Buffing the Iocrym

[JohnBWatson]

Over time, the Iocrym have become perhaps the game's biggest victim of power creep. Their Sentinel vessels, never particularly powerful, are trivial to kite for endgame - tier loot, and their Command Ship, the end boss of the game, is not only barely capable of harming a player who pays attention while fighting it, but is subject to the planet - sitting exploit, which can be used to render it incapable of long - range retaliation. With that in mind, I've created this thread to determine a means of making them a suitable challenge for the end boss of a roguelike.

My own suggestions:

Sentinels(from least to most complicated):

Sentinels could use a long ranged, swivel mounted weapon and standoff AI instead of the current setup of standard AI and an extremely close range weapon.

Sentinels could use stealth. Note that this would require the stealth system to lose the glitch that allows the player to maintain a weapon lock on stealthed targets in order to work. For balance purposes, their armor could be made weaker, or the stealth property could be applied through a virtual device not usable by the player rather than the armor itself.

Sentinels could launch overlays that slow a target down, similar to a VUX intruder.

Sentinels could fire a powerful tracking weapon with a minimum range, making it imperative to get in close to avoid bombardment.

Iocrym sentinels could operate as light carriers of a sort, deploying a pair of small, fast moving 'drones' fielding repellers upon being attacked, in order to prevent kiting. Upon their destruction, they could attempt to retreat and restock at the nearest Iocrym outpost, or, failing that, the ICS itself.)

The ICS(Same arrangement as above)

The repellers could have significantly longer range.

The ICS could auto - restock ammo for its ranged weapon, making it less of a pushover. The Qspheres could also have more health and deal more damage(including a shieldbuster property), in order to make them an actual threat to players with shields, disintegrate - immune armor, and point defenses.

Rather than deploying sentinels whenever the shield drops, squadrons could be deployed based every X seconds so long as the shield is down. (IE: if the last squadron was launched more than 30 seconds ago and the shield is down, launch another.)

The ICS could use a gravity effect similar to that of the Chmmr Avatar, attempting to drag the player into weapon range.

[PM]

Radius attacks similar to XM900s hit everything, including planet campers. Either make the quantumspheres radius attacks on contact or give another weapon with a radius attack. If quantumspheres gain radius, the ICS should regenerate ammo like the thermo nanofac from CorpCom does for thermo cannon shells.

Someone suggested Iocrym repeller as an auto-defense device. That could be useful for shutting down some attacks.

[Xephyr]

How many of the more casual players are going to be able to take on the Iocrym as they are already?

It's totally possible for a player to enter Heretic without a loadout that can take them on to begin with. Complicating the ending will probably be seen as cheap by a lot of players.

Right now, the Iocrym don't seem to use the same kind of tactics that humans do, which makes them seem fittingly alien. I don't think the Iocrym need to be changed all that much.

[JohnBWatson]

Radius attacks similar to XM900s hit everything, including planet campers. Either make the quantumspheres radius attacks on contact or give another weapon with a radius attack. If quantumspheres gain radius, the ICS should regenerate ammo like the thermo nanofac from CorpCom does for thermo cannon shells.

Someone suggested Iocrym repeller as an auto-defense device. That could be useful for shutting down some attacks.

A radius effect would definitely be a good addition. It'd also make the weapon suitably 'epic' for the last ammo weapon in the game's first half. Having the Iocrym repeller work as a point defense might make them too powerful without a nerf to its firerate(In my opinion), but it'd definitely set it apart from other enemies and make it tougher to crack.

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How many of the more casual players are going to be able to take on the Iocrym as they are already?

Anyone with a WMD thermo weapon. That's pretty much everyone who doesn't try to rush the entire later half of the game. IIRC someone managed to take the current ICS on with a penitent cannon.

Also, Transcendence is a roguelike. I'd argue that flawlessly permadeathing it and killing the boss effortlessly should not be something a new player is capable of doing right off the bat.

Right now, the Iocrym don't seem to use the same kind of tactics that humans do, which makes them seem fittingly alien.

Their tactics should certainly remain very different, but they should also be viable tactics. Large slow ships that can't fight at a distance aren't viable in any capacity(This is also an issue for the Ventari, as well most of the game's unescorted capital ships, but they aren't the final boss.).

[Song]

How many of the more casual players are going to be able to take on the Iocrym as they are already?

Anyone with a WMD thermo weapon. That's pretty much everyone who doesn't try to rush the entire later half of the game. IIRC someone managed to take the current ICS on with a penitent cannon.

