I started playing Borderlands again, but this time I turned on "demigod" mode. I still take damage from enemies but my health never drops below 1. I equipped a shield that regenerates my health quickly so I'll never have to use health packs either. It's a fun game, but very frustrating when I die to something that has the smallest sliver of health remaining, even moreso when I get knocked down by an environmental hazard or explosive barrel and there's no enemies nearby to give myself a Second Wind (instantly regain part of my health and shield and I'm taken out of the knocked down state, in which I'll eventually die if I can't get a Second Wind, if I kill an enemy while knocked down). I've already beaten the game twice so even though I'm invulnerable it isn't a deterrent to my gameplay and, in fact, enhances it.
The screenshot archive can be found at:
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~pastorek/RFG/Session 7/
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I'm starting in Oasis again, which I freed last time. I'll head over to The Badlands to free it now. Having just played Borderlands which uses the mouse to control the only vehicle in the game, I had a "whoops" moment when I remembered that RFG's vehicles are controlled by WASD.
I'll try driving one of these Oasis cars. "Here, drive this. Anything to help the Faction." This vehicle uses hubless wheels and has doors that open vertically. It looks like it's really lightweight and is definitely not a combat vehicle.
A transporter mission with nearby EDF crates. I can't pass up this opportunity. The vehicle I'm driving is a heavy EDF transport. The building it was resting in was a garage that I could destroy to raise morale and lower EDF control, but neither would be affected since I've already freed Oasis.
I guess they aren't happy that I took this transport.
Died lol. Now that I have an idea of what lies ahead I can take precautions to avoid some of the damage from the roadblocks.
I found out that vehicle and its garage are in The Badlands. I'll come back later to destroy the garage.
Did better this time, not too much better but the point was to get it from A to B and in that regard I succeeded.
I bought the Shattermaster. I still don't see how it's an improvement over the other sledgehammers but whatever.
I destroyed that garage and on the way back I saw a three-hexagon EDF base so I'll attack that.
Hmm. Why would they crash into their own wall? From an A.I. perspective the vehicle must have a fight-or-flight response dictating that it move forward, but the wall happened to be in the way. From Alec's perspective, the driver may have been looking at him while flooring it. In any case, the wall provided a nice roadblock for me to UNLEASH THE FURY OF CAPS LOCK (and lightning).
Uhhhh.....yeah time to go.
They disabled my APC and more of them showed up. REALLY time to go.
Bah. Ambushed.
There's another hexagon cluster. I'm a bet hesitant to attack considering what happened last time, but it'll help lower the EDF's control and raise the morale.
A destroyer mission is nearby so I'll do that first. When I busted through this wall the one EDF soldier on the other side yelled out "GET OUTTA HERE" and made a run for it behind the nearby crates.
"Get out of the vehicle and lay down your weapon!" The vehicle IS my weapon and I'm NOT getting out :)
Given that I had to lift my mouse and place it on the opposite side of the mouse pad to rotate the turret far enough to cover both sides of the road, I'll back myself into this corner and use the nearby hills as a bottleneck to filter the EDF into my line of sight.
Ah. A tank-on-tank battle. Nearly every ToT battle I've been involved in has one simple rule: Be the biggest or be the quickest. Being the first to fire is always a plus, especially if the opposing tank is the same make/model, but if you have the biggest gun or the fastest vehicle then you're the most likely to win (although it's not guaranteed).
Destroying these buildings will take something other than rockets...
...something like this. You know this is significant because of the glow above it.
In my daring escape at 2 mph I was disabled by the two EDF transports in front of me and a gunship overhead. Oh well, easy come easy go.
When the tank was blown up, its corpse flew into the air and before it could land on top of me and EDF transport showed up. The EDF transport blocked the tank's corpse from crushing me, although I still need a ride out of here.
Some guerrillas showed up and I'll "borrow" their truck. Bye!
I'll disappear into the mountains for a little while to lower the EDF alert. When it goes back to green I'll return to deal with the remaining structures.
Hey, it's Orion.
There are some structures here that look like they're abandoned.
There's a bottomless pit and a nearby story mission. Why would it be so far out here?
Oh no not you guys again.
I was able to kill three of the Marauders by vehicular homicide, but when I turned around to get the fourth I was focusing on him and not the pit, so when I realized I wouldn't be able to stop in time I bailed out. The truck is at the bottom of the bottomless pit so now I'll have to do the story mission.
Mmmmm......Sam probably won't be happy.
