The Let's Play Archive

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim

by Arist

Part 61: Destruction 6

Music: Voyage To Tomorrow (Hitoshi Sakimoto)



Chapter 61: Destruction 6

Well, we haven’t smashed any kaiju in a while, so we should probably get on that.



First thing we’re gonna do is fix this A-rank, because it’s been bothering me.



Let’s just jump right in.

Video: Destruction Wave 1-8 (Redo)

I re-recorded this one just in case you care to see how I improved my strategy from last time (you don’t).

Music: (LEUCINE) (Yoshimi Kudo)






This one proceeds pretty normally until the swarm notification.






Eventually, I unveil my killer strategem: using the Phase Plasma EMP Meta-Skill to just wipe out all the Workers on the field.



And then cleanup is relatively simple from there.



S-Rank achieved!




Music: Voyage To Tomorrow (Hitoshi Sakimoto)



Now, let’s do some upgrading, seeing as we have so many Meta-Chips. For Ei, we upgrade his Demolisher Blade from +2 to +4 and purchase his Limiter Removal, which we upgrade all the way to +5 to cut its EP cost from 300 to 250.



Nenji gets his Demolisher Blade upgraded from +4 to +6. It’s by far the strongest tool in his (or anyone’s, really) arsenal, so we’re investing in it.



Next, we upgrade our Meta-System to Level 8 and buy Chip Multiplier Level 4 to increase our multiplier to 1.6x.



Megumi unlocks Interceptors and Shield Repair (the former replacing Multi-Lock Missiles in her loadout). She also upgrades Flare Torpedo to +3, Shield Repair to +3, Interceptors to +2, and Shield Matrix to +3.



Yuki unlocks Composite Ceramic Armor and Counter, a really great combination. Now she’ll block all attacks that do less than 500 damage, and retaliate on anything close by. She also upgrades Leg Spike from +3 to +4.



Finally, Gouto unlocks his Hyper Condenser, increasing the EP cost of Interceptors but producing four more every time he uses it. He also increases Interceptors to +3, giving him one more Interceptor and increasing the total produced to 10, counting the four from the Hyper Condenser.

We’d give Shu something, but unfortunately, we ran out of Meta-Chips. Better put on a show for Yuki-chan me, considering I’m the one who upgrades you, dude.



For this go, we can only have first- and fourth-gen Sentinels on the battlefield. It’s also a boss wave. No Sentry Guns is gonna be a bit rough, but that’s what the Interceptors are for.

Video: Destruction Wave 1-10

Music: [DEOXYRIBOSE] (Yoshimi Kudo)





They can’t have infinite numbers… Shouldn’t we have put them on the defensive by now?
Something like that… You should have at least made a dent, but somehow… Gouto-kun found the math on how many kaiju were produced, but those figures aren’t matching up with what we’re seeing… By now, you’ve taken down more than we ever thought were made.
Maybe his numbers were off?
No, the math was based on the factory in 2105 running at full capacity. Our own projections corroborated what he found.
Then… what does this mean? Why are there so many…?



Wait, what’s that…?





I know this one. It wasn’t meant for land, or terraforming… It was in the data for Interstellar Development.







So, we’ve got walking factories to contend with now… interesting. This one will be producing G-Molers for its short time alive—but I’m getting ahead of myself.




The first thing we’re going to do is produce a hell of a lot of Interceptors courtesy of Megumi and Gouto. They’ll roam around automatically and fire on targets.



Next, we move in Yuki a bit closer and Leg Spike the RPF in the back for 50% more damage.



And it goes down pretty quick after that.



“Finally”? That took no time at all!

Don’t relax yet. Judging by the jump in numbers, there’s no way it was just the one.




What a nightmare. Machines giving birth to increase their numbers…?



Well, let’s get to work. As you might be able to see in this image, we’ve got an absolute fuckload of Interceptors on the field at present.



Unfortunately, Nenji doesn’t have quite the EP he needs to shred the RPF with Demolisher Blade, so we opt to have him Defend.




A Back Attack from Ei’s Demolisher Blade does 6600 damage here. Let’s keep that in mind for later.



One thing I just realized while recording this was that Shield Matrix works on Interceptors, which can be pretty handy… at least, if you can get them all bunched up together, which is unlikely since they move automatically.




More of those flies?
No, this one looks like it’s churning out Twintails.



Yuki moves in with Leg Spike to finish off the second RPF.



Now, let’s move on to the third.



Before we can even do that, though, we get another warning.



This RPF looks like it’s working on Drum Mines.
Those self-destructing ones? Just our luck…



While Yuki and Ei work on the one to the north, we send Nenji over alone for the western RPF. Trust me, he’ll be fine on his own.



Ei’s Demolisher Blade dealt 6600 damage. Nenji’s dealt over 16000. Nenji is King Shit of Fuck Mountain.




And that’s the ballgame.




All Sentinel pilots, please listen to me.




I’m going to try reaching the mainframe. If I can, this nightmare will finally end. But I can’t do it without help. I need you to protect the terminals from Deimos intrusion.




