Fallout Tactics: Vault 0

[Part of the Fallout Tactics story]

With Barnaky's forces gone, only a bridge guarded by gatling turrets remains. The defenses on the opposite end are easily destroyed but the squad is caught by surprise when a second pair emerge behind them, ripping Jo into pieces before being destroyed.

Badly hurt, Frances, Pump and Malice hobble to the main chamber where they find the robot master "the Calculator" which is literally a PC connected to human brains in jars. They open fire from the doorway before it can put up any more defenses and destroy it easily - effectively shutting off the entire robot army.

How you win the game.

Alas without the Calculator, Vault 0's knowledge archives are lost forever and Dekker is expelled for his cowardice on the field (or rather, he never got on the field). Supposedly he was taken off world to join a mercenary band but others simply believe he killed himself.

Regardless, Frances is made the Brotherhood General by the remaining survivors and makes Vault 0 their main base of operations. Malice becomes captain of defense to stay near Glenda, his Reaver lover and Pump takes over leading the assault teams against all those who would try to take Vault 0 from them.

Frances knew there would be no peace. Only war, and war never changes.

Insight: If you don't shoot the computer from the door, it raises a shield and you have to clear the rest of the base behind it. At this point I just wanted to win already.

Fallout Tactics: Barnaky

[Part of the Fallout Tactics story]

With the door breached, the team found Dagger squad already securing the foothold and gunning down robot defenders. They inform Frances that the power to the lifts are out, so she takes her team fighting through the security and cryogenics sectors to find a way towards the power plant.

Surprisingly, they encounter human Vault 0 citizens but as they fight for the robots they too are gunned down. Eventually they get the power back on and descend to the lowest floor. There they encounter robot squad led by General Barnaky, whose brain and eye stalks now sit atop of a metal body.

Looks like charisma was his dump stat.

Using trinkets they took from his human corpse causes him to hesitate and is an easy kill for the team. The rest of his robot squad are more dangerous, and Dr. John who did a good job keeping everyone healthy up to this point is exploded by a rocket before the enemies wiped out.

Insight: Ammo wise, you want to horde 5.56 and 7.62 caliber for fighting super mutants. There is a lot of energy ammo for the regular laser weaponry at the end to face the robot horde with, and it also happens to be the most effective against them.

.50 cal is also great to reserve for the robots, but all the other rounds are only really useful for the pre-super mutant battles. The .44, .45, .303,. 30.06 are pretty rare too and while the 9mm is plentiful it gets out dated really fast. Make sure to level up your big guns and energy weapon skills accordingly.

Keys and Treasure Chests

I find it interesting to see how each game delivers rewards to players, especially after killing tough bosses in dungeons. More and more it seems that these rewards come from treasure chests of some kind.

Guildwars 2 used to (I assume they still do) just have it as a pop up, treasure chest "button" on each participating player's HUD rather than an object in game. Neverwinter Online has a box at the end of each dungeon, often next to the handy exit portal, that can only be opened if you entered during "dungeon hour" (occurs every 6 hours) or if you brought a dungeon key with you.

You can get one free key a day provided you don't already have one in your inventory. As a typical F2P opportunity you can also buy said keys with the pseudo-real currency of Astral Diamonds (which you gain through real money expense or through doing in-game tasks). Some dungeons and skirmishes even have two chests with the bonus one requiring a different key made from other grindable currencies.

Ultima Online laughs at treasure chests when bosses can just explode into gold.

Then there's Warframe and its Orokin Vaults. Found on not so accessible Orokin Derelicts that consume a crafted key just to ENTER, there is always ONE vault hidden somewhere in the decaying space craft and if there's something Warframe is good at, it is hiding things in hard to reach spots that require good eyes and good parkour skills.

The vault itself needs a key to open but the type needed is random out of four. Since each player can only carry one key at a time this usually means to have a 100% chance of opening the room each member in a full squad needs to be carrying one. Of course holding a key negatively affects your Warframe, depending on the type you carry.

The effects to choose from are:
-75% health
-75% shield
-75% damage
-50% speed

Upon opening the door whoever used up the key is back to normal, for a short time at least because picking up the always single "mysterious artifact" (which you will only identify at the end of the mission) will again inflict one of those four effects on you at random.

Oh, and it also triggers an alarm that changes your enemies into the Corrupted faction, so if you came in geared up to fight things with fangs, claws and tentacles you will suddenly find them joined by heavily armored folks with lasers, heavy machine guns and rocket launchers. I suppose I should mention that while not as creepy as the Eris Hive ships these derelicts are far more dangerous, boasting some of the toughest foes and traps in the game.

Vault looting is completely optional though, which means to -earn- whatever it is you looted you MUST complete whatever your actual mission is on that space ship AND make it to the extraction point afterwards. Alive. Specifically the guy carrying the artifact.

