Blade (UBW!Taylor Worm Quest)

[Angelus]

[x] Draygon/Not in held territory/Underwater in the bay.

 

[Minion #Q]

[x] Draygon/Not in held territory/Underwater in the bay.

 

[ryune]

Saw this on SB. I figure it's relevance is rather blatant.

http://imskeptical.deviantart.com/art/Samus-vs-Endbringers-536281788

 

[siflux]

I'm not planning on moving up the fight, so there's going to be a lot more time to prepare, but I can't really think of much better in the way of even tinkertech armor than a fully-upgraded Power Suit made by Leet. Probably going to want a sword in the other hand, though.

Also, that picture is awesome and thank you for posting it. I want to make this happen!

 

[BBJimmy]

[X] Draygon/Not in held territory/Underwater in the bay.

I'm firmly against sequence breaking unless it would make Taylor's life easier. After all, she's not a gamer, so would not have the same reactions to situations as the average forumite.

 

[MahoGuy]

[X]Argue with Leet that this isn't a play
[X] Draygon/Not in held territory/Underwater in the bay.

 

[siflux]

I'm firmly against sequence breaking unless it would make Taylor's life easier. After all, she's not a gamer, so would not have the same reactions to situations as the average forumite.

Click to shrink...

You know, it really bugged me up until now that nobody was voting for a sequence break, but I feel better about that now. Thanks. Granted, sequence breaking wouldn't have worked out very well unless someone gave a good plan of action, but it's the intent that's important. U&L may discuss the concept in a few posts if I can find somewhere good to cover it.

 

[ShadowAngelBeta]

You know, it really bugged me up until now that nobody was voting for a sequence break, but I feel better about that now. Thanks. Granted, sequence breaking wouldn't have worked out very well unless someone gave a good plan of action, but it's the intent that's important. U&L may discuss the concept in a few posts if I can find somewhere good to cover it.

Click to shrink...

I think its a bit of a combo of staying IC, as noted by the guy you responded to, and us voters not knowing the battlefield we'd have available.

If we had a good chance of leveraging enough advantages, like our own powers if they were at a useful point, that we could take these guys down, we'd probably go for it. But Motherbrain and Ridley are both some top tier shit, better to not have to rely on chance/outside factors to do this.

Now, if we were doing something like Halo, where you don't really get power-ups, and were doing something we could sequence break... *Shrug* Might happen. Halo's a bit of bad example I guess since you need to kick all the ass to resolve it, or at least get to quite a few critical points and get through everything in your way.

 

[siflux]

Good point. Even in Super Metroid and Zero Mission you need to clear all the major bosses to get to Mother Brain.

 

[ryune]

You know, it really bugged me up until now that nobody was voting for a sequence break, but I feel better about that now. Thanks. Granted, sequence breaking wouldn't have worked out very well unless someone gave a good plan of action, but it's the intent that's important. U&L may discuss the concept in a few posts if I can find somewhere good to cover it.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, as a gamer myself, I personally dislike sequence breaking. Yeah, it can be cool to see every now and then but nothing pisses me off as much as the first time I played MGS and found out that you can bypass entire swaths of the game by hiding in a truck with a cardboard box on your head. I didn't even know Psycho Mantis was a thing until I went looking for a strategy guide. In a game like Metroid where you literally need a few of the upgrades to survive existing in levels? Yeah, no.

Speaking of sequence breaking, what upgrades do we have to look forward to? I know the weapon upgrades a out "because PRT" but what about the mobility upgrades like the screw attack, hi-speed and jump upgrades?

Also, is this just a suit that mimics the Varia suit or is it an actual expy? The big difference is that the actual Varia suit is capable of upgrading itself when provided with the right data as apposed to something that is just having functions unlocked from remote.

 

[siflux]

Screw attack is unavailable; it's solely a weapon. It feels like mobility because there are blocks that only it can destroy, but the same is true of bombs, power bombs, and missiles. Speed Booster and Hi-Jump should exist, as should Space Jump and Power Grip.

And wow, by clearing an entire zone at a time rather than backtracking between them to explore, the exploration lose a lot of in-the-moment value. Who even needs a doubled jump height when you can jump forever? Still, will likely be useful in the future.