Your survival hinges on this. If Universal Control can finish processing my commands, you’ll all get through this alive. If we can keep the Deimos from interrupting the process before the mainframe destroys your world… We can save everyone. I just need time… The rest is up to you. Please. Protect the terminals from the Deimos.

We were already kind of doing that, but… okay!




Not really sure how Ei was the MVP when Nenji was out there one-shotting an RPF, but whatever.











Music: Voyage To Tomorrow (Hitoshi Sakimoto)




We only needed 30% Remembrance to unlock Area 2!? Jeez, I’ve been putting this off, huh?



Nenji’s That All You Got? increases his WT recovery speed when he defeats kaiju. Sounds pretty useful, at least if it works in the way it should.



Gouto’s Element of Surprise increases the power of his armaments against kaiju that have just appeared. Situational, but not terrible, I suppose.



And Shu’s Playboy increases his stats the more girls there are on the team. Because fuckin’ of course. (Pun unintentional)



Let’s check out our new Mystery Files.





And we might as well unlock some files too.



I decided at the very last second before I stopped recording here that I might as well do one more Destruction wave because there’s something nifty at the end of it and also our progress is lagging behind Remembrance. So, let’s do that.







The only upgrade this time will be giving Shu Interceptors and upgrading them to +2.



There’s a time limit on this one for the bonus objectives, so we’ll need to be swift.

Video: Destruction Wave 2-1

Music: (ISOLEUCINE) (Yoshimi Kudo)

Fuck yeah, more (ISOLEUCINE)!





That’s weird… They’re a little different from the D-forces in the database.
What do you mean?



The system’s making changes to the kaiju on the fly… specifically to fight all of you. My current processing is at 6%… Be careful, everyone.






This new and improved blue edition of the G-Moler is armored, which is going to be a bit of a pain for some of our team to handle, primarily the 2nd- and 3rd-generation pilots. We don’t have access to their more powerful armor-piercing armaments quite yet, so we’ll have to make due with weaker firepower.



The Workers, thankfully, are still not armored.




A bunch of Drum mines drop right on top of Nenji while he’s in the middle of moving to the Hi-Quad. Rude.



He shreds them first to teach them some manners.



Nenji shreds two Hi-Quads in about four seconds, clearing the battlefield… for now.




If we let any of them through, they’ll swarm the terminal in seconds.







Here’s Nenji taking down another Hi-Quad…



And here’s Nenji taking down another Hi-Quad…



Eventually, the team takes down the final Hi-Quad, surprisingly without Nenji’s involvement. They just whittle it down with non-armor-piercing attacks until it dies, go figure.






Do I sound like I understand all this egghead talk!? I’m just relaying a message!



Well… that child from earlier.



…Let’s hope.
















Music: Voyage To Tomorrow (Hitoshi Sakimoto)




Ooh, new system!



So, here we can directly invest Meta-Chips to increase the stats of each Sentinel in one of five ways. There’s Armor, which increases HP and Defense and adds a chance to nullify attacks;



Generator, which increases EP, Attack, and EP recovery, very useful;



Fire-Control, which increases Attack and Accuracy, as well as critical damage;



Actuator, which increases Speed, Defense, and move speed/distance;



And finally, Neurolink, which increases Accuracy, Speed, experience gain, and reduces the amount of Brain Overload gained with each deployment.



The stat gains are, honestly, extremely marginal. We gained two Speed and two Accuracy from one level of Neurolink here. You’re meant to be figuring out how you want to build each character, buying all the upgrades for their relevant skills, and just dumping whatever you have left over into here (which itself is quite an investment, considering that it took 5000 Meta-Chips to get from +0 to +1 and that number increases by 1000 every level) The process of putting levels in even increases in speed the more you put in at once, this is clearly meant to be for endgame minmaxing with tons of Meta-Chips.



But for our purposes, we’re going to put one more level into Nenji’s Neurolink to get him to +2. What does this do? Well, I should save that for when it becomes relevant… but I’ll tell you now, because I’m absolutely going to forget otherwise.

Neurolink is an interesting parameter here because it says it “decreases Brain Overload.” Unfortunately, there’s no clear indicator of by how much it does this. However, if you put two levels into it, then send the fresh pilot into two more battles, they won’t be stuck on Brain Overload. They’ll be just barely shy of the cap. Now, the third deployment will absolutely still do it, but it’s very, very useful to reduce the Brain Overload ratio from 1:2 to 1:3.



While we’re here, let’s check out the skills. Juro just became essential for huge battles with Kaiju Nerd, which increases his stats the more kaiju are active.



Natsuno got Warmup Run, which temporarily increases all her stats more the further she moves. Not that good, honestly, considering she’s in a long-range Sentinel, which is slow and doesn’t often have to move anyway.



Finally, Tomi got It’s Not Like That, which increases her WT recovery speed if Nenji is deployed too. Yeah, sure it’s not.




We’re also going to give both Megumi and Yuki Neurolink +2, since they’re both fresh. That’s all we can afford for now, though.



Back to the Mystery Files!