Links

The actual game can be found here.
Battle Masteries Posts relating to battle masteries.
Chapter One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Posts relating to certain chapters.
Combat Posts relating to actual combat.
FACT These posts are factual! Seriously! There's maths and stuff.
Flags Posts relating to easily missable content or relationship building.
Grindan Forever Where do you go for the most money?
Lol Opinions Every virus is entitled to his or her own opinion.
Pilots Posts relating to pilot growth and abilities.
Plot Shit Quick and gritty synopsis included in these posts.
Sub Missions Posts relating to sub missions.
Units Posts relating to in depth looks at units.
⑨ Chiruno.

Bare Bone Facts Straight to the point.

Magical Link of Mystery. Where does it go?
Showing posts with label Flags. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Flags. Show all posts

Thursday, 25 June 2009

Ch 6 Combat "Achievement: Feat of Endurance 30 Gamer Points"

We're not given a long time during the faster than light jump to get things prepped. We have just enough time to rearm and resupply our units when we're deposited out in the middle of uncharted space. Once again it looks like the Covenant have beaten us to it, damn their superior technology. Anderson and the rest of the kids have barely had a chance to stretch their legs and crack a joke before a full scale alert prompts them to an emergency scramble...

Considering the circumstances and the levels of exhaustion and fatigue, with everyone pushed to their limits every available unit and able man is called to their station. Well apart from the faceless Zeon pilots who were in the Zaku I and Zaku Flipper, I guess they decided to join the Tessaract crewmen after realizing how horrible and old their mobile suits were.

Ramuiko and her team of rookies are on sortee as well but she has a proposition to make. Having seen how we're nothing more than a noisy rabble of teenagers with attitude (Aye yai yai Zordon!) on the equivilent of the love ship she's willing to offer us her services as a combat instructor.

Optional Flag 1
Ramuiko, Gaiablade and Caile will launch along with Anderson and we're prompted on wether we want to take up Ramuiko up on her offer. There's absolutlety no reason not to play ball with her, selecting no will completly ignore this entire series of flags.

By agreeing to the offer you'll have an additional optional objective to clear in this stage. The Zakus and the Zudah can take all the punishment they want but you need to make sure none of them get shot down. If a single one of them gets shot down this optional objective is automatically failed, so you're going to have to pull off some babysitting.

Back to what's going on.
The Pillar of Autumn will also launch it's squadron of kickass Longswords who'll be of a bigger help here than the Zaku units. Idris will also volunteer herself as a pilot as well. It doesn't take too much convincing to get the local team Android mascot onto the team but Natalie wants her in the maintenence team's repairing vessel as this could be a long winded affair...but offense is the best form of defence, darn it!

Deployment
Friendly Forces
- Tessaract
--- Natalie
- Verein Zero
--- Anderson
- 10 x Units of your choice (Pretty much EVERYONE)
- Gellme
--- Idris Level 8

NPC Allies
- Zudah
--- Ramuiko Level 13
- Zaku II High Mobility Test Type
--- Caile Level 8
- Zaku II
--- Gaiablade Level 8

-Pillar of Autumn
--- Keyes Level 12
- 2 x Longsword Fighters
--- UNSC Pilot Level 10
- Longsword Fighter
--- UNSC Pilot Level 8

Enemy Forces
- CCS Battlecruiser
--- Gold Elite Level 13
- 2 x Seraph Fighters
--- Blue Elite Level 10
- 3 x Seraph Fighters
--- Grunts Level 8

Seems pretty overkill for taking on a small covenant recon force. Which means things can only get crazy, Devil May Cry crazy.

We're also prompted to equip Idris' Gellme before she deploys which'll give us some options in making her an efficient repair monkey.

We're loading up the Gellme with Titanium Alloy to enhance Idrises survivability and giving her Stana's old Quantum Driver, it's ability to ignore enemy units when moving combined with a Gas Core Booster gives her a enemy ignoring movement of 8. There's no need for a computer system to be installed unless you have a spare M.I.V.S lying around for a reflex boost but if you can try and fill consumable slot with a Repair Crate for herself. Mechanics Guide to Repairing doesn't seem to work with the Gellme's repair system so don't worry too much about the misc slot unless you have a spare Theif brooch or Overlord brooch around.

Win Objectives
Things are a little complicated by the fact that both the Tesseract and the Pillar of Autumn were rendered immobile by the jump. The Pillar has been drained of almost all it's energy and has no way of regenerating it, putting it's M.A.C gun offline. It still remains highly dangerous with it's Archer Missile Pods and it's point defence turrets.

With where the two capital ships are positioned and their general toughness to almost all fire you shouldn't be too concerned with looking after our capital ships. Just keep an eye out for Anderson and the Zeon pilots on this one.

Engaging
More covenant forces just like the ones deployed near the final stages of chapter 5. Engage as you did before, keeping in mind that in my humble opinion it would be easier to mop up the Blue Elites before clearing out the Battlecruiser and it's Grunt escorts.

You've got tons of terrain here to take advantage of all offering a 20% bonus to all defences and the ring like structure up in the North West provides less defence bonuses but also regenerates health and energy.

This chapter looks so god darn straight forward there HAS to be something wrong. So prepare yourself for a full scale cluster fuck for this one. This entire map is going to get surrounded pretty fast and things are going to get overcomplicated with three different sets of babysitting duties.

We need three volunteers to run decoy duty who'll be responsible for meeting an entire covenent battlefleet singlehanded, each. All three individuals need to be both capable of looking after themselves either through SP Commands and also capable of putting down alot of damaging firepower in a short space of time.

Those who aren't running decoy will form part of a kill team with Anderson's leadership at the core of this along with his relationship bonuses helping out so that pretty much means the majority of the female cast will be sticking with the kill team.

I'm sending Hotariko directly north of the currently deployed covenant forces in a heavily equipped Demetris. Her Guts SP Command combined with her high evasion/reflex calculation can mitigate a ton of flak and she can push huge damage with a Maser Blade.

Bruno I'm sending to the very north-west tip of the ring structure in a Zaku II equipped with a good old beam shooter and box machinegun. His concentrate capability combined with his solid damage output will work perfectly in that location and it's regenerative capabilities.

I'm sending Stana quite far south of the currently deployed covenant fleet, hugging a nearby cluster of three asteroid fields. Stana will prove to be quite an able trooper with concentrate and can readily fall back against her potential should she take too many hits. The damage output of the ERX-75 is insane as well.

This is all build up towards the next set of events, so allow them to sit there looking pretty whilst the rest of your units deal with the targets on hand.


Optional Event 1
Moving the newely deployed Idris next to Anderson will prompt a short conversation where Idris hits home with a sobering fact that should she be destroyed she can just be 'rebuilt'. Idris...

Event 1
Taking out all enemy targets or starting on turn three will set into motion a new development. Just a fraction north from where we're skirmishing the Pillar will pick up a new jump signal. More coven- wait, what the hell is that?
Reinforcements
Neutral Forces
- Nirvana
--- Magno Level 11

Enemy Forces
- CCS Battlecruiser
--- Gold Elite Level 13
- 3 x CCS Battlecruisers
--- Gold Elites Level 15
- Seraph Fighter
--- Blue Elite Level 10
- 3 x Seraph Fighters
--- Grunts Level 7
- 6 x Seraph Fighters
--- Blue Elites Level 13
- 9 x Seraph Fighters
--- Grunts Level 8

That's a smaktard load of enemy forces. The Nirvana doesn't seem harmful to us for the moment we're ignoring it our major priorities are with the confirmed hostile covenant forces that have popped up all over the place.

