Tuesday, April 19, 2011

‘Help Fighters’

I just want to know what's down that shaft
The preceding story mission was: 'Planet Search 2'

The following story mission is: 'Energy Depletion'

This is a cracker. If I had a rating system I'd give this mission 5 stars. It's original, tests your flying skills, has a seductive trap within it, is tough enough to make you work, but not so hard to drive you nuts.

The Baumarians in Jogan, their one remaining settlement, are under sustained Mantis attack. They're running out of Energy so you have to go and help. First you fly to the centre of Jogan, probably passing one of their under attack outposts. You might be shot at but just ignore it and fly on. Once there Ethan explains that they use E-Scouts to find Energy and supply their fighters. With the heavy attack underway they need help. Your task is to collect canisters of Energy and transport them to the marked outpost.

The canisters appear in Jogan near the shaft and you need to collect them then get them to the marked outpost before the 1 minute timer runs out. Then you have to get back and collect another, again in 1 minute. You have to supply three outposts to succeed.

Making the journey in a minute is difficult because you have to fly through the narrow and winding gorges. I was tempted to switch back to the standard 'non-relative' steering system, as with the use of the mouse it is better for tight manoeuvring. However I stuck with it and managed it at the third attempt. The first time I took too long reading the mission prompts and the second time it was just taking a wrong turn.

In a cunning and plausible tactic by Splitscreen, when you reach the outposts you find it littered with the debris of battle. Cryonite and BluePrints (BP) are scattered all around, but you need to ignore the booty and get on with the mission. At the end you can quickly try and hoover up the loot, and I managed to get 2 BPs and 239 crystals before they vanished.

Here's a thought. Can you keep re-taking the mission but ignore the objectives and scavenge this loot over and over? Maybe but I haven't tried it. Warning! If it is possible, then it would probably be seen as an Exploit, in other words cheating in Splitscreen's eyes. So don't do it. There, that should be clear enough. 

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