Iji - Will raocow be aggressive or passive? Pfft... that's easy to answer

[Ivy]

#KomatoDidNothingWrong

[Sebby19]

Had raocow collected Mia's Ribbons, Sector 8's Ribbon is the one hint to save the trapmine.

Killing the Komato Trooper that ambushes you does count as a kill, so saving Dan is required for a 0 kill run (Innocent).

Trapmine: Found in Sector 8, and only usable in that Sector (the batteries run out). Duck over a teleporter destination and press the X to set it. When an enemy attempts to teleport through, the destination explodes instead. Can be used to save Dan from Assassin Asha.

In versions 1.5 and earlier, the Trapmine works a bit differently. The Komato teleports in, and then it explodes, killing. Doesn't count as a kill, but was changed to pre-emptively exploding in 1.6, since it doesn't make sense in a Pacifist run.

[Le Neveu de Rameau]

raocow, I think you may have made a mistake in today's video. If I remember correctly, those enemies you were fighting near the lift are called Berserkers, not Poop Machines.

[Sebby19]

Komato Annihilator

Armour: 200 HP: 80
Weight: 10 Security: 10
Drops:
-64 Nano
-Large Pulse Shell, up to 3 of them
-Large Shocksplinter Shell, up to 3 of them (3 are guaranteed when Cracked)
Melee: Forced Electron Stream = 100% of using it after firing a weapon. Grab the nearest enemy, and instakills Tasen. Iji suffers 3HP.
Weapon 1: Plasma Cannon
Weapon 2: Shocksplinter = Rapid fires up to 6 of them at a time.
Weapon 3: Hyper Pulse OR Splintergun
Other: Explodes in a MPFB explosion on death
A boss in mook clothing. With a staggering 80HP, don't start fighting them without Cracking them, which always does 40 HP damage. Then let loose with your heaviest of weapons. Can insta kill Tasen by grabbing and forcing their Nanofields to self-combust. They nicknamed it 'Destroy'. In some cases, Annihilators can break down walls by walking into them, so never assume you are safe until you've reached higher ground.


An Annihilator was the one who went crazy and killed everyone on the Ciretako ship, in order to raise it's kill count (visible on their visors). Imperial Research tried to cover this up. Not because it was thought the Annihilator was the rumoured 'secret new addition' to the army, but because of the weapon the Annihilator was wielding, that made him go crazy.

Speaking of Ciretako, I'm really glad raocow found the terminal for 'Annihilator Beta'. We'll see what that does in Sector X.

[Leet]

Iji's talking to herself there was a legitimately creepy part. This game seems a lot better to me now than it did at first. But I am skimming all the text because if I had to pause it that often I'd get too frustrated.

[Zummorr]

#KomatoDidNothingWrong

#MakeOriginGreatAgain #Iosa2016

(Can you kick Annihilators?)

Iirc you can kick damage the annihilators with strength 10 kick. But it only does 1 hp worth of damage and since they have a Potemkin Buster explosion grab...it's kinda suicide

#Ashaistotallyamped

[Reecer7]

Cracking the annihilators is much more satisfying. Even if the disabling of its heavy weapons doesn't actually make them too much weaker, just being able to sneak behind one and successfully crack it is invigorating.

#FeelTheTorn

hold on that didn't work quite right

#FeelTheTORture

that's... better?

[Money]

Alright so yeah the ending to the zone's great and all but can i just mention how well executed the phantom hammer's beam and subsequent message were? It's such an impactful moment, and seeing how the beam just tore clean all the way down was icing on the cake.

[Count Mohawk]

So the Annihilators' grab attack instakills the Tasen but is incapable of doing the same to Iji. For a six-month hack job starting from literally scratch, those human scientists did a really impressive job on Iji's Nanofield, huh?

Alright so yeah the ending to the zone's great and all but can i just mention how well executed the phantom hammer's beam and subsequent message were? It's such an impactful moment, and seeing how the beam just tore clean all the way down was icing on the cake.

Yeah, can you imagine actually getting hit by that thing? You'd be completely vaporized, Nanofield and all.

[Sebby19]

As a nice touch, any enemies directly hit by the Phantom Hammer shot do not drop any Nanofields (though any nanofields already there are not effected. Okay...).

Here are the last of Yuka's logs, including how General Tor killed Hel Sarie with a Phantom Hammer shot. Yes, Komato Generals can wield a gun meant for spaceships:
5. Annihilators

So I've got good news and bad news, Naotgerai. Uh, the bad are pretty bad, and the good is just speculation, but...

