Heretic RC1 [spoily]

[Song]

However the Command Ship is VERY easy to kill with a positron lancer (enhanced or sped up makes it more insane though)....you sometimes get one from the wreck of the Huygens...I haven't seen them elsewhere.

The Ringer station typically drops some as well.

Never tried that.....the one time I've done all of heretic, I managed all bar the Neurohack mission....although it required copious amounts of cheating to do so, until I got the hang of plinking the lobsters.

Although in theory the Gem of Contrition is a REALLY useful thing in heretic...they tend to be rare enough that you can easily lose stations anyway (of course, they're suposed to be rare....If I can remember the release notes right, george made them a lot rarer at one point). But they do help with some of the longer missions (the "find anomaly" and "find the marker telling you about another marker (X2) telling you where the huygens is" missions in particular)......and they work on the lobsters, which lets you pick them off and put your ship in the path of their already-fired shots, if you've rushed back ALMOST in time to save a station....it may save the station. Emphasis on the MAY.

I'm really tempted to slap a +fast on an IFC and see how quickly it can eat through things....

[Aeonic]

How in the world are you supposed to do the MRAD mission? All you're doing is dropping probes in random locations hoping to that you pick up on something, and then assuming you ever pick up on something, hoping you can get oriented in the right direction, then assuming you manage to get oriented, hoping you can figure out how far ### light seconds is. It seems impossible or very unlikely to have any success, and there doesn't appear to be any skill or real though involved at all.

BTW I was very annoyed when disconnecting from the Iocrym Station's AI that it ends the whole mission, even when you haven't touched the virus buttons yet.

[Bobby]

the probe dropping isn't really that hard once you know how.

1: drop a probe
2: fly a way away and drop another

each probe knows how far away the anomaly is from itself
each probe shows it's distance from you on the hud

3: fly until the distances match and drop a probe.
4: if that wasn't it, match up all 3 probes and drop another.

I can regularly do it in 4, but it was confusing the first time.

[Wurmish]

It's just a bit of trig and some guesswork for the impatient. Probably should do this mission first in Heretic if you will do any of them.

[Bobby]

the problem is it needs a device slot, which at this point in the game is hard to give up even in a freighter. couldn't it be externally mounted?

[Song]

the probe dropping isn't really that hard once you know how.

1: drop a probe
2: fly a way away and drop another

each probe knows how far away the anomaly is from itself
each probe shows it's distance from you on the hud

3: fly until the distances match and drop a probe.
4: if that wasn't it, match up all 3 probes and drop another.

I can regularly do it in 4, but it was confusing the first time.

I took 5 probes to do it the first time.....since then, it's either 3 or 4. Every time......last time, I dropped Probe 4 within 1 LS of the anomaly.....it;s pretty easy.....

[Little Modder]

Can you help me a little? From where can I take the Lamplighter Archcannon, cause usually I use the Lamplighter Prototype..


P.S I didn't understand very much from all this thread, at most of the missions I understand, but that with the Kate, the Iocryms, the Pteravores and I think that there are another...2 other missions.. This system has really missions, and yeah, most of the stations are almost impossible to protect. Hm... I think there is a puzzle or something..

P.S2 The P.S is longer than the reply itself!


Edit: Do you play vanilla game or not?!

[Song]

Lamplighter is quite annoying to get at, and I usually don't bother....but I do *know* how to get it.

You need to get to the highest of Fleet ranks, then find the CSC Terra......get the mission from Admiral Decker...then find and destroy the CSC Antarctica. Then you go back to decker, and he gives you Lamplighter.

[Little Modder]

Thank you. I never know that!

[Little Modder]

Denial of free will is one thing. I also read through the plot related XML.
line 3944 of Heretic.xml doesn't exactly cast Domina in a good light.

Assuming the Ancient races are capable of pursuing a train of thought for longer than a Kender this is a problem.

