After defeating the Ruin, it just feels as if the Story NPCs become pointless except for decorations (Except for Lana Blake, as she sells EPP Augments and the ones that give sidequests...Until you complete their quests). Another issue is that the questline does not solve quite a few points. For example, what happened to Asra Nox after the Ruin is dead? Why is the Miniknog still around after killing Big Ape (Apart from a possible "But the Miniknog had a backup" which feels like a decent point, but one that would, if anything, leave a gap for a later quest)? A last one is the lack of decent questline completion rewards (Which, admittedly, can't be fixed by prolonguing the questline without making the new quests give better rewards). The Post-Ruin quests would be given independently by each Story NPC by talking to them. They would follow a questline for each character, centering around their species, similarily to the current quests. However, they do cause permanent changes to the world, as would befit quests that involve changing said species' societies. Quests: Floran Questline: Given by Nuru, and are guaranteed to give a lot of joy to pre-1.0 players, as it involves: 1-The reappareance of Greenfinger as a character (Namely, as the main antagonist, and possibly the first Greenfinger). 2-More details on Floran expansionist tendencies. 3-Lots of things to kill. The questline starts with Nuru asking the PC to basically act as her partner in another traditional ritual in which the players get to know more about Floran traditions, in which she becomes a non-Greenfinger tribe leader (Which would be noted to be rare in-universe. The ritual would be a way that was put in order for normal Florans to become leaders if it were necessary). Throughout the questline, she'll try to change her people's traditions and make them less stab-happy, but her tribe will end up in a war against another Floran tribe (Both of them being far more powerful than the average). In the war segments, players will have to, simply put, do what they know best (Apart from building): Leave only death in their wake. By the end, secret documents from the enemy tribe will be found, which reveals that they believe Nuru's tribe attacked first. Of course, this isn't true, and, after truce negotiations, it will be found that a secret organization instigated the war. The secret organization will turn out to be trying to control all Floran tribes, and the war was done in order to prevent either tribe from being strong enough to become a rival power that could stop their plans. Said secret organization will turn out to be a tribe thought to be extinct that was once great, and that is trying to become a major player again. Obviously, their leader will be Greenfinger, who was thought dead for a long time, who survived by using technology far more complex than what is available to other Greenfingers and which is more advanced than even Apex tech (Althrough it was developed from the latter according to lore entries). Gameplay-wise, most of the quests will involve fighting. As a boss, Greenfinger will be a straight-up fight. He'll have a great variety of attacks which completely change for each of his 3 phases. In fact, he would be more accurately described as being 3 bosses in one. In the first one, Greenfinger will control a large mech (If most current Mechs look like heads, this would be the full body) with a lot of weapons (Such as pincers, blades, and cluster rocket launchers), and which would take a lot of damage. On the flip side, it has several weak spots that allow the player to destroy some of his weapons, which would deal more damage than firing at him directly and disable their corresponding attacks. He won't be able to be hurt in the second phase, and only staggered by attacking at most (Once you try for the first time to attack him, he will quickly announce the reason why he is invincible, along with boating that the Player can't hurt him. The fight involves tricking him into environmental hazards (Which have to be created by hitting some tiles, such as pipes, toxic barrels, etc...) to damage him. The third phase will change the arena by blowing up the current room, causing the Player and Greenfinger to fall into a lower floor. After that, you must fight him along with several Floran warriors, including Nuru, who will later provide the player with a means of fighting him. (Read: A new weapon). After defeating Greenfinger, some of the NPCs found in normal worlds will talk about the secret organization and the war. Apart from that, both of the involved tribes will fuse and some of the Floran villages will belong to the resulting tribe. Said villages will have a blend of standard Floran aesthetic and more modern features, such as more advanced plant-based building materials and more modern houses. Apart from Greenfinger dropping an unique Hammer, the player will also be rewarded with a new recipe for a stim-like substance that provides several buffs, some of which are unique to said new item. Hylotl Questline: Obviously, it's given by Koichi. It is notable for being a bit of a break, as, for starters, it's notable for involving relatively little combat (In fact, it doesn't even have a boss). The quest involves exploring more ancient Hylotl ruins in order to find more information about Hylotl history and how their culture became what it is in-game. After doing so, the player will travel with Koichi to an important Hylotl city (Probably their new capital) in order to publish their findings. The documents found will be stolen and the work will be plagiarized, and the player has to find out who is guilty and retrieve both Koichi's work and the ancient relics you found earlier on. Apex Questline: It's given by Lana Blake, and it involves definitely taking down the Miniknog. The quests will involve finding out where Big Ape actually is and how to completely stop the Miniknog. The questline is more stealth-based (Killing everything can be done, but most enemies are very strong). In order to make stealth