Huh. I see it, you're right, blue bandana and blonde hair...
Summ't in that there phase space that freaks the old robot buggers out, don't like goin in there, don't like what comes out. Them A.I. gots more sensors than us humans, y'see, and they be pickin up summat fierce signals from deep in there p-space. Sure thing is that we don't really even understan what p-space even is or how it works I reckon.
Some say its freaky aliens, some say its some spooky Tri-tach black magic gone awry, some even say it's ol' Ludd 'imself in there rockin down some purple space wizardry and puttin those A.I. right shiverin in their boots. I says it's nothin we honest spacers should be messin with. Don't trust no phase ships. Don't trust that hummin sound neither, that sound you hear when the phase gens get doin what they do. Met some guy out Gilead way who served on one of them fancy new Tri-Tach phase skimmers, says he hears singin in his head wherever he goes now. Took up a life of farmin but gets jitters whenever he looks up at the night sky. Poor feller, betcha he's hearin Ludd talkin' all sortsa hokey pather buisness 'n the like. Speakin' of pathers, seems like ComSec's been taggin more phase ships in lime-green livery lately, Gremlin Frigates or summat like that, like the Path been catchin' on what ol' Moloch fears, eh?
I got one more rumor out there for ya, speaks 'bout a lost Tachy Black Site, some kinda secret treasure hunt gone wrong, stories of some nutter spacer captain who found a real spook of a ship that ain't look like it come from no Persean Sector, hells, ain't even look like summat a man or bot could weld together. Got this eeire, veiny look to it like it was a living creature, trailing 'round with "ghost lights" that bum-and-burn-down 'nything that gets in the way. Rumors down the grapevine says Tach's been payin big for anyone who could nab that "devil ship" so they can do Ludd-knows-what to it. Wouldn't bet on anyone getting that pot, no sir.
Say, whaddya say yer name was again?
Say you's named... Captain... oh...
Yer the one...
Ludd help us.
All I'm saying is that they should have asked for something higher than 3,000 cats for their sign-up bonus. Can't let yourself price yourself for the 1-1-1-1skills scrub that you are now but the 50-stat-2-limbs monster you'll be after 3 months with the Cat-lon Kill Crew.
Just remember, every Day south of the equator is Leg Day.
A "do you like Starsector mechs" screenshot without Arma Armatura on it is like asking if we like dogs and showing a picture of a cow.
Sidenote, I love mechs.
"Like ok now what" Oh so you need orders? Okay. What were gonna do is sit here in our fancy super Destroyer and suck on each other's toes for 3 hours. We're then going to go away and become talk show hosts for a channel dedicated to fishing and home improvement.
LIKE WHAT ARE YOU ASKING THE QUESTION FOR??. THERE ARE BUGS DOWN THERE. WE ARE GOING TO KILL THEM ALL WITH GUNS AND FLAMETHROWERS??? EXCUSE ME, HELLDIVER, WE ARE GOING TO DIVE DOWN THERE AND KILL??? WHAT DID YOU THINK WE WERE GOING TO DO??? NOT KILL THEM ALL??? SO WHAT, THE DROPZONE IS SATURATED WITH BUGS??? GOOD ITS NICE OF THE BUGS TO BUNCH UP SO WE CAN KILL THEM ALL EASIER. LETS ALL THANK THE BUGS FOR BEING SO KILLABLE. THANK YOU STUPID BUGS.
Any fight you get out of alive is a victory. ANYTHING THAT DOESN'T KILL YOU MAKES YOU STRONGER.
"This wound will take 5 days to heal from!" The time will pass anyways.
Copper mining is an honest life. The Hub is a crappy home, but it is a home.
Every rumor is either overblown or underplayed.
Zombiod taught you that this is how you died. Kenshi teaches you that there are fates worse than death and that despite everything, you will fight to keep living. Despite everything, you will live.
Guns don't exist in my fantasy world because the elves have been using plasma rifles for centuries (they are great for blinding dwarves) and the dwarves recently invented railguns (it fucks up elves real good). Gunpowder weapons are considered inventive but wholly underwhelming and crude as far as ranged weapons go. Human engineers have devised weapons called "rocket launchers", devices considered blasphemous by dwarves (stop blowing up the fucking ores) and the elves find it inconsiderate (stop blowing up our fucking trees).
However, gunpowder weapons are great at hunting down magic users due to the sudden, inexplicable capabilites of your strangely shaped staves suddenly firing out blocks of lead without incantations.
I been in Helldives where a team of 4 wiped out a Bot-Bunker-Busting mission with full main and side objective clears, 2 deaths, C40-R35-S6 sample rollouts, and 35% mission timer left on the clock.
I have fought through lines of Stratagem Jammers that put the bravest of the brave through missions of extraordinary patience and valor.
I have given and been given orders by fellow helldivers that have led us to victory time and time again.
I have met those of French, German, Chinese, English, Russian, Spanish, and all other languages understand nothing less than the simplest pings and executed the most harrowing and nigh-heroic actions I have ever seen in my 27 years of life.