The lower level covenant forces will deployed right ontop of Stana whilst the others will have popped in ontop of our decoy units and another fleet close to our kill team.

Have the Gellme concentrating on repairing the Longsword Fighters and have Natlie working on trusting the the Zaku team whenever they're severly damaged. Now's a good time to start burning survival based SP Commands to keep everyone healthy and in the thick of the fight. The more damage you can do now the bigger our rewards later on.

Event 2
After another turn has passed the Nirvana will deploy additional reinforcements from it's hangar in response to the Covenant opening up on them. It looks like another set of fighters and we're still not to sure what side it's on. Fortunatly Natalie is able to patch a line through just in time before we all start shooting each other and we're finally able to communicate with one another.

The unknown ship and it's crew are suprised to see both men and women working along side each other as if this was normal what's even more odd is that their entire crew is female AND THEY'RE PIRATES! As a stroke of luck they're not the kind of pirates we're after.

They'll open up all their communication lines and are willing to work together in dealing with the real enemy here. With visuals available the all female crew of the Nirvana are quick to remark on Anderson's...girlish appearance (COME ON ALREADY WE NEED THE TRAP OUTFIT NOW). Keeruu's really stoaked about an all female crew but first impressions for him don't go so well.

If Emma's trying to get into Anderson's pants she'll be even more so this time around. Captain Obvious is happy to point out this fact as a part of some additional dialogu. Oh Keeruu-Sensei.

Reinforcements
Friendly NPC Forces
- Dita SP Dread
--- Dita Level 9
- Jura SP Dread
--- Jura Level 10
- Meia SP Dread
--- Meia Level 12

Battle Mastery
The arrival of the Dreads on the scene brings about our Battle Mastery requirements. Objectives remain the same but if we want a really awesome reward out of this we need to make sure that the Dread s get out of this whole mess alive as well.

We've now got three babysitting operations to pull off.

The Zaku and Zudah unit are probably still mixed in amongst our units or are in a position to start moving towards the Covenant units threatening the Nirvana and the Dreads. For the Task Force runthrough it's mostly just Caile trying to rambo her way through to Hotariko right next to the Nirvana. Zaku defence should remain top prioritory as they really REALLY can't look after themselves. Fortunatly for us the Nirvana might be able to protect Caile from a few covenant attacks with it's auto defence systems.

Destroying the first batch of Covenant early will result in the Zaku unit detouring around and heading for the covenant forces near halo usually, hence why Bruno's there, fighting the good fight.

I'm going to start pulling off some of the Kill team to assist Hotariko as Anderson's in the prime position to map attack his set of targets until the cows come home. A nearby Battlecruiser is also in perfect position to fire a plasma torpedo at Caile, so we're going to hit the Battlecruiser with Idris' jamming ability and hoping. Our Yohko also has Iron Wall (lol level 15) so we're throwing her next to Caile as one last final precaution.

The dreads may or may not be self sufficient it'll all be based on evasion luck. The only real problem out here is Dita, the lowest ranking one out of the dread trio here as she's a bit of a klutz. If you can keep her out of trouble then the battle mastery should be easy to pull off. If attacked during the first turn there's a good chance they'll defend and let the Nirvana's Auto Defence take all the damage so their babysitting priority should come second.

The UNSC Longsword fighters are real stars here, they exceptionally good at keeping out of trouble and have pretty much intercepted and raped the squadron of Seraphs Stana heavily damaged leaving her nothing but the battle cruiser to really deal with. If you can keep any of these Longsword units alive you'll get them after the mission. They DESERVE a spot on the team as they'll keep intercepting damaged Seraphs taking them out of the equation so we're going to try and get all three out alive though their babysitting demands are low-teir.

Event 3
Another turn brings about some changes aboard the Nirvana, it'll finally get itself a helmsman that 'knows what he's doing' and will now start moving towards our other two ships. The Nirvana will start making it's way towards a target square close to our units meaning it's Auto Defence systems will be useless to us as we continue skirmishing with the Covenant elsewhere.

If you manage to clear the map before the Nirvana reaches it's goal then you've yourself some down time before the next event happens. You've got one whole turn to burn after it reaches the target zone so take the time to repair what you can.

You'll want to split up your forces again into two groups. You'll want your hardest hitters to remain in formation near your small fleet of ships and have the rest making headway towards the east side of the map again. We're nowhere near done yet.

Event 4
Yet another wave of covenant arrive in the far south-west, it's another formation of Seraphs with a CCS Battlecruiser at the center of their formation. It'll open fire on our three ships, missing the Nirvana, but hitting both the Pillar and the Tessaract. With the Pillar damaged Covenant boarding teams launch an assault on the Pillar of Autumn.

The Zeon team being a bunch of REAL soldiers and not a group of kids want to board the Autumn and help repel the borders but Keyes has other ideas. Master Chief is on deck and out of cryostasis. Keyes orders the Pillar to be abandoned. The Pillar of Autumn is going face first towards the ring and the Chief is taking Cortana off ship.

We'll have to assist the Pillar's final approach towards the ring, keeping what Covenant ships we can off it and rescue the captain later. The all female crew of the Nirvana are impressed by Keyes balls of steel.

Enemy Forces
- CCS Battlecruiser
--- Gold Elite Level 13
- 2 x Seraph Fighter
--- Blue Elite Level 10
- 3 x Seraph Fighters
--- Grunts Level 7

All allied NPCs get a free turn here as the Pillar of Autumn starts limping towards the ring so be quick on your feet in engaging incase the NPCs look to be on their last legs. The Nirvana and Tessaract will remain high value targets for the Covenant so they might be able to buy you some time.

Event 5
Killing off one of the new enemy targets will result in MORE reinforcements popping in but thankfully it's really small compared to everything else. The Nirvana takes a near miss that grazes it's shielding but in response we get yet another unit deployed on our side.
Reinforcements
Friendly NPC Forces
- SP Vanguard
--- Hibiki Level 10

Enemy Forces
- CCS Battlecruiser
--- Gold Elite Level 13
- 2 x Seraph Fighter
--- Blue Elite Level 10
- Seraph Fighter
--- Grunts Level 7

By now you should be well versed in Covenant killing, and the Vanguard is a welcome addition to the fight. It's not well armed but it's another damage soaking NPC out on the field that we're not required to look after in any way shape or form so let Hibiki do his own thing and keep worrying about the rest.

Bruno and Jean both have something to say to Hibiki so you might want to move them over to him and have a little chat. This isn't a required event but just something interesting to have a look at.

Event 6
The Pillar will reach the ring in 4 moves. With a bit of luck you might clear out the covenant a little before then. Cortana and the Chief will pilot their escape pod over towards the Tesseract but whilst they do two Seraph fighters attempt to stop the Autumn on it's descent.

If any of the Zeon team were shot down they'll redeploy once again and make a move to assist the Pillar from the intercepting forces together with Anderson. They're going to go down with the ship all the way onto the surface of the ringworld, shooting aliens as they go.

Tenea's realtionship with Anderson should automatically be sufficient enough for her to add a few moemoekyun~ lines as long as you ran through Sub Mission 4.
CANON CANON CANON. I'M SHIPPING ALBINO MAIDO AND ANDERSON AND THERE'S NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT. Emma and Tenea's reaction is pretty priceless here.

A combined attack from Ramuiko and Gaiablade drops one of the enemy fighters whilst Caile and Anderson cripple the other only for atmospheric entry to interupt them. The Zaku team and Anderson will be leaving us for the remainder of the battle as the go down with the Autumn.

