DrkTemplar wrote:Joefesok wrote:You literally cannot survive against the damn thing. Literally.
I should have asked in my last post.
Was your ship maxed out?
Was your ship setup with a teleporter, and if so, did you try to teleport over to defeat him?
If he were weaker (beatable) do you feel it would still make running out of fuel dangerous enough to avoid?
So... it
can be done. It's an absurdly bullshit fight, but surviving and winning is possible*.
(Suggested Listening)
Gumpo and Maxim locked down the weapons room. Two engis still slipped past before they could seal the doors, and it took too long for the four of them to bring the little buggers down. Even with one Glaive operating, the Assimilator practically shredded the
Retribution. One unfortunate hit took down the Teleporter wholesale, trapping the strike-team aboard.
Cloaking bought enough time for the shields to de-ionize, though it only lasted a few seconds at a time from the drones' constant pummeling. Worse still, the first Singularity missed the drone room, but the second one tagged it. Even two drones were enough to vaporize the shields almost entirely before cloaking could recharge.
In what I can only assume to be foolish pride, Bovee insisted on taking point in the boarding crew. She barely survived - King stepped in to cover her escape between waves of Engi. Meanwhile, Quartz fired Singularities into the Shield room, paving the way for the Assimilator's eventual downfall. With its offensive capabilities offline, the boarders fought a holding action to keep the weapons down, picking off Engis who stayed in the fight too long.
A final Singularity caught the last survior as he healed up in the medbay, and the battle was over.
Novik patched up the teleporter and at last the strike team was able to return home. The
Retribution emerged victorious, more scrap than ship but still holding together and with the whole crew alive.
...Eliza learns a valuable lesson about keeping the reactor tank topped off.
Final Thoughts:
-Well DrkTemplar, that is one murderous ship you've put together.
Too murderous. Although I understand the intent, to make an enemy capable of wiping the floor with anyone it crosses, from a gameplay standpoint it's just not fun. The whole "Losing can be fun" mantra only works when you feel like you have a chance to survive and failed. While the
Retribution was designed as an assault ship, there are a lot of default ships that won't even have a prayer against this thing. (Not boasting, I just can't see a shield-less Fed Cruiser lasting longer than it takes for the Glaives to power up).
-I'd suggest removing the shield-piercing from "INFINITY_BEAM" and reducing the firing rate on the ion drones. Four of them is overkill, even two proved enough to decimate a lvl 4 shield in seconds. Taken together, that should bring the Assimilator down from "OMG IMPOSSIBLE!!11!" to a
potentially winnable fight that you can still expect to lose ~90% of the time.
*If this mod were still using regular sectors, it probably wouldn't be without additional modding, but the fact that the Secret Sector allows you to buy crystal crew and/or lockdown bombs means you can pull off a successful boarding strategy.
EDIT: I should note, the
Retribution did not survive its first several attempts to take this thing down. I did an unhealthy bit of savescumming to reach the encounter / defeat it if possible, such that the results above are the end of a very painful learning process and the last strategy I tried. Proving it
can be done was the purpose, but not even my Obsidian could stand up to it at first.
