by: Odysseus

Mission Intel: According to Brann sources, Tahrendra Base was once the landing zone for Brann prisoners, the first stop after leaving Erdas. This seems unlikely as we haven’t seen any indication of landing zones or dropship pads that the Brann would have used. The Bane have overtaken this facility and are using it as their primary staging area for operations on Mires. Sat scan shows a high concentration of energy somewhere deep inside the base. Other intel from Brann allies indicates that at some point an Eloh led an attack on Tahrendra Base, possibly during its initial overthrow by the Bane, but no information on what happened to the Eloh or his forces is available without Top Secret clearance.

Tahrendra Base is an instance located in the Mires zone on the planet Arieki. It is a self-contained instance, meaning you don’t have to take any missions with you before you enter the instance. The instance is rather quirky at times. Some might say it is buggy, but there is nothing that cannot be completed, so I prefer to call the strange things “quirky”. Also, the instance depends on you doing things in a certain order (i.e., don’t explore and kill things that you don’t have a mission for). If you follow this guide, you’ll be fine.

Once inside the instance Captain Tillery will be your tour guide. The first mission given by Capt. Tillery is titled “Break on Through”. [Were the developers listening to the Doors the day they wrote that mission title? I can see it now… the Doors blaring from an iPod with speakers… empty bags of cheese puffs and empty cans of red bull littering the room...] To accomplish this mission you will need to find some explosives to bomb the doors on the Bane barracks. The reward options for “Break on Through” are modification recipes that include: Regen Bonus, EMP Resistance and Debuff to Physical Resist. Capt. Tillery himself may be engaged with the Bane, so help him clear out the room of level 28-29 Bane (including a mortar).

Move through a set of double-doors into the Prisoner (or Security) Check Point room. Clear the room and move through the door on the other side of the room. As you move down the hallway towards the stairs to the second level, you might notice a few Bane stuck in the ceiling. You may see their feet, you may be able to target them, there may even be a shield drone stuck in the ceiling moving their shield to and fro. Quirky. Go up the stairs, go straight, and head back to the balcony of the Prisoner Check Point room following the hallway (don’t go through any doors). On your way there, take note of the Keypass Scanner with the red light above it.

Once you are on the balcony of the Prisoner Check Point room, take the ledge around to the other side of the room. Enter the Mess Hall (the map says “Guard Lounge”), and clear the room. Once the commotion has died down, it is time to find the explosives you will need. The mission markers in this room are not accurate. The explosives can be found in crates on either side of the room. Head back the way you came and use the explosive on the first barracks door. Note that blowing the first door will not make the mission marker for that room go away.

Keep going back to the Prisoner Check Point room, move around the ledge to the other side, and then blow the barracks door that you noted earlier. There is no mission marker for that door, but it is the correct door. The Bane didn’t rush me at the second barracks door, so I just blew the door and left them trapped inside. After blowing the second door, I got a quirky message “Salvaged Detonator: 0/2” just before I got the objective completed message.

When you return to the Prisoner Check Point room, you will notice that Capt. Tillery has moved to this room (as opposed to his original spot next to the medic). Turn in “Break on Through” and he will give you “Bringing the House Down”. Go back to the stairs you have used already, and this time, enter the room to the left at the top of the stairs. Since the lightbenders on the balcony of this room will immediately start sniping you, encourage the boss, a level 29 silver Thrax rifleman named Taskmaster Eitak, to come out into the hallway for a more private conversation. Defeating the boss completes your first mission objective. Clear out the Security Station 1 room, and then access the Bane Security Console. Note that the console is not the switch, but rather, it is the Bane CommLink Terminal (i.e., keyboard) below the switch. That act will complete your second objective. Your third objective will be to clear out Security Station 2 with an optional objective of gathering Bane DNA samples.