Let's assume the defeated guardian AI is a reliable narrator. It could be programmed with false data, but that would require the Iocrym to plan on it being captured, something that doesn't fit their character as I percieve it.

The blocade is then neccessary to contain Oracus. Domina has both engineered the extermination of humanity and is actively helping humanity break the blocade that holds of the extinction of the ancient races. By pointing you at the archive Domina is making it more likely the quarantine will break and that the sterilisation project she devised will be stopped. This does not make sense.

The two conclusions that best fit in my mind are that either Domina is not the one who founded the sisters and called you but rather Oracus impersonating Domina, or Domina does not expect you to succeed in breaking the quarantine and is toying with you. The former is unlikely since the Sisters and the Penitants work at cross purposes, unless the Penitants are a front for some other being, possibly Domina, trying to discredit Oracus. This is well into crazy conspiracy theory territory and so I discard it. I might entertain it in reality, but fiction is subject to stricter beleivability constraints. The remaining rasonable option is that Domina is a sadist. That only requires that the ancient races not "evolve beyond" fleshly foibles and not care about lesser races.

I started another thread on general plot bugs, but I thought I might respond to this here, if no one minds.

First of all, not all narrators in Transcendence are reliable, but I agree that it's implausible for the AI to be lying or for its knowledge be planted. And I also don't want the plot to hinge on crazy conspiracies or convoluted misdirection.

But I think there are a couple of other possibilities and I'd love to hear whether you all think they are plausible enough:

1. The Iocrym AI did say that they did not expect the quarantine to last forever. Isn't it plausible that the scientists at Heretic would have broken the quarantine eventually, even without the player's help? In that case, then Domina did not really affect the quarantine that much.

2. Does the quarantine have to be perfect? Perhaps exterminating 99% of humanity is enough to foil Oracus's plan. In fact, it would be implausible otherwise. So allowing a few pilgrims to escape would not harm Domina's greater plan.

3. There is a difference between buying a gun to kill a potential intruder and actually pulling the trigger. Perhaps the Iocrym (Domina?) are preparing to exterminate humanity just in case, but have other less drastic options as well.

4. Perhaps it is impossible to tell Oracus and Domina apart. Let's assume that Domina and Oracus communicate via some kind of projection of consciousness. The ideas that they want to convey appear in your mind. Maybe there is no way to tell who planted the idea (unless they told you--but then they could lie).

5. Is it plausible that Domina is not a perfect predictor of the future? In that case, it is possible that the actions of the player will result in outcomes that Domina did not expect.

Hey, let's finish answering. Or if you are done, tell me what is the senetence nuber.
I vote for two of them: 1,3 (especially 3); what about you?

[Corporal Jomn]

I vote for 3 and 1 also, they seem the most plausible.

[alterecco]

I would have to vote 5. No entity, superbeing or other, is a perfect predictor of the future, at least not in my world. Except for the system itself, but then again, I don't think it cares.

Giving the player the responsibility of being able to make choices that fall outside the real of what Domina or Oracus would have planned, lends a bit of the epic to the game, and is in my opinion quite in order. I mean, the player is already destined to greatness (or an early, lonely death), why not up the ante a little more?

[Blitz]

From, my point of view, the mystery and contradictions at this point in the pre-Heretic systems are just how they supposed to be. Human space has been quarantined - which means that humans don't really have any informantion about the outside world or the greater powers. The Pentient and the Sisters are simply fronts for the greater powers they believe in. None of the really know what the agenda of the greater powers is.
The post heretic systems should unfold the story in more detail. The end could be based on choice.
So, far, the story is epic in itself for anyone who actively follows it during the game. (Deadly luxury yacht destroying an iocrym command ship? W000t?) This epicness and storytelling could easily be made into one of the big selling points of the game. SO, post heretic, I'd like it if the player's choices affect not just the outcome of the player but also the outcome of humanity, the different factions etc. etc. It'd make the player feel big (as any hero in any RPG should feel) and add to the epicness of the game...

PS. I'm really liking hte word epicness