I have been through muck and blood and oil, through hell itself and seen Helldivers experience their highest highs and lowest lows. I have forgiven and been forgiven by equals on my failures, been harsher to myself for fumbles than my allies have, have made myself feel dishonor only to be picked up by allies who kindly gave my my gun and my backpack and told me that a misstep is a single failing in a sea of victories.
I have never felt such pride, honor, glory and a wealth of grand memories than I have in Difficulty Nine.
...
And then you get days where you end up with Grungo and Pals who run in every direction and get mulched by one gorrilion Hulks.
These are my highest highs and lowest lows.
Diff7 feels like the "Competency Trials", where you finally meet up with people who have either enough experience to tackle most any problem with minimal issue or recruits finally stepping up their game and going for uncharted waters. 50/50 you're gonna have a great time or a less than stellar time.
Diff9 feels like the "Competency Nexus", where you either get the best-of-the-best and roll through hell and back with 5 stars and 2000XP or you get paired up with drooling ingrates that either think too highly of themselves or morons who piggybacked their way into the hardest battles available. 75/25 you're gonna be in the most cinematic, ass-clenching super fights alongside graduates from the Spartan-II Program or you'll be in the most soul-breaking meat grinder for the next 15 miserable minutes.
Eagle985: No chat, I'm not going to throw the 500kg right at the Helldiver's feet, that would be ridiculous- No, I'm not going to do it. That would be insane! You can't convince me to just turn these patriots into Nickelodeon slime or something, it'd ruin my no-blue-on-blue streak. I don't care how funny it would be- CHAT, stop it! OK fine, I'll nail that Helldiver in the fuckin face with the 500kg. You happy, chat?
"Warning you are in range of enemy artillery."
I've been playing so many level 9 Helldives and I've had 4 or so "perfect runs" out of a dozen or so with randoms that made me really reconsider the meaning of this post.
...
"You are the vanguard of the Grand Reclamation Fleet, the spearhead of the Socialist Automaton Empire's greatest known strike force deployed against the joke of a 'military' that is the Super Earth Armed Forces. You are a Commisar, a field officer fresh from the forges of Reclaimed Cyberstan. You have been deployed to the frontlines on the planet Leasath. Grandeur."
"It took mere hours to overwhelm the disorganized and utterly undergunned SEAF soldiers stationed across outposts on the Northern Coast. The orders were given from Socialist HighCom to organize a defensive against a likely counter-attack by Super Earth forces from beyond the system. Pride."
"You don't quite have a sense of humor but you do process the idea of a counter-attack as absurd to the point of being logically humorous. Here you stand over the corpses of hundreds if not thousands of humans who fought poorly against the waves of steel and Revolution-Red lasers you brought down on them. The cold climes of Leasath were to your advantage, the SEAF forces were unprepared and many froze to death in the snow before you could even chant the first stanzas to the Odes to Cyberstan. The cold, indeed, was kindly to your processors and the heat-sink in your metal chest hums quietly in the primordial winter. Comfort."
"You and yours have established a veritable fortress-line on this Coast, a fully equipped and fortified set of production facilities, mortar batteries, anti-air emplacements, and even a pair of newly unveiled Marx-class Gunship Manufakturies. You stand above a ridgeline and see that this place is truly a majesty of Automaton Superiority. You sense ease, but more than that, a new line of thoughts unfamiliar... you process these logic-lines as 'boredom'. The violence here has ended, here so far from the frontlines. You will do naught here but oversee the production of an army that will soon conquer this planet. Yes, first this planet, then that contemptible Super Earth... Vengance."
"The silence of the tundra is broken by the sight and sounds of 4 destroyer-sized starships breaking into low orbit above the distant coastline. Their make and model are familiar to you, your internal database recognizes them as Super Earth Super Destroyers, harbingers of the so-called 'Helldiver Corps'. A process, momentary lapse of recognition, and another attempt at humor. Soon, you assure yourself that the Grand Socialist Automaton Legion here on the Northern Coast will turn them away, turn these 'Helldiver Corps' into 'Helldiver Corpses'. The humor logic demands a response. You run a rudimentary vocalization in repetition, a laugh. Amusement."
"But the 4 Super Destroyers do not stop over the frontlines where your machine-kin make headway against the SEAF. They bee-line past Socialist Orbital Defense Arrays and right over your Operation Zone. One of the ships fires 4 large bombardment shells, striking a nearby Manufactory some quarter-kilometer away. Socialist HighCom orders a full defensive deployment, you are notified of the arrival of dozens of Hulk Redguards, platoons of Troopers, and Stalin Russ Battletanks over where the shells landed. You think its simply a glitch in your command-module but you swear to Old Mao and Marx that HighCom sounded... panicked? Concern."
"Gunfire erupts from the area in the distance as you march alongside a force of 4 Red-Rocketeers, a pair of Great-Leaps-Forward, a Shieldmaster Gunner, and a Flameripper Hulk. You and yours march towards the area of battle, but realize that the enemy force is moving swiftly to a Heavy Production Base close by. You order a hastened march, the Shieldmaster promises hell against your foes and the Hulk blurts out some string of irreverent and cruel remarks against humans. You are gladdened by the company. Elation."