With Anderson out of the picture Natalie suddenly enters extreme Drill Instructor mode...I think she might be more of a megalomaniac than Anderson but at the very least we've still got ourselves a capable leader.

There's another god damn wave of enemy targets closing in from the east just to make sure we aren't already drained from all the combat and this time it's three more clusters of Battlecruisers. FUUUUU-
Wait...wat!?
OH GOD YES

Our new support obliterates one of the Battlecruisers. It looks like this newest set of reinforcements we're getting harrassed by this thing all the way here and as such are heavily damaged. It's also being piloted by a real pretty boy as well...and dat communication sound...hngghhh.

And he has an even BETTER rape face than Hotariko. New favorite male character confirmed.

Reinforcements
Friendly NPC Forces
- Lost Guilty
--- Dan Level 25 HOLY CRAP
--- Rin

Enemy Forces
- 2 x CCS Battlecruiser DAMAGED
--- Gold Elites Level 15
- 3 x Seraph Fighter DAMAGED
--- Blue Elites Level 10
- 5 x Seraph Fighter DAMAGED
--- Grunts Level 7

This is pure mop up. The Lost Guilty is so disgustingly armed you can sit back and watch it kill everything on it's side. It's got a +50 Overlord brooch so there shouldn't be anything to worry about. You'll purely be competing for kills here. If you haven't had the chance to go and talk to Hibiki with Jean and Bruno.

Clearing out the last of these reinforcements finally results in a job well done! Pat yourself on the back if you got through this clusterfuck intact. A small conflict will flare up between Emma and Keeruu but if Emma's hot for Anderson then Bruno will manage to defuse it all by teasing her a little on her crush. D'awwww.

With Master Cheif saftley aboard and the entire god damn area clear of any more battlecruisers everyone reboards their respective carriers. Dan's coming with us in his machine of awesomeness and the crew of the Nirvana, who are just as lost as we are, decide to fleet up with us until they can get a better idea of what's going on. If the Longsword pilots are still around they'll also dock with the Tesseract as we make for the ring world to rescue our stranded allies and our only hyperspace drive.

Wednesday, 17 June 2009

Ch 5 Combat 2 "The Not So Long Haul"

Although things in the second part of Chapter 5's combat scenario ultimately play out and result in the same basic events, depending on what you did for Chapter 2 can modify some of these events and possibly make things a little more difficult if you didn't prepare yourself for this second part.

With the area secured and any remaining pirates in a full blown retreat it looks like the Task Force have completed the contract with flying colors. Looks like the SDA was man made by this big floating metal hulk the pirates called their base. It's got nothing on the Tessaract, or engines, or any real charm since we blasted it's ECM thingy so maybe there might be something on board worth taking.

If you picked up the two flags associtacted with Mifska then Anderson will request that Tenea find out more about Mifska, thinking she might be more closely associated to the pirates or even one of their four generals.

Jean will also follow up with this request if your relationship is high enough with her own playful jealousy that gets the Albino Maid all worked up but ends up hurting herself a little. Oh Anderson, will you ever get the hint you blockhead?

With the readings all clear the Tessaract picks up a new signal approaching the former SDA site. A Principality of Zeon Musai arrives on the scene and it's pretty snappy in deploying it's mobile suits on arrival in the South East.

Two Zaku I Early Types (poor bastards), a Zaku Flipper (YES!), a Zaku II (Yay), a Zaku II High Mobility Test Type (HELL YES!) and a Zudah (I came) make up the Musai's full mobile suit complement (Must be a refitted one to carry that extra suit). Judging from the age of the mobile suits, especially with those Zaku Early Types flying about the unit deployed here might not be your standard up to scratch Zeon team but with everything we've been through so far they might be a challenge.

If you worked for Zeon
The pilot of the Zudah wastes no time and opens fire on Anderson only to be halted by one of the pilots under her command. The Zeon team recognises your forces as the C.A.G mobile force that assisted the legendary Red Comet in the attack on Side 7.

Any friend of Char is a friend of Zeon and the new arrivals are quick to open up a communication channel with the Task Force.

After an apology from the Zudah pilot the Zeon unit reveal that they too were dispatched to clear the SDA from the area by high command, just a shame they arrived a little too late to help us sweep the pirates away. Judging from the levels of the unit, other than the Zudah it seems the rest of the team are wet behind the ears greenhorns. Maybe Zeon didn't dwell too much on the SDA but at least the pilots have their hearts set in the right place, for the good of the local colonies!

If you gave Char the Gundam parts in any form instead of using them to upgrade to the Verein Geves or keep the Learning Computer and alloys then one of the pilots will mention Char went and built himself a new mobile suit thanks to us. That's right. Char's got a Gundam. Giving him the parts really screws the Federation.

Things are interupted by the arrival of a new force. A formation of one capital ship class enemy and eight fighters drop in on the little get together right smack dab in the middle of the map. The Zeon forces have no idea who they are and only Natalie can shed some light on the situation, they ain't local and they've got far superior technology compared to us.

The capital ship will open up on the Musai and destroy it in a single shot. We're terribly outclassed here but the combined efforts of an exhausted mercenary unit and fresh faced Zaku and Zudah pilots might be able to handle this new enemy.

Destroying one of the enemy units will result in the next set of events.

If you worked for the Federation
The Zekes aren't too happy to see us around here in the SDA. Any attempts to communicate to them are instally brushed aside. They want to play and they want to play rough with the forces that halted their attack on Side 7.

Before we can get the party started the unknown fleet jumps into the middle of the combat just as if we were friends with the Zekes and destroy the Musai in a single shot and open fire on the Tessaract as well.

We're caught up in a three way brawl with Zakus shooting fighters and us and the unknown fleet shooting at us and the Zekes. It's recommended you ignore the Zeon forces completly and work on destroying the unknowns to trigger the next event.


Engaging
If the Zakus hate you ignore them completly. They'll be going on the Neutral phase so it'll take a while to get to them. If you deployed the Tessaract ontop of their deployment zone then they'll be too busy shooting at Natalie should it come to their phase or the real enemy on map will engage the Tessaract instead of the rookie Zeon pilots.

We've got two primary threats in the area and one set of Fodder.

The Seraph fighters are medium sized units that are probably the first set of fighters introduced in CF that are actually pretty deadly for our forces. Fortunately those piloted by Grunts are much more manageable compared to those with a Blue Elite at the controls and can be considered fodder.

Seraphs combine both insane mobility with their equipped thrusters, most skimming the 100 mark as well as being covered in a nice thick 40 armor rating and move 5. That 300 hit points of theirs can last for a surpising while especially with a whole size rank higher than a majority of our units.

They're loaded with three types of weapons, a range 1-5 post movement pulse laser with great accuracy and a mild critical boost which'll be it's weakest attack. Thanks to it's Medium size the Seraph can still hit pretty hard with this attack.

It's Heavy Plasma Cannon is usually it's optimum choice for counter attacks with a stat line that almost matches that of the Pulse Laser in it's accuracy and critical ratio bonus but it hits much harder with a range of only 1-3.

It also comes loaded with a map attack as it's best weapon but fortune smiles on us today as it can only be used on ground based targets and we're all in space.

Ideally it's best to engage at 4 squares or to beam snipe the Seraphs at maximum range to avoid taking on a great deal of damage.

Priority should be given to whitling down the Blue Elites as they're pretty good at chewing up Zakus and Vereins alike whilst the Grunts aren't as maor a threat.