easier, you get a few quest items (They spawn in their own inventory slots, and can't be removed until the quests are completed), which are used to impersonate NPCs and hide from them, such as a cardboard box which can be used to hide in buildings, or a mask of the Miniknog commander in charge of the new stronghold that lets the player impersonate his lover (Don't worry. There's no groin-grabbing this time). The mid-part of the questline will involve repelling a Miniknog attack on a major rebel base. After that, the player has to find documents detailing where the attack came from, and will eventually lead the player to a secret planet which uses highly advanced reverse-engineered Precursor tech (That is, the same ones who made the Terraformer) in order to hide really well, so you have find the coordinates in another Miniknog stronghold. The planet (It acts similarily to the Ruin in that the mission uses the entire planet, althrough mining isn't possible) houses the ACTUAL governing body of the Miniknog, a lot of secrets that absolutely nobody but the highest-ranking Miniknog nembers know, and the actual Big Ape, who will act as a boss. Big Ape appears as another hologram at first, but the projectors are inmune to damage, and instead have force fields which effectively make Big Ape 2.0 invincible (Alternatively, destroying Big Ape will just cause him to respawn). In order to defeat him, you have to run away from the boss fight and avoid the boss throughout the whole facility. Eventually, you find a secret room with the REAL Big Ape, who will be barely conscious and on life support, to the point that he is little more than a living computer at this point (The Lore entries will explain that he still is technically "in control" but his only real power is to constantly surveil the Apex population). After that, you must interact with a terminal in which Big Ape talks to the PC. He'll reveal that he completely disapproves the actions of the Miniknog, and that he used to actually treat his people really well. He'll then ask the player to kill him so the Miniknog loses their figurehead, cause them to lose the constant surveillance (Which would spell their fall), and to end Big Ape's suffering. The player must find special documents and entrances in order to get in Big Ape's room and open his life support in order to end his suffering. After that, the player must hijack a propaganda broadcast in order to reveal Big Ape's death to the public, along with his last words. After doing this, the Miniknog will throw their remaining forces at the propaganda station, up to and including Mechs with the Miniknog body. After repelling the attack, you have to go to a Miniknog fortress in which the real Miniknog leaders have sheltered themselves while they deal with your annoying antics. Breaking into the fortress will involve infiltrating through the sewers again (Which may or may not be commented upon) in order to bypass their main defences. After doing so, the Player arrives at the room of the REAL boss, which consists of a massive drone with heavy weapons. The drone will have force shields that absorb all damage as long as they're active. In order to deactivate them, the player has to deplete them, but they will quickly recharge (On the flip side, the actual health is low) and can take a lot of damage. In order to defeat it in a reasonable amount of time, environmental hazards have to be used. Namely, they are electric fields. The fields outright bypass shields. In order to use them, the drone has to either be tricked or knocked into the fields (Which is made somewhat easier because the drone would be unusually susceptible to knockback, to the point that most melee weapons and most shotguns would be enough to knock it around easily). After defeating the drone, the player can finally move to the room where the Miniknog leaders are. Then, you have to engage the last of the 3 bosses in the mission: They will try to escape, and you have to stop them before them do it. They will try to leave in a spaceship, and you must shoot them down. There's 2 endings depending on whether you destroy the ship before it takes off or after it takes off. Being spaceships, mere small arms won't work, so you have to take control of several unmanned vehicles and mobile factories in order to bring it down. This means that destroying it involves a 2D side-scrolling strategy minigame (Note that, in this area of the mission, the Player IS allowed to build, but only the allowed buildings). The drones have to fight through the ship's defences, and they have to be commanded, either by giving them directives, such as targeting patterns and routes, or by assuming direct control of them, which allows for more precise controls. The buildings consist of floating turrets that can be manually commanded to move (Anyone who has played Creeper World 2 should recognize their behavior), and support structures that allow the production of more turrets. Finally, destroying the ship involves placing special buildings in it in order to utterly destroy it. If the ships makes it out of orbit, it has to be attacked with the Mech before it escapes. Attacking the ship involves outright destroying it by making it hit itself with it's own attacks, which range from homing missiles and energy blasts that can be reflected with the Drill and it's later variants to weird things that ensure that fighting the Spaceship in space is like a Bullet Hell game. After completing the mission, you can obtain a Drone Controller and Drone Factories, which allow the player to use the aforementioned drones in normal worlds. Lore-wise, most Apex villages are heavily affected. The Miniknog ones either: -Have a change in administration. The population rebelled and killed the local enforcers. They are a mix of both kinds of current Apex settlements. -The local miniknog forces hold out. They become a remnant of the Miniknog. These settlements cause the guards to be hostile. -Transition peacefully because it turns out the local Miniknog enforcers only joined in