So far I've done two of these and they were awesome as it felt we really "earned" that extra reward. I've run many more where I was the sole key carrier and the vault lock didn't match what I carried though. Those were slightly annoying! :P

What's your favourite method of loot delivery in game? Do you like having an easy exit at the end or would you prefer that people had to "get to extraction" on their own?

Intentional Miscommunications

My journal through Borderlands! You can follow the rest of the story here!

It felt wierd going through the Crimson Lance base with my autopistol, but I was getting the hang of their tactics given the number of soldiers that kept getting in my way. I found Dr. Tannis locked up in one of the cells and she apologized for tricking me, saying she had no choice. Fair enough, given that the Lance are actually her employers. Anyway Commandant Steele has taken the key and is off to the vault but I first have to re-establish the comm array they shut down.

This isn't that hard to do since those guardian ghost things seem to also be attacking the outer base, freeing me up to get to each comm tower. Once that's done I free Tannis and she tells me where the vault is. The strange vision of that woman appears again telling me to hurry, to reach it before Steele can open it so I make a beeline straight for the marker, fighting past a small contigent of Lance troops before reaching a long descending cave. More guardian things are in here but I've brought my "lightning" SMG to deal with their tough shields. Marcus is a genious when it comes to weaponizing artifacts from the zone.

As I went deeper battles between Lance and guardian forces became plentiful, but the voice compelled me to be quick so I sprinted past them into some snowy ruins where again I only put down the foes that needed putting down. Eventually I finally reached the vault arch where Commandant Steele was waiting for me. I was too late, the vault was opening... and its untold riches were - a lie! Instead a monstrous tentacle beast emerged killing Steele and her remaining troops leaving me to fight the creature on my own.

Crap.

After an obscene amount of bullets the creature finally died and the vision of the mysterious woman thanked me for my services. Damn it, this whole time she was just a powerful controller. I pocketed the now useless vault key and took my reward of empty ammo clips and numerous cuts and bruises back to New Haven via a Crimson Lance controlled teleporter anomaly.

What's up DAHL?

My journal through Borderlands! You can follow the rest of the story here!

With things quiet now at New Haven I pushed on into the Rust Commons zone which is so large it is actually split up into two maps. Not far into it I'm attacked by yet another giant fire breathing rakk, this one more dangerous than the last since it liked to strafe low (the previous one stayed high) but this also meant I could target him with my rockets and in short order he was gibbed into tiny pieces.

Deeper in, at another dig site I met the researcher Patricia Tannis who seems to be going crazy from loneliness. Like me, she is looking for "the vault" and seems to have proof that it can only be opened every 200 years (which happens to be soon). I also learn from her that a the large DAHL corporation had previously been looking into this too, with their cheap workforce of convicts. They gave up and left all the scum in this region which explains why there are so many nut jobs around.

Anyway, Dr. Tannis sends me to fetch an artifact she had left with Crazy Earl for safekeeping. Leaving anything for safekeeping with someone whose first name is "crazy" doesn't sound wise to me, but I go to his scrapyard anyway and after killing him some bandits and skags and bribing him with lots of booze he informs me that artifact he was "holding on to" was taken by a bandit named Krom.

Bus to the Badlands

My journal through Borderlands! You can follow the rest of the story here!

My guildie Wro got me this game a long while ago but I've only now gotten around to releasing it from my stockpile. Since the setting to Stalker is similar enough I thought I'd continue the tale here. :)

The next morning an armored bus came into town, driven by one jolly fat and bearded russian (obviously) named Marcus. He was stocking up on supplies before heading out to the Badlands and was willing to take on passengers for a fee. Having grown tried of the miserable cold in this region I took him up on his offer, along with a handful of other wanderers. It was a long drive down from the mountains and well into the night through the mostly empty highway. Apart from the radio music no one really spoke much leaving me to fall asleep. That's when I had a vision of a mysterious woman telling me to find something called "the vault".

I woke up with a start as the bus had hit some animal on the road. Peering outside I noticed that gone were the tall pines and lush forests, replaced by a sea of sand and stone. I suspect Marcus drove through a stationary teleporter anomaly to cover the distance so quickly. Following my dream I told the bus man I would get off at the next stop which happened to be a small delapidated village called Fyrestone. The heat as I disembarked was oppresive, and it took sometime before my eyes grew accustomed to the bright light.

 As I watched the bus drive off I suddenly heard a small funny voice from the otherside of the road saying "See ya next time!". I turned to see a small box on wheels waving at the bus - a robot!

It dances too! :)

It introduced itself as Claptrap and astonished at this advanced technology I followed the little robot towards the town but as we approached we found it under attack by armed bandits. With a sigh I readied my autorifle and switched the safety off. Seems like some things never change.