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Prey: Mooncrash DLC and main game updates

Started by Blue Jam, June 11, 2018, 03:32:25 PM

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biggytitbo

Did you save Dr Igwe? It opens a whole new path of the game where you have to hunt Dahl down and steal his neuromods. Great stuff.

Blue Jam

I saved Igwe the first time. The second time I went for the Kill All Humans achievement (and failed it- it's harder than it sounds) and found that if you start killing lots of humans, it opens up another bit of the game involving Dahl. IIRC he makes some comment about how you're evidently a dangerous psychopath and he's going to need some backup...

Did you kill the Psychotronics nonce or did you let him live? For me that was a bit of a flaw with the karma system- killing him may not be a very nice thing to do but the first time I played I thought "Hmmmm, do I really want to be trapped alone on a spaceship with a space nonce?" and threw him to the mimics.

Igwe asking you to go back and get the neural connectome recording from the brain of his favourite compser was another- was that a test of empathy or a test of stupidity?


biggytitbo

Whoops. This is definetly a game where your various choices open up whole new avenues of the game though. It's well worth saving mikhaila on a playthrough too as it changes the middle of the game quite a bit.

bgmnts

Completed it. The ending sequences was a bit mediocre but probably better than kost games that give you choices.

The actal meat of the game, though.... incredible.


Pdine

Quote from: Blue Jam on August 07, 2018, 09:41:13 PM
I saved Igwe the first time. The second time I went for the Kill All Humans achievement (and failed it- it's harder than it sounds) and found that if you start killing lots of humans, it opens up another bit of the game involving Dahl. IIRC he makes some comment about how you're evidently a dangerous psychopath and he's going to need some backup...

Did you kill the Psychotronics nonce or did you let him live? For me that was a bit of a flaw with the karma system- killing him may not be a very nice thing to do but the first time I played I thought "Hmmmm, do I really want to be trapped alone on a spaceship with a space nonce?" and threw him to the mimics.

Igwe asking you to go back and get the neural connectome recording from the brain of his favourite compser was another- was that a test of empathy or a test of stupidity?

I let him live on the basis that at that stage you're aware that you are guilty of at least three of the five crimes of which he's convicted, and four if you've pretended to be a cup. Also without wanting to minimise the offense, solicitation of a minor is frequently strict liability so it's not even clear that the guy knew he was doing it. 

biggytitbo

Quote from: bgmnts on August 12, 2018, 08:08:28 AM
Completed it. The ending sequences was a bit mediocre but probably better than kost games that give you choices.

The actal meat of the game, though.... incredible.


Indeed, the very ending is a bit of an anti-climax but only because what comes before is so great. Did you do the various ways of escaping at the end?

bgmnts

Quote from: biggytitbo on August 12, 2018, 01:18:17 PM

Indeed, the very ending is a bit of an anti-climax but only because what comes before is so great. Did you do the various ways of escaping at the end?

Nah couldn't be arsed. Already sunk at least 25 hours of my life into it, I can't imagine they are much different.

Blue Jam

Just finished Mooncrash! This was a lovely touch, with the alarms sounding over it
Spoiler alert
:

https://youtu.be/sHdaSX-E2Gw

Roll on Prey 2...
[close]

Blue Jam

How did you all approach the Mooncrash endgame then? I had it all worked out but in the end I was just going for the install all neuromods achievement, found a load of egg timers and was still at corruption level 1 and thought "Hey, I could do this now". Here's what I did [spoilers, obviously]:

* Director: Went into Pytheas Labs, got all the food and drink from that well-stocked conference room, put it in the Mule Operator along with some anti-rad pills and did the Upload Your Consciousness escape
* Volunteer: Went to the Moonworks, put the food and drink and anti-rad in the container for the Mass Driver escape, then realised the escape pod was also in there and not accessible to all of the other characters, had an escape pod chip so used the Burrow Typhon power to get in and escape.
* Engineer: Went to the Pytheas Labs, repaired the Mimic Portal, went to the Moonworks and completed the Mass Driver escape.
* Custodian/Kasma Spy: Hacked the Mimic Portal computer and then escaped through the Portal.
* Security Officer: Went into the Crew Annex and just legged it into the shuttle.


