Heretic RC1 [spoily]

[Atarlost]

Are the Heretic missions intended to be failed?

Nares-Strong Research Station: Requires you to either backtrack or find the Taikon station to remove one of your devices, killed before I could get back to them

Teratons: killed before I even found them.

Ares: would not talk to me, killed before I got through the others

Domina: Completely unprecedented minigame with no clear path to victory

In fact the only missions I was able to accomplish were the Svalbard escort, the ringer mission, and the Taikon mission. From what I read in the XML you have to suceed in all the station quests or you'll have to kill blue crystaline lobster ships until you find a disk, but it doesn't matter how many missions you manage unless it's all of them, you have to go to the same plan B.

If you're going to fall back on plan B whatever happens, why have the missions at all?

[Aury]

Well, apparently the sentinels are over-powered.

[Prophet]

Well, apparently the sentinels are over-powered.

I don't know if this is entirely true. Perhaps only sending 1 sentinel with a longer delay between attacks would make it at least possible to complete each mission.
I have gotten close to the neurohack (Domina station) mission but never completed it succesfully.

According to the xml, you need at least 3 roms for Kate to decrypt the Iocrym glyphs.
The most I've gotten was 2 before the sentinels overran the other stations. Of course, that was with my god ship and I was indestructible (the pteravores had me down to 385 fuel though!)

[Fossaman]

The new Heretic system will be a lot of fun--once it's balanced. Right now it's really, really broken. I had three different weapons that could crack the Iocrym ships open like the lobsters they are, but the sheer amount of hit points on them meant that it just took too long to kill the dang things. By the time I'd shot one group, the next had spawned and was trundling off to kill a station. It was unthinkable to go off on the ringer mission, for example, if I wanted the stations to have any chance of surviving. And the dang things kept coming after I'd killed their outposts, too. That was really obnoxious.

My suggestion: Only spawn station-killers when a mission has been completed. In fact, make the station killers spawn because the mission has been completed. But only one group. Maybe evacuate the station after the battle or something, but tie up the plot thread. Don't make the player keep running back to the station to save it. It's worse than an escort mission. And I hate escort missions.

[Atarlost]

What's really needed is to seriously upgrade all the research stations except the ringer and taikon. Those two are tough enough to not die before you get there if you know where they are. You also need to be told the locations of ALL the stations instead of one at a time.

[Fossaman]

I've you've been using your slave coffins right and are a little lucky, contemplating at the domina station will do that for you. But yeah, I can see your point.

[Atarlost]

Might work. If the idiots at the welcome station pointed you there first. And if you've been kissing up to Domina. Domina is morally repulsive and you shouldn't be forced to donate to her willing pawns to get through the game.

[Fossaman]

...could you cite some sources for that, please? Other than the creepy leaving-your-family thing at the start of the game, I'm not sure where you're getting that.

[Psycholis]

i almost always give up on the missions and get the roms straight from the sentinels.. 2 of the games i played i tried to do a mission but it's bogus. the only mission i ever finish is the ringer one because they actually survive the first assault.

[Aury]

//////////////SPOILERS!!!!!///////////////////

Might work. If the idiots at the welcome station pointed you there first. And if you've been kissing up to Domina. Domina is morally repulsive and you shouldn't be forced to donate to her willing pawns to get through the game.

What I don't get is why she had the iocrym create the quarantine so they could sterilize the Q-zone when she wants you (and theoretically all the other pilgrims) to break the blockade thus removing the containment of the Q-zone... perhapse its not only Domina at work...

[Atarlost]

My best guess is Xanatos Gambit, though getting sadistic enjoyment from watching members of lesser races die futily is a possibility as well.

[george moromisato]

Might work. If the idiots at the welcome station pointed you there first. And if you've been kissing up to Domina. Domina is morally repulsive and you shouldn't be forced to donate to her willing pawns to get through the game.

I think that player-choice in Transcendence is really important. And I especially think that the player should be able to choose his or her own attitude towards Domina.

I absolutely want to make sure that the game is winnable (and enjoyable) without being forced to deal with the Sisters.

I am curious about why you feel that Domina is morally repulsive. Is it because the game implies that she is forcing you to make the journey? Or is it something else? [I just want to make sure that the various plot-points are clear--or at least, as clear as they are intended to be.]

[Atarlost]

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.

[Aury]

unless the Penitants are a front for some other being, possibly Domina, trying to discredit Oracus

That doesn't work anyways: the Penitant order is for forced extinction of humanity (originally voluntary)...
So that would get into the deepest of tin-hat territory. Not plausible at all. So either there is a not-so-strange conspiracy theory, or Domina is going bonkers, or Domina is sadistic.

[Bobby]

the message saying that the station is under attack doesn't show up soon enough, by the time I get back the station(s) is/are already destroyed or about to be destroyed, only the sisters managed to survive the first wave (but not the next)

Attacks are far to frequent, I can't even get to my destination before another attack starts.

It should be noted that I knew where they all were from contemplating, and had a +150 im90, not to mention my ship can clip along at .39C when overdrive is engaged (which I made heavy use of)... Which is probably why I somehow managed to get enough data, despite the station that sent me on the mission being destroyed both times before I had completed it.