-is-
As his anti-construct weapons target my stabiliser constructs I simply abandon them, his shots flying past me and hitting the hull of the ship.
I have the feeling this is going to be a theme for this fight. Duck, dodge and
maybe try to fight back.
-going-
Physical barrier and create a railgun behind it, load crumbler rounds.
Good thing you don't have to stand still to make constructs, like a rookie. That sort of mechanics is a
pain in MMOs with area attacks.
-to-
The shot from the Scarab Warrior's main gun disintegrates the shield, but the follow up shots from the construct disruptors do nothing to the entirely physical railgun. I charge it with ring power and fire.
Ooh, fabricating
real weaponry? That's one way to counter the anti-Spectrum weapons. But
now you have to deal with things like rail damage and charging times. Yay,
balance.
-be-
The Scarab Warrior ducks behind his shield, crumbler rounds hitting home and abrading it before-
Dang super-tough materials. And going into melee would be damn risky given it's strength and ludicrous range of weapon options.
-interesting.
-the fracture cannons open fire. Space around us turns purple, though I've got no idea if they're missing because they're distracted by their own confused desires or they're trying to aid the Scarab Warrior.
Why can't it be both? Still, any chance of it getting hit is low...
This one's orange, for some reason.
But if they're trying to avoid-.
Heh. Probably a coincidence. I doubt they tailored it specifically for OL, given they couldn't have known he'd be hitting them...
My half-formed fracture cannon construct is destroyed by the ship's anti-construct guns, which activate for long enough to hit me all over. My armour holds just fine but even my environmental shield is driven back inside it. Keep moving extrude-
Dodge!
Gah, like a boss with environmental allies. So frustrating.
-armour plates and then dump Construct Lanterns while vision is blocked and then
step out and
One upside: the Scarab Warrior is still limited to having to actually traverse the space between him and you. And I doubt he can move faster than light as easily as a lantern...
appear on the far side of the ship because as thematically significant as fighting an upgraded Scarab Warrior who can turn off my constructs is, I'm actually here to destroy the fleet and acquire biological samples. And keep moving and
evading, because
Yes, that's proving rather difficult, isn't it? I rather think they
don't want that, don't they.
How rude, being all
obstructive...
without a Scarab Warrior to avoid shooting at the gunnery crew are a little more on the ball. Construct armour-.
And it's gone, and this time from a direct hit rather than a specific anti-construct gun.
From the primaries? Ouch. At least that gives a good reference for damage. It takes a fair amount to break constructs as strong as his are...
Dodge harder and recreate the armour, then… Destructive blast.
The ship's shield shimmers, flack turrets locking onto the beam immediately and extinguishing it. Progress… Shields somewhat degraded-
Time for a swarm approach?
Can the anti-spectrum guns actually affect more than one thing at a time?
One of my Construct Lanterns is destroyed and returned to my ring, giving me a sudden image of how well the ambush worked. And it did work, but the Construct Lanterns weren't able to do significant damage before-. And there are the rest. Not sure whether or not it would have worked better if I reinforced them… Or if they'd had stronger avarice when I assimilated them. Hellwraith is still going strong.
-so I fly closer and fire again. Same result: some damage, but the flack deals with it before it does anything too serious.
I presume the Hellwraith is running amok aboard ships, trying to damage fire control or helm functions...
Ah heck.
Construct crumbler fire at the seven closest flack emplacements destructive pulses!
There we go. Give them more targets than they can shoot.
The flack guns start to track the projectiles and then switch to the pulses once those appear. Which means that they're just slightly out of place and slightly too slow in tracking them. The pulses hit the shields and somewhat disrupt them, the crumblers striking just a-
Another volley of destructive pulses.
The old shotgun approach, eh? The Lantern equivalent of
buckshot.
-moment later and… Shield's down for a second and the second wave of pulses go in and yes, flack emplacements gone.
That doesn't help with all of the others, but at least I've got a viable strategy now. Destroy the flack, then fly back out of convenient range and use con-.
Problem is, there's more than one kind of gun involved...
The space around me explodes in a flare of light and radiation!
I shift position, scanning for the source. Constructs. Workable. And since there's slightly less flack now I fire a destructive blast in the direction that shot came from and briefly see the outline of a Scarab Warrior. A different silhouette from the last one, though that could just be shapeshifting. Empathic vision… Yes, there they are. Focus on the ship.
Oh, great, they sent
multiple Scarabs out here?
Destructive blast at the ship. Flack response slower. The shield over this section is back up but goes down again after a moment, allowing me to hit the-. To briefly hit the hull before the Scarab Warrior gives up on invisibility and switches to rapid fire construct disruptors, neatly covering the hole in the-
Where's the other one gone?
Just too many damn things to keep track of, isn't it? Powerful as you are, you're still
human, and you're still only capable of thinking so many things at a time...
-ship's defences but who cares now because they're both on the far side of the fleet so same again. More destructive pulses targeting flack turrets, crumbler barrage and a second volley of pulses and same result, good.
Keep moving. Always
A slow grind, eh? Thankfully, they can't replace destroyed turrets as fast as you kill them. So it's just a matter of time...
keep
moving, and let the purple-. Ah, they finally actually hit their own ship! Nice to see, even if it doesn't actually help me all that much. Shift position up the hull a little and repeat, because I'm still taking fire from three other ships and there's no way that I could try mustering the power to breach the armour just yet.
...The problem is
getting that time, with so many things trying to kill you.
Lantern-
Suddenly there's a ship in front of me as space bends and it manages
Oh, and now he's got an incoming call too? Hoo-bloody-ray...
a full broadside
but I'm out of there immediately because a warship appearing right in front of you isn't a good sign. Okay, if they've got their heads straight to the point that they can do things like that I've got to consider another empathic attack to re-stun them.
Oh, yeah, the ships can make short-hop teleports too, can't they? Gah, like dodging mobile land mines. That shoot at you.
Threllian-
The Scarab Warriors would probably work as a source, but there's no way that will make them stop fighting. I'm.. not too far away from an actual Reach world here, but I'm not super keen to risk their defences without a good deal more intelligence gathering has taken place.
And given that most of their desires probably align with the fleet's there's not going to be much oomph involved.
-to-
Still, I can repeat the process here, by-.
-Illustres.
That's if you get time to break off. Yes, I know, Greediporting is instant, but as soon as he disappears, the fleet will be making repairs. Assuming they don't already
have damage control teams in place...
This time the guns completely ignore the destructive pulses and target the crumbler rounds. They're not.. completely effective, but the shield stays up and the flack turrets are undamaged. Darn it.
"Yes?"
Need more pellets. Too many for them to get them all.
Dodge and
move
and try again, no, they're sharing. Okay. This time I fire a volley not of destructive pulses but of small construct crumbler rounds. The guns ignore them for the fraction of a second it takes them to cross the intervening space and the shield gone and the constructs keep going! Hah!
There you go. Volume, not quality.
The other-
There goes their turrets and I get some actual hull damage in before I'm forced to move by the fracture cannons.
-fleets are moving.
...Well,
shit. Looks like they decided to use 'summon bigger fish'. Multiple times over.
Time to leave? Hopefully
without leaving a smoking corpse?