Leet made the suit, so it's as close to the real thing as he could make it. Unfortunately, one has to make sacrifices for the medium. The suit uses a USB 2.0 connector for programmatic updates, and needs additional matter to complete hardware upgrades. It's kind of like FMA alchemy in that regard, except that it isn't powered by the souls of dead babies. Throw some biomass and the right metals down the barrel of the arm cannon, give it new data to build something, watch it drain some energy, and it'll upgrade fast.

 

[ryune]

Hmmm, alright, then. That is really nice to know. The upgrade aspect means that we can continue using it virtually forever.

Also, are those weapon upgrades in existence that we could theoretically get them later? We got the bomb upgrade accidentally but that could have been an isolated thing.

Also, crazy idea here, can we use projection to reproduce the health/power restores?

 

[BBJimmy]

I'm going to miss the Screw Attack (infinite jumps! Whee!), but I can see where you're coming from.

If she keeps the suit though, I think it'd be more than reasonable for her to hunt down additional attack modes, as not everything is vulnerable to a mere stun blast. That, plus the ability to switch between them, means that she won't always be hitting folks with her WAVE_BEAM_OF_DEATH(tm) when a simple stun blast will do, but will be glad to have the big boom when Leviathan comes a-calling.

 

[ryune]

I'm going to miss the Screw Attack (infinite jumps! Whee!), but I can see where you're coming from.

If she keeps the suit though, I think it'd be more than reasonable for her to hunt down additional attack modes, as not everything is vulnerable to a mere stun blast. That, plus the ability to switch between them, means that she won't always be hitting folks with her WAVE_BEAM_OF_DEATH(tm) when a simple stun blast will do, but will be glad to have the big boom when Leviathan comes a-calling.

Click to shrink...

Actually, that brings up an interesting question. Are the upgrades to how the beam weapon function like the charge beam, spaser, wave and other variants covered under weapons? I don't see how they would be any more "weapon" than the already in use stun beam.

 

[siflux]

You got the bomb upgrade because Bakuda, the ABB's new tinker, made you a bomb upgrade. More on that and why in the next interlude.

Projection can totally restore suit energy. Much like you can project or trace a sword and the damage remains dealt even after the weapon disappears; you can project a restoration item, and the effects will remain.

Screw Attack causes jumps to do insta-kill damage. Space jump is the powerup that gives you infinite jumps in the air. Not only is Space Jump still in the game, it's even Maridia, which maps to the next chapter. You know, between Speed Booster and Space Jump, Samus probably ranks as a low- to mid-rank Mover.

Uber and Leet don't consider themselves to be heroes or villains, but rogues. It bothers them that the PRT classifies them as villains, and they've figured out it was because of the GTA vid. Wave beam makes the shot go through non-enemies, and there's no known maximum range on the arm cannon -- a shot aimed straight down could easily hit someone on the other side of the world. Similarly, plasma beam is just too dangerous to give to some contestant they've only known for a week. The pair might trust Uber with the wave/plasma beam combo, but not Leet, and certainly not someone with no combat training. And Uber can't star in this video, because Samus is a girl. He's got too much artistic integrity to do that. This isn't Shakespeare, you know.

There's no good reason for the Spazer Beam not to be available, especially considering that you already have Charge Beam. I'd say you should complain to Uber and Leet about that, but as previously indicated, Taylor has no grounds here for knowing what she's missing -- Spazer and Wide Beams are probably the least well-known beam types, and she's never played a Metroid game. Similarly, Grapple Beam is almost exclusively a navigational aid, and there's no good reason for it not to exist (although Space Jump obviates most of its use). Grapple Beam, at least, is found in an area of the map you haven't visited yet.

 

[siflux]

"Sshhhhhhh!" Uber shushes Leet. "What happened to 'kabuki ninja stagehand?"

"Ooops, sorry," Leet replies.

"You did it again!" Uber complains.

Leet nods, and Uber can apparently see it because the line of complaints is dropped.

"So," Uber comments, "We have two in favor of this being a play, and one against. By votes, this is clearly a play."

"But people shot me!" You grumble, walking towards an exit to the ship.. "I could have died!"

