Story
Fragment Zero!
-Took a break from the Celestion story to head to... FRAGMENT ZERO!!! A woman in town asked me to go find her husband whose freighter crashed no this asteroid in the ring around Nexus, so off I fly.
-Oh man. Oh man oh man. It has level scaling. You have no idea of my love for level scaling. I get to bounce around in a low-grav environment. The style of this place is wonderful, like a cheesy old sci fi movie.
-And the music! Christ. I can't.
-A dude here called the "Life-Observer" threatens to kill us with "Mother Ohmna's" creations. His minions on this place are called the Skreech. They attack in large numbers, but don't seem too tough. Really curious who these people are - especially Mother Ohmna.
A LOT of enemies here.
-Captain Hugo and his crew are the group we have rescue. His team is split up, so I have to head to the various science stations around the fragment to find them.
-THIS PLACE IS SO FRIGGING CREEPY.
-A datacube here lets me here the unsettling voice of "Mother Ohmna," the creator of the Skeech. She also mentions a "sociopathic colleague" who she leaves unnamed. Another of Ohmna's journals confirms that she kept this place up and running despite the requests of her superiors to shut it down.
-Three sections to this place. The Incubation Chamber filled with xenomorph-esque eggs. The Biometric Chamber, filled with green viral-looking lasers and tanks. Third area is Life-Overseer's Creche. Sounds like a final boss area.
-This place isn't just Mother Ohmna's playground. She left someone behind (maybe the Life-Observer?) who is slavishly devoted to doing her will, doing all kinds of experiments on creatures here in the hopes that she'll return. Hm.
-Killed the Life-Observer. The datacube near him was Mother Ohmna's final message. The Nexus Project (whatever that is) was in trouble, and she left to go help while the Life-Observer was to mass-produce Skeech in her absence.
-LOLOL - Mother Ohmna left the Life-Observer a to-do list of tasks while she's gone, including things like watering the plants and this gem:
"Feed the Skeech. You know the drill: feed in the morning, mid-morning, noon, mid-afternoon, late afternoon, dusk, and midnight. Also, I found they like it when you sing to them. Pop songs work nicely also."
-Saved Captain Hugo and escaped the Skeech hordes. Btw, his voice actor is phenomenal. He's an alien freighter captain with a voice straight out of rural Minnesota.
You betcha!
-What a wonderful session.
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Mechanics
General
-Holy crap! Got a metric TON of new stuff at level 10.
-My first dungeon opened up to me, The Protogames Academy. Some weird green dude called me and offered me the chance to compete. This seems like a testing or wargames or something like that. The entrance to the dungeon is far away from me, and it's a 5 player dungeon, so I'll do it later.
-The AMP system opened up. The website says this stands for Advanced Modification Protocol. Lets me pick different bonuses to add on. For solo, I think I'll stick with the assault AMPs.
Started off with 7 points to spend. Bought Assault Power I-III, which boosted my assault power by 7.5%. This opened up the second tier, so I spend my leftover 4 points on Superiority, which increases my damage by 8% when I'm over 70% health.
I figure that I start most fights healthy, so it's guaranteed to help me often.
-Unlocked ability tier points. I can use these to rank up certain abilities and spells.
It seems like these ability points just increase their damage or healing or whatever, but that at certain break points it gives a major increase.
Take Telekinetic Strike, for instance. This is my primary builder, the spell I cast most often. The first three times I rank it up its damage increases, but the fourth time I rank it up it changes the spell to do much more damage when I'm standing still.
I like to move around a lot during fights though, so instead I'll rank up Mind Burst. The tier four boost for it adds a damage over time component after it hits.
-Gained access to Tradeskills, but not sure how these'll work. Maybe I'm still a few towns away from seeing tradeskill trainers. I'll deal with the choice then.
-Hobbies opened up. The website tells me that Farming and Cooking are the two hobbies currently in game. I don't think I have to activate or start these in any way. At least, I hope I don't.
-Picked up my eighth and final LAS slot. It's getting a bit out of control, so adjusting my keybinds to compensate.
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New Abilities
-Incapacitate: Stops an enemy from using abilities for a few seconds. Like a pre-emptive counterspell. Won't use it for soloing for now. Nice to have as an ace in the hole if an enemy I come up against has some kind of brutal ability that wrecks me.
-Psychic Frenzy: Now THIS is interesting! Summons three blades that deal damage and grant me psi points. Even better than that though is that if I rank it up to rank 4, the blades heal me for 25% of the damage dealt. YES! Going to go for this even before ranking up Mind Burst.
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