The Apostle of RIF is alive and well. Part 2 is complete, and we
spent the entire stream at the same depth!!! Impressive xD (
YouTube)
The original plan for this run was to just fool around with RIF and garrisons, which is how Part 1 went, but then MTF came up with this bounty, challenging me to get a GRD to go with this RIF. I've never had a GRD before, because they're not that easy/safe to get (nor would it normally do me any good since I generally play combat), but hey if there's a reward involved, and it'll give the run some higher stakes plus make it even more interesting then why not! Having a Gui. Remote Datajack would make hacks around corners/obstacles a possibility, and that's just cool
This does affect strategy, however. We've gotta plan which method to acquire it (there are many options here), and then actually execute that plan... So I've decided my route will take us through two branches: Extension and Armory.
Because the entrance to Extension can appear starting from -6/Factory, we couldn't leave that depth until confirming whether it was there. So that meant a combination of hacking and just searching around.
Some Chute Traps were located early on, but passed up and remembered as a backup plan in case things went wrong. Things did sorta go wrong when we lost our last Remote Datajack (what is a bothacker without a Datajack?!), but a lone Programmer sent out after us was kind enough to replace it for us when I smashed its face in a doorway. We also repaired one of the four Lrg. Storage Units, which are getting kinda beat up. I've never actually repaired anything before, so I got an achievement for that
After spending a while exploring the floor to no avail, we decided to bail and see if Waste could provide some gear and/or friends and/or just reset the level to something better.
But even after heading into the new -6/Factory, so much ground was covered without being able to hack exactly what we needed to know.
I did decide to hack a Recycling Unit on the way and was rewarded with the Armory depth right away, which was perfect. It's at -4, info we'll need for later.
Still been sticking to wheels. The lack of Garrison visits for a while now means being left with just basic wheels most of the time, but we did luck into one more Arm. Huge Wheel
There we've got two Sentries in tow, some of my favorite allies to have while bothacking. Basically the earlier Garrison trips meant having plenty of couplers to own any Sentries or Hunters on the way, so neither of those have been a problem. We've basically been using those two against the others where possible, or at worst having to pull out the launcher to deal with a troublesome squad.
We were
just about to give up on the second -6/Factory when suddenly Terminus pointed out a part of the map that looked suspiciously like a special exit...
And sure enough, on closer look the terrain scanner had earlier revealed a few dots of brighter wall just north of longest corridor of the south central area. And it totally looked like a reasonable layout for the Extension branch entrance.
If he hadn't pointed that out Extension would've been inaccessible and we would've missed the opportunity! (Sure GRD would still be accessible other ways, but this is my preferred
safer approach.)
Extension isn't too hard for hackers, so not too much trouble there, although the whole point of coming was to rescue A7, so it's a good thing there was a Greatsword lying around because chopping up the walls with that bad boy was much more reliable than hacking the doors.
Then... we got a little company.
An assault was dispatched and we had a small but deadly army by this point, so this particular assault was kinda nasty.
Not only did an Imp open in my face, but this thing had four Demolishers tagging along. Good thing I'd kept that Demolisher coupler all this time! I immediately temp-converted one of the Demolishers, which fired on the group and blasted the Imp out of existence, before the Rogue turned on the Demolisher and slashed it to death, mwuahaha
The rest of the group was fairly easy to clean up. I perma-assimilated one of the Demolishers off to the east, and one of the others tried to flank us via the corridor to the left but ran into our two Sentries, which as you might know are resistance to EX, so it was firing at them but didn't last too long
Funny enough we met two Rainmakers right after that. They probably fell behind the main assault, so they got cleaned up alone in a corridor, mainly by A7 and a derelict Hunter that really really wanted to help out...
And here we are now, pretty much done with Extension and soon to return to Factory. We found this crazy room that I kinda want to enter (because there's an Armored Leg right there!) but yeah this is
not a good room to let allies follow into for... well... obvious reasons
Alert so far has mostly fluctuated between level 1 and 3, kept under control pretty well despite how long we've been hanging out in the same areas/maps.
Part 3 will be at the same time next week, when we'll head over to -5/Factory and have a bit more freedom. We'll almost certainly hit a Garrison or two
(although I dunno, maybe we should find Mr. Z? Would make Armory easier... though it could very well be W at that depth, no idea.)