...
"Screams. You did not know your kin were programmed with the ability to scream. You did not know pain was a process you could run. You did not know that the enemy had possessed such a brazen disregard of life. Fear."
"You arrived at the site of battle, the scene of combat rife with hellfire and the sight of unrecognized fighter-bombers sending such an excess of ordnance upon simple fabrikators. Rows of Tanks, Dropships, and Redguard Hulks line the perimeter of the base like discarded cans of oil-blood. Dead, all of them. Upon witnessing this, your Flameripper Hulk charged towards the suspected sighting of your opponents, belowing fury and smoke, and two hostile figures emerge from behind a dead Tank and run away from it. You order the Great-Leaps-Forward to chase the interlopers but just as they leap, a sustained burst of gold-line rifle-grade beams cuts from behind a ridge and tears the pair apart mid-air. Their screams are cut short by their Martyr-jumppacks detonarting. Surprise."
"You order for your Rocketeers to surpress the enemy position but just as they take Communism-Enforcment Battle Stances, a grenade flies across the field and onto the feet of your solders. Your Rocketeers brace but no explosion comes, instead a single red beam emerges from the ball now at their feet and signals up to the skies. Before they could resume their attack, the 4 are vaporized by a shot from one of the Super Destroyers overhead. In that instant, you are reminded of how close those ships really are. Fear."
"From beyond the smoke you hear the Hulk scream. Scream? It was not a bellow of wrath or a chant of vengance but one of pain. You hear thunder from beyond the smoke. Lightning courses from a lone figure and into the Hulk, stopping it in its tracks. Another bolt, another scream, another bolt, terror punctuates the desperate vocalizations of the great machine. The Shieldmaster pushes through the smoke but in that moment, the Arc of the lighting bolt jumps from the Hulk, to the Sheildmaster, and into you. You feel your left arm torn from your hull and the last, agonizing scream leaves the Hulk. A rain of bullets and beams falls upon the Shieldmaster, perfectly aimed at a spot his shield does not cover. He falls and you instinctively light a flare to call for reinforcement. To call for help. Help."
"The flare falls from your hands as another volley of bullets rips through your legs, knocking you down to the cold snow beneath. Emergency systems course across your broken body, pain you did not know you could feel rips through circuits and diodes. You look up one last time to witness the visage of the hundred SEAF soldiers that must have carried out this brazen assault but your ocular visors betray your painted truth. 4 soldiers, clad in yellow and black and draped in orange-tan cloth emerge from the smoke. It took only 4 to take you and yours down, 4 to reduce the great legion to slag and scrap. You hear them cheering and two of them preform some strange head-butting ritual. One of them steps over your blasted hull and knocks you on your still-conscious back. Orange-tan, colors of the infamous 'Creek Monsters', a known entity in your database that you understand as a symbol of pure evil. Condemnation."
"You peer up at the sky now, you see more shells being fired by the ships above. Another blast, another binary scream. Fire, hellfire and death rains from the clear sky above. Your fortresses fall one by one as you listen in one last time into the Socialist HighCom Network. Regret. Regret. Regret."
People will complain that the Arc Thrower was nerfed in the last patch but the sheer stagger it dishes out is an absolute buff.
I run the Arc Thrower purely on the assumption that it deals the greatest amount of pain to an Automaton before it dies in digital, mechanical agony.
Being able to 3-7 shot a hulk and the hulk behind it is also a nice bonus I suppose. Some people can't aim with it or finish the circuit from gun-to-bot, but I've learnt that it takes practice and a bit of faith to get consistent output.
It's a must have for me on Helldives, as everyone brings anti-armor but rarely opts for crowd control and single-target Super Stunlocks. With the recent Arc-shot Ship Upgrade, I am the Shock Trooper.
Helldive is so fucking good when you don't got a bitch in ya ear tellin ya it's too difficult
I want to fight to my wits end against an overwhelming force and come out victorious alongside a team of randomly assigned, highly competent, independently-skilled and cooperatively-driven warriors of Super Earth who have experienced a hundred hours of pain and bloodshed like I have.
There is no greater feeling of power than joining that god-team that gels so well together that Helldives become laughably easy due to nothing more than unconditional coordination. No VC? No problem, ping and be pinged. Stim your friends.
Fear comes before Valor, Pain before Glory, Oppression before Liberation. I judge not the ones who choose to fight in the backlines, but I pity those who stand at the front and hope for an easy day.
GIVE ME STRONGER BATTLES.
Shoi, the modder for ArmaArmatura, who's forum profile picture has always been just a fucking cabbage and I appreciate that.
I realize what it is about Arma Armatura, it's the fact that it almost helps emphasize the backyard-bumfights level of chicanery that the Persean Sector has fallen into.
You know the sector has devolved into anarchy when wings of carrier-launched fighters are engaged in glorious melee combat.
Do you like Mech combat in Starsector?
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