Hive Queen

File:HiveQueen 001.png
**Hive Queens** are the second highest class of hive bots, just below the Leviathan. Their goal is to fortify Settlements into Bastions, which can eventually become a Stronghold. Every system has at least one, it's just a matter of finding it. They are heavily guarded by Overseers, Guardian drones, Transport drones, and Assault drones. The Hive Queens themselves are armed with a Frigate Gun, which is similar to a Gatling Turret. However, the Frigate Gun is several times more powerful, is faster, and has better auto-aim. This gun was originally mounted on the Frigate and can kill a fighter in two or three shots.

Killing a Hive Queen will not only give you thousands of experience points, but will also give you credit towards a Queen Hunter Badge, which entitles you to a special reward weapon (Mega Positron Blaster).

Developer's Desk
From the desk of
John "Incarnate" Bergman
-- Hive Queens (Taken from: Design Wiki)

Mistresses of the Hive. Creator of all Hive minions, who ultimately may also form the Leviathan, who then creates the Queens, creating the circle of the Hive. Hive Queens act partially as repositories for minerals and ore, building complex alloys from the basic components mined by Collectors. These alloys are then used by the Queens to create the lesser classes of the Hive, from Observers to the Overseers.

Queens either serve in the Court of the Leviathan, or are sent to remote locations (Settlements) to fortify them into Bastions and create additional resources for the Expansion of the Hive. Queens are not aggressive, but heavily defended by both their own means and their Retinue. As the remote authority of the Leviathan and the source of new generations of the Hive, they are highly valued and protected by the Hive. Once a Queen has created a new Bastion, they do not retreat from the area but will continue to attack any opposition until all threats are removed, or they themselves are destroyed. During this time they may also call in reinforcements from the Stronghold of their Leviathan. Destruction of a Queen results in utter retreat by the Leviathan. The Hive will not risk more resources once a Queen has been lost (athough, if sufficient time passes and the area is re-surveyed by Observers, it may be re-Settled and the process begin anew).

## Statistics

### How to Kill

The tactics used to kill hive queens are as varied as the ship choices in Vendetta Online. I will first explain how to find a queen, and then outline a few methods to kill her.

To find a queen, visit a sector with collector bots. Watch them mine, do not interfere. One will likely follow you, but they're easy to outrun. Eventually the miners will leave the asteroids to jump out of the sector. Be within 1000m when they jump to see where they went. In their destination sector is a hive queen.

If the sector you warp into to watch the collector bots has a transport in it, kill it when you arrive, because otherwise the collectors will go to the transport rather than the queen. If the collector sector has guardian or assault bots, you can still follow them to find the queen, but you'll have to keep moving while you wait for the collectors to finish their work, otherwise you'll end up as some Tycorp's target practice.

Killing a queen requires a bit of coordination and planning. There are two parts to a queen's armour -- a power shield, and the regular armour. The power shield regenerates, so you need to put on a lot of damage on her in a short amount of time to "crack" the shield. Once the shield is down, it will stay down as long as you keep damaging the queen, but if you get the shield down to 10%, it'll come back up in a few seconds. All the methods for "killing a queen" are really methods for killing the shield.

The first method requires a group of at least three players. Equip yourselves with energy weapons, at least as good as Neutrons. Engage and destroy the entire escort. When the queen is alone, fire simultaneously to put maximum damage on her shield at the one time. If your timing is good, you'll have easy sailing. Voice chat amongst the group can help.

The second method only requires access to the Ragnarok, chaos swarm missiles, and gemini missiles (these two missile types are chosen because they have the same speed). Load up your rag with this equipment. At about 1200 meters out, turn towards the queen and turbo up to 80m/s. Start launching your missiles, and follow where they go, staying close behind them. Continue to fire your missiles until you're either about to crash into the queen, or you're out of missiles. What you're trying to do is "stack" the missiles so that they're all flying in one small group. When they hit the queen all at once, they'll do a massive amount of damage, taking down the shield and probably knocking about 20% off her armour as well. Now you'll need to either reload, or come back with a different ship to finish it off; but do not take too long, if the queen is not damaged for five minutes the shield will return.

The final method requires the Ragnarok, the Mega Positron Blaster, the Plasma Cannon HX, and a large power cell. Since the megaposi is only available to those who've already killed 10 queens, it is an "advanced" method, even though it's a lot less challenging than missile stacking. In this method, you kill off the escort first, then just blast the queen with all your weapons at once -- there's enough damage in a full burst to take down the shields of a "sector" hive queen. The trick is that you need to shoot her from the side or head on -- shooting her from behind spreads out the damage too much, so the shields will drop to about 10% but won't fall. It's **got** to be a side or head-on shot.

Note: Hive Queens in Gray Space give 2300XP. The blast radius when a queen explodes is between 500 and 600 meters.

Developer's Desk
From the desk of
John "Incarnate" Bergman
-- The Hive Queen's Retinue (Taken from: Design Wiki)

The Queen's Retinue is defensive in nature. Several Overseers, Guardians and Assault class minions follow her everywhere. In addition, when she establishes herself at a Bastion, she will generate more Assault and other attack drones for patrolling the borders of her established area and defending her mining Collectors.

When a Queen is established in the Court of the Leviathan, her Retinue exists, but is mixed in with the general population of the Stronghold. Only when she leaves the safety of the Stronghold does the Retinue emerge to protect her.