Appendix B3: Commander Specifics
Phoenix II —FAQ (IOS)
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FAQ (IOS) by light_rock_zz
Version: 4.5 | Updated: 01/08/2025
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Glossary
Appendix B3: Commander Specifics
Specialist 
Mission Cycle for Commander rank 
The specialist missions for Commander rank follows the cycle as shown below.
To find out the correct sequence number for the corresponding details of a specific specialist mission, use the formula (Specialist Mission Number) % 80.
- The % symbol means modulo. This means take the Specialist Mission Number, and use long division to divide it by 80. The result is the remainder, not the quotient.
- For example, if the mission number is #3347, then the sequence number is 67.
Ceres Major
Dovacoon Forge
Gau Prime
Blight, Sector[3,84]
Zhey Auna
Arcology CQ-6Summary of group specialist missions for Commander rank
The group type distribution table is as shown below in order to help you prioritize which group types to upgrade next.
| Group Type | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Bullet EMP Ships | 2 |
| Stun EMP Ships | 3 |
| Barrier Ships | 4 |
| Laser Storm Ships | 5 |
| Missile Swarm Ships | 4 |
| Point Defence Ships | 4 |
| Chrono Field Ships | 2 |
| Vorpal Lance Ships | 5 |
| Phalanx Ships | 3 |
| Ion Cannon Ships | 3 |
| Kappa Drive Ships | 5 |
| Mega Laser Ships | 5 |
| Boooom | 7 |
| Teleporters | 6 |
| Reflex EMP Ships | 4 |
| Shields up! | 4 |
| Phoenix HD Ships | 1 |
| Spray & Pray | 2 |
| Fire and Forget | 6 |
| Speedy Ships | 3 |
| Powerful Ships | 2 |
The number of times where each mission type appears is as shown below:
| Mission Type | Occurrences |
|---|---|
Shuriken/MIRV(A)    | 7 |
| Dart/MIRV | 13 |
Dart/Boomerang/Pellet  | 5 |
| General - No Lasers | 0 |
| Shuriken/Boomerang | 12 |
Dart/Boomerang/Laser   | 4 |
| General/Boomerang | 14 |
| General | 16 |
| Dart/Pellet/Laser | 2 |
Laser/Shuriken  | 14 |
| Laser/Pellet | 7 |
| Lasers Only | 0 |
The total number of times where each ship appears in any group specialist mission is shown below:
| Ship | Occurrences in |
|---|---|
| 2 | |
| 3 | |
| 3 | |
| 4 | |
| 3 | |
| 2 | |
| 5 | |
| 4 | |
| 3 | |
| 3 | |
| 4 | |
| 5 | |
| 5 | |
| 3 | |
| 5 | |
| 3 | |
| 3 | |
| 6 | |
| 5 | |
| 7 | |
| 2 | |
| 3 | |
| 5 | |
| 3 | |
| 4 | |
| 5 | |
| 7 | |
| 5 | |
| 4 | |
| 3 | |
| 4 | |
| 2 | |
| 4 | |
| 4 | |
| 6 | |
| 6 | |
| 5 | |
| 5 | |
| 4 | |
| 6 | |
| 4 | |
| 5 | |
| 5 | |
| 2 | |
| 5 | |
| 3 | |
| 5 | |
| 6 | |
| 3 | |
| 5 | |
| 4 | |
| 4 | |
| 2 | |
| 4 | |
| 3 | |
| 2 | |
| 5 | |
| 3 | |
| 3 | |
| 3 | |
| 5 | |
| 4 | |
| 4 | |
| 7 | |
| 5 | |
| 4 | |
| 3 | |
| 4 | |
| 1 | |
| 4 | |
| 3 | |
| 6 | |
| 5 | |
| 6 | |
| 4 | |
| 5 | |
| 1 | |
| 4 | |
| 5 | |
| Widget | 4 |
| Reaper | 3 |
| Luna | 4 |
| Zhetass | 3 |
| Neni | 5 |
| Xavis | 2 |
| Claymore | 6 |
| Starless | 2 |
| Kibarrax | 5 |
| Banshee | 1 |
| Zimitr | 2 |
| Jeria | 4 |
| Centurion | 3 |
| Stinger | 3 |
| Mistral | 3 |
| Esperon | 2 |
| Naya | 3 |
| Pandora | - |
| Monsoon | - |
| Warden | - |
| Disaris | - |
With the list of all specialist missions that can appear, as well as the ships that are available for use in these specialist missions, we can find the ships to upgrade such that we upgrade the least number of ships to cover ALL group specialist missions.
- Finding the solution to this is a Set Covering Problem which is an NP-hard problem. I will not bore you with the details of these 2 terms, but you can read up what is the Set Covering Problem.
- For the Numerical Example in the website below, replace Camera Location with the ships, and Stadium Areas with the different combinations of group specialist missions):
https://optimization.cbe.cornell.edu/index.php?title=Set_covering_problem
- For the Numerical Example in the website below, replace Camera Location with the ships, and Stadium Areas with the different combinations of group specialist missions):
- If you didn't read that, or didn't understand anything out of that article, it doesn't matter, because what you really need to know is that the least amount of ships that you need to upgrade is 19 ships.
- While a few solutions of 19 ships may exist, so far I have found these 19 ships to be acceptable (based on their survivability as a whole).
- If you upgrade these 19 ships in order (the top few ships appear more times), then it is guaranteed that you would be able to comfortably attempt all group specialist missions.
- Note that there will be weapon affinity mismatches so you may not always be able to complete the specialist mission comfortably.
- At the very least, you are able to get a decent number of credits by being able to attempt the specialist mission in the first place with a well upgraded ship.
Here are the 19 ships to upgrade, in order of what to upgrade first to cover as many group specialist missions first.
- Note that these 19 ships may not be the most economical approach, as you may have already upgraded a couple of other ships that may be able to replace some of these ships.
- You may not have many of these ships unlocked, thus necessitating the need to buy them from the shop and waste credits.
Once you have upgraded these 19 ships, it becomes safe for you to say that you can attempt all specialist missions quite comfortably.
- Trinity - 7 times
- Buhloo - 7 times
- AB8/Klyn - 6 times
- Icarus - 6 times
- Cinnri - 6 times
- Gladius - 6 times
- Proxymar - 5 times
- Barret - 5 times
- Marauder - 5 times
- Kada Veni - 5 times
- Geist - 5 times
- Neni - 5 times
- Veil - 4 times
- Predator - 4 times
- NC-150 - 3 times
- Yoth-Hola - 3 times
- Lokie - 3 times
- Starless - 2 times
- 502-Q8 - 2 times
For the most economical approach, I have created a Google Spreadsheet that allow you to input the current upgrade level of all your ships and use the sheet to get advice on which ships to fully upgrade. There is a couple of steps that you need to do if you really want to use this spreadsheet to achieve the most optimum credit-optimizing option, which are detailed in Appendix C. A fair bit of heads-up, the steps may be quite cumbersome.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Oebtve_fYCKZNCUjicbm5CjrE1gWfhaICngXzO_RmXU/