The Komato Imperial Army is gonna start up production of the Annihilators again, and this time in full scale. Remember Ciretako? Well, seems like this time, they got some new stimulants that'll make the Anni's more prone to attacking their actual enemies, instead of randomly turning against their friends. But at least there's a small ray of hope in here - bear with me though, my speculations tend to be as reliable as my cooking.

The bad: obviously, any Komato assault that includes Annihilators means instant victory for their side. Which usually means one less ship, fleet, or even planetary colony for us. You might say they eventually win anyway, due to their incredible number and resources, so in the big picture it doesn't really matter how fast they win an individual battle, right?

The good: Ciretako will be repeating, I'm sure. Whenever an Annihilator turns against its teammates, not only does it take tons of Komato with it, it takes entire platoons of Berserkers to bring the rogue Anni down. More blame goes to Imperial Research. More excuses and trying to improve the Anni's. More questioning the Imperial Army itself, and more internal conflict. The longer this goes on for, the more it keeps them occupied with themselves, and the greater our chances of staying hidden and spreading to more planets.

Krotera's the only one around here who's seen an Annihilator and lived, but that was because it didn't fit through the emergency tunnel, so the survivors managed to catch an escape pod before the Anni tore the wall down. Krotera did manage to confirm it was capable of forcing people's personal Nanofields to self-combust, though... it literally picked a Commander up and blew him into mist! Imagine a gigantic cyborg who doesn't even flinch from head-on MPFB shots, vaporizing people with one hand and spewing Plasma bolts with the other, and at any moment it may go crazy and target everyone as enemies. Sometimes, I'm glad I'm not a Komato.

Oh yeah, I wasn't gonna do that tilted text thing again. Sorry. Yuka out.

11. Skysmasher lottery

You know the standard defense turrets we got? They're simply stationary versions of the Skysmashers, the anti-ship weapons the Komato invented a long time ago. Thousands of the little mechanical pests would be released into the air (or space), targeting the nearest enemy ship and pelting it with Shocksplinter. The attacks were too weak to spend any time trying to swat all the individual Skysmashers down, but so damaging that the accumulated blasts made a noticable difference in battle. It was more of a distraction tactic if you ask me, though.

Each Skysmasher had a reinforced armor plate with a serial number and AI version number - when the Skysmasher was destroyed, this plate would often be the only scrap of metal left intact, and could be collected after battle to determine how often each AI version was shot down. Of course, the Komato being the Komato, someone made a game out of it. People could invest in particular AI versions, and win prizes if their version didn't get shot down in a battle. This was supposed to help develop the most effective version of Skysmasher, according to Imperial Research, but naturally people started looking for loopholes. Some invested in the version with the most effective flying and dodging routines, but some invested in the ones that aimed so poorly, they were never considered dangerous enough by their enemy to be shot down to begin with.

I bet you can see where this is going... yeah, until they realized what a bad idea the Skysmashers lottery was, there were only two major versions of AI left: one that flew around like crazy but did little damage, and one that calculated the perfect trajectory to the enemy spaceship and then fired in the exact opposite direction - or left the battlefield entirely and tried to fly into the nearest star.

I'm still glad I'm not in Komato Imperial Army. Yuka out.

13. Tactical retreat time

So they know we're out of options. After the last longturn's worth of battles, Elem Sioz is one of our few remaining planets, but Hel Sarie's personal army is well prepared to defend it. The evacuation is going pretty quickly, you and I are both lucky to have managed to catch the first escape fleet, though I'm sure you bought your way on board with a couple of rare collector's hot drink cans, haha. It'll be a few longturns before they've got the second fleet prepared, but it shouldn't be a problem - the Komato Imperial Army needs to amass quite a force before they can hit Elem Sioz, and they know it. And hey, this ship has in-built refreshment machines! See if you can't find a few over on your ship, too.

I've been thinking about this planet I'm planting these news logs on. What kind of place is it, anyway? There's something strange about it. But it's so far off, I'd even say it's the ideal hiding place from the Komato. Maybe I should talk to Elite Krotera about it.

Man, Naotgerai. Planetary annihilation. You may think I would say something about all of this, but there's not much I can say, we've talked about that before. No sense in dwelling on what we've lost, gotta think about the future and all that! Yuka out.

15. Last words, pretty much

Naotgerai, you already know. Not sure what to write this time... but they got Elem Sioz, including the escape fleets they were preparing. All we have left is five planets and their surrounding fleets, and our own little escape fleet. It may sound like a lot, but considering the size of the Komato Imperial Army...

General Tor led the attack on Elem Sioz. That one-girl-army Berserker Iosa was there too. They put all the resources they had nearby into this fight, basically it was a fraction of the Imperial Army against our best planetary force. Hel Sarie's battlecruiser took off from the middle of a mountain range, they didn't seem to know it was there - or they just pretended not to know. Sarie literally had General Tor in her sights, all weapons ready, when Tor fired a Phantom Hammer shot - the kind of weapon we thought could only be wielded by Reaver spaceships before - from the entire horizon away. Half the ship, the crew and Hel Sarie herself... they disappeared into the air like mist.

