Hatikvah Plot Walkthrough

Manoeuvring with Difficulty / Stoats not Goats

Description

The Hatikvah plot (aka the diplomacy intro story or trade revolution plot) is, in addition to the player headquarters plot, the primary way to access subsequent plot missions and is a prerequisite for starting the Paranid Civil War, Free Families Conflict, Covert Operations plots. The plot is also a requirement for completing one outcome of the Yaki Investigation plot. Its use as a gateway plot makes it often the very first or second plot mission completed by players and resultantly is targeted to new players with limited funds and resources.

The plot isn’t particularly long compared to other plots and even some of the starting missions and from start to finish it only took an hour and a half for me to complete for the purposes of double checking this guide (for comparison the Free Families starting mission took 2 hours for me to complete).

Because this is a plot guide it does contain a lot of spoilers but I’ve done my very best to make sure that it does not spoil any of the outcomes or events of any related or subsequent plots.

Starting Requirements

• Neutral relations with the Hatikvah Free League
• Located within 2 “Jumps” of Hatikvah’s Choice (all sectors in map below can have the mission offer)

Hatikvah Trading

“Alright Prepare the freighter for departure” – Executive Reen Omara

With the two prerequisites met the plot can be initiated by accepting “Join Hatikvah's Trade Revolution”, upon accepting the mission offer guidance is provided to the Hatikvah Free League Trade Station. Dock there and navigate to Reen Omara’s Office (she’s the executive of the Hatikvah Free League and visiting her office is a regular occurrence through this story mission). At this stage there’s a bit of dialogue and Reen outlines how hectic everything is before offering a courier job and they’re providing both the courier and the wares to be transported.

The courier in question is an Argon Callisto Sentinel class vessel and the Hatikvah Free League have kindly stocked it with 250 medical supplies. At the ship the owner faction will still be label it as being owned by the Free League, getting closer will cause it to change to player-owned ready for the trade run.

The mission at this stage will select an appropriate station to deliver to and its guaranteed to be one friendly to the player so there isn’t any hasty rep-grinding required. With directions to the station set fly to and dock at the station. Once docked at the station trade with the station and sell them the full 250 medical supplies (This usually reaps around 10,000Cr).

With the trade run complete Reen will ask to meet up again.

Meeting Dal

“He’s nothing if not confident” – Reen Omara on Dal Busta

Upon entering Reen Omara’s office Reen and Dal begin their greetings and give a run-down on what the whole “Trade Revolution” is actually about. As it turns out the Free League has gotten a little too close for comfort with the Scale Plate Pact and is now unable to break away with dealings with them out of fear of retribution, Dal has been hired by Reen to help with the situation. Dal in turn is looking for assistance with his part of the operation.

The next step is to meet Dal on his ship which is an Argon Drill Sentinel with a grey and red paintjob. On his ship he will answer some questions about the Hatikvah Free League and his involvement in it.

Afterwards Dal will reveal his plan to hack a Scale Plate station which will require them installing a “worm” on a player-owned ship. Take off from the Trading station and seek out a Scale Plate station, any will do but there are always some located in Silent Witness XI which is only 2 Jumps from Hatikvah’s Choice.

Upon approaching a Scale Plate station switch the ship to short-range scan mode (SHIFT+2) and look for dataleaks. Dataleaks are recognisable by their static noise they make while in close proximity and the glowing red dot. Scan the leak by approaching slowly until the notification panel on the left says “Decrypting Data Stream”.

Once the data leak has finished decrypting make sure to get out of there because the Scale Plate have picked up on the decryption and are not particularly happy about it.

The 3 Scale Plate fighters that are sent in pursuit should be pretty easy to destroy or escape from but it is important to bear in mind that the fighters will keep pursuing until they get destroyed so its best to take them out personally or leave them to get taken out by police.

Going Offensive

“That's certainly going to send a message.” – Dal Busta

Its time to set off some explosions and do some sabotage. Dal wants to sabotage a Scale Plate delivery, this will require a spacesuit bomb launcher (available from many NPC traders on stations). Dal will also provide some information on what is required to build space suit bombs (2 in total). Each bomb will require one of each of the following to craft:

With two bombs crafted (Dal has also kindly provided a bomb launcher) its time to sabotage a Scale Plate Pact delivery. Mission Guidance will select an appropriate station and mark the end of a docking pier as the target. Pilot as close as possible to the marker and enter the space suit, in the space suit deploy the two bombs at the marked position. If guidance still says that the bombs haven’t been planted then either they are in the wrong spot or they EMP bombs, if either of these is the case they can be disarmed and recollected before trying again.

