place on, the geth base is in a valley - which makes it very easy to fight at a distance.

Weapon of Choice

 * Sniper Rifle: As noted above, because of the layout of the bases and the fact that the player usually has the higher ground, sniper rifles become extremely efficient. If you don't have a high enough skill level, try to find a closer spot without being too exposed.
 * Assault Rifle: You will most likely need to be quite close to actually hit something, but the firepower will help you kill geth a lot faster. Utilizing the Overkill ability will greatly increase your rifle's accuracy, and therefore range, allowing you to clear the camp quickly.
 * Pistol: Not as useful as the assault rifle, but the bonus to accuracy will compensate for the lack of firepower. Again, you will most likely need to fight in close quarters, as pistols don't have much range.
 * Shotgun: If your strategy is based on sniping from a distance, avoid the shotgun; it doesn't have much range and Carnage will miss most of the time. If you are fighting in close quarters, however, the shotgun will give you a lot of coverage and stopping power.

In general, you might want to invest in Spectre - Master Gear before starting this assignment. Tungsten Ammunition is also a must.

Location
The important thing is to find a good location for your party to fire from. You might want to circle around the geth base for the "perfect" location. It is important to find the location that fits your skills - choosing a location that's too far away will mean the party never hits their target, while choosing a location too close might expose the party to geth fire (in which case, the effect of the higher ground is lost).

Party Planning

 * Biotic abilities are lost if using long-distance tactics because it's usually too far for the abilities to be effective. Due to the fact that biotics generally give less firepower than other classes, you might want to avoid bringing them along.
 * Alternatively, if you are aiming to get maximum XP from this assignment and want to fight the geth on foot (or in the interior settings) bring Liara T'Soni. Though you will need to watch her health and shields very carefully, Liara's Singularity talent is ideal for crowd control and maximum coverage of tech abilities like Damping or Sabotage, particularly on Antibaar when Geth Primes are surrounded by smaller geth. Singularity also doubles as a backup Lift when handling Geth Armatures.


 * Tech abilities could be useful, based on the position you chose - if you can get close enough, you might benefit from the tech proximity mines.
 * You might want to choose Ashley Williams or Wrex for ultimate fire power with assault rifles, or Garrus equipped with a sniper rifle.

Alternate Strategy
It is entirely possible to eliminate the above-ground forces of all four bases without leaving the Mako. After finding a good firing position, it is possible to snipe all geth forces with the Mako's main cannon while zooming in. This has the added benefit of removing yourself and your team from immediate danger, although it is important to prioritize the anti-armor capable enemies first.

Casbin
This is an outdoor outpost east, northeast of your landing position. The easiest path is to go north and then swing around the mountains to get to the outpost. However, you can go directly over the mountain by driving near the Samarium deposit and then heading towards the Uranium deposit. As you get close, swing towards the outpost. The outpost itself is defended by three Geth Snipers and six Geth Rocket Troopers. Once they have been destroyed, a Geth Dropship will fly and linger overhead. It drops off Geth Shock Troopers. You can either attack the dropship with grenades or the Mako's cannon until it is forced to retreat, or engage the Shock Troopers as they appear. After twenty or so kills, the dropship will give up and leave. You'll accumulate more ammo and weapon upgrades than you will ever need this way.

There are also three Geth Armatures and three turrets at a post in the mountains marked 'Anomalous Signal'. It is not necessary to eliminate them to complete the assignment on Casbin. If you decide to do so anyway, be careful, as frontal approach can get your Mako overwhelmed by the sheer amount of firepower. A much easier method is to drive beneath the hills on the right side of the outpost until you encounter the lone turret. It will alert two armatures, which will come in range after about three minutes, giving you ample time to defeat the turret and wipe out unsupported armatures, then deal with the rest of the outpost.

Antibaar
The geth have built another outpost in the mountains in the north central of the map. It is also guarded by 3 Geth Snipers and 6 Geth Rocket Troopers, but this time they're joined by the Geth Colossus. When you get closer, unless you have high level combat optics, your radar will be jammed. Once the ground troops are taken out, a Geth Dropship will drop reinforcements consisting of two Geth Primes, 3 Shock Troopers and 2 Rocket Troopers. Focus on the Primes first as they provide damage and defense bonuses to the smaller geth, and they are the greatest threat.

This is by far the most difficult of the worlds because the Geth base is tightly surrounded by mountains that make it very difficult to obtain a good firing location - even for the Mako - without having all ten Geth unloading on you. The direct fire (bullet) damage alone is pretty gruesome even if you avoid all the rockets.
 * So stay in the Mako, don't worry about scrounging extra XP, at least until you've winnowed the numbers down a lot.
 * The best firing location for the Mako is on the north side of the camp (the ground at the south is very uneven and throws the aiming reticle way off), so drive around on the east side of the mountains and come in from the north. From there you'll be able to at least partially obscure the Mako while winnowing the field.
 * Take out the snipers first because they do the most direct fire (undodgeable) damage.
 * Sneaky way to avoid death: if the Mako gets damaged really quickly and you don't think you can make it to safety in time, you can go to the "Map" screen and instantly return to the Normandy.

