GTFO: R4B2 - Variscite (Normal)

Been awhile since my last GTFO post, and that's mainly because R4B1 is a real pain in the butt... so we won't be talking about that today! Instead we're on the next mission R4B2 - Variscite where we need to find four power cells and plug them into a generator.

I'm not going to be as detailed this time since regular readers probably know how to double/triple bop in stealth by now (so three of us means we can kill a close cluster of nine and keep the room quiet) and that you are equipped to deal with giants. What we do is bop all the "safe" little ones then go loud on them, letting DL open with an occupit sniper shot to down one right away.

Some more generic info to start with - security doors come in multiple varieties, and the CLASS of the door dictates how many sets of scans there are. So a class II has one sets of either four circles or one big circle. A class III has two sets, a class IV has three sets and so on. I suspect a class I is just the regular, non alarmed door with a single team scan.

Also, shooters with no melee striker support are actually hopeless. This goes for giant shooters too. Save ammo by using your hammer. As long as you are moving forward and strafing either left or right at the same time, they can't hit you. Once you get up to them just strafe in a circle. I prefer clockwise, so I call it the clockwise technique. :P

Anyway, back to the mission. Our loadouts for this mission were - DL: DMR/sniper/mines, Jim: DMR/Combat Shotty/foam, Me: Autopistol/machine gun/mines. Clear as normal and go through the regular bulk head door. This is where you'll find the generator. The most important part of the mission is now: Do the upper Class III security door first, the one next to the generator.

Enemies will swarm from the direction you came, so its easy to mine and even easier to foam / keep foaming the large door before the bulkhead. Once the scans are complete and you win, don't bother opening the door you just unlocked. Instead go downstairs and open the simple scan door instead.

There you will find an option of three doorways to proceed. Don't be fooled, you need to clear them ALL (unless you like dealing with extra adds) because beyond them is a class IV scan and you'll want to have all the doors closer to the stairs you came down open, but the three doors next to the class IV alarm closed, and foamed. Also, put mines with the trip line facing into the doors, close to the center as possible for the best effect. This small room has plenty of opportunity for that.

It's tight, but with three we could get the circles done (with Jim refoaming doors) and then you just have to win the wave. This is the hardest hold of the mission. Beyond the door you might encounter giant hybrids who are a combination of striker/shooter (they look like spiky shooters). They aren't that scary, just fight from range and from cover. Locate and retrieve the cell hidden in that sector, and do the same for the one that lives in the three room passage you passed earlier but don't plug them into the generator yet.

Collect what gear you can, prioritizing fog repellers and once you are done shut the remaining doors and now you can plug the cells in. This pushes the vision obscuring fog down to you, but that's fine. You can go up through the first door you unlocked which is now not so foggy and clear it slowly, there are giants asleep in here.  You will need to find the third cell in here somewhere, and also to make your way to a security door all the way at the back of the zone.

If you're not the exploring type, the way to get to that door is this: from the terminal where you can pick to either go forward or go down into the fog, take the stairs down into the fog. Go through the small room and open the only other door on the right hand side then go straight through the short passage to the next door and straight up the stairs. Open the big door there (which you want to save for the security scan) and clear the room.

It's a class IV security door back here, so mine as best as you can but the foam is really what will keep them at bay then win the wave. Through the security door is a big cavern - so clear as normal. You'll also find stairs down into the fog but don't go there yet. Open the door nearest the fog and clear the room. There's a terminal here where you can ping stuff, and you'll want to ping the final cell, which is always in the fog hell that you must enter.

One of us normally stays at the console pinging the cell while the other two use fog repellers to sneak and steal basically, shutting all the doors again on the way out. Then its back to the generator but only plug ONE cell in. Now for the finale!

Shut and foam (if possible) the immediate doors leading to the generator room. If you followed this, there are the three down stairs and one upstairs. Mine the path from the bulkhead as well, since you won't have a door there anymore. Once you put in the last cell all the lights will go out as the system reboots. Chillax near the back of the generator and wait for it to turn on so that you can do the single team security scan. After this, win the incoming wave. You'll be able to hear which way they come from.

Still alive? Good work, you've basically won already! Just wander back to your drop point for the extraction circle at your leisure to finish the mission and GTFO!