order to change things from the inside, and peacefully transition into a less opressive regime. Meanwhile, Rebel Camps will comment on what happened, and will generally have a less "stressful" atmosphere. Glitch Questline: Given by the Baron. It involves adventuring to places that look even worse than the worst planets found in-game in order to collect various Precursor relics and shiny baubles, such as the Holy USB Stick (Not real name). It is the most light-hearted one, with lots of comedy and obvious references. Instead of a final boss, you have to storm a castle and direct siege machines. After completing this quest, you get a few unique weapons and your quest for relics will become (in)famous for all of Glitchkind to quote. Most importantly in terms of rewards, it also unlocks alternative dialogue, which is obtained by fighting a bonus boss that consists of a Glitch Knight that used various weird stuff to buff himself to the point of theorically being MORE powerful than some bosses (But who acts like generic NPCs apart from unique weapons). The dialogue is accessed with the Options menu (So it can be brought back to be used in cutscenes such as the prologue). The alternate dialogue is basically random crap, ranging from misspelling words and swapping them to replacing entire dialogue boxes, either randomly or specific lines. For instance, the speech by the Grand Protector at the prologue is entirely turned into a really meta speech that pokes fun at the the game's plot. Avian Questline: The questline is given by Tonauac, and doesn't involve a lot of combat. After what had been going on with the Ruin, Tonauac becomes a religious reformist who changes a lot of things in relation to the original Avian religion. The Stargazers quickly decide to try to have him killed. You have to help him spread his word and prevent his assassination attempts. After completion, you get a permanent stat buff. Esther-Related Questline: This one is probabily even more complex than the Apex and Floran questlines, and is the most character-based. After defeating the Ruin, Esther will track Asra Nox down to a remote planet. She will tell the Player to find Asra and give her a letter (Which doesn't actually appear in the inventory) to her if possible. The planet itself is desolate, and looks like a Tundra post-apocaliptic world. Asra Nox herself will be in a shelter which clashes a lot with the planet's ruins (SAIL will comment that it's much more recent, indicating that Asra kept her MM after leaving the Protectorate). The rooms have varied furniture, some of it even feeling somewhat unfitting, such as Pastel furniture. They also have damaged Occasus-related furniture and the bathrooms all have broken mirrors. Throughout the building you can find more fragments of Asra's diary, which show her point of view of the Ruin's death and her subsequent fall into depression and realization that she was influenced by the Ruin, along with lore which gives hints of what happened to Occasus post-Ruin (Which will hint at Asra having decided to leave and someone else taking over). She is found crying and her lines if you wait before entering her room will imply that she is considering killing herself. Upon entering her room, she will ask the player why he/she has come, and will tell the Player that, if he/she is going to kill her, it would be a waste of time (Further implying suicidal thoughts). Upon interacting with her, she will take Esther's letter, and will break down in tears while reading it, as it basically states that, after all that, Esther still sees Asra as her daughter and tries to convince her to leave Occasus and go back to the Protectorate again (She doesn't know the former already happened). After that, Asra will go to the Outpost, where there will be a cutscene in which she talks to Esther and apologizes for what she did, and decides to make amends. After that, you'll have completed the FIRST part of the questline, after which Asra Nox joins your crew (She doesn't count towards the cap, but does count for the number of crew nembers for the purposes of ship upgrades. If dismissed, she will appear on the Outpost until you hire her again). While she counts as 2 Crew Nembers for the purposes of planet exploration, she has unique weapons that normal NPCs don't have (The Solus Katana and an unique Assault Rifle that fires rockets by default), and she acts as both a Soldier and Chemist (Provides Rage) Crew Nember. Another unique quirk of Crew!Asra is that she has unique inspect lines. They tend to drip in sour sarcasm and black comedy, and some of them have really awful puns. She notably even comments on Storyline bosses (Which means that, if you revisit the Baron's Keep or the Grand Pagoda Library that she WILL lampshade that she is fighting herself in a really ironic way. The dialogue of both instances of Asra as a boss will also change in order to reflect this). The second part of the questline is given by Asra herself, which works on a hidden counter (Which counts how much time you've taken her to planets) and which is altered by her inspecting objects (All items either add to the counter or don't alter it) and speaking to non-hostile NPCs. The Second Part involves tracking down what is Occasus doing. In the end, Asra will reveal that she took part of the Ruin after fighting the Player right before the Ruin fight, and that the new Occasus leader decided to research how to re-create the Ruin in Earth. Whatever they're doing there is the missing piece...A horror to surpass the Ruin. This means that you get to go back to Earth (Which allows the Player to scan Protectorate furniture). The Player arrives at the same place the ship took off in the prologue, and must fight their way through cultists to get out of the building, where you fight the Tentacomet (Who now has a lot of varied attacks), which is the aforementioned Second Ruin, along with the new Cultist Leader. After beating the quest, you get a PC-usable version of Asra's unique Assault Rifle, which has an unique Secondary Fire.