Once the bombs are planted its time to get back to the ship and fly away from the station and watch the action. A Scale Plate Pelican Sentinel should approach the sabotaged dock and release its cargo drones and then the bombs will detonate in a cutscene. In an exception to the general rule for mission ships, this ship is actually capturable and can be boarded but that’s not required for the mission and just an option for trying out boarding.

Follow Ship

“We're about to chase down a lead. You and the other ships will have to be on standby for any opportunity which arises.” – Dal Busta

With the sabotage shenanigans out of the way Dal will ask for help patrolling a sector (usually Hatikvah’s Choice I). This is pretty mundane, after getting to the designated sector the mission objective switches to patrolling around a selection of friendly stations for 15 seconds each, no enemies are spawned or borrowed for this mission so any enemies encountered will probably just be lost Xenon.

After a few stations Dal will announce that he needs help tracking his lead which is a Teladi Kestrel Sentinel. Make sure when following the ship to note the guidance queues to stay in a position where the ship is close but not too close enough to rouse suspicion.

Remain alert because on one occasion the ship will drop a lockbox and Dal will ask to investigate it before resuming pursuit. This lockbox does not have to be opened and either way the mission will still progress, if the lockbox is opened though it will cause some ships to take offense and attack. The attack can be resolved in any of 3 ways: fighting and killing the attackers, fleeing from the attackers or dropping the items picked up from the lock box.

With the pursuit resumed after studying the lockbox there’ll be an interaction between a police ship and the suspicious Teladi vessel and guidance will advise to stick close but not too close to alert them. Finally, the pursuit resumes for a final time which concludes with their confrontation. Dal will try and get information from this encounter and the Teladi pilot of the ship will let slip that they are aligned with the Scale Plate and there is a Scale Plate Lieutenant.

The Meeting

“Let's go see the bad guys!” – Dal Busta

Its time to debrief with Reen back in her office on the Hatikvah Free League trade station. What follows is a massive information dump and discussion between Reen and Dal, in summary Dal advises Reen to permit him to engage in discussion with the Scale Plate Lieutenant and Reen reluctantly accepts.

Dal also recommends bringing him some lodestone to give as a gift to appease the Scale Plate lieutenant and make negotiations go over smoother. Only one unit of lodestone is required and they can be pickup up as an inventory item from mining asteroids while in high attention (IS) and NPC miners will also drop them in their mining so it should be fairly easy to obtain.

With the Lodestone head over to Dal who is already docked at the Scale Plate station and give him the lodestone. The interactions between him and the lieutenant happen at a distance so they can’t be listened in upon.

Drone Cleanup

“This is Reen. I’ll send you data on where we need a hand” – Reen Omara

While Dal was having his discussions with the lieutenant some rogue scale plate fighters have gone after Hatikvah freighters and Reen needs help getting rid of the attackers. She also wants to meet again so after taking out the fighters (they should be pretty lightly armed and can even be taken out by the traders they are attacking) the objective will update to chat with Reen.

Through the catchup with Reen and Dal its revealed that some of Hatikvah’s drones are malfunctioning and still pursuing Scale Plate caches and that they need to be destroyed. Luckily there are only 4 drones so they should be pretty easy pickings unless they swarm and attack in numbers (but they generally don’t, most of the time while attacking one the others will remain harmless). Taking out the drones also yields a healthy sum of 40,000Cr.

Station Defences

“This is a huge project and we need to ensure it's safe until we hand it over.” – Reen Omara

As part of the deal with Scale Plate Dal has gotten the Hatikvah Free League to build a brand new spacefuel station for them in Hatikvah’s Choice I as a token of goodwill. Since construction is being finalised the Free League needs 5 lasertowers (either the mk1 or mk2 variants are accepted but mk1s are cheaper and can be deployed from all ships). The lasertowers must be deployed at a specific location near the station as indicated by guidance. Lasertower mk1s can be bought from wharves, shipyards and equipment docks (the closest options are the wharf and shipyard in Argon Prime and the Equipment Dock in Hatikvah’s Choice III) and usually cost around 9,500Cr (47,500Cr total). Sometimes when deploying the laser towers it will still say 4/5 deployed after 5 have been deployed, that’s okay, the game knows that 5 have been deployed it just doesn’t update the value for whatever reason and the next stage will still progress.