Also in the area is a CCC class Battlecruiser and this thing has a good set of equipment and stats to backup it's oneshot of a Musai. The Battlecruiser has a Gold Elite and it's control staff at the helm of the ship making it INSANELY accurate with pretty much all it's weapons, and despite having a low armor rating it's Large classification and massive hitpoint pool can keep it in the fight despite the gravest of hits.

The Battlecruiser's primary anti-suit armanaent conists of a smaller ranged post-movement 1-2 Pulse Laser as found on the Seraph but it gains an additional +40 to it's base damage and with the Large classifcation it's going to be shearing off armor plates quite rapidly.

It also mounts Plasma Turrets with a range of 1-5 capable of ignoring all barriers and shielding on any target it fires against. The Turrets have a small reduction in accuracy but thanks to the command crew under the Gold Elite this reduction is pretty much negligible. With a base attack power of Large 280 expect a ton of hurt.

Finally it's primary anti-ship armanent is rounded out by a Plasma Torpedo launcher. The launcher comes loaded with just 3 rounds and requires the Gold Elite to be at 115 morale to fire off but has a maximum range of up to 7 squares with a deadzone at point blank. Again just like the Plasma Turret despite having a massive accuracy reduction the Gold Elite and it's command crew are able to score impressive hits with this thing. With a base attack power of Large 400 this used to pretty much one shot some of the Zaku Pilots or come very close until the chapter 6 update rolled around.

If the Battlecruiser is at high enough morale you'll want to drain all three of it's torpedo rounds by sniping with Beam Shooters at maximum range just to protect the Zeon forces or maybe even dodge a round meant for you in the Covenant attack phase.

Protecting the Zeon Forces
There's a small bonus here weather the Zeon forces hate you or love you. If you can keep the Zaku Flipper and/or any of the Zaku I Early Types you recieve them as potential suits. They don't have the greatest statline in the world but they can provide aditional valuble options for later on thanks to their Medium size category and better terrain modifiers.

If the Zeon forces are on your side you have about a two to three turn limit if you can catch the Covenant attention before the Flipper or the Early Types start getting themselves in trouble.

If the Zeon forces hate you and have the Tessaract on their deployment zone then you can squeeze a few more turns out of them for as long as Natallie can hold out by Trusting herself.

The next event is easily triggered but sometimes an early trigger might not help the Zakus at all and instead will hamper their chances for survival. If you're finding it hard to keep these units alive allow your damage to spread throughout the entire enemy fleet for a turn so that the Covenant can pull further away from the Zeon forces.

Event 1
Destroying one of the Covenant units will result in either one or two things happening depending on wether the Zeon forces are allied or not.

Having shot down one of the fighters the Task Force will get a visual of a corpse floating through the wreckage of the destroyed Seraph. If there's any doubts before there aren't any now, these guys have come a very long way away to say 'hi'. The Zeon forces will also have a few things to say if they're fighting along side you.

Another ship jumps into the area but thankfully this one wants to talk. Enter stage left the United Nations Space Command's "Pillar Of Autumn". Maybe the UN sent out a ship to check on us considering we're probably late as hell reaching Earth but as the conversation continues between our loveable commander and their loveable commander it all becomes clear that they're here by mistake as well. Great.

If the Zeon forces were shooting at you before they'll have a turn of heart and realize their own old suits aren't up to scratch for dealing with this and will now join forces with you. They'll be AI controlled but will stop wasting ammunition trying to shoot you down.

Jean will have a few things to say as well if she's hungry for Anderson, like how AWESOME Gaiablade is for a name and things about her mercenary blog up on Global Cortex.

The Pillar will also launch some of the best allied help deployed in game so far in the form of three Longsword Interceptors that can go toe to toe with Seraphs and put some pretty impressive hurt on the Battlecruiser.

We're on the home stretch and the enemy forces are now caught up in a three way pincer.

Event 2
With the Battlecruiser and it's escorts eliminated it looks like we've finally got ourselves a well deserved break...which lasts about 5 seconds. We barely have enough time to brofist the Zeons on a job well done for getting through this massacre when Cortana will pip in with jump signatures all over the place cropping up.

Five more formations of Covenant battlecruisers and their escorts arrive in the area at full alert conditions. Everyone's exhausted at this point and low on ammunition and the possiblity of dragging the nearby colony in this conflict is growing ever imminent.

There's nothing that can be done other than to make a hasty retreat and lead the pursuing Covenant away from Earth. It takes a little convincing to get the Zeon forces to come along with us, though I would have thought having no Capital Ship would have made things impossibly hard trying to get back home.

With no jumpdrive to speak of the Tessaract will piggy back off the Autum, getting dragged along into the jump sphere techno babel thingy and despite the Zudah breaking down at the most crucial moment everyone's able to slip away in time.

Reward
We're not getting the reward from the contract but there's lots of optional rewards you can pick up. Venesia's recovered metals are freakin' awesome.

Battle Mastery Rewards
- Electrically Charged Armor (HP 350 Armor 15. Slash Resist. Beam, Explosion Weaknesses)
- 2 x Reactive Armor (HP 250 Armor 10. Slash Resist. Beam, Explosion Weaknesses)

Unit Survival Rewards
- New Unit Zaku Flipper
- New Unit Zaku I Early Type
- New Unit Zaku I Early Type

Monday, 15 June 2009

Ch 5 Combat 1"The Long Haul"

Mission. Chapter. Mission. Chapter. Oh lord we need some standardization all up in here. Minor nitpicking aside this is an endurance conflict that'll pit you against several waves on enemies and also has a pretty interesting branch based off what you've done for chapter 2...

Deployment
Friendly Forces
- Tessaract
--- Natalie
- Verein Zero
--- Anderson
- 2 x Verein First Types
--- John
--- Yohko
- 4 x Units of your choice
If relationship with Jean is very good then in addition.
- AG-01
--- Jean

Unit 1 will be placed to the left of the Tessaract.
Unit 2 will be placed to the left of the upper V-One.
Unit 4 will be placed below the Tessaract.

Bring Rane along for Fetter. Seriously.

Enemy Forces
- 12 x Leoships
--- Level 9 Space Vikings
- 8 x Snakefish
--- Level 10 Space Vikings
- 4 x Amardens
--- Level 12 Pirate Captains

We've caught the pirates with their pants down on this one. They deployed the majority of their forces hoping to get some easy takings by ambushing another poor defenceless leisure cruiser only for it to deploy a plethora of mecha right in front of them.

If Jean was touching Anderson on the launch she'll remark that our loveable commander has the craziest of plans but he's also the coolest employer she's had.

At the same time as long as you've paid some attention to her Jean's morale will instantly hit 120 if she's deployed in the combat zone as well which is awesome as everyone else will be at 80 due to not being able to talk to one another in the fight.

Win Condition
This one's another straight forward game of tag with a stationary target. We've got no time limit at all and the objective won't be triggered at all by clearing the stage of all enemies so take your time to destroy the deployed pirates to earn back some much needed morale.

Engaging
Oh those poor Leos. They're just the same as the ones from Chapter 3 just with slightly higher leveled Space Vikings who are still space inept so there won't be much trouble from them. Again just focus fire on the poor bastards to avoid getting Kamikazied.

The Snakefishes are more than just simple pallet swaped Leoships. They have marginal statistic improvements all round to all numerical stats short of a bigger energy pool but are still being piloted by slack jawed Vikings meaning they're still trying to fight you with a D rank in space.

