Gem of Sacrifice problem

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Atarlost
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I made my first run at the Iocrym using the gem of sacrifice today. It doesn't work very well.

The first problem is Domina. It damages you so much the Domina auto-sanctuary will activate if your karma is high enough, making it impossible to do the last point of damage. This can be solved by firing a shatter before using the gem, but this may not be obvious to everyone.

The second problem is that it brings both of you to one HP and you've had to enter the use menu to activate it. It may be possible to reliably kill the Iocrym with a superconducting shield but otherwise it's a contest to see if you can shoot down all the shots it already has in space without getting hit before you hit it. This took me three tries whereas I can reliably kill it with the lamplighter or fully enhanced Ares Archcannon. This is better than my record with the QAC but still below par for the current incarnation of the Iocrym. Given that saving the Antarctica is much more difficult than killing it this is not IMO appropriate.

Making it reduce your shields to 1 HP instead of dropping them (but still dropping the Iocrym's) might make it viable with the lazarus. Making it not effect shields at all would make it viable for anyone with Shatter. Alternately making the Iocrym more dangerous so playing Russian Roulette with the GoS gives you better odds than fighting normally with the Lamplighter would also rectify the imbalance.
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Aeonic
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The Iocrym should be replaced with some kind of base that's built on top of the star gate so that, when you destroy the base, the gate becomes accessible (alternatively the key to the gate is in the base). However, the base is guarded by a small fleet not unlike the Ares shipyards, which are a pain in the butt for me.

The battle with the Iocrym is one of the most tedious and boring aspects of the current game. Either you can beat it, in which point it takes a long time and is too easy, or is too random, or you can't beat it, in which case it takes a long time and you probably died a lot figuring it out.

Its like one of those cliche end-of-game RPG bosses that has a million health and takes an hour to kill regardless of how overpowered you are.

Now if beating the Iocrym was a matter of finding the right tools elsewhere in the game: weapon to penetrate Iocrym shields, tool to deflect Iocrym disintegration spheres, etc... Then its more about completing the missions to unlock the goal, which is a different story. Although it would help if someone would tell you what those missions were and where to find them...


Incidentally I killed the Iocrym using the Gem of Sacrifice on my first attempt, armed with a plasma cannon. But I didn't have Domina getting in the way.
Last edited by Aeonic on Sun Jul 12, 2009 9:55 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Periculi
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Aeonic wrote:The Iocrym should be replaced with some kind of base that's built on top of the star gate so that, when you destroy the base, the gate becomes accessible (alternatively the key to the gate is in the base). However, the base is guarded by a small fleet not unlike the Ares shipyards, which are a pain in the butt for me.
Good idea!
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Expanding on the base idea, we could also have a few different ways of blowing up the base. Most obvious would be shooting it, but perhaps we can have a puzzle where you have to hide under a planet, beam onto the base, and then use your brain to find the main reactor or the self destruct switch or something like that. Maybe it could be made to be very reactive to something, like a certian lv. 3 laser has just the right frequency to pass straight through their shields and do heavy damage to their armor. Stuff like that makes a game appeal to multiple audiences, and gives replay value. Perhaps I should do something like Wolfy's Trans-X 2 that makes the whole game like that.
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I've long thought (though I don't know if I've mentioned it here, before) that guarding a gate with a single ship is a bit strange. It also doesn't make sense that the Iocrym would send a commandship, which would imply that it's one of their strongest. This means that as soon as you get through the gate, you'll be fighting things that are considerably weaker.

Replacing it with a fleet would be ideal. It requires less time to beat, but more skill. It's also less dependent on finding one of just a few viable weapons. As far as having a station on the gate, I would agree so long as this station is not hard to kill. We're trying to avoid spending half an hour killing something. I'd rather see a smallish station with shields that are impenetrable. When all of the Iocrym ships in the area are killed, the shields will drop, making the station a rather easy kill.
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Aeonic
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You could use the typical impenetrable shield generator scenario - have a few different planets in the system, each with orbiting shield generator stations, and each guarded by a small Iocrym defense fleet. Destroy all the shield generators, and the shield protecting the main station drops, enabling you to destroy it and access the gate.

If you wanted to spice things up you could change around the fleets guarding the generators so that they each require different tactics to defeat. Whatever their setup, I'd be running away as soon as they start hurling those little glowing orbs at me.
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Prophet
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While I was testing my Iocrym mod I realized there is no armor that is disintegration immune, therefore as soon as your shields are down, you're dead unless you can shoot down all the blue glowing balls.

Classic RPG style would be to have a quest to find an item that is specifically designed to kill the last boss who is immune to nearly everything. What the lamplighter is supposed to be. The lamplighter can be very effective vs the Iocrym if you happen to have a weapon speed rom sitting around, otherwise it dosn't have the rate of fire to stop the disintegration balls AND damage the ship.

It will be intersting to see how George spices up Heretic in 1.0.
Coming soon: The Syrtian War adventure mod!
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Hatsuya Kanzaki
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Therefore, I'll make use of my UG-Wingmen, and lead an armada of large ships capable of firing lots of both kinetic, positron and some magical shots on the Iocrym forces :P

Say, my Star Light Breaker killed an Iocrym ship while I'm in Battle Zone.
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Psycholis
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a +150 IM90 works fine and never misses. a missile defense system works against the blue ball things. fancy that.. a level 1 automated laser stopped that massive orb of disintegrating energy. in fact, a +150 IM90 can slowly kill the iocrym by itself.. not the most elegant or efficient solution, but sometimes brute force works.
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Aury
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Psycholis wrote:a +150 IM90 works fine and never misses. a missile defense system works against the blue ball things. fancy that.. a level 1 automated laser stopped that massive orb of disintegrating energy. in fact, a +150 IM90 can slowly kill the iocrym by itself.. not the most elegant or efficient solution, but sometimes brute force works.
It works, provided you can find enough longzhou's to do that, as well as having enough fuel in your hold.
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Atarlost
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I lost enough time scrolling through menus to recharge that I wasn't getting anywhere.
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