Extended "Straight Shot" conduct?

[Joshua]

I'm interested in folks' thoughts on reliably making a build that could win extended ++ without visiting branches (other than the necessary extended branches). Has anyone done this? This means (unless we allow RIF for a slightly modified conduct) no allies and no superweapons or other gear from the usual suspects (Exiles, Z, L, R branches).

My thoughts are that it might be possible with Cld. cannons, overload utilities, kinetics, weapon cyclers and enough armor. One of the points I'm having trouble figuring out is where to get enough armor - it seems the folks who win extended usually aim for Shell which isn't an option here.

What are your thoughts on necessary equipment and strategies? Or is this just not possible to do reliably by design?

Correction: I forgot you could get allies by rewiring and by disruption, so allies are a possibility. But probably not strong allies.

[Kyzrati]

[Spoiler thread obviously]

Mmm, extended++, that one I doubt anyone's done yet, but I know some people are capable of extended+ that way (which I guess isn't quite as crazy!). It was certainly designed to all but require branch usage in order to take on extended, but there might be some really niche builds, possibly a fabricated melee build? From what I hear (having never done extended++ myself), some players like to rely partially on the really good loot you can find or salvage in Access_0 itself, so especially if you're fast enough going in and can avoid being pulverized for a little while, then you can do pretty well off that. I think. In theory

[Valguris]

I've been thinking about it some time ago, but I never got to actually trying it. Maybe I'll attempt it in the future.

The rules I decided on are that no branches are allowed except for

Spoiler

Command and A0,

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and entering Wastes or Garrison also breaks the conduct.

There's that problem of

Spoiler

getting to A0.

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Spoiler

You won't have any TRs, so you will have to dig. Terrain scanning will help here, but you're likely to suffer from multiple caveins, wrecking your processors and other low integrity (or damaged) parts. You'd probably want exp. shieldings to protect your parts from caveins while digging. Using melee weapons for digging helps a little -- attacking with melee doesn't destabilize your tile (each time you fire a ranged weapon from a dangerous tile, it has a chance to collapse) and tiles dug with melee weapons used to not collapse on a timer, only on movement (not sure whether this was changed).

[close]

I think the flight hacker transition into flight melee has a really good chance of completing this conduct. This type of build was shown to be able to earn ++ and doesn't rely on branch rewards. But you do get fewer fabrication zones (no Armory, no T, can't loop through Wastes or Garrisons) and you have much fewer terminals to get your high rating schematics (can't use terminals from branches). I think that some other players might be able to win this challenge with this approach (maybe you could convince some people to stream their attempts ), so I thought about another approach.

The other approach is to play combat and use whatever you find. Prepare a KI stack with 50% cycling for MC and probably use EM weapons in A0 except for the final boss, who can be killed with some TH cannons. Tri-rail Accellerators should be the best for MC? Maybe even a single Tri-rail Accelerator with 50% cycling will be enough? Failing that Linear Accelerators should work. Or maybe you'd prefer ~5 KI guns? Luckily MC phase 1 drops ~500 matter.
A0 won't have Enh. Progs, so the only units with significant EM resistance are some of the A-series, who have 75% EM resistance at best, and we already know that this only makes EM damage on par with other damage types against them. QC + HERF or cycled Gamma Bomb Arrays should wreck all bots other than the boss.
For shooing Arch you'd want to deal 80 core damage (maybe 75 is enough?) in a single volley and the best way to do that is to have a weapon that can do that much in a single projectile, e.g. overloaded Cld. Nova Cannon or some other overloaded weapon with Particle Accelerator and/or Overload Amplifier. Failing that, a stack of Nova Cannons should be good enough. And looted Neutron Cannons aren't much worse than that. Plus you can always loot Adv. Particle Chargers. Terrain scanning will help you locate telepads, so you'll need to fight fewer squads. Killing Arch when you've dealt with telepads and his goons is easy and can be handled with a looted Neutron Cannon + QC (or maybe even QC is not required after that... just destroy all his parts).
Streaming my attempts with this approach is on my TODO list (while I think the first approach will be attempted by a few flight players)

[Joshua]

For getting there I also thought about using tunnelers (you'd have to use disruption to make friends by Access, then keep it alive in C -- maybe possible if you tell it to stay out of the way of all patrols while clearing out the level!) or also disrupted friends from C, ordering them to go stand in the tunnel and then applying AoE EM. This is probably too evil for me to actually try though. Could also have a hauler go forward dropping engines. It's probably too difficult to bring many allies to C though and I don't think you find engineers / haulers / tunnelers on the map.

Can you find Cld. Nova Cannon on the floor? After hundreds of hours I only recall finding one in a T cell. That would be ideal if it is on the floor but by my calculations even a weaker Cld. thermal cannon, with overload amplifier + particle accelerator can do a very high amount of damage in a turn. e.g. Cld. Plasma 30-36 damage x2 overload x2 adv. overload amplifier x1.8 adv. particle accelerator is a bit over 200 TH damage in a shot. I've never been able to put this build together though but it's been on my mind that it should be quite effective if I can. Maybe you don't find some of these utilities but even 100 TH a shot seems quite something to be reckoned with.

[Valguris]

You could fab Tunnelers in Access level. I'm not sure what this engine bombing hassle is all about. A melee weapon will work better.

Cld. Nova Cannons don't randomly appear on the floor, but M Guards often have those. I don't remember how do all the damage modifiers stack. I think someone else checked it and he found out that some of them stack multiplicatively, while others additively. Still, a Cld. Phase Cannon with Imp. Particle Charger or better (or any Overload Amplifier) is strong enough. Has there been thorough testing of Arch's damage threshold? Is it really 80 damage, or even less is required? Or does he need to start his turn with at most 320 core integrity, so if he waits for 2 turns (because he just fired), you need 10 more damage to counter his regen?

[Joshua]

Tone has been streaming a low-branches extended++ attempt. He allowed himself Wastes and visiting Zhirov to get the TR (but he bypassed all logs and scrap in the caves and anything else Zhirov might've had -- the quest dialog didn't pop up either, maybe a certain number of turns need to have passed?). Strategy so far has been what was discussed above, flight hacking to fab a strong melee build.

Twitch here: https://www.twitch.tv/tonehack/videos

[Valguris]

Recently I streamed two attempts at this type of a challenge run.

First attempt was a slow combat run, which failed miserably at geting to any bosses. I still believe I could get a single boss kill on a slow combat build in a straight shot challenge. I'm not so sure about 2 bosses though.

Second attempt was as a flight hacker that transitions into flight melee for the endgame. The full story and VODs can be found here.

[Kyzrati]

I'm not so sure about 2 bosses though.

I was definitely curious about whether you'd managed to do a ++ with a slower build--first thing I checked as soon as I spotted a scoresheet

I agree + is fairly doable, but ++ might be next to impossible without some kind of cheese. Slower builds really need the branches for the longest-term viability.