Their weapons however have recieved an upgrade. Their 3-Way Gattling Beam is a mild improvement over the 4-Way Machine Cannon but if your units are plated in anything but ThermoKevlar then take note that this attack is considered a beam attack with a post-movement range of 1-4 and comes with a good accuracy boost.

They also come loaded with a deadly Fang Rush attack which has a post-movement range of 1-2 which is incredibly accurate and with a very solid critical chance. Fortunatley it doesn't count as a beam attack so it shouldn't strike any weaknesses.

The Snakefishes need to be your priority targets to make it through with little damage. After they're all gone you can engage the Leoships however you want. Even with the morale reduction they can be taken out in two shots or in a single shot from Jean.

The Armardens will often hold their positions on the map until you approach them after which any one of the capital ships that are nearby will start to pursue. This gives us the option of either sitting at the deployment area to mop up all the fighters at our own pace or heading out to punch a hole through them and the ships.

The Armardens should be taken with a little more seriousness. Their captains aren't as retarded as the Vikings and are capable of pulling off an S rank in space but their capital ships are slow and cumbersome compared to our "small" sized units.

Their primary attack is an anti-ship Laser Cannon with a post movement range of 2-6 which is horribly inaccurate. Any well trained unit leeching off of Anderson's leadership ability will be able to dodge this attack no problem but any hits taken can severly cripple a unit as again this attack counts as a beam.

Their secondary weapons are post-movement range 1-2 anti-suit Turret Machine Cannons. Even though they don't have a crazy accuracy penalty a good, highly mobile suit leeching off Leadership can still reguarly dodge this attack and even if it doesn't it won't hurt as much as getting a full on LASER TO THE FACE.

Take the Armardens on after gaining all the morale you can from the small fry.

The Tessaract is on hand to repair any damaged units that board it. It will also reload any ammunition on carried weapons in hardpoints but it doesn't want to reload Anderson's frame. It will also refuel units as well.

Aer Frame Shenanigans
If you missed the early Sidus frame send everyone north at Anderson's unfleeted movement.

End turn.

Next turn Fleeting and Attention Anderson and move him just under or a little to the right and under the square with no stars just a blank square. Move everyone else closeish but just far enough to not be a target. The AI LOVES to shoot at Natalie or Yohko so make sure these two are a little further.

End turn.

Don't counter attack except against any ship that moves to point blank range in which case give it a burst of the Leo Machinegun.

Next turn Attention Anderson find your favoritest Macross soundtrack or Dragonar opening 1 and hit Missile Spread.
Mop up the Snakefishes with ranged attacks from everyone else and watch smugly as the damaged Leoships and untouched Amardens continue to shoot at Anderson.

You can probably adjust a square to the right to hit the Armardens as well. Easy money and experience not halfed by being a map attack kill.

Optional Event 1
If the relationship between Anderson and Jean has been going well you've got the chance to earn the two some quick morale.

If Jean hasn't revealed she can still communicate through touch then moving her next to Anderson and using the talk option will earn the two a quick 5 morale burst.

If Jean did reveal she could communicate then instead of a 5 morale burst we get a 10 morale burst to the two and Anderson will tell her that after this whole buisness is over he'd still want to be friends with her after the employment contract is fufilled. Daw.

Event 1
Again I have to recommend sweeping the entire area of badguys before tagging the objective. Heck board everyone on the Tessaract and let it taxi everyone over to the pirate base.

Dump everyone on the base without tagging the objective and wait until your next turn. There's no terrain bonuses for doing this but it just makes things seem a little cooler and set's things up nicely for what's about to come.
Tagging the target square will set into motion the next set of events. The communication lines will be cleared of interference and the pirates on the base launch an emergency sortee with everthing they have left.

They're abandoning their fabricated base and trying to get their ill gotten gains out of here but we're getting our own form of reinforcements.

Event 1 Reinforcements
Friendly Forces
- ERX-75 Lechiffon
--- Stana

Stana will arrive just west of the base.

Enemy Forces
- Blood Duke
--- Level 12 Rakoj
- Amarden with 2000 additonal HP
--- Level 15 Pirate Captain
- 6 x Snakefish
--- Level 10 Space Vikings
- 5 x Leoships
--- Level 9 Space Vikings

The pirate reinforcements will be spread all over the base, or all around you if you put your group on it. Oddly the mission objectives won't change so you'll have to trust me on the following parts.

Your objectives now are to destroy everything. The Battle Mastery also makes itself known, we need to knock down Rakoj's hitpoints below 50% before taking out the fleeing Amarden.

Optional Event 2
An optional event that can be done as soon as the hp boosted Armarden makes an appearance. I think this used to be a flag event but in the recent Chapter 6 update it might have been removed, but I'm not too sure.

Eitherway attacking the Armarden with Anderson will spark up an interesting flow of dialogue with Mifska, a character who reminds me too much of Cinque from Nanoha, which is a good thing. Oh god dat eye patch.

Battle Mastery
The Battle Mastery for this stage also doubles up as a Flag event as well so it's pretty important that you get this one. It's usually best to clear up all the little ships in the area first before tackling Rakoj.

You'll want to have Ikarane Fetter the Armarden at every chance she can until you get Rakoj off the field as the Armarden will attempt to flee west out of the combat zone.

Rakoj as a pilot is really solid. He starts with Evasive Perception which boosts his evasion naturally. Also he has one helping of Counter to let him strike first with a single counter-attack and has two ranks of helper letting him take hits for any of his minions or to provide support fire, hence the reason to clear up all his little ones.

The Blood Duke is also disgustingly well equipped with a ton of beam based weaponry that can really put on the hurt if you're not equipped with Thermo Kevlar. He'll prioritize using his Pulse Cannon Gun. The Pulse Cannon gun runs on an ammunition reserve of 12 rounds but it's solidly accurate with a mild chance of critical hits. Support attacks are everything here to avoid loosing units.

Anderson, Emma, Ray, Stana and Yohko all have something to say to Rakoj when they open up on him. Ray's is the most interesting, perhaps hinting on a future development for the poor guy. Emma, Ray, Stana and Yohko will also have an additional cinematic attack thrown into the mix all of which mostly ineffectual apart from Yohko's which will cancel her original attack entirely.
Also don't use any sort of "On Next Attack" SP Command effect for Emma, Ray or Yohko for their first attack on Rakoj as it will waste SP, instead throw it into Concentrate or nothing at all.

Whilst you're pounding on Rakoj it might be a good idea to get a few hits in on the Armarden. Stana is in a great position to do this but try not to bring it below 50% health until you do so to Rakoj first.

Event 2
Getting Rakoj down to 50% hitpoints will force him off the field setting us up the good old battle mastery, net us one of the flags for the map and also set into motion the next event. Seeing that Rakoj has retreated Mifska will be a little annoyed at her fleeing rearguard.

The Armarden's shields will be raised as high as they can in the form of a 30 morale boost to the ship and it will continue trying to retreat to the west. Now you can really pile on the hurt.

Event 3
Dropping the Armarden below 50% hitpoints will force Mifska to order the ship's cargo holds be dumped to allow the ship to make a hasty retreat from the area. If Rakoj is still around he'll retreat from the area as well but if he's not then we're able to get back some of Venesia's stolen goods.

Failure to stop the Armarden will result in it getting the hell out of here and we get nothing.

Preparing For Part 2
With just the Armarden close to it's 50% hit point threshold on the map it's probably a very good time to prepare for the next part of this stage.

Dock anyone in need of repairs or a recharge onboard the Tessaract and deploy what units you can right in the center of the map. Leave a unit or two to hound the fleeing Armarden for when you're ready for the next part.

