So I started my run off heading for the mines branches, hoping to stumble across the Exp. Sensor Array. With luck, I end up finding it.
Off I go on my merry way, and yet being able to sense just about everything on the screen, I get myself stuck between a couple nasty patrols. Plus, I'm still in Materials. Things were not looking good at this point. I find myself surrounded by all manner of enemies. However, I realize I'm standing right next to a neutrino reactor. With things looking grim, I decide to thrust my melee weapon right into the core, instantly blowing it up along with nearly everything that was attacking me!!!
SUCCESS!
I chase down the remainder of the enemies with my ripper and hack them to pieces. Things are suddenly looking okay, except...
I LOST MY AWESOME SENSOR!
So, I continue with the run, a bit defeated over the loss of my toy. I end up grabbing an adv sensor, which gets me into Factory without much issue. At this point, I'm looking for a cave exit. I find one, and sneak my way through the caves without much issue. I was hoping for Z, but I ran into DM instead.
Turns out, this is quite the fortuitous turn of events, as one of the schematics I'm given is for the sensor array I lost back in materials!!
So I make my way back to Factory, and am now looking for another caves exit, hoping to hit Z before I continue as well as find a fabricator to make that sensor.
Things are going fairly well, but I'm having a super hard time tracking down a caves exit. I feel like alert is rising, and I don't feel like I'm any closer to finding a caves exit, I end up stumbling across some good hover propulsion, so I equip it, since the speed will really help me out before things get too insane. I finally manage to find a fabricator and successfully craft my exp sensor again. I feel complete, yet I'm still no closer to finding that mines exit.
I'm just about to give up on it and head to the next Factory floor, when I catch a glimpse of a chute trap out of the corner of my eye... Wipe my alert and get another shot at finding caves? Sounds good to me!
I figure it shouldn't be too bad since I'm on hover and all. I was a little overconfident it turns out as I'm getting trapped in a dead end by 2 crushers. I swap to my rockets in an attempt to blow them up, which is less than successful, plus, I'm running out of matter. I do manage to skirt around them with the walls blown up. This turned out to be great because the debris started caving in on them, but as soon as I get out of this dead end, I've got a couple more on me!
Suddenly, at the edge of the screen... I notice some non-crushers with my AMAZING SENSOR.
I head to investigate.
HOLY MOLY! I've suddenly got a TON of allies who promptly go to town demolishing those crushers!
I find my way to the exit and am barely able to fit all my new allies into the circle to take them with me, but I do in the end, and head back to Factory to find that next caves exit. This time, I'm able to carefully find a caves exit without much issue, not to mention, I've got an army of allies at my back. I do run into a bunch of assembled. We won. Toward the end of this floor, I end up finding an Adv terrain scan processor + Lrn terrain scanner. I take it with me for now, but don't really have the slots to equip it. I find the caves exit and head right in.
On the first caves segment, I have a pretty easy go of things with my sensor and allies. As I'm closing in on the exit, I notice something inside of a wall with my sensor. There's no apparent pathway cleared to it, so I hack the walls to reveal what's behind...
Wow! An alien artifact with a friendly robot. Unsure of what the artifact does, and overcome by curiosity,
I equip it and BAM! I get another utility slot!!
So at this point, I toss on my terrain scanner/processor, running along with my sensor array and signal interpreter, I've got mega-wall-hacks!
At this point, the rest of caves is trivial as I'm able to completely avoid combat and tunnel my way through since I can see where everything is. I find Z with a few allies left.
Aaaand this is as far as I've made it so far but is easily the most storied run I've had so far. If things stay eventful, I'll come fill in the rest of the story.