"Yes, but you didn't," Uber almost interrupts. "Sorry, standard answer to your complaint. We gave you powered armor and even warned you that we've got bosses on standby to salvage the situation. Yes, there was a chance of death, but it was small. You took no risks that we wouldn't have."

"But people shot me!" You insist.

"You could have run away," Uber points out. "I like that you didn't, though. Very in-character."

"Of course I couldn't run!" You argue. "I had a suit of powered armor with a stun weapon and there were a bunch of criminals there! And you said I couldn't run from Lung--"

"A boss fight, specifically a Torizo. Not Lung," Uber interrupts.

"Anyways, what would you expect me to do?" You finish.

"Call the PRT, staying in place to survey the scene until they arrived unless you felt too threatened, in which case run, using the buildings as cover. Incidentally, we're very glad you didn't do that. The PRT tends to regard our art poorly. Philistines."

"I…" It takes you a moment to figure out how to voice your thoughts. "So, you mean it's all a play because I was never in any danger?"

"Of course you were in danger!" Uber explodes at you over the radio. "But as purveyors of fine art, Leet and I did our best to mitigate the risk and maximize the odds of your safe survival while minimally damaging the work. It's a play because there's a script, which even a ragequit would stay on. If we weren't filming this but we still gave you a suit of powered armor, would you run across the city searching for powerups and occasionally fighting bosses and gangs?"

"Probably not," you admit. "So your conclusion is that it's just a very unsafe play?"

"Going back a point, you're wearing armor. It's probably as safe as everyday life in this city gets, with the extra safety balancing the extra risk."

"I give up," you concede. "It's a play, sure, why not."


You finally reach the water level. As when you first got to this ship, you immediately sink to the bottom of the water. The water here isn't very deep, so you were able to jump up going the other direction. Immediately, you notice a difference. Rather than being forced to sluggishly fight against the water, the suit aerodynamically allows the current to flow around and through it. Strangely, the water around you feels significantly less dense than you would expect, giving way as easily as air. You're a little worried that the suit could get trapped underwater, acting like an ocean of air.

"So, how does this gravity feature thing work?" You cautiously ask Uber.

"Gravity Suit. Gravity SUIT. Is the suit fucking purple or not? Did we make you wear stupid purple glowy bits on your chest? Gravity. Fucking. Suit," Uber rants.

You trudge towards the center of the bay in silence for a few minutes. It looks like the suit's upgrade has also added a new visor mode that cuts right through the murky depths as if it was surface water without using a spotlight that would give away your position.

"Got a report from IT," Uber speaks again. "It says, and I quote, 'The suit uses advanced microgravitic thrusters to simulate fluids of various densities as if they were air by reinforcing your movements to match those expectations. They have their own dedicated hardwired processor in the suit so their calculations don't impede normal functions. Rewiring it to provide stable flight would require more computational power than your suit can hold. Rewiring it to provide unstable flight can and should be trivially done with the addition of another chip, which would also add the thrusters but not the armor or programming for denser atmospheres such as liquids.'"

You chew on that for a few more minutes. "I don't know what that means," you finally settle on.

"I do, but that's because I'm Uber and you took too long to say anything about it. The physics check out, but humanity has no idea how to do artificial gravitics, much less program something to handle that, make storage dense enough to work for your suit, or handle matter-energy conversion so suit energy directly relates to durability. But Leet is pretty awesome, and he can do that stuff, and that's good enough for me."

The gamer duo seem to have made a maze in the middle of the bay. It lacks a roof, but the walls are still too high for you to leap. There's a pair of energy tanks around, plus another one in grey, labelled as a 'reserve' tank.

"It's just extra energy storage," Uber explicates. "We mostly kept them in because they were in the source material. In use, they might as well just be normal energy tanks."