If you worked for the Federation in Chapter 2-B then if you want as a precaution send the Tessaract south-east after redeploying your units. If you're Zeon scum keep it sitting pretty amongst your units as the Tessaract will have no effect.

Sunday, 14 June 2009

Sub Mission 4 "Vidya"

Even in space we as a species have to give into the phenomenon known simply as the "Grind" as this next sub mission will show. If you've been concentrating on the relationship between Emma and Anderson there's a few D'awwww scenes scattered throughout the pretty entertaining moral fag fest. It all starts with another visit to Jean's quarters...


Another diversion from our original course means alot of time to burn and the skirmish in the Varista complex has resulted in the need to better outfit our new Demitris, leaving not alot left over in the Task Force account.

A quick sweep of the global cortex reveals that pickings right now are incredibly slim. We're mercenaries not janitors. A transport mission however pops up which could be quite easy to do only for it to be taken by someone else!

If you helped Zeon in the attack on side 7 then we'll know exactly who took it otherwise it's just a case of "number 7". Other than that there's nothing else we can really do apart from kill time.

Okay, maybe we are janitors in a sense. Bruno's doing a bit of spring cleaning and depending on how well the quiz went will give Anderson one of Keeruu's video games for one reason or another. It's a game that shares far too many parralels to "The World", complete with full on visor headsets and controllers but Tenea gets to join as well. Score!

Oh god. He's got the right idea though.

OH GOD! If only this was an erotic adventure. Anderson goes for the moralfag route and picks Paladin as his class which pretty much fits his leaderlike persona. Tenea on the otherhand, a sorcerer, if she turns out to be a pilot she better be a glass cannon.
I knew Anderson would make a pretty good looking female. Tenea's avatar on the other hand looks a little like herself just with less Albino. Less Albino is a bad thing. Anderson will engage extreme megalomania role, which means he nails the snobby lawful good paladin princess role down to a tee, almost too naturaly.

Ice burns are handed out to anyone sorry enough to get in the way of our hal-elf duo they even start killing random folk for being "evil". They eventually obliterate the server in one spell. It's the first case of someone "winning" an mmo.

With that it's time to...eat...already? In the pilot lounge there's a good collection of the students currently present with Rane, Emma and Bruno hanging out. If the relationship between Emma and Anderson is good she'll offer the commander a bite out of her meatbun. He'll politely refuse the offer unless the relationship is REALLY good in which case he'll play along HNNNNGGHHH.

Whatever the commander does Tenea follows and she too takes a bite. DOUBLE HNNNNNGHHH.

Bruno'll ask how the game went and we're told the server can't possibly be down because it ain't maintenence day. They must have really won the game.

Emma will make the suggestion that she might be able to join in on the half-elf antics as long as she wants in on Anderson's pants. If Tenea had a bite out of Emma's spicey meatbuns Emma will start looking up to the Albino Maido as she gets a relationship boost from her as the two look forward to 'playing' with Anderson...together *wink wink nudge nudge*.

Keeruu will come barging in proclaiming that he's been banned from the game. It looks like the spell Tenea used to nuke half the newbie zone was something Keeruu had hacked into the game on his account.

Hacking? Keeruu's not smart enough to hack a calculator let alone an MMO there's only one person who could have done this.

Keeruu's a big fat cheater. If a relationship has sparked up between Keeruu and Yohko then the target of his affections will come waltzing on in wondering what all the fuss is about. With Yohko around Keeruu will enter a sort of Zen like state and becomes pretty 'normal' which freaks everyone out.

If Yohko doesn't interupt then a fuss will kick off between Bruno and Keeruu. Keeruu owes our resident pretty boy some money since he's been cheating in their PvP fights which results in him getting the hell out of here!

Oh well, you'll get a few more lines of dialogue if Emma's resolved to join in on the half-elf shenanigans. Tenea's finally cracking out of her shell of shyness.

Rewards
This submission has little to do with choices and only plays off what you've done previously. The only reward you can get from this mission comes from having the highest relationship you can have with Emma at this point in which case.
-Emma develops a relationship boost with Tenea as the focus.

Tuesday, 9 June 2009

Sub Mission 3 "Onii-Chan~"

We're closing in on Libot colony on a our return trip from out in the middle of nowhere with two brand new cute girls onboard, just a shame we're going to have to say good bye to one when we get there. We're not too deep into Libot space when Jean picks up a new incredibly easy conract and all it needs is Anderson...

Construction work...well every little bit of money helps and it means we'll get to stay around Libot for a little while, might even get a chance to hang out with Stana a little longer. It's also the first time the team will be able to get off the ship and go out and about.

Even better the team get to indulge in their favourite past time, EATING, thanks to one of the G.A.C sponsors being a high roller in the resteraunt buisness. If you've been developing a relationship with Emma then she'll feel a little worried that the Anderson won't be around.

Real swanky stuff here and the students deserve the time off. Think of it as an apology for getting everyone kicked out of Amatsu. Everyone of...a more deplorable social status is floored by the complexity of the menu but Shiina seems to be a natural for picking out dishes perhaps this could be connected to her forgotten background?

If the boys won the quiz in sub mission 2 then Keeruu will take this moment to try and apologise for being a sore winner to the suprise of everyone else. Yohko's in silent deredere mode but it looks like there could be something starting between the two.

It takes a while but eventually everyone get's around to ordering some fancy looking dish with Tenea going for pizza. If Emma's got her eyes on Anderson then a lengthy conversation sparks up over Anderson's involvement with the quiz game and everyone genuienly bonds together in their own way before attention turning back to Anderson's current whereabouts.

Score, we're getting our money and a new frame for our efforts as a bonus on top. Not bad for menial work. With work finished and with a fair few hours left in the day Anderson can join the rest of the team and get some food down his throat or at least he could...

A fair maiden in distress, and she's found our weakspot. Anderson ever the gentleman has to assist such a charming young lady in getting where she needs to go.

After escorting her the majority of the way whilst having a rather odd conversation we're given a choice when we pass by the resteraunt where everyone else is.

Part Ways Here
We point her in the right direction of where she needs to go, it's only two blocks away so she should be able to make it from here. The two trade contact details should the little girl ever wish to find refuge on the Amatsu colony and Anderson goes to join his friends.

Because we didn't take a detour we're in time for finishing off the meal, Tenea (And Emma if she likes Anderson) have been saving some of the pizza for him. Some bromance between Bruno and Keeruu sours the mood a little but everyone's having a blast.

If you're in a good relationship with Emma she'll try feeding Anderson herself. Daw. In the end it's been a refreshing experience and everyone seems revitalized by the fancy meal.
- 5,000 in cash
- New Frame [Molior]
- Relationship boost with Emma

Escort Her the Rest of the Way
We're ditching our friends for a little longer but this girl here's calling Anderson Onii-Chan. On our extended trip to our destination 'Onii-Chan' explains to the little girl his status on the Amatsu and his new role as a mercenary. She's indebted to us and the two trade contact information before they say goodbye.

Anderson'll return to the resteraunt but by now the food's gone cold. Oh well waste not want not.
- 5,000 in cash
- New Frame [Molior]
- Little Girl Flag 1

Additional Reward if you Lost the Quiz
- Keeruu develops a relationship boost with Yohko as the focus

Tsukuyomi Task Force
EMMA EMMA EMMA ALL THE WAY!

Sunday, 7 June 2009

Relationships and You 101

Q. "Hey! Hey S.E.R.I.K.A! What are relationships and what are their mechanical benefits?"


A. We've reached a point now where if you've been doing sub missions there's a good chance several of your female pilots will have developed feelings for someone else in your team.

