“AAAAAAAAH!”
To what will probably be absolutely nobody’s surprise at all, I’ve been taking a little advantage of CONCORD’s recent troubles with its criminal flagging system and some unknown party’s dealings with the Agency. Only … I haven’t actually tried another Chaotic Dark run, yet.
Basically, I’m scared of the clock. It’s what killed me last time, and my Raging Dark runs so far haven’t been as … brisk? … as I’d like them to be before I give it another try. (I’d like to routinely have plenty of time to spare before I tempt fate, and time, again.)
So, I decided to try something different and do something a little more popular: a Raging Exotic filament.
Exotic … isn’t my favorite environment. The exotic particles play nicely with kinetic attack forms (so, Cerberus is cheerful), but they tint everything this disturbing Drifter green (coincidence? Hm) and aren’t otherwise very helpful (sensor enhancement: not that critical usually. Compare to the capacitor recharging qualities of Electrical filaments). Still, I tend to finish fast and with minimal trouble, so, why not give it a go?
I don’t … like boosters, you know? They don’t feel like … me. And a recent bad experience with dosing both Blue Pill and Crash (Lord Avarr, thank you thank you thank you) has me extra leery. So I try not to use them at all unless I’m looking at Raging or higher-- they just stay in cargo, emergency use only.
But: Raging Exotic. It’s a defense problem, in contrast to my usual Raging Dark, which is an offense problem. So, I have my pod inject a dose of Standard Blue Pill. Whee! Nice airy floaty-- hm, I seem to be having trouble maintaining shield capacity … oh, well! The shield booster’ll manage fine anyway.
I apparently reckoned (in my booster-addled head) without the Abyss’s sense of humor. First impression on arrival in Exotic Abyssal hellscape: “Okay, Karybdis, two squadrons of Lancer-types … should be fine. Why is half my shield red?” Booster starts clawing back the shield. Shield then turns completely red.
As it turns out, I’ve run into a very sensibly-assembled Abyssal Tyrannos task force: one squad of stasis webifiers, another of target painters, and a kiting sniper battleship. The Void Dancer II is pinned down, the Karybdis is receding into the distance, and the soft spots in my shield have “insert exotic plasma here” painted across them in shiny red letters. The Dark has kind of spoiled me: I’m way too used to Karybdis having trouble hitting me at ranges outside about 35 km. This one has no such issues.
Gods and spirits, what a scramble! Punch the assault damage control, claw the shields back, start shredding a webifier, notice the capacitor’s failing and the ADC’s reached cooldown, start firing cap booster charges, start shredding another webifier…
And that was the first room. The second had energy neutralizing Sleepers gnawing both my shields and my ability to keep them charged.
Did make it, down a bunch of booster charges but with armor and ship intact. No pictures, for obvious reasons. Will try to get a few next time. I do not think I’ll be trying a Chaotic Exotic filament run, though.