Update 2: An amazing* rescue
*EXTREME was not invented yet back when the game was done
Let’s start this update by going back to the hangar and inspecting our Support Modules’ gear:
Support Modules don’t have any stat like EP or Move score, because they’re not supposed to fight, just use their special attacks, preventing the enemy from reaching the party (if possible). However, they have some exclusive weapons, like these:
Which weapon is used every time a SM decides to do something is up to the Random Number God. Vizier also has some cool weapons:
Deathstorm, or like it should be called, the “BLOOM Storm”, it generates a powerful light that obliterates the enemy. Sheriff has a SADARM, a SAM and a Rocket Pod. One thing that I dislike is that right now too many of our weapons and Options are Impact type, we need to rescue the Professor and investigate Neoparts ASAP. So let’s do it.
Before that, I’ll search the area for clues and/or to talk to the citizens here.
There’s that guy on the right side of the door with a military transport, we can’t do anything with it yet.
We still can’t enter any house. Goddamit, why the hell these npcs had to be the only ones that have not forgotten the ancient, poorly understood, mystical technique of “not leaving the door open and locking it to prevent thieves from entering?”
Picard: "That's an awfully heavy-duty gate for a basic holiday villa."
Nothing interesting here, but there’s CJ hidden behind that house, let’s talk to her and see what happens.
“Just someone who helped us get out of a scrape.”
”Indeed. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”
“So what are you doing here, anyway?”
“Verifying Professor Dinett’s whereabouts, actually. You’ve been looking for him, right? It appears he’s been locked up in this villa. It looks like he’s writing up a research paper on the Bersekers. Looking for data on new weapons, I would say.”
“So how do we get him out?”
”That’s the problem. We can’t get over this wall, and there are tons of module-equipped guards inside.”
Oh dear, please don’t tell me it will be a crappy stealth mission, these ALWAYS suck…
“In other words, a frontal assault with modules is the only option…”
As I feared, it’s… Wait, what??
”I’m afraid I won’t be of any help. Good luck, all of you.”
Yep, Picard was serious, he’s self-aware enough that stealth will not work in a jrpg, so we’ll proceed with a direct assault already, awesome.
Of course, the guard doesn’t allow us to enter with Modules, but there’s another way.
“(Persuade)Don’t worry, I only need it for a minute.”
”(Persuade: Failure)What?”
“Oh well, I tried. Too bad, but I guess it’s murdering time!”
Indeed it is,
here’s a link with the first real combat, oddly enough the game considered it important enough to give it the boss’ regular theme:
MUSIC:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YH7dDlYddsw
Here’s our first dungeon, don’t expect much from it though. The objective here is to reach the first floor and go to the room where the Professor is, the problem is that most doors are locked, we may have robots armed to the teeth, but these doors are plot-armored, so we can’t just blow them up.
That’s the room where the professor is, we can’t enter it directly, so we’ll have to go back to the ground floor and look for an alternate route. In the way, we’re attacked by two random encounters (luckily the random encounter rate is very low unlike other games).
Music:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dicfXzZ--Ug
That’s the music used for these encounters, depending of the area these will vary. Jupiters are not especially threatening, they can attack your entire party at once with Machineguns, but besides that they’re harmless (by the way, I discovered at this point that Winner’s armor is quite thin, I should be more careful while I use this power armor, I didn’t so I paid the price for my failure, more about that later).
That’s the 2nd random encounter we can find there. Again, nothing very dangerous (besides the Rex).
To proceed on this dungeon, we have to go back to the ground floor, go north and look for a backdoor with a yard, then go right:
Good, now we can finally go to the Professor’s room.
Suddenly, my metagaming senses tingled, my intuition told me that there was a boss fight just around the corner, so before doing anything else I’ll fully heal and repair my party:
We’re ready. Guess what, there really was a boss fight here, cunningly hidden as a random encounter.
The boss was much, much harder than I expected, it wasted no time to kick my ass. HARD.
