How do I proceed from here?

[Ihlosi]

It does. The only thing you can do now is submit the problem to Ministry, unfortunately.

I submitted the problem. However, the save is just over 10 MB and over the size limit for attachments.

[JohnBWatson]

It does. The only thing you can do now is submit the problem to Ministry, unfortunately.

I submitted the problem. However, the save is just over 10 MB and over the size limit for attachments.

I'd put it on dropbox and then link to it.

[Ferdinand]

The savegame also compresses very well, Your 10 MB will be reduced to about 2MB just by zipping it.

[Ihlosi]

The savegame also compresses very well, Your 10 MB will be reduced to about 2MB just by zipping it.

I thought of that while at work today. I submitted a compressed version of the save a few minutes ago.

[PM]

Svalbard wreck is not the only thing I could not dock. I destroyed the ICS wreck to spawn the stargate rod, but I cannot dock with the stargate rod.

[JohnBWatson]

Svalbard wreck is not the only thing I could not dock. I destroyed the ICS wreck to spawn the stargate rod, but I cannot dock with the stargate rod.

I believe I've encountered that glitch as well.

That's the problem with having systems in place to resolve the most unlikely ways of the game becoming unwinnable - they're rarely tested, so glitches tend to accumulate.

[Ihlosi]

That's the problem with having systems in place to resolve the most unlikely ways of the game becoming unwinnable - they're rarely tested, so glitches tend to accumulate.

Well, at least it's not a case of "Hm, we missed testing this case. Is the bug going to kill anyone?"

[Ihlosi]

Whew, I just finished the game!

The RNG was throwing an enormous amount of luck my way, though. Shortly after St. Ks, I found both an omni thermo cannon and an ion flame cannon in Bushido store. I did the mission for the explorer auton, but didn't really need it since I found enough corporate trading posts to satisfy my craving for map ROMs.

The last system before Heretic was very, very strange. It had about a dozen Ringer shipyards, two Ringer collectives, and only a handful of Ares stations. And lots of asteroids. I stopped mining when I had about 150000 left over after buying the equipment I thought I needed (4x light iocrym armor, lv10 shield, enhancements).

I started Heretic with a 40% positron lancer (random drop ... very nice), the IFC, the omni thermo, and an omni 9 TeV (which I never used in Heretic). I was able to save a few of the stations from the lobsters using the positron lancer, but for some I was just too far away when the distress message arrived to save them in time.

Two Heretic data ROMs were all that was necessary to get to the outer system. I started circiling the ICS while firing the omni thermo cannon, but realized that most of the shells get shot down on the was to the ICS, or hit the spawned lobsters. So I switched to the positron lancer again, which did a good job at cutting ICS and lobsters to pieces. The ICS is large and slow enough that using a fixed mount weapon isn't that much of a problem.

I skipped pretty much all of the missions after St. Ks. They're something I need to do in another game.

Also, I had a lv10 shield (Taikon) enhanced to 50% in Heretic, and never took any armor damage. So I guess finishing the game with solar armor is feasible.

[Atarlost]

The Iocrym are really quite weak. They used to be a marathon boss when shields had better resistances than armor pre-1.0. I think their weapons actually got weaker by losing range.

The greatest threats to a solar armor run are probably the Sung shield down cyberdeck and the Ares positron cannon. These are practically insurmountable.

[Ihlosi]

The Iocrym are really quite weak.

They're slow and their main weapon has a very short range. Even the lobsters are slow. A ship can just run away from them if things get too bad. The only annoying thing is that the lobsters are a bit faster than the ICS, so if you run away, you'll have to get past/go through a swarm of lobsters before you can resume shooting at the ICS.

If you have the longreach AC and a good weapon, you could probably defeat the ICS with very little in the way of shields and armor. There are several other ships in the game that are a lot scarier than the ICS (e.g. the two Ares capships with Ares lightning turrets and the Sung ships with ShieldsDown). Even Xenophobes seem to be more dangerous since they can actually hit the player at long ranges.

[sun1404]

The Iocrym ships in the Quarantine Zone seems very limited. The ICS seems to be just that: a command ship, a base for the Sentinels which seem to be pilotless drones. The ICS probably relies on the Anomaly zone for protection. The Sentinels themselves appears to only exist for destroying threatening stations.

Ihiosi, if you succeed in protecting the Svalbard from the Pteravores, and she survives to dock with the Iocrym station, that counts as one data ROM collected and immediately sent to them. So only two more are needed.

If you manage to get more ROMs than are needed to open the Quarantine, the scientist team of the Svalbard can make some interesting programs for you.

[JohnBWatson]

If you manage to get more ROMs than are needed to open the Quarantine, the scientist team of the Svalbard can make some interesting programs for you.

Namely, quantum cubes that disable nearby sentinels. You need a Quantum computer to use them, however, so they tend not to be worth the effort. Especially considering how easy it is to outmaneuver them and keep shooting at the ICS.

[Ihlosi]

Namely, quantum cubes that disable nearby sentinels. You need a Quantum computer to use them, however, so they tend not to be worth the effort. Especially considering how easy it is to outmaneuver them and keep shooting at the ICS.

Well, if you're loaded for bear ICS, you'll have plenty of firepower to dispatch any sentinels anyway.