You find a large room in in the maze -- though not the largest -- with ship wreckage all over it. The entryway seals behind you as you pass through it. Some giant seahorses with enormous yellow pouches pass by, burrowing into the sandy bottom of the bay, while a single turret on each of the four walls fire intermittently at you. You jog over to one of the turrets and examine it between shots. The construction is dangerously shoddy: wiring with no insulation, metal so thin you suspect your stun beam could damage it, and it fires so rarely and with such slow-moving shots that you wonder if it's even intended to do significant damage. You trace the power for the device through the wall, into the floor, and into a waterproofed car battery embedded into one of the other walls. You jog over and ready a mechanical-reinforced fist to punch through and destroy the battery when you're distracted by a GIGANTIC sea-horse-dragon-creature bursts out of the sand. It swims away, only to return while spitting out spiked balls. Draygon, you assume, corners you against the wall, grabs hold, and starts swimming around with you. You take the opportunity to analyze its structure as well, hoping to find weak points. Instead, the boss enemy seems to be made of a single uniform substance…

Photons? Why is Draygon made entirely of out photons? And how could that even hurt you? Why would your stun beam disrupt whatever it is? Is it actually an illusion, and the reason Leet has been hanging around the boss arenas because he's been using one of his devices to actually run the boss? Actually, that last part's almost definitely true; you just assumed he was manning a robot before.

"Hey, you know what Draygon is weak against?" Uber's voice sounds in your ear. "Grapple Beam! Guess what you never found because you cleared an entire zone at a time instead of going back and forth!"

You quickly struggle free from Draygon's grip, shooting a charged shot at it. The shot hits its bright yellow belly, which flashes as it takes damage, whatever that means for a being made entirely of light. At least you know how to hurt it.

You trade shots with it for a while, its spikes and melee attacks against your charged stunners. After a few passes, you figure out when and how to jump its melee attacks. After that, it's only a matter of time until you successfully beat it.

The door that you came in stays sealed after your victory, though. A way opens through the opposite wall, so you cross through. There you find yet another of those Chozo statues that Uber and Leet made. Hmm, there's more than one, so it was probably Uber unless they're substantially different or have electronics inside. You call Structural Analysis to mind to find out that this statue, at least, is wired, based around the same claw that holds a powerup. Its power source is entirely internal, this time three car batteries in series.

You stop stalling and grab the powerup, a ball with a pair of straight horns. It registers in your suit as 'Space Jump'. A closer inspection of the statue's claws indicates that it can directly attach to the suit's morph ball mode. When you allow it to do so, it conveniently recharges all your energy.

"With the protection provided by the Gravity Suit and the mobility of the Space Jump, our heroine finally has the ability to get revenge on the fearsome Ridley, who killed both her birth and adoptive parents, then kidnapped the Metroid that treats her as a mother. It is Ridley who has stolen all the family our heroine has ever had, and it is Ridley that knocked our wonderful actress through a wall and dropped her five stories at the start of the stream. Come check it out on Youtube after the stream is over, and be sure to like and subscribe if you want to see more like this. I know I do!" Uber advertises.

You check the original door to the boss lair. It's still closed. "So, how do I get out of here?" You ask.

"Shant tell you," Uber replies. "Half the fun is figuring out how to use your gear to overcome challenges."

You decide to start with figuring out what Space Jump does. The door thing is probably a measure to ensure you grab it. You start by jumping, testing if it takes you any higher. It doesn't. You then test the second jump-related powerup you've heard about from games, and try to have the suit jump while still in the air. You don't exactly have leverage, but it seems to work anyways. You try again before hitting the ground. It keeps working. It keeps working for the next dozen jumps, and only stops then because you land on top of one of the walls of the maze. The maze then becomes trivial. You check around for more powerups, only finding one that grants you the useful ability to jump while in ball form (but only once, even with Space Jump).


Looks like it's time to fight a skeletal dragon in the territory held by Nazis, unless there's a better plan.
[x] Ridley/E88/On top of a skyscraper downtown. (DEFAULT)
[ ] Sequence break for Mother Brain/Somewhere in the nice and safe part of town.
[ ] Pause for safety and go home.
[ ] Other (Write In)

 

[ryune]

Looks like it's time to fight a skeletal dragon in the territory held by Nazis, unless there's a better plan.

Click to shrink...

Well, honestly, I kind of want to back track to get that grapple beam and anything we needed the new upgrades to get our hands on. It could even be in character now that Uber pointed out that there is totally stuff we have to backtrack to get a hold of.