That would be me. I did it as a challenge (Ie: Not in a legit run but to see if it was possible). It requires a different gun to take out the shield (I used an enhanced shuriken just for the rate of fire), and takes about 10-20 minutes of shooting in order to win. It's hardly casual, but it is possible. Once you know how the AI handles things you can just toy with it.

I did an attempt at the Q-sphere a while back...the effects turned into the Bushido Energy Launcher's EMP bolt in SM&M++. I'd be dubious about buffing it too much, but making it radius effect and nerfing its ability to come around for a second pass would be handy. Keep in mind though that the weapon needs to be balanced for people without disintegration-immune armor. While it's a bit too common now, that immunity is supposed to be very special.

[PM]

Shield buster for quantumspheres would be too strong. Ares positron cannon with its shield:8 knocks out almost any shield in about two or three hits, and the leftover damage goes to armor. If quantumsphere has like say... shield:12, its damage multiplied by up to five times could be enough to knock out the shield in one-hit and have some damage leftover to hit armor and cause disintegration.

Light Iocrym Armor used to not have disintegrate-immunity. It was probably added to make sentinels not so vulnerable to their own weapon and maybe give player immunity he might desperately need.

[sun1404]

Remember that the ICS isn't there as the primary mean of quarantine. The Manipulators are. The Iocrym probably never planned for the ICS to actually fight anything. It's a command ship, not a dreadnought. They probably underestimated human, since at the time they met human we were quite weak. The ancient races' time scale is, IIRC, very large. They count in centuries. The Iocrym probably never expect the Quarantine to the taken down, what with the hardwares doing the work being indestructible. The sentinels could have been designed for station demolition, in case the human research stations actually make significant progress. They carry out that duty rather well, if you ask me. I'd say it's impossible for new players to protect every station. The Command ship was probably sent for the purpose of commanding the sentinels, which are pilotless drones similar to human autons, IIRC.

I don't think the ICS must be buffed up. It's only the first ancient race ship the pilgrim meets, a teaser for what you will meet in the space beyond Heretic.

[Atarlost]

My primary issue is with what the Iocrym say about the rest of the galaxy. Big, slow ships must use long range weapons. For the Avalanche Cannon to be useful their command ship has to be fast and nimble compared to the enemies they expect to face or to face enemies using even shorter ranged weapons. Such enemies cannot possibly be fun, and it doesn't say great things about their brainpower either.

The Sentinels are only armed with a short range weapon and while faster than the command ship aren't fast enough to leverage their fracture cannons.

Right not the Iocrym are configured to be the Centauri Warlords of alien space and their lore doesn't fit that.

I think the current weapon arrangement should be ditched completely. The plasma weapons don't work and the disintegrator isn't fun.

I don't think the repellers can probably be salvaged. They were introduced to prevent some exploit that no longer works and now just make it harder to get accidentally killed by wandering into Avalanche range. If they stay then for them to make sense everything else needs to have a minimum range.

The long range weapon should not disintegrate. It's not fun to face a boss and just get erased without warning. Being like V'ger is holding the Iocrym design back.

Disintegration is an option for a short (but not as short as the Avalanche) ranged weapon, something that lets the player see the Iocrym before dieing if they turn up in a Manticore with non-immune armor or something.

For the sentinels the problem is that the model is built around the gun it mounts. I would suggest making them more maneuverable and extending the maximum range but not the full damage range of the fracture cannon. If too much is done to buff them the mission timers need to be re-figured. A short-ish ranged omni could also fit, not one nearly as powerful as the fracture cannon.

[JohnBWatson]

Shield buster for quantumspheres would be too strong. Ares positron cannon with its shield:8 knocks out almost any shield in about two or three hits, and the leftover damage goes to armor. If quantumsphere has like say... shield:12, its damage multiplied by up to five times could be enough to knock out the shield in one-hit and have some damage leftover to hit armor and cause disintegration.

Point taken, shield buster would probably be too much for a damage - buffed Qsphere launcher. Guess I didn't look at that one closely enough.

[Atarlost]

Remember that the ICS isn't there as the primary mean of quarantine. The Manipulators are. The Iocrym probably never planned for the ICS to actually fight anything. It's a command ship, not a dreadnought. They probably underestimated human, since at the time they met human we were quite weak.

