Lytha on 24/7/2003 at 08:54
I have recently finished an "opposite AUG"-replay, meaning that I always picked the AUG that I would normally avoid. I played in "realistic", and I went for a very lethal playing style (meaning that Anna, Gunther and Manderley were extremely impressed in the start.) I went for "hack&snipe" - a backstab with a knife/sword whenever I could, a sniper bullet into the head if I couldn't, and I had the assault shotgun and the assault rifle stacked over each other in the inventory as well, for cases when neither sword nor sniper rifle were the optimal solution. I was using the sniper rifle that Paul had given me on Liberty Island, and the assault rifle of the soldier who appears in the top of the statue at the end of mission 1 (I was not picky when it went down to murdering people.) I did not become as nuts as I would have given these two weapons names, but I liked them in their insanely upgraded state a lot.
I even picked an unusual skin this time (tanned with black hair), so that I would not drop back into old habits halfway into the game. Disappointing that Maggie still said her "JC Denton, as dark and as serious as his brother"-line, but maybe this skin looked a bit too much like my normal choice, and she would say different things to the redhead or the albino.
<b>Skills</b>
Heavy - Untrained
Pistol - Trained <i>(I downgraded this in the start, but it was back to "trained" when the game started)</i>
Rifle - Advanced
Low-Tech - Advanced
Demolition - Trained
Environmental - Master
Lockpicking - Advanced
Electronics - Trained
Computer - Advanced
Medicine - Master
Swimming - Untrained
<b>AUGs</b>
EMP Shield - level 3
Radar Transparency - level 3
Agg. Def. System - level 4
Melee Combat - level 4
Stealth - level 4
Targetting - level 4
Aqualung - level 1
Energy Shield - level 4
Synthetic Heart - level 1(max)
I came to really <i>love</i> the targetting; I actually think it is more useful than the X-Ray eyes now, if you want to snipe around that is. The increase in accuracy by the targetting was amazing, and it was useful to watch the "health" of those pesky cameras and turrets go down as I attacked them with sabot shells.
Stealth is a good thing actually, as well: <i>Running</i> to the enemy is faster than speed-crouching to them; and that helps for those backstabs with the dragon's tooth (it would also help for the non-lethal melee weapons, of course.) However, I missed the various advantages of speed (jumping, reduction of falling damage, running away from the enemies) a lot. Especially the falling damage did bite, as I had no regeneration. For a sneaking, non-lethal&no-KOs playing style, I would pick Speed any time, so that I could run away from those enemies.
Radar Transparency had it's uses as well (example: the berserk turret in the ocean lab), but not as often as the Cloak would have helped. Both are too expensive in energy to be used extensively anyway.
Energy Shield surprised me, when I began using it with the first hostile encounter with Simons. I snuck away with barely a scratch. After I gave this AUG a closer look now, I realized that it meant that I could engage Spiderbots in melee combat (it shields against energy (spiderbots' way of attacking) and against fire (spiderbots' way to die)), so I saved those EMP grenades for no reason and killed all the spiders with the dragon's tooth. And it got even better - I killed the 2nd Big Spiderbot with the sword as well, to get a kick. :p My conclusion... Energy Shield is an <u>excellent</u> AUG just as Regeneration, but it lacks the flexibility of Regeneration. I also had to <strike>waste</strike> invest a lot of skill points into medicine, because med bots are quite rare at certain points of the game; and so I had no mastery of any weapon class in the end. And I ran around with only one leg or one arm for long periods of time.
I did not really appreciate the rest of the AUGs. In order from "at least a bit useful" to "useless, was a waste of space":
EMP Shield was nice to have at 2 points only: my melee fight with the Big Spiderbot, and whenever I ran past Page in Area 51. Strangely, I hadn't noticed before that he sucks my bioelectric energy away like a vampire. As I never found much more use for the Ballistic Shield, this is actually not too bad. ;)
Agg. Def. System... I do not like this very much. It was useful a few times, that's true though. Mostly when I was seen because I did not have the Speed AUG. It was *quite* useful for the 2nd hostile encounter with Simons though, when he thought that his LAM was a good thing to equip. With the Energy Shield, I had a better way of disposing the spiderbots than the EMP drone would have been, too. Well, I still prefer the drone of those two AUGs.
Melee Combat. I upgraded this AUG maybe too slowly to really appreciate it. In Area 51, it helped me to bash open maybe 5 doors/chests, but before Area 51, it never helped me with those locked obstacles. I most certainly missed Strength, as walking around with some barrel/crate in my hands is a lot easier and faster than to push it around. And you can't push those items up some stairs. Or out of windows. And searching around for little crates sucked (so that I could hop through some windows or into trucks.) I used quite a bit of grenade climbing because I did not want to waste time with the hunt for little crates.
Aqualung. Well. Lets say it differenty. Environmental Resistence (high-level) owns: Greasel hits, F9, JC takes barely some damages; pesky hairless monkey approaches, F9, JC can engage it with the dragon's tooth; radioactive area, F9, JC can walk through it without having to bother with a hazmat suit at all... on the other side: long swim; Inventory, Rebreather, Use. Even if there wasn't this huge amount of rebreathers around, Environ Res would win. Aqualung was especially painful thanks to the lack of Regeneration. This made the greasels and the grays to some real pain in the butt.