EDIT: Also, we need to find some of those restore items so we can get our hands on nigh unlimited health.

 

[siflux]

Grapple Beam is in 'Norfair', so you're good to go without backtracking. Backtracking in specific locations may get you more energy tanks, though.

Projecting a Chozo Statue is already a good way to get a quick health restore, though it's obvious and leaves you vulnerable for a few seconds. More between-fight than in-fight.

 

[Minion #Q]

[x] Ridley/E88/On top of a skyscraper downtown. (DEFAULT)

I would prefer not to use projection during the run-through unless we have to

 

[ryuan]

Can Taylor use the super bomb trick to heal herself?

 

[BBJimmy]

Now that Taylor has beaten Draygon, we should have her explore "Maridia" and "Brinstar" for those other power-ups she missed by doing a straight run. U&L told her that they are out there, if indirectly, and they can add more versatility to her future engagements. Just for example:

Spazer: found in Brinstar once you have Super Missiles. Since I doubt siflux is going to give Taylor access to missiles, it probably either doesn't exist, or is available via exploration only.

Grapple-beam: Norfair, easily grabbed with the Space Jump

X-Ray Scope (Amazing Utility!): grab the Grapple-beam, then snag this in Brinstar.

Spring Ball: Maridia, we already have the Space Jump, just need to explore.

Speed Booster and High-Jump: Norfair, so we should try and get them if at all possible while there.

I also see this as being perfectly in-character for Taylor, who spent what, months in canon preparing for her hero debut? A small detour or two to be safer, stronger, and better geared? No contest.

[X] Plan Adventure!

Explore areas already cleared in order to nab extra energy tanks and power-ups for the suit. Once accomplished, prepare for the storming of the skyscraper downtown and a rumble with a dragon.

 

[ryuan]

The question that doesn't leave me is, can we keep the suit for later?

Better yet, can we TRACE it later?

 

[BBJimmy]

I see no reason why Taylor couldn't keep the suit. It's a Leet TT creation, meaning her can only make one, and he's already spent this creation on a suit for Taylor. Plus, it serves to incentivize her to work with them again in the future if she can get presents of that quality

As to Tracing, I'd think it'd fall under the same rules as Rho Aias and similar objects, i.e. related enough to weapons to be created with Tracing, but not to the same quality as proper weapons.

 

[MahoGuy]

[X] Plan Adventure! Explore areas already cleared in order to nab extra energy tanks and power-ups for the suit. Once accomplished, prepare for the storming of the skyscraper downtown and a rumble with a dragon.

 

[redaeth]

[X] Plan Adventure! Explore areas already cleared in order to nab extra energy tanks and power-ups for the suit. Once accomplished, prepare for the storming of the skyscraper downtown and a rumble with a dragon.

 

[ryuan]

So, how powerful is the suit at this point? Also, do we have both Varia Suit and Gravity Suit? I'm not sure.

We must take Screw Attack at some point however. Best upgrade ever.

 

[ShadowAngelBeta]

So, how powerful is the suit at this point? Also, do we have both Varia Suit and Gravity Suit? I'm not sure.

We must take Screw Attack at some point however. Best upgrade ever.

Click to shrink...

... Its only four pages long. Read the thread. Seriously, we just went over how the screw attack is an attack and thus not available. And the Gravity Suit is just an upgrade on/for the Varia Suit anyway.

 

[CKirk]

[X] Plan Adventure! Explore areas already cleared in order to nab extra energy tanks and power-ups for the suit. Once accomplished, prepare for the storming of the skyscraper downtown and a rumble with a dragon.

 

[siflux]

As to Tracing, I'd think it'd fall under the same rules as Rho Aias and similar objects, i.e. related enough to weapons to be created with Tracing, but not to the same quality as proper weapons.

Click to shrink...

If I recall correctly, shields and armor are just three times as expensive as weapons.

 

[ryune]

If I recall correctly, shields and armor are just three times as expensive as weapons.

Click to shrink...

They are three times as expensive as an equivalent weapon. That is a big caveat there.

Also, we haven't found out yet if there even is a significant cost for tracing something "mundane" like the varia suit.