Installed all the Neuromods to get ridiculously OP and bought a fuckload of egg timers too, of course.

Blue Jam


biggytitbo

I still havent played much of this as I did a replay of the full game instead then decided to have a break and play something else. Will get back on it, although I found my hour or so with it pretty confusing tbh.

H-O-W-L

Need to get back to Mooncrash tbh, I got halfway through and just didn't pick it up again. I really liked how it was genuinely explorative, and I had to find things out myself without feeling like the game was actively being a cunt to me (alá Dark Souls style 'gotcha, lolzers'). Things that would be oblique in-world were sensibly oblique rather than being a complete shroud of fog and wank, and in general it felt like a very 'fair' experience, even as the difficulty ramped up. I feel like Mooncrash might be the best part of Prey in terms of gameplay, honestly. The narrative is a lil' anaemic compared to the main game's super strong worldbuilding until the endgame, but the gameplay of Mooncrash is a rock solid ten IMO.

Mister Six

Ruddy loving Mooncrash, now I've got a handle on it. Even the Moon Shark doesn't seem that bad any more (although I stop saying that when I fuck up and it eviscerates me).

So far the engineer has escaped once on the shuttle - opening up her personal quest - while the volunteer has escaped three times, by shuttle, pod and mass driver. Got him out on the shuttle last time, and found the security guard along the way (I'd been walking past his body over and over, as it turns out).

Now I'm entering my second character for this playthrough, the security guard. Got to get him to the Mass Driver, which hopefully shouldn't be too bad so long as I can get past the initial bit of Moonshark fuckery. The levels now have environmental dangers and a faster corruption meter, but I have some mimic/robot pals I can call up, and I seem to have found an unusually large number of elite weapons on this go-around. I don't know if that's just there to get me over the hump of the new difficulty mode or whether I can expect to find souped-up shotguns a lot more regularly now, but I appreciate it.

Couple of questions:

1- Did you all get killed by randomly appearing incendiary mimics right at the start too? I assume that's just there to assure you that it's OK to die, but it still felt cheap.
2- I'm still finding new bodies, schematics etc so I'm racking up the points. But will there come a time when I'm struggling to get a decent number of points to spend? Want to be able to buy a shit-ton of egg timers for my final run, although that's some time off, as I fully intend to rack up a ton of neuromods first.

remedial_gash

Quote from: Mister Six on September 08, 2018, 11:42:36 PM

1- Did you all get killed by randomly appearing incendiary mimics right at the start too? I assume that's just there to assure you that it's OK to die, but it still felt cheap.
2- I'm still finding new bodies, schematics etc so I'm racking up the points. But will there come a time when I'm struggling to get a decent number of points to spend? Want to be able to buy a shit-ton of egg timers for my final run, although that's some time off, as I fully intend to rack up a ton of neuromods first.

1. I think there is a built in you must die early on in the first run, just to teach you a lesson.
2. Can't remember struggling for points to buy egg timers, but the chaos quickens and there are more arsey roadblocks the higher into the game you get.

Mister Six

Yeah I've started needing to switch power on and off in sections of the moonbase now. Where do I do that? I've been pissing about in the central tower but can seem to find it.

That came after I managed to get the volunteer out via the shuttle, the engineer out by the escape pods, the security chief out via the mass driver (unlocking his story), and discovering Riley Yu's psychoscope (unlocking her as a character).

I was going to try to get her out as well, but I totally forgot to leave all my weapons and items in the mule, so all she had to fight the level 4 corrupted Typhon in the main basin were a silenced pistol and not enough ammo. In the end I just opted for death by moon shark.

For the next few go-throughs I think I'll just focus on digging up neuromods so I can get everyone's human skills up to snuff before I risk triggering any more big changes. I also need to explore the labs, which I haven't really done before now. But with the Volunteer needing to escape via the mimic portal and Riley having to copy her consciousness into a computer, that's somewhere I need to scout out.