Synthetic Heart... o.O ... What use is this thing supposed to have at all? I mean, with all those upgrade canisters around? ... well, maybe I would have appreciated it and the Melee Combat some more if I had thought of using these two in combination before Area 51, that's true. As I didn't think of that, I actually only used it once, and that accidentally when I wanted to activate the Energy Shield.
Overall, this was quite fun and educative. The most significant difference was the lack of Regeneration, of course. In Paris, I was starting to worry seriously about my health problem (when I was standing on the cathedral's roof with one leg, one arm, the torso down to 10ish points, and the rest in yellow, and realized that the next medbot was at Everett's), so I quit smoking at that point and went for a PhD in Medicine ASAP. Later, in Area 51, I was actually surprised how many medbots they have there. As I normally would heal then anything with Regeneration, I hadn't even noticed most of the medbots there.
I think I want to try a "heavy weapon guy" next - never done that before, although I have used a GEP-Gun as the masterkey a few times. :D
Rogue Keeper on 24/7/2003 at 09:27
Quote:
and she would say different things to the redhead or the albino.
Nope she always refers to you as "dark and serious". I think she meant it more like "having a gloomy aura" rather than comment on your physical appearance.
Raymond Luxury Yacht on 31/7/2003 at 12:53
You know, the aqualung, I found is worthless, only because, for what little swimming there is, a measly 900 skill points to upgrade swimming does the trick perfectly. Never saw the use of synthetic heart, basically because I think power recirculator would be invaluable to someone who has augmentations that use up so much power.
Loké on 17/8/2003 at 06:09
agreed with the power recirculator. I'm doing a melee fighter again, and the legs aug boils down to two things: what do you want to do: sneak up or run up with ballistic prot. on?
It must be said. a level 4 power recirculator with run silent+level 4 cloak+ballistic prot is a godsend.
As for a heavy weapons guy:
This is a good [and fun] one to take. What to do:
Get two heavy weapons. I did gep and flamethrower. Robot control and crow control. Have a backup, pistol and shotgun for me.
If you pump all you skill points into heavy weps at the beginning of the game you can get advanced, and then trained in lockpicking. [EDIT: this is what I do all the time now, works like a charm and the skill ya max out will be sorted for most, if not all, of the game.] Then you can invest skill points into multitools and comp hacking before you really need them. As for pistol or rifle, that's your call, but I don't reccomend going for a melee fallback.
Shadow on 28/8/2003 at 03:52
Power Recirculator + Run Faster + Full Melee Skill + Dragons Tooth = Samurai JC!
And if you really wanna go for the uber, get the melee damage enhance aug too! You can take down bots with ease!
sergeantgiggles on 29/8/2003 at 00:23
I cant really believe you dont like ag. defense. I mean, it blocks EVERYTHING except for loose energy and electric bolts and bullets/buckshot. Makes Gunther easy (bye bye flames), make Walton easy(bye bye plasma bolts), no worrying about darts, commando or bot rockets, grenades on walls (just activate it real far away so you know where they are, then turn off before you get within 50 feet).
Loké on 29/8/2003 at 07:54
Quote:
Originally posted by Shadow Power Recirculator + Run Faster + Full Melee Skill + Dragons Tooth = Samurai JC!
And if you really wanna go for the uber, get the melee damage enhance aug too! You can take down bots with ease! Indeed! my 'Real' name in DE is 'Jack'. :p
juveli on 29/8/2003 at 11:12
Quote:
Originally posted by Lytha Agg. Def. System... I do not like this very much. It was useful a few times, that's true though. Mostly when I was seen because I did not have the Speed AUG. It was *quite* useful for the 2nd hostile encounter with Simons though, when he thought that his LAM was a good thing to equip. I have loved ADS ever since the first time that happened. I didn't have time to do anything when the man had already blown himself to pieces! LOL, I must say. :laff:
And I agree with everything
sergeantgiggles said. I'd choose ADS over Spy Drone every day. :)
Nowadays I even prefer Synthetic Heart over Power Recirculator. Yes, PR is better, but I just like the idea of all my skills increasing a level when my heart starts to beat a bit faster. It somehow completes the role I play, getting 110% performance in the toughest situations. It's... more dramatic.
Loké on 29/8/2003 at 11:50
trouble with the spy drone is that it's hard to control. If only arrow keys worked, it would rock then as a remote bomb for bots...
Rolander on 19/9/2003 at 15:32
The Spy Drone does work as an remote EMP attack against 'bots.
It takes a bit of 'flight training' but is rather easy to fly.
The bad thing is that it drains energy quite fast (max your Recircular ASAP).
Lvl 1 drone is pathetically slow and hence doesn't have much range; forget about using it against any bot who is moving around. I use lvl 1 mainly to emp laser tripwires and hard-to-reach live grenades
But just one upgrade to lvl 2 and it gets fast enough to be livable and its EMP attack can take out a Security bot (two leg type) in one shot if detonated near point-blank. Little need to upgrade it further IMHO unless you reallly like flying it all over the place.
I normally leave it at lvl 2 and if I encounter hostile bots in an area with a repair bot, I just sit tight and Drone-emp the lot. It is also a lot quieter than blasting the bot with a GEP and safer than trying to hit it with a EMP grenade.
But I took the ADS recent just to see Simon get gibbed by his own LAM ...