Maji
A long, winding route into the mountains will take you past five turrets. Destroy them if you wish but they are not required to complete the mission. Continue to a small outpost with another set of 3 Geth Snipers and 6 Geth Rocket Troopers. Once they've been cleared, a Geth Colossus will be dropped from overhead.

Rayingri
The geth have taken over a research outpost. Follow the beacons into the hills to an underground facility surrounded by dragon's teeth. Make sure to park the Mako in front of the entrance; the reason for this will be apparent later. Enter the facility to discover it is infested with husks. The entry chamber has a Weapons locker and Storage locker in it (Easy Decryption, so loot it then move on to the main chamber. The latter contains about eight husks so take them out then find a med kit on a pillar. When you go to the back rooms the tunnel will open and six more husks will run out at you. Take them all out then grab some cover because as soon as the last husk is dead you will be ambushed by a large geth force. The force has two Geth Destroyers, two Geth Snipers, and three Geth Troopers. Once the geth are down head to the back rooms and loot the place. The right room holds an unlocked crate and a malfunctioning object, while the left has 3 unlocked crates and another malfunctioning object. Head outside when you are done.

The last four husks are in the "back hallway" of the base. Before you kill them, assign your squad to say near the entrance (or at least the entrance of the main room which is well-protected), and then draw the husks out to them there. That way when the huge force of Geth appears you won't be trapped in the back rooms with a bunch of Geth Destroyers rushing you.

When you leave the outpost, you will find a Geth Dropship sending in reinforcements. There are 3 Geth Troopers, 2 Geth Rocket Troopers, a sniper and a Shock Trooper. If the Mako was parked at the facility's entrance before you entered it, you can use it as cover during this battle. Otherwise, retreating behind the facility will prevent the geth from attacking all at once, although they will still try to flank you. The dropship will not linger as it did on Casbin, and once the ground troops are gone this outpost is clear. Be careful around the spikes in the outside battle as ramming the Mako into them can cause it to get stuck at the top (if this happens, go to the Map menu and use it to return to the Normandy).

Solcrum
When all four outposts have been destroyed, one of your squadmates will say that they expected one of the destroyed outposts to be the main outpost for the attacks. Then the other will say that the signal is coming into the outpost. They say that the signal must be coming from somewhere inside the cluster. It leads to the Grissom system, where the geth have a main base of operations on Solcrum, the small moon beside Notanban.

The entrance to the underground base on Solcrum is guarded by three Geth Rocket Troopers in sniper towers and two patrolling Geth Colossi. While driving around the base in a circle and staying on the move to avoid missiles, take out the Rocket Troopers first to quickly reduce the total Geth firepower. Then by staying close to the base itself and slowly circling it (preferably in reverse if you're good at that sort of thing) you can usually keep one of the Colossi behind the base while wearing down the other.

The interior of the base is laid out as a prefab two story with balcony on the left rather than the expected underground pattern. Inside the base there are only some destructible crates for cover and it manned by a contingent of three Geth Destroyers, three Geth Hoppers (two Stalkers and one Sapper) and a Geth Juggernaut on the balcony. Unlike many other missions, there will be no containment cells to aid you in the fight. Once the geth are dead, a paragraph summary will appear, saying a recording of a quarian singing a lament has been transmitted back to the geth worlds behind the Perseus Veil by a terminal.

Lift or Throw are useful to stun the hoppers to keep them still long enough to shoot. You should be able to safely snipe the Juggernaut from inside the entrance chamber once a few of the hoppers are down. Watch out for the Destroyers trying to get close -- save a biotic ability like Lift or Throw, or a tech ability like Damping or AI Hacking to stun one if it rushes you.

Don't forget to go through the door opposite the entrance on the ground floor to grab an upgrade kit, secure crate (Average Decryption) and hack the data terminal (Easy Decryption) for geth data files you can bring to Tali for the supplementary assignment Tali and the Geth.

Complete this assignment by returning to the Normandy for a congratulatory message from Admiral Hackett.

Enemies

 * Geth Colossus
 * Geth Destroyer
 * Geth Hopper
 * Geth Juggernaut
 * Geth Prime
 * Geth Rocket Trooper
 * Geth Shock Trooper
 * Geth Sniper
 * Geth Trooper
 * Geth Turret
 * Husk

Trivia

 * If you start off with Rayingri, then move to Antibaar and clean up there, one squad member will comment that there's "only one more outpost to go", although you've still got two more to destroy. After going to Casbin and wiping out the outpost there, you will get the location of the geth headquarters.
 * Similarly, if you do Maji, Casbin, and then Antibaar, the conversation for destroying all four bases will trigger and Solcrum will become available without having to complete Rayingri. The conversation at Casbin will still say the system is half cleaned out, despite the next location (Antibaar) triggering the last base. Rayingri can still be completed, however.
 * After taking out the fourth base and deducing the location of the fifth on Solcrum, whoever speaks last in the short cutscene will say their last line twice -- once in the cutscene and once after you've regained control. This may be the result of a bug.