Do the engineer's own turrets turn against her if she has too many typhon mods?

remedial_gash

Quote from: Mister Six on September 09, 2018, 02:57:10 PM
Yeah I've started needing to switch power on and off in sections of the moonbase now. Where do I do that? I've been pissing about in the central tower but can seem to find it.

That came after I managed to get the volunteer out via the shuttle, the engineer out by the escape pods, the security chief out via the mass driver (unlocking his story), and discovering Riley Yu's psychoscope (unlocking her as a character).

I was going to try to get her out as well, but I totally forgot to leave all my weapons and items in the mule, so all she had to fight the level 4 corrupted Typhon in the main basin were a silenced pistol and not enough ammo. In the end I just opted for death by moon shark.

For the next few go-throughs I think I'll just focus on digging up neuromods so I can get everyone's human skills up to snuff before I risk triggering any more big changes. I also need to explore the labs, which I haven't really done before now. But with the Volunteer needing to escape via the mimic portal and Riley having to copy her consciousness into a computer, that's somewhere I need to scout out.

Do the engineer's own turrets turn against her if she has too many typhon mods?

The power switches are in the basement under the main tower - left for power control and right for the labs - though often there is an obstruction.

Not sure about turrets turning against you, but remember that the electro weapon can turn off typhon gates - took me till near the end to learn that. D'oh.

Mister Six

Brilliant, thanks for both tips! Appreciate the electro-gate one especially...

Blue Jam

You need Control Modules to switch the power back on- if you have the fabrication plan you can buy them or make them in a fabricator, but a good source of them is Harvesters. Just raid a destroyed one, or destroy a working one and then loot it- they're pretty flimsy but just make sure you twat them from behind or else they will just suck you up and recycle you.

Also do the Director's story and you'll find another use for them which gives you a damn good superweapon...

Blue Jam

The stun gun will get you through the Typhon gates, as will a thwack with an electric wrench...

As for collecting points, a good way to do this is to kill the bigger enemies while you're still at the lower corruption levels - a Moonshark will get you 3,000 points minimum, and anything bigger than a Phantom will drop an egg timer. Doing the Director's story objective as I mentioned above will also give you a handy way to accrue points quickly and easily.

The main thing about the egg timers is this: DON'T WORRY ABOUT THE EGG TIMERS. The whole point of Mooncrash is to die a billion times, getting stronger and wilier until you can finally outwit the thing. The timers add a sense of urgemcy to the gameplay, and you'll come to see that they are both necessary and nothing to worry about...

Mister Six

At the minute I'm just running around as Riley, psychoscanning monsters and gathering as many neuromods as I can. To that end, egg-timers have become very useful. I plan to do a couple of these runs for each character, to stock 'em up with human neuromods before I start looking for typhon abilities.

Once they're nice and beefy I'll start doing the stories. It's nice to be able to explore all the nooks and crannies without racing around glancing at a shopping list, too.

Thanks for the tips, BTW! I forgot about the Harvesters. Q-Beam makes swift work of them. I'm using the Mule to stock up on the ol' control modules at the start as there's usually a couple lying around.

Mister Six

Finished this last week at a hair under 60 hours, which is a bloody good return for $17. Kind of broke the game in the middle by focusing on getting everyone fully neuromodded up, which meant long runs gathering goodies for the recycler and really getting to know the map. But it's a testament to how intricately designed it is that it was only when I did my final mission - the janitor's memory fragment - that I discovered there was a cache of loot above the recycler in the central tower - and that from there you could get up onto the roof of the tower and glide down to anywhere in the map! Grrr!

The only complaint I have is that most of the memory fragments were rather weak - especially Riley's, which could be completed in a couple of minutes, pretty much. The Volunteer's and the Security Chief's were great, though.

I also loved the bookending narrative with Peter on the station, which revisited some of the ideas from the Doctor Who episode Oxygen (you know which ones) but in a much more claustrophobic and unsettling way. The fact that the game can do all that it does and make some pointed comments on corporate culture really is something.

Christ, what a fantastic game. I don't know how they can possibly top it, but I look forward to finding out.