Relationships are similiar or pretty much exactly the same as the original SRW passive friendship and lover bonuses except you need to work for them though that work needn't be difficult, sometimes they'll call upon personal sacrifice.

Relationships will provide a bonus to the characters they involve and are never negatives but are oneway buffs. Character A might think highly of Character B and gain the benefits of relationship but Character B might be indifferent to Character A and receive no benefits. In this example Character B is Character A's focus.

Mechanicswise characters benefit when they're within 2 squares of their relationship focus. A basic rank one relationship will earn that character a tempoary +5 morale for the duration they remain in range. This tempoary morale can exceed a character's limit.

A rank two relationship increases from +5 morale to +8 morale so there might be a morale curve to the ranks. We won't know until much later.

As we all know morale factors into pretty much every single equation performed in this game, from evasion values, accuracy percentage, damage mitigation and maximum damage calculation. Relationships boost EVERYTHING so it's a good idea to keep an eye out for them anywhere you can.


Q. "But S.E.R.I.K.A, how do I tell who's recieving what from a relationship?"

A. I just noticed the relationship's one-wayness during simulator tests and so haven't factored that in so let me just clear that up now.

Where I mention a relationship boost with a character and no one else is mentioned assume it's a one way boost with Anderson as the focus.

Where I mention a relationship boost with two character names and describe it as shared the characters become each other's focus.

Where I mention a relationship boost with two character names and say nothing more on the matter assume that the first character is benifitting and the second character is the focus.


Q. "Why not just use the term 'focus' in all relationship related posts from now on?"

A. Good idea voices inside my vast neural cybernetic cerebrum. It'll make things much more clearer. I'll update the other posts when I get around to scanning for horribly murdered english.


Q. "Any other gnarly benefits from relationships?"

A. The game will call upon a relationship check in certain situations. Sit back and keep an eye out. I'll mention it where I can.


Q. "Last question. What kind of 'relationships' are these? Love? Tell me it's love."

A. I hope so. As that would mean Emma's winning Anderson's affections easily whilst Jean and Natalie could be potential experimenting lesbians. Though they're probably more admiration based and burning hot flames of eternal friendship.

...nobody loves S.E.R.I.K.A

Sub Mission 2 "It's Green, Trust Me."

Another mission down the pipe and it's time to unwind with another sub mission, but this one's a little different. Fingers on buzzers friends for this one is a real pub quiz...

The Tessaract is a good few days out from responding to the rather suspect S.O.S signal and it's nothing but empty space from Side 7 to it's given coordinates. There's not alot to do onboard for the pilots apart from to give the simulator a couple more runs or just generally hang out and we've really given the simulator one hell of a work out already.

Anderson stops by Jean's quarters to see if there's any small contracts that can fill the time only to run across one of the rarest finds of the century, a sad Jean.
Anderson ever the gentlemen and empathic commander is willing to do anything to improve morale. On reaching the Tesseract crew lounge the situation becomes clear. The entire Verein test team are here and they're passing the time with a trivia quiz game. It's the guys versus the girls and the guys have won two games already and the girls are at none.

Rane's hosting the game, Natalie's too busy running the ship to join in, Hotariko is too busy being tsun tsun to join in, Idris is a robot, and Albino Maido doesn't want to get involved when Anderson isn't involved, that means the girls team is outnumbered.

Looks like Anderson's bound by his code of honor and made an honourary girl for this session (MASSIVE MISSED POTENTIAL FOR THE GIRLS TO GIVE ANDERSON A COMPLETE MAKE OVER ALONG WITH PIG TAILS).

It's time to knock down the boys' ego a peg so bring on the next topic!
...things are pretty stacked for the boys team. Can't be helped though, the topics are randomly pulled it just so happens to be the third topic in a row that favors 'bro' knoweledge. Que the music maestro.

How well you do in the quiz will effect the relationships amongst your fellow pilots. Most of the girls are pretty lost when it comes to video game questions but Emma does a great job in supporting you with what little she knows so it's pretty much up to you two.

Winning the quiz sends the girl team into jubilation and we end up learning a bit more about Emma's story as everyone quizzes her on why she knew a fair bit about classic video games. It's pretty interesting stuff which leads to Anderson having to step into the role of White Knight saving his princess for a bit which is cute.

The girls of the girls team will hold a special place in their hearts for Anderson and Jean gets to order around Bruno for a bit.

Losing the quiz sends Keeruu into super smug sore winner mode which just ends up pissing off Yohko and annoying everyone else. The consequences are pretty slapstick comical but Keeruu had it coming.

Anderson tried his best but in the end he couldn't stop the girl's loosing streak. At least one positive will come out of this though it's effects won't be felt until a little later on.

Now that THAT's out of the way Anderson can finally ask the resident mercenary to see if there's any small contracts available. Turns out the Global Cortex is buzzing with junk contracts and nothing else, oh well at least some time was killed.

Back at his quarters Anderson will share a cute moment with Tenea. She truley can melt hearts.

Win the Quiz
- Anderson and Emma share a relationship boost with each other.
- Relationship boost with Jean.
- Relationship boost with Yohko.

Lose the Quiz
- Future development in sub mission 3.

Ch 2-B Epilogue "Nuns with Guns"

Other than the initial part of the epilogue what happens here mirrors that of the other path. We're looking through the looking glass here, people...

Onboard the Tesseract the pilots and the crew are all chuffed at a job well done, even the resident albino maido takes time out of her busy embarressed hair pulling schedule to crack a smile. Some of the pilots even remark that it was pretty fun to fight alongside Amuro (War's are fun as long as you're winning).

It looks like the Federation might have refined beam weaponry to a point where it's both compact, powerful and affixed with a good ammunition reserve that won't drain off the engines of mobile suits. A shame they won't be able to give us any samples.

Bright hails the Tesseract after the initial tide of jubilation washes over, it's time to talk numbers. Jean's pretty excited at the idea of getting paid 40,000 for what turned out to be a pretty easy job but there is a problem.

Side 7 was pretty badly damaged by the attack inside the colony and now the White Base is carrying a great deal of civilian refugees. So many infact that it's current food stocks won't last. Bright'll need to keep some of the payment to purchase supplies elsewhere before they can make it to the nearest Federation supply base.

In exchange for the missing part of the payment however they'll be sending us some equipment the Federation salvaged from the battlefield, a stripped down ZakuII equipped with a machinegun and a heat hawk.

The wellbeing of civilians is always a priority and the Task Force gladly accept the substitute, we're still being paid half of the original modest sum.

If we obtain the battle mastery for this level Natalie informs us that our own salvage team managed to get some intact weaponry from the battlefield to help give our armory a boost. Not bad, not bad at all.

With that done the crew wish Bright safe travels and decide to celebrate the completion of their first contract by stuffing their faces with food, heck even the anti-social nun on board is given a chance to join in.

During the celebrations Jean puts forward the rather odd idea that the nun should pilot our new Zaku. A nun piloting a Zaku? Sounds like a rather unique fetish to me. Eitherway we've got ourselves a potential skilled new pilot if her training with Jean is anything to go by.

A new potential mission pops up during the trip to Earth, a garbled distress call is recieved from a location in space over three days away. It's not going to net us any money and it's not a real contract but it's something that'll hang over our head nagging at us if we don't respond. Despite a small argument over the distress call it looks like our course is set.