We don't have many respectable leaders left, except maybe Krotera, and even that isn't saying much now. Our escape fleet is too small for real combat, and we're too far from home space, so we're going to have to forget about the rest of our planets and run. Something tells me it'll only be a matter of starturns before we're the only fleet left. It doesn't matter how far we'll have to travel though, or how long we have to survive without proper resources. Someday we'll find our stronghold, and from there we'll spread and grow strong again. Strong enough to oppose the Komato, or at least strong enough to avoid complete extermination.

Then again, we're not the good guys, so we should have seen all this coming. We got on the wrong side of the Komato, and so the Komato hunt us. We've destroyed every civilization that got in our way, and so the Komato destroy us. The only way to redeem ourselves now is to start anew and forget all about the war, but the Komato won't. They're out for justice, and they won't rest until we're wiped off the galaxy map. Their new General, Tor... I can tell he'll be around for starturns upon starturns to come. The only thing worse than ours and the Komatos' excessively long lifespans are our inability to forget our grudges. Worse still, people like Iosa and Assassin Asha will still be out there, and they've got grudges to spare.

We'll still be nibbling on the all-wide feed so we can hear the news from the rest of our fleets, but since we're flying under outgoing transmission silence, I can't keep this news log updated anymore. Eh, I was out of things to write about anyway.

I'll see you soon. Grab some Supernova bars while you still can. Sorry I didn't feel like doing a picture this time, I'm focusing on getting my hands on the best anti-Komato weapons I can find. Yuka out.

[Mata Hari]

Brooks Cracktackle

[Sebby19]

??? Huh?

Hidden Skill
Retribution: A powerful, screen clearing desperation attack. Can only be done once per Sector and boss. You also need all 8 basic Nanoweapons, ammo for each, and have less than 5 HP. After being knocked to the ground, press and hold the C button to stand up, while still flashing. Iji will then create 78 Rocket explosions, 16 MPFB explosions, and finish with 1 Nuke explosion. Consumes 1 ammo from each weapon.

Pulse Cannon

Damage: 6 armor (3 projectiles, 2 armor/projectile)
Reload time: 1/30 seconds
DPS: 180 Armour
Muzzle velocity: 27 m/s
Requirements: Komato 3
Uses: 1.25 pulse cells / second
Function: fires a short-range pulse beam
Only really useful against the Tasen, since most Komato retaliate with something at least as strong if you try to get close. Don't be fooled by the seemingly low damage; with a high Attack stat you can stunlock Tasen Elites so they can't retaliate. Iji's is actually stronger than the Komato's.
-Most Troopers wield these

Hyper Pulse
+
Damage: 8 armor (4 projectiles, 2 armor/projectile). Does 1HP of damage if target has 33% Armour or less, if Strength is high enough.
Reload time: 1/30 seconds
DPS: 240 Armour
Muzzle velocity: 30 m/s
Requirements: Pulse Cannon + Resonance Detonator, Crack 6
Uses: 1.88 pulse cells / second
Function: Damages enemies, and uses your Strength to knock them flying when their armor has been drained low enough. This weapon can destroy shield doors from a distance.
A perfect mix and upgrade to both source weapons, this mows down armour even faster, and kicks them away when they have 33% Armour left, if your Strength is high enough. Can juggle away whole crowds. Less focused and more spread out than the Pulse Cannon, but that is not a bad thing. Needs a lot of stats to pump it up: Komato 6 and Crack 6 to operate, and then Strength and Attack to deal damage.
-Some Troopers use these, as well as some Annihilators.

[thatguyif]

I'd say that anything a player wouldn't know at that point the game on their own would count as a spoiler.

Saying "things will get really depressing" doesn't strike me as particularly vague either. :/

But this was one of those super-subtle "Guide Dang It" moments that he didn't know there would be a choice. At least give him the belief that there is a choice that will greatly affect his actions without necessarily. I mean, I'm worried this'll end up like Valdis Story because

by focusing way too much on Strength, he's going to rage quit because the final bosses will be. Too. Hard.

[Grounder]

a two parter oh man

[Razzling]

When i saw the video about to end I was half-expecting him to get killed by the assassin.

Though in memory of Dan, here are some quality lines from him in scrambler mode

and by a few I mean three

also as a bonus here is the first boss Krotera in scrambler mode

(be wary of those big images tho)

Also there was one more new cracked weapon raocow could have tried for, i dont know if he had the skill for it but it's there

[Octagon]

The room with the teleporters in sector 8 is not a kill room, just a survival segment, so pacifists can get through with tanking/dodging/reflecting.
But it's pretty harsh and even more likely to bait you into using the trapmine.