Blue Jam

The update including Typhon Hunter, the new multiplayer mode where one human battles five mimics, has finally been confirmed for the 11th of December. Trailer:

https://youtu.be/TLucCtAxTXE

Blue Jam

#83
FYI: Typhon Hunter is not an automatic update, you have to go to the Microsoft store or Steam or wherever and reinstall Mooncrash (now with added Typhon Hunter) from there.

Installing now, I'm probably a bit too sleep-deprived to play tonight though...


Blue Jam

Just played a few matches and have to admit that I'm underwhelmed so far. Played as Morgan and killed four mimics on my first go and it was quite good fun (and enjoyably silly) but I don't know how much longer I could play this before getting bored.

Playing as a mimic is also much less fun, and if you die it just leaves you twiddling your thumbs- you can spectate as another mimic, but this isn't as enjoy to watch as, say, PUBG.

The maps (various bits of Talos 1 so far) are a good size, nice and claustrophobic and with lots of items in pairs to get you feeling jumpy, but they could do with a bit of Mooncrash-style procedural generation. I've played the Morgan's Office map twice now and it felt predictable on only the second go. The game also feels laggy as fuck but perhaps that will improve.

Can't play the Transtar VR update (not got a headset) but apparently it's a series of escape rooms and a museum you can wander round. Anyone tried it yet?

surreal

Just wanted to say thanks for the encouragement to keep playing this - I was playing Prey like an FPS at first and that really doesn't work well!!  I'd not got far so I started again this week, taking my time and trying to use powerups a bit more often - my main problem with games like these is that I'm hesitant to use upgrades early on as I'm unsure if I'm doing the right thing, but i pushed on and bloody hell does this game get compelling!!!  I'm just in the crew quarters (not sure how far through that is) and fuck that massive Nightmare, and the telepath, but fuck that poltergeist thing in particular.

Such fun, shame I'm back at work tomorrow so won't have as much time to play it.

Mister Six

Quote from: surreal on May 06, 2019, 01:31:15 PM
my main problem with games like these is that I'm hesitant to use upgrades early on as I'm unsure if I'm doing the right thing, but i pushed on and bloody hell does this game get compelling!!! 

There are achievements for human-only mods, typhon-only mods and no mods run-throughs. But if you're not arsed about achievements there's no reason not to nab whatevy you like. I did an all-human mod run save for a single morph mod so I could turn into a cup and grab some stuff from the broken door in the dorms area (totally not worth it if you're gunning for the human mods achievement BTW).

Also you should absolutely get the Mooncrash DLC when you're finished. Takes all the same mechanics and reconfigures them into a different type of game brilliantly.

biggytitbo

I've finally given this a proper go and it's as brilliant as it is infuriating - really a dlc that's the best of the original game with a entirely new game superimposed on top of it. Infuriating because it's really hard, and not hard in the dark souls sense in that you can get good by repetition and practice - the repetition in this game is totally unpredictable, making it essentially the main threat in the game. Each time you play, the whole plan you have to finish it could totally get ballsed up by some random factor beyond your control. It's my main criticism really, the game seems to delight in fucking you up just when you have everything perfectly set up to succeed, but that is also the games greatest asset - each run really does exploit the emergent gameplay elements already in Prey to deliver a totally different gameplay experience each time.

Blue Jam

Nice to see you back 'titbo, and in this thread especially.

Mooncrash is bastard hard, yes, and every time you think you've mastered it and may finally be ready to make an escape attempt it throws something new at you. It's an absolute fucker and if anything I actually enjoyed it a bit more than Prey itself. Playing Mooncrash is like going through that bit in Prey where you suddenly find yourself on lockdown in Deep Storage with no warning, and with no health and no ammo, and having that happen every 20 minutes...

The roguelike randomness of it is what kept it playable for me. Playing Wolfenstein: Youngblood I kept wishing it was more like Mooncrash in that I didn't have to keep finding loot in the same places and facing the exact same enemies in the exact same order every pissing time I died. Also the randomness forces you to come up with a strategy for the final escape- no spoilers, you'll figure it out.

How far are you into it? I suspect you'll find a lot more spanners being thrown into your works yet. No spoilers, I'll just say that gittin' gud here is mostly about learning the map...