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A lot of this Stuff Looks Breakable

Take the stairs back down, and head in the direction of the Prisoner Check Point room. Take the door to your left which will lead to the Lower Block Security area. Wind down to the third level, collecting Bane DNA samples along the way. Once you have collected the five DNA samples, a second optional mission will appear. Across from the door to Security Station 2 (the door has a flashing red light above the keypass scanner), is a deactivated teleporter. Active the transporter using the switch on the front of it. Specialist Donnaway will beam in to assist you. Talk to her. Place the package she gives you on the flashing red light by the door, and it will make your task much easier. If for some reason Overseer Xixl or one of his buddies sneaks out of the room, take cover behind the short wall in front of the door, and blast away. There is a transporter in Security Station 2 (also called the Lower Prison Block Security Station) that will continue to drop in new Bane. Stay as long as you like, but by now you should be ready to head back to Capt. Tillery for further instructions.

After speaking to the Captain, head upstairs using the door to your left before the set of stairs that you are now very familiar with. Gently tap (not a Spy “one-tap one-kill” routine) any Warden Bots, and they will join you. Being a soldier who doesn’t normally have a tag-along armed pet, it was nice to have three level 29-30 Warden Bots join my adventure.

Clear the Upper Prison Block Security Station (aka the Security Station 3 room) which includes hunters who snipe from the balcony in addition to the lightbenders. The completion of “Bringing the House Down” comes from Headquarters via radio. The reward options are: a Dynamo Salvage Tool, a Dynamo Cipher Tool, a Prodigy Tissue Extractor and a Wellcare Conical Healing Disc.

Headquarters then gives you a radio mission called “What Goes Around...” In this mission you are to rendezvous with Specialist Donnaway. She wants you to escort her into the final room, but she does not help you fight. If you are running this instance with a squad, consider taking tactical advantage of the final room. Send two people upstairs (using the familiar set of stairs). One will then take the left balcony and the other, the right. The rest of the squad can then go through the front door. With a person sniping from each balcony, you will have three sources of fire to make short work of the enemy in the final room. An alternate strategy would be to use the people sniping from the balconies to draw the Bane out of the room. The rest of the squad would be behind the cover (i.e., the short wall) at the door to the wormhole room to make quick work of the exposed bad guys as they try to go upstairs and attack the folks who are sniping.

I ran the instance solo, and I cleared the room from both balconies before I went in the front door. The boss, Dominator Ryxnl, a level 31 Thrax Grenadier, doesn’t spawn until you run over the mission marker in the room. You will need to protect Specialist Donnaway for three minutes while she disables the wormhole. Not only will you get the boss and other soldiers coming through the main door, there will be riflemen sniping you from the balcony (unless, of course, your squad mates on the balcony take care of them). After the timer counts down to zero, clear the room, and then listen to the Eloh Hologram recording. For me, the boss and a caretaker kept respawning. However, instead of targeting me or Donnaway, they were shooting the Eloh Hologram. Strange. Quirky.

Turn in the final mission with Capt. Tillery in the Prisoner Check Point room. As your reward, choose from a Voltrox Graviton Armor Vest (blue), Phoenix Hazmat Armor Legs (purple), Voltrox Reflective Armor Boots (purple) or a Voltrox Motor Assist Armor Helmet (purple). As both the Eloh hologram and Capt. Tillery talk about heading over to Valverde, I would assume the mission designers meant for this to be the last instance you run on Mires.

I was a little disappointed with the revelation in the last mission regarding the Bane use of Eloh wormholes. This information seemed contradictory to the storyline in Maligo Base in Plateau. In Maligo we are told the Bane cannot use the Eloh wormholes due to their different physiology. The instance was still fun to play, and it was cool to have the Warden Bots as pets.

See the medic to heal up and sell any items you don’t want before heading out. Note that the area you cleared before entering this instance will likely have respawned. Caretaker Vilescorn is waiting…

We hope this guide to Tahrendra Base has been useful for you and there was no unnecessary wandering through the instance. Did we miss something or is there more we can add? Email me and you'll get full credit for any additions. Also be sure to stop by our forums to discuss this instance or ask any other questions you have.