Phew, that was a close call, I never thought the game could have such a hardcore monster for our first boss, they mean business! Actually, that’s what I said about combat back on the first post: Combat in CK2 is fast and deadly, both for you and the enemy. Anyways, back to the plot:
“We can talk later. For now, we have to hurry. There’s a car waiting for us.”
“Right.”
The party leaves without incident, I assume the support modules took their time killing everyone else so that we had a safe return. Mission accomplished.
“Professor, please tell me… What did the Federation hope to gain by imprisoning you?”
“They were after the Berseker data and parts that the Swordfish had brought back from the galactic core. They’re building a new type of combat machine based on the Bersekers models!”
Shine: “You’re kidding.”
“I wish I were. As strong as robots, but able to multiply like living creatures. It’s a debasement of science and a mockery of life. They call them Metalliforms.”
Nehjena: “
Nanomachines Metalliforms…”
“They were going to kill me… or worse. I didn’t have any choice but to hand over my research data on the Bersekers… My old rival, Dr. Mifune, is at the pinnacle of the robotic engineering field. He’s working to create new weapons for the Earth Federation military. He’s already used my data to complete the Metalliform design, and from what I can tell, they’ve secretly begun production. Since they can multiply on their own, there’s no need for factories… Which makes them cheap to produce. He’s planning to use the Metalliforms as weapons on other planets. It’s horrible…”
“Who’s ‘he’?”
“General Forrest! He’s a horrible dictator! If he misuses the Metalliforms’ power, he’ll take control of all humanity!”
: “Gotcha. We’ve got to put a stop to his plans, then. Will you help us, Professor?”
“Do you even need to ask? I’d be ecstatic to be on board with you all again. I just wish that MICA could be here…”
Kiri: “Why, what happened to MICA?”
“I don’t have all the details. The Swordfish was taken to Mars Base to be dismantled for research. MICA may be just a supercomputer that I built, but she’s like a daughter to me nonetheless…”
We learned a bit more about the evils of EA. However, we finally have good news: Thanks to the professor, the the lab is ready to be used, yay! Before that though, we’ll go back to the Hangar and the Sickbay to heal the mechs and repair the people… Oh wait, it’s the other way around.
“Picard got 50 experience; Kiri got 25 experience; Klein got 25 xp; Vynd got 68 xp; Shine got 100 xp, Shine reached level 11: Shine’s Combat Skill is now 8, Shine’s Science Skill is now 11; Nehjena got 25 xp.”
When we step into the hangar, the party members receive a lot of xp because they completed a mission, some of them even received more xp than others because they used their non-combat skills (Vynd performed a successful repair and Shine successfully identified a Neopart). Having done that, it’s time to investigate a Neopart for the first time:
The screenshoot is missing, but once we select Analyze, a brief animation triggers where the Neopart is shown and the machine scans it with some sort of laser.
Excellent, a new field! Let’s equip it immediately.
Done. Each mech will have two of these, better to be safe than sorry. Now we don’t know where to go, perhaps we should go back to Kazelin and ask the rebels for information…
Well gentlemen, I’m sorry to say this but I have to end the update here, I need your help, it’s time for…
CHOICES!!! Which quest should we do next?
A:"BLOODY TERRORISTS!!! I saw some of them yestarday, at Gagarin, we shgould hunt them and exterminate them, then cut them to pierces and forcefeed their children with threrrse… I mean, “caprture them alirve for interrrogation” "
B: “They’re dis-dis-dismantling that old ship in Mars, what’s worse, they’re-re-re mistreating a fellow AI, we can’t tolerate-te-te-te that, KILL THEM ALL!!”
C:”What?? Economical problems in Duizarl? Which means, someone important is losing money here? Intolerable!! We don't like competition, there must be an investigation and then execution of the culprits!”
So, tell me gentlemen, what do you choose? I’ll wait until next Wednesday, if there’s a draw I’ll randomly select one option. Come on, demonstrate your codexian wisdom!!
PS: I know you don't know much about the context of each mission, so do I, but I can tell you that the first quest is slightly harder because it has an on-foot, Modules-less section.