Rewards
For completing Chapter 2-B we're given the following.
- 20,000 in cash
- New unit ZakuII
- Zaku Machinegun
- Zaku Heat Hawk

Achieving the battle mastery for this chapter also earns us.
- 2 x Zaku Machineguns
- Zaku Heat Hawk

Ch 2-B Combat "3 x (S = d / t)"

Things are pretty grim by the time our scrambled units arrive in the combat zone and since we're in a very open sector of space there isn't much cover between us and Side 7, things could get ugly...

The attack on the Side 7 is well underway but there doesn't seem to be any sign of Char amongst the Zeon forces, just a unit of ZakuIIs and a Musai maintaining a peremiter guard around the area. The matter is only complicated some more when a new mobile suit enters the fray emerging from Side 7, but it's not a Zeon unit, it's some brand new white mobile suit.

Communication is established between our forces and the federation pilot who turns out to be just a civilian, Amuro Ray. It looks like the Federation are relying on some show of power to prove they're not pushovers and Amuro's caught up in this mess. Anderson and Jean resolve that they'll need to protect the white mobile suit whilst it fights or the Federation will be looked upon as a laughing stock.

Deployment
Friendly Forces
-Verein Zero
---Anderson
-AG-01
---Jean
-4 x Units of your choice
-Gundam NPC
---Amuro

Enemy Forces
-5 x ZakuII
--- Zeon Soldier
- 1 x Musai
--- Doren

Note that your third optional unit to be deployed will be put to the left of Jean since they can't be ontop of Jean.

Win Condition
Another straight forward clean up job with some additional USEFUL assistance. The gundam's better armed than the alternate route, head vulcans, beam saber but this time Amuro has a nice and powerful beam rifle as well.

The gundam can handle the first Zaku that comes at it but if you move slowly for this one he'll be engaged by two or maybe even three if you're moving at a super cautious snail pace, the Gundam won't be able to handle three at the same time.

Throw caution to the wind by sending over one unit with flash or send Anderson with Attention to...well...grab the attention of the Zakus and give Amuro a fair fighting chance and he'll provide some great covering firing when he's done killing his target.

Engaging
Initial engagements with the ZakuIIs can be dicey at first, there isn't much cover in the area short of a few scattered asteroid fields down south-westish of our positions where the skirmishing will take place.

Side 7 is capable of providing a quick refuel job but it's positioned well out of the main combat zone so that's a moot point.

The Zakus work on a same sort of level as empty load Vereins except with a sturdier health bar, are better adapted for space combat and are also classed as medium sized opponents. They'll be taking noticably less damage than the E.Y.Es if you're inappropiatley equipped for space combat.
They're also armed with Zaku Machineguns and a Heat Hawk.

The Zaku Machinegun has a negative modifer to accuracy which means even without SP commands or defensive terrain to take advantage of these range 1-4 post movment weapons will have a hit rate of just over 50-60% with damage hitting at about 70-100 depending on how armored up your units are.

The real danger comes from the Zaku Heat Hawks which'll reliably hit and with a bit more damage tacked on. Fortune smiles on us though, the Zakus are slower than our own units and keeping the Zakus at bay is an easy job.

To make things easier Zakus are weak to beam based attacks as displayed by Jean's opening attack with a Beam Shooter.
Ouch. Critical hit. If you've got beam shooters, beam handguns or even beam based close combat weaponry the Zakus should be a simple push over.

As with the E.Y.Es the Zakus will drop scrap metal which'll auto sell on the military market for cash on critical melee hits. On super rare occassions you'll cleave off some Super Hard Steel Alloy armor instead.

The Musai is our first capital ship target and is classified as double large. That means it's attacks will hit really hard but not often and any attacks we hit with will scratch the paint even with it's horrible armor rating of 20.

The Musai comes with two range 2-5 attacks. Type-145 missiles which will do the most damage. You don't want to get hit by this attack as it's more of a ship to ship warfare weapon but Doren's so awesome he doesn't care that he's trying to hit suits with them. I believe they can be intercepted and possibly slashed away.

After expending missile ammunition the Musai will switch over to the Mega Particle Cannons and start spamming those. They're a little weaker than the missile attacks but the Musai can keep firing these almost indefinetly but at the same accuracy rate. Durr hurr hit small units with anti-ship weaponry hurr durr.

Things aren't any better if you get up close at ranges 1-3 as the Musai will fire off bursts of anti-suit missiles which are much more accurate and are still painful as hell.

It's up to preference on how you engage the Musai, you can do it at range and risk getting hit by attacks that can shave off well over 200+ in damage or you can resort to close quaters and take lots of little hits.

There's nothing to steal off the Musai with crit melee hits.

As of the Stage 6 update all Zakus are now highly resistant to bullets but have taken on an additional weakness in the form of slash attacks. Melee attacks and any beam weapons are now highly prefered.

Optional Flag Event 1
Things can be pretty tough for an untrained civilian getting tossed into the deep end when it comes to mecha combat. At least the TTF have had some form of training. Moving Anderson next to Amuro gives you an option to talk to the poor guy and give him some words of encouragement. This optional event can be done at any time in the mission but be sure to grab it as it makes Amuro think a little more highly of the TTF.

Optional Flag Event 2
If words from Anderson aren't enough Jean can unleash her own brand of encouragement. A short exchange between her and Amuro will give our mobile suit pilot prodigy a good opinion on mercenaries, heck one of the best ones is a cute girl. Another event that can be done at any time during the mission and you don't have to burn an attack action to do it just put Jean next to Amuro.

Event 1
At the start of turn three a new friendly unit emerges from Side 7. It's the Federation's new battleship White Base currently under acting captain Bright Noa. It looks like we're going to have some help in taking down the Musai.

The White Base and her crew however pick up more Zaku's in the area which deploy right in between the TTF and the Musai and one of them's THREE TIMES FASTER!

Battle Mastery
Battle Mastery here is going to be hit or miss but thanks to the general flow of battle you'll probably have all your units lined up right where you need them. We're getting off lucky again as Char's custom ZakuII isn't three times faster than his fellow soldiers with only 20 more speed tacked onto it. Speed 120 would just be silly (But so CHAR).

To make up for that fact Char is level 9 and his suit comes with a kick attack (YES) instead of a heat hawk and a few levels in shield block so he can use his ZakuII shield to cut down the damage he takes.

His attacks will chew up your units very fast unless you burn SP so ignore everyone else on the field and dogpile him with support attacks. A well equipped Jean can go toe to toe with Char for a while, which'll result in an epic firefight between the Golden Star and the Red Comet.

As long as Char is preoccupied with you he won't give a damn about Amuro, so it's more of a race against the Gundam. You'll have about three turns before Amuro can finish off a Zaku/move close enough to open up on Char.

If you're finding it difficult to meet this deadline try the level again and leave two of the starting ZakuIIs behind for Amuro to clean up or if you have Rane on the field Fetter the Musai whenever you can to mess up Char's deployment.

Event 2
Bringing the Musai down below 2000 hp will force Doren to retreat. There's no real way to destroy it at this stage but at the very least this pain in the backside is out of the way.

Event 3
If you let Amuro engage Char or if you shoot Char down things go onto auto pilot. Char and Amuro will be fully healed, rearmed and engage in their own little battle with Slender and Ryu Jose getting involved as well.

The white mobile suit's brand new beam weaponry far surpass that of current technology and it shows when Amuro takes out Slender in a single shot forcing Char to retreat with his tail between his legs.

If there are no more enemy units on the battlefield it's mission done otherwise it's case of cleaning Side 7 space up before we can congratulate Amuro on a fine sortee. Gee he must be a natural or something.