Specialist Missions

Daily Missions

Specialist Missions

Specialist Mission Details & General Approach

The mission debriefing will only come at the fastest, 15 minutes after the mission reset time.

Daily Specialist missions are only available for Colonel , Major , Commander & Marshal ranks.

• Daily Specialist missions are always the middle mission or the rightmost mission.
• The Daily Specialist mission and the harder normal daily mission alternates between the 2 difficulties every day. For example:

  Day	Middle Mission	Rightmost Mission
  Day 1
  Day 2
  Day 3
  Day 4
  Day 5
  ...	...	...

You can only participate in specialist missions if you have at least one of the ships on the roster.

• If you do not have a ship for the specialist mission, there will always be one on sale in the Get Ships shop.
• However, it is not recommended to buy or upgrade them if you are purely looking from an economical perspective as the maximum reward of a specialist mission (¢200) will always be less than the cost of the ship (minimum ¢500).
  • It might be a good idea just to unlock the Zen as it makes a ton of difference in getting further. The Auras and Zens section discusses how to best use them at Level 1.
• if you intend to use this ship for normal daily missions as well, it may be justified to buy it.
  • You should use that ship often enough to warrant the purchase.

There are 2 types of specialist missions:

1. Group Specialist missions.
   • Available for gold ranks and Marshal rank.
   • 3 - 5 ships are available for group specialist missions.
   • These have a specific theme to it, usually involving a specific Aura or Zen .
   • There are also other available themes, listed below:
     • Phoenix HD Ships - Ships that are also in the predecessor game Phoenix HD, which are Phoenix, Corsair, Shogun, Mirage and Trinity.
     • Fire and Forget - Ships with a main weapon that fires Homing projectiles. All ships in this category have a DPS of 25 with the exception of Von Braun which has a DPS of 37.5.
     • Spray & Pray - Ships with a main weapon that has a Spread statistic. All ships in this category have a DPS of 34.375 with the exception of Dragonfly which has a DPS of 31.25.
     • Speedy Ships - Ships that can get fast timings on the leaderboards when speedrunning, as defined by the devs.
     • Powerful Ships - A category defined by the devs, which is quite difficult for us players and even the guide author to understand...
2. Solo Specialist missions
   • Exclusive to Marshal rank players.
   • Only one ship is available for use in these solo Specialist missions.
     • The Invaders' affinity will always match the solo ship's main weapon affinity.

A general advice for specialist missions is to use your most upgraded ship in the ship roster given.

• If more than one of your ships are roughly the same upgrade level, check the Basic Tier List (Survivability).
• If your most upgraded ship is of a mismatch damage type, try to get as far as you can first.
• Then if you can't clear, try your next most upgraded ship if it is the matching damage type.
• If you don't have any of the ships upgraded, use the Basic Tier List (Survivability) to find out the most survivable ship to use and just do your best to get as many credits as you can.

You can also keep using revives to try and get further if you can clear normal daily missions without revives.

• Credits are always a scarcity in this game since you can only earn so much in a day, and you always have a lack of credits (or at least, there's always something locked you can spend your credits on, such as apexes ).
• On the contrary, once you are good enough and have a reliable hangar of ships, you will never need revives for normal daily missions, so the number of revives keeps growing.

Trivia: Prior to the v5.6 update, players used to be able to take an unlimited number of revives to any mission. Thus, as it takes really long to earn credits to upgrade ships, extremely skilled players like Elegater and myself included would take on a challenge known as Masochist Mode, which refers to using barely upgraded ships, even as far as 1-1-0 ships, to clear specialist missions. Here's a fun video showcasing how it was like in the past to play with such extreme dedication:

So much so that in fact, I have compiled a list of videos dedicated to this craft in the playlist link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OGXfbQ3AnU&list=PLaRb57eN7IqeXM7bVqP4GEczaLoaJ2KuD&pp=gAQBiAQB

To tackle specialist missions, save up credits and upgrade the most appropriate ship to a suitable level (5-1-6 or 5-6-1 is recommended).

• Such a ship is usually practical enough to handle most specialist missions
  • It only costs either ¢4.750 for 5-1-6, or ¢4.700 for 5-6-1.
    • For the main weapon , to upgrade to level 5, it would cost 100+250+350+750 = ¢1.450.
    • For Aura , to upgrade to Ultimate , it costs 150+300+450+750+1500 = ¢3.150.
    • For Zen , to upgrade to Ultimate , it costs 100+200+300+450+750+1500 = ¢3.300.
  • That is about half the cost to fully upgrade (to 6-6-6) a ship (which costs ¢9.300).
    • However, only do this once you have the ships to consistently clear the 2 normal daily missions.

Marshal specialist missions can get extremely hard, especially for solo specialist missions that feature a ship of a lower survivability rating.

• To get better, read some of the survival tips here.
• Particularly, learn to prioritize what to eliminate first by visiting this section.
• Another thing that might help is to start up another account (local or Firi account , doesn't matter), and get to Colonel rank.
  • Then, try to clear specialist missions with un-upgraded ships. Doing so trains your survival skills in preparation for Marshal rank.
  • Slowly go up the ranks to Commander rank and see whether you can still clear the rank's specialist missions with un-upgraded ships.
  • Do remember to clear a separate daily mission for the day in the alternate account so you can maintain your rank.

The following appendices detail the mission cycles for the respective ranks and the least amount of ships you can upgrade to comfortably tackle ALL group specialist missions:

1. Appendix B1 for Colonel
2. Appendix B2 for Major
3. Appendix B3 for Commander
4. Appendix B4 for Marshal

Alternatively, you may also head over to the Apex Search Website (Website URL below) which automatically updates everyday on what are the current and next 30 specialist missions:
https://elegater.github.io/