On Remar's site, you can download a HQ version of the soundtrack (the standard version is lo-fi for file size reasons). MP3 artefacts are a big reason why those "disagreeable instruments" sound so harsh.

I keep mixing up the encounter with the assassin that shoots through a wall with the phantom hammer strike.
And I'm so used to the pacifist version of sector 9 that seeing the "standard" one feels really odd.

Also there was one more new cracked weapon raocow could have tried for, i dont know if he had the skill for it but it's there

He has the component weapons for both the machinegun and shocksplinter alts, but those require crack 7 and 8 respectively.

I mean, I'm worried this'll end up like Valdis Story because

by focusing way too much on Strength, he's going to rage quit because the final bosses will be. Too. Hard.

Don't worry about that. Let's recount the bosses we've seen.

Krotera had turrets you can kick. Asha is fought with basic weapons you always have. Proxima had electropads. We'll see how the pattern continues tomorrow.
Each boss is designed with players in mind that don't have fancy guns.

We seem to have missed a thematically very important log - the one that establishes the concept of

Zentraidon

, I'm a bit sad about that. According to the textdump, that log is in sector 8.

[Money]

I'm worried this'll end up like Valdis Story because

by focusing way too much on Strength, he's going to rage quit because the final bosses will be. Too. Hard.

Worst case, couldn't he just reset his points using that whole "cracking yourself" thing and restructure his build?

[WhattayaBrian]

I'm worried this'll end up like Valdis Story because

by focusing way too much on Strength, he's going to rage quit because the final bosses will be. Too. Hard.

Worst case, couldn't he just reset his points using that whole "cracking yourself" thing and restructure his build?

Respeccing was an option in Valdis Story as well, but he refused to. raocow wants to win games with his own builds, minmaxing be damned.

[Sebby19]

Hmm, I thought by splitting the videos, that meant we would get two today. But that okay. Gives me more time to spread out the guide.

raocow, if you like kicking fhings, stick to the Hyper Pulse. It can also break shield doors from a distance.

[Count Mohawk]

I'm worried this'll end up like Valdis Story because

by focusing way too much on Strength, he's going to rage quit because the final bosses will be. Too. Hard.

Unless you have maxed Attack and a large stockpile of MPFBs, the optimum strategy for the endgame bosses doesn't involve actively shooting back at them. You can make the fights go by faster by doing so, but Iosa and Tor have so much HP that killing them manually is impractical. Tor in particular pretty much requires the Resonance Reflector to deal meaningful damage to, which is why the game will outright give you one if you aren't carrying one by the time you reach him.

[Voltgloss]

For those worried about raocow's build: The game is designed to be beatable even if you upgrade nothing but Health.

One of the difficulty modes actually locks you into exactly that build.

[Sebby19]

So glad he got the Shocksplinter. Best projectile in the game.

Shocksplinter

Damage: 2 HP + 180 armour
Reload time: 2 seconds
DPS: 1 HP + 60 armour
Muzzle velocity: 23 m/s
Requirements: Komato 6
Uses: 1 Shocksplinter Shell
Function: fires a fast "Shocksplinter" projectile
The Shocksplinter moves faster than a Rocket, making it harder for enemies to duck or reflect. It also blasts targets farther and faster, but does the same HP damage. On impact, it release a bunch of secondary Splinter projectiles that fly in random directions. When Splinter's hit something, or travel a small distance, they too explode, dealing large chunks of armour damage, depending on how close you are to the Splinter. The best case scenario is an enemy gets dealt 2HP damage, along with a huge chunk of their armour, maybe even another 1HP of damage on top of that (more likely on larger units). Just remember to space it right when shooting, a stray Splinter may come toward you, but it's not a huge deal. Ammo for this gun is everywhere, so there is little reason to not use it. All Komato drop ammo for this, especially when Cracked.
-All Troopers, most Berserkers, Annihilators (who have rapid-fire versions), and ??? wield this.

[Sebby19]

Hey everybody, I got an answer as to why there is no running and jump-shooting:

Well, I've answered that before. It's not the kind of game I wanted, it'd make the level- and game design significantly harder, and it already took forever doing all the animations. :p

[FPzero]

I don't know if you've already recorded Sector X but if not may I recommend trying out the yellow reflector some more and maybe learning its timing? Remember, it works on all projectiles including but not limited to Rockets, Shocksplinters and MFPB (big blue) shots.

[Willhart]

I like how both the player and the enemies ose the same weapons.