This is uncertain. Did the Iocrym meet humanity before or after the Syrtis War? Because the thermo cannon is implied to be a Syrtis War vintage design and there were human ships in that war substantially bigger than the ICS. You can see the wreck of just a section of one in the Near Stars expansion. As many thermo cannons as those monsters must have mounted would have wiped out the Iocrym in minutes. Splitting that shipbuilding capacity across multiple destroyer hulls so that a single lucky quantumsphere wouldn't wipe out the whole attack would mow down the Iocrym like a totalitarian police force dispersing protesters with machine guns. Their weapons loadout is almost completely impotent against anything that can fire any sort of nuke with passable range.

[sun1404]

Hmm, maybe human weren't as weak as I thought. IIRC the Iocrym came to meet the Commonwealth in St. Kats, which should mean way after Syrtis war. But still, in-game text seems to suggest a small technology revolution right after meeting the Iocrym, with them giving human some quite sophisticated technologies.

Anyway, that doesn't change the fact that the Iocrym also has the anomaly to rely on, at least until the pilgrim helped shut it down. Their current weapons loadout is pretty well-suited to destroying stations, to stop any further researches after it's clear the human can find a way to shut down the manipulators. Not even the Ringers or Taikon could stand against them. Nothing immobile could, in fact.

[JohnBWatson]

Hmm, maybe human weren't as weak as I thought. IIRC the Iocrym came to meet the Commonwealth in St. Kats, which should mean way after Syrtis war. But still, in-game text seems to suggest a small technology revolution right after meeting the Iocrym, with them giving human some quite sophisticated technologies.

Humans have had thermonuclear weaponry for quite a while even today - there really isn't any time at which the current ICS could have been placed with the expectation of defeating a dedicated human task force intent on destroying it.

[TheLoneWolf]

So the humans met the Iocrym before they expanded beyond St. Kat's star, right?

[Atarlost]

So the humans met the Iocrym before they expanded beyond St. Kat's star, right?

Actually, I just remembered there's a timeline. Let me go actually consult it.

2120: Ancestors of the Huari begin settlement in the Loriol system.

2124: Commonwealth explorer ship Independence reaches St. Katharine's Star system (then called "New Sun").

2154: Dissidents from Asian Pacific Directorate found colony on Jiang's Star system.

2155: Sisters of Domina, led by St. Eugenia, build temple in Sanctuary system.

2183: Ringers from Saturn begin to colonize the Outer Realm.

2230: Syrtis Conclave invades Asian Pacific colonies on Mars and UAS Belt colonies; start of Syrtis War.

2231: Beginning of Ventari settlement of Outer Realm.

2251: Commonwealth invades Mars; nukes much of it from orbit; end of Syrtis War.

2251: Ares Sect driven outside of Commonwealth space; begin colonies in Aeria system.

2278: Battle Arena Maximus constructed in Rigel Aurelius system.

2334: Conrad Decker born in Cairn system.

2342: Start of Ares War.

2352: Point Vespa completed in Outer Realm.

2353: First Commonwealth star carrier, CSC Europa, deployed. Eleven more carriers built by 2357.

2363: Iocrym first contact at St. Katharine's Star.

2364: Iocrym scouts reach Earth; they conclude that Humans are a new blight and must be quarantined.

2373: Two CSCs destroyed by Ares Orthodoxy. Beginning of pause in war.

2419: Beginning of events in The Stars of the Pilgrim.

That's a great deal later than I'd thought. They arrived during the Syrtis War but before the cease fire. They can't possibly have used the gate network during the Ares War without making contact first. They must have been scouting garden worlds using non-gate FTL. Ares Prime is a garden world more coreward than Incandescent so they were probably contacted as well.

Another page notes that the Cometfall was a new design in 2372. That means both nations the Iocrym must have contacted had Iocrym killing weapons at the time of contact.

[TheLoneWolf]

So if the Iocrym can be killed by a thermo dreadnaught (Anton Nasser drops in my mind) then i conclude that:
1. Iocryms lied. They are not so ancient after all.
2. The ICS and the sentinels are the most lowly and old ships they have.
3. They are just a brother of the Luminous Drones. No brains, no spine and a gut full of @#$!.
4. Iocrym are blind.
5. Iocrym thought thermo was blast.
6. Iocryms were just trolling us. The ICS and Sentinels are spambots.
7. They are a test of Domina for the pilgrim.
8. I have gone mad.

Btw how did the Huari get there b4 people got to St. Kat's? And they still use slam cannon?