Blaugust 2015, Day 18
Welcome back for another episode of Shiphand Buddy! Today’s mission is a cautionary tale about breathing dangerous chemicals.
Space Madness is very colorful, and deadly.
What: Stave off Space Madness and cleanse the ship!
When: Available at level 30
Where: Farside
Gold Timers: Normal: None ; Vet: 35:00
Gracie’s Run Time: Normal: 7:25 ; Vet: 8:22
Shiphand Buddy Says:
Buy a drink from a talking spider? Seems legit!
Space Madness is broken up into a few sections. First up you will have to progress through the ship, collecting datapads and rescuing survivors. The mechanic here is that you have a sanity meter to keep track of. It starts at 100 and ticks down as you spend more time in the contaminated air. You can use the air canisters scattered around to counteract this effect but there’s a catch: the three creatures you need to find for your gold medal objectives can only be found at different stages of “madness.” From 80-60 (“You don’t feel quite like yourself”) you’ll be able to find the slank, 60-30 (“You feel quite delusional”) the rockmite, and below 30 (“You have gone quite mad. Ooooh, rainbows!”) the dawngrazer. Each transition brings about changes to the environment, and different enemies will appear. I tend to use the air canisters once or twice at the beginning to avoid fighting through excess monsters during the phase transitions. Be careful not to use the canisters too much, however, or you’ll be sitting around wasting time waiting for the critters to appear before you can move on to the next area.
Sorry Exact Change 3.1, I already filled up on drinks from the spider guy…
There’s one more datapad to find in this room, and then you can access the spacesuits. If you are feeling adventurous, you can also buy some lemonade from a friendly spider (along the wall on the left as you enter). Once you hit the access panel you’ll be knocked out for a few seconds. When you return you’ll face 3 waves of adds followed by the vending machine mini-boss. Keep an eye out for his “Self Service” ability and interrupt it if you can. It is a substantial self-heal that will make the fight drag on if allowed to succeed. Once you finally defeat him you can grab a spacesuit and move along.
Exploding livestock. Avoid at all costs.
The next area is often the part that ruins a gold run for folks. In this section you have to contend with hallucinating crew and livestock, all while avoiding exploding rowsdowers. It pays to be patient, there are some safe spots that the rowsdowers avoid if you watch them long enough to see their patterns. Pull enemies back to safe areas so you don’t have to worry about fighting and dodging explosions at the same time. Be aware that sometimes the crew members you try to help will turn hostile too, so clear some space before you talk to them. Finally, if you do trigger an explosion dodge out of it if you can. You absolutely can still get a gold medal if a rowsdower explodes as long as you do not get caught in the explosion. You just have to react quickly.
Facing off against the inferno boss
Once you make it to the final room you can turn on the air scrubbers and begin the last event. Waves of enemies will spawn and must be defeated until you are left with the final boss of the mission. The last boss is random, you can tell which one you are getting by the color of the distortion in the room as you are fighting the earlier waves. Electricity means you’ll be fighting the construct boss “Thunder Surger”, fire means you’ll get “Inferno Intensity”, and darkness leads to “Decrepit Atrocity”. They each have one annoying cc-type attack, either knockdown, blind, or disarm, respectively. Otherwise it doesn’t matter much which one you get. Kill it, activate the console at the back of the room, and pat yourself on the back for a job well done!
Differences between normal and vet: The huge difference between the normal and veteran versions is that on normal you don’t have to collect the 3 critters. This means you don’t have to descend completely into madness in the first section and can progress much faster. The other major difference is that there are no exploding rowsdowers to dodge, which makes that section very easy compared to vet.
Other Thoughts: I think the “madness” mechanic is interesting and spices up an otherwise pretty standard instance. I like the art style and the strange things that appear for you to fight. I do recognize that this mechanic can be problematic or unsettling for some folks. The good news is that if you don’t enjoy it there’s not a lot of reason to run this one unless it is the daily.
That’s all for today. Come back next time for Shiphand Buddy’s longest mission: Deep Space Exploration!