The Agreement

"Just smile, make the exchange and get out of there." – Reen Omara

After the lasertower deployment Reen asks for a chat on how the negotiations are progressing with Scale Plate. Upon speaking to her in her office she asks for a delivery of a datapad to the Scale Plate Lieutenant, the lieutenant is on the same station as the initial one that Dal needed that lodestone for.

The lieutenant delivers a short spiel on how ashamed he is that Reen sent a mere messenger to deliver the datapad rather than making the agreement in person. He concludes with a menacing threat, this is a good time to flee the station.

Breakdown

“But there seems to have been a misunderstanding. The largest debt was respect” – Lieutenant Mustris Gisnos Yolious II

The Scale Plate Pact are seriously incensed by Reen’s decision to get someone else to hand over the data pad, having wished that she were there in person. As a result the cease in hostilities has ended and this time the Scale Plate Pact is not holding back.

After the disastrous end to a meeting Reen gets in contact and asks for help protecting certain assets as the League is spread too far thin and are considering calling in Argon Federation support. The first protection detail is in guarding a large freighter only one jump away.

Upon reaching the freighter it becomes evident that things have already taken a turn for the worse with the ship damaged and the crew evacuating. Protect the escape pods for this period. Things begin to go even more sideways with the Scale Plate boarding and stealing the freighter (there’s no way to prevent this and the freighter can’t be boarded by the player). Destroy the Scale Plate ship that boarded the freighter (there should be only the one and its just a fighter).

Once the Scale Plate fighter has been taken out of commission a series of voice messages will trigger notifying of the Argon Federation’s intervention in the matter. Reen announces that she’s being taken into custody but will still follow through with the terms of the agreement but where is Dal?

The next objective is to locate Dal, he should be in his ship in the same sector as the one with the hijacked freighter. Unfortunately for Dal it looks like he’s been taken out by the Scale Plate because his ship is a burnt-out wreck. Get within 4km to have the ship computer read out what happened. There is also a black box nearby to be picked up with the container magnet to reveal more about Dal’s unfortunate encounter with the Scale Plate.

This concludes the bulk of the Hatikvah mission chain with the final chapter needing the player headquarters to complete. Unfortunately for Executive Reen Omara and the rest of the Free League their trade revolution was bungled but at least they now have broken with the Scale Plate Pact and can get greater support from the Argon Federation.

At this stage the plot achievement will unlock:

Interloper

“Intruder, would you be so kind as to take two steps back so that I can enact the purge protocols?” – Boso Ta

Chapter Requirements

Player Headquarters with Boso Ta

Chapter Details

After the drastic escalations of aggression between the Scale Plate Pact and Hatikvah Free League that saw unprecedented Argon Intervention everything has quietened down. After a 10 or 20 minute wait Boso Ta will ask for an urgent discussion on the Headquarters. When entering the room Boso makes it apparent that there is an intruder, as it turns out Dal was able to escape in one of his ship’s escape pods although unfortunately his crew didn’t make it.

At this point the plot achievement will unlock:

End

Rewards Summary

The Hatikvah Plot doesn’t have too much in the way of financial, asset or faction-altering rewards but its still quite appropriate for how it appeals to newer players where the rewards are more significant. Most importantly of course it opens up further, more involved missions.

Rewards List:

• Courier Sentinel
• Sales of medical supplies (10,000Cr approximately)
• 40 000Cr from destroying drones (This is generally depleted by buying the lasertowers)
• Access to Paranid Civil War, Free Families Conflict, Covert Operations plot missions
• Ability to choose “Heart for Pirates” outcome of the Yaki Investigation
• “That Could Have Gone Better” achievement
• “Did I Forget To Lock The Door” achievement (requires Player Headquarters with Boso Ta)

Sources

• md/story_diplomacy_intro.xml
• me playing the plot to make sure I read the md right and snap some screenshots