Part 146: Mechanics Talk 16 - GUN

Mechanics Talk 16: GUN

Bullets are the final piece of our core gameplay, and as we go through the Middle Layers we'll be unlocking a total of eight of them. These bullets can be selected by clicking on the hotbar on the bottom of the screen, or by pressing the number next to them, 1-8 (for instance, our Red shield bullets are '3'). We get a maximum bullet count which increases as we go through the game, and they refresh at the end of each Meltdown level. Each bullet hits everyone within a specific radius, so if possible it's best to pile everyone you want to hit into an elevator in order to make a single shot hit everyone. They fall into four types: Healing, Shield, Slow, and Execution-and today I'll be briefly going over each of them.

Healing bullets heal either HP or SP. They start at 25 points of healing per bullet, and a research is supposed to increase this to 40. It is bugged and does not work. There is a mod to fix this, and I will be using it.

Shield bullets block damage of a specific type, and come in Red, White, Black and Pale varieties. Each shield will soak a total of 50 damage (based on the Agent's defenses) before it shatters, making them strictly better than Healing bullets-Lobotomy Corporation rewards proactivity and damage prevention. Shields do not work when trying to work an Abnormality, as they shatter when walking into a cell. Shields from shield bullets will also automatically break after 15 seconds. Worth noting is that Pale shields block 50 damage after the % calculation, so if an agent with 120 HP takes 50 Pale damage, the shield would block 50 HP damage and the agent would take 10 damage. Amusingly, this means that a 15 HP character with a Pale shield is effectively immune to any Pale attack that deals less than ~350 Pale damage.

Slow bullets lower the Movement Speed of their target by 50%. These bullets work on panicking Agents, as well as Ordeals and breaching Abnormalities. They're best used to slow down fast Abnormalities so that our melee Agents can hit them, or to slow down wandering- or breakout-type panics so that our melee Agents can hit them. Remember: they do not slow down enemy attack patterns or any of their internal AI timers, just Movement Speed.

Execution bullets kill all Clerks and Agents in the area where they're fired, full stop. This is most commonly used to get rid of Clerks, panicking wandering-type Agents who cannot be caught, panicking Clerks, breakout-type panics who are trying to breach dangerous Abnormalities, Clerks fighting something that will just kill them, Clerks who look too smug, and Clerks. The most important thing to note about these bullets is that their removal is the one way to get rid of employees without angering the Clerk's Rights Activist Abnormalities-this is incredible. On top of that, some Ordeals and Abnormalities unleash particularly nasty attacks whenever they're in a room with an employee, and removing Clerks from the equation will let us more easily control when and where they attack. They're practically indispensable-tied with Shield bullets for the best use of our ammunition.

Naturally, I will be putting them off until much later than they'd be available if I beelined for them.

I swear I'm good at this game.