The story mission requires me to break into an EDF base, kidnap a Colonel and question him about the Free Fire Zone. Surely that won't involve any high speed pursuits, tons of flying lead, or blood everywhere, right?
With gunfire everywhere, why would I continue to fight on foot when I could fight from within the safety of an armored vehicle? Derp.
The two guerrillas I'm with got inside too, so one is shooting and the other is protected by the armor.
Killed the last soldier. Time to drive out of here with the Colonel. For once I'm not driving. Instead I'm providing gun support while the female guerrilla interrogates the Colonel and the male guerrilla drives. The dialogue of the female guerrilla and the Colonel reveal that he tortured her, as well as other guerrillas, and this is part of her revenge. She mentioned my name and the Colonel sounded terrified.
The finale of this mission called for the three of us to bail out of the vehicle while it rolled into the bottomless pit with the Colonel. He gave us the intel we needed - there are specific parts of the Free Fire Zone that are "blind spots" to the artillery. Knowing where they are will help the Red Faction cross it to get to the Eos sector.
While I'm here, I'll save the game and jump in, just to see what it's like.
As expected, instant death. Reloading the game from where I left off allowed me to start at a safehouse. I could have teleported with the Guerrilla Express I bought earlier, but either way I'm in The Badlands and the nearest guerrilla action is a bit of a drive away. I have 537 salvage but I don't want to buy anything in particular. I'll just save it for now.Destroying this bridge will lower control enough for me to do the last mission in The Badlands. It's time.
I wonder what the best way to approach this will be. Certainly I could demolish it with my sledgehammer, but that'd take too long. I have rockets, but I don't know if I have enough to cause enough damage.
Going with the first option, I broke a hole through which I fell. In real life this kind of fall would have killed me, but the light Martian gravity broke the fall...somewhat.
This bridge has three support pylons with 4 diagonal beams attached to each pylon and the bridge itself. Those might be good places to attack. I shot two rockets at the pylon and a diagonal support beam but they didn't take any damage. Hmm.
I know! The nano rifle should be able to eat through them. I'll go back to a safehouse and get it.
The rifle only has 15 rounds. That probably won't be enough. I'll buy the nano rifle ammo upgrade so I can carry more. It's nearly all of my salvage but like I said earlier I don't know what else to spend it on. The ammo upgrade gave me an extra 20 rounds. That'll be plenty.
I'll start at one end of the bridge and work my way to the other. Since there are four beams at each pylon it'll take 12 rounds, plus any that I have to use in case my shots miss. I likely could do it with the original 15 rounds the rifle came with, but this is more convenient.
It takes two rounds to disintegrate a support beam, one on each side of the beam. The beams don't converge at any specific point so it looks like I'll need 24 to bring down the bridge, assuming that all the support beams need to be destroyed.
That one truck brought down that portion of the bridge on top of my head. I wonder if I can just destroy the opposite side's support beams to bring down the rest of the bridge.
Some guerrillas joined me, and at the right time too.
Technically the bridge is destroyed, but I won't be satisfied until the entirety of it has collapsed.
There we go. NOW it's destroyed.
Uh...hmm.
This reminds me of that Minnesota bridge collapse.
The EDF's control of this sector is at 0. Time for the last story mission of The Badlands. I'm supposed to sabotage an airfield with charges that detonate at a height of 10 meters so that the EDF's air defenses can't attack the guerrillas crossing the Free Fire Zone.
I can't fly the planes, but planting the charges gives me the ability to hide from enemy fire to regain some of my health. There's no time limit, but I feel like I should hurry.
As the gunships took off, they exploded overhead and one of them almost landed on top of me.
"You've done your part, now get the hell outta there!" You don't have to tell me twice.
Success, and I unlocked level 2 armor. I'm supposed to head to the edge of the Free Fire Zone to launch the final assault through it.
Of course I'm just barely unable to afford the armor.
Time to desecrate some graves again. I suppose this is technically a boneyard, not a graveyard, since they're above ground.
What are you doing in there?
Exactly 300 and from the last vehicle in the yard. Statistically unlikely and cliche, but I'm not going to argue.
I'll fire a rocket near myself to see what the armor upgrade does. Kids, don't try this at home unless you've bought the level 2 armor upgrade.
At first I was disappointed because I thought there was no visual change, but after the bar reached the end it was surrounded by a rectangle that, from the looks of it, doubles my current health meter. This will be quite useful.
I don't have time this week, but next week I'll enter the Free Fire Zone. See you then!