Ok, I'm loving this. Very well detailed, nice little cleanup of the story to patch up some holes and questions about the different characters and the end-game has a purpose with some wonderful benefits. I love it! Take a like!
honestly, I don't like the apex questline. Here's my version. It starts with Lana telling you that a major apex general, admiral Chupacabra, Is planning on hunting the PC down for "the good of the miniknog." she, of course, doesn't want this so she sends you the coordinates of Chupacabra's battleship, the Carino. You go there, and it's a very spacious ship with lots of hidden items and a few hidden codecies shaped like augments that talk about some "project Z" and the mega drone as the mini-boss. Once you get to the bridge, admiral Chupacabra will send his troops away and engage you himself. He fights like Asra Nox. he attacks with: TeleSlash: Chupacabra gets into a slashing position and teleports behind you a few moments before he slices. cannon arm: Chupacabra flips down the wrist on his mechanical arm and fires three bursts of five energy bullets in rapid succession. reinforcements: Chupacabra raises his sword as if sending troops forward and between two and five soldiers appear. swinging blade dash: Chupacabra teleports to your level and swings forward repeatedly. and he often runs around the room throwing kunai occasionally, as well as slashing if you get near. After defeating him. he teleports out and you fight an apex vesion of the kluex avatar with modified attacks. (be creative, I'm too bored too much.) after the battle, he self- destructs the ship. your escape on your ship and Chupachabra on an escape pod, but as Lana says, "well, You beat him down. I don't think he'll be back for a while."
That sounds a bit boring, as it feels like it tries no new things, such as unique game mechanics (The drones were intended to act that way in my version), and the boss is a bit too similar to an earlier one, and still leaves parts hanging (Such as what happens to Chupacabra after the mission, which is something that is REALLY badly handwaved away. In my version, it tries to leave as few hanging plots as possible, which is why the player has to prevent the Miniknog leaders from leaving the planet), the boss seems boring, with easily-telegraphed attacks (And, overall, it's literally just Asra Nox with different attacks).
Maybe Lana gives this mission before she gives you the big ape one because he has the coordinates of the fortress. You have to do the drone minigame before you can attack him, but instead of stopping the escape, you have to shoot his ship's turrets and engines so he can't bombard your factory and Chupacabra's ship crashes. once inside, The ship seems a lot more destroyed and various broken machinery serves as platforming hazards. (broken ventilation fans that push you, volatile materials that explode, Ect.) at the bridge, Chupacabra is wounded and can't fight you himself. he instead sends a unit of soldiers to distract you as he prepares his mech. The mech is a large, stationary battle unit that is almost invulnerable, you have to destroy the weapons with his weapons. He has five weapons. Missile pod: fires three homing missiles. can be convinced to hit his mech. Laser cannon*2: Fires a laser shot. Chupacabra has positioned mirrors tracking you to try and hit you again. Do the obvious. Rail Cannon: Loads and fires a huge melt cannon. aim him at the ceiling debris. mortar lodger: launches a large cannon that arcs toward you. Stand near his mech. after all five weapons are destroyed. Chupacabra sets a self destruct and attempts to flee. Lana downloads the data and tells you to run. Heed her advice and attempt to defeat His shuttle while you both flee. if you fail, He escapes and you explode. If you succeed, His shuttle breaks down due to damage and he goes down with the ship. As a reward, Lana gives you a reverse-engineered version of Chupacabra's shuttle. It is a two-person flying vehicle with a laser cannon. Lana also sells it.
how the shuttle fight works is that you are in lana's version of the shuttle and Chupachabra is firing at you with his arm-machinegun and bullet-hell patterns. The two of you are teleported (via fade-out teleport) onto a small planet consisting of a high-tech tunnel.
Are there any modders out there who think they can handle this? Because I would kill an owl for this (I say owl because I am being 100% literal here).
