THMPR Encounter thread gone for me!

PIghead Elderberry

Kaiju Slayer
JUMBO KAIJU SLAYER
Jun 4, 2017
248
510
93
CA USA
#1
I was reading the thread on the THMPR Encounter, and when I wanted to like a post had to login. The thread has now vanished for me. It does not appear in what's new, or searches or anything.

I was with another person for a while, and we seemed to get more Tsi-Hu. They have left me all alone now.

Alone, there are not nearly enough Tsi-Hu although there seem enough whitebox critters. [EDIT: The glorious nature of the encounters being all different was apparant after a few were under my belt, and it was nice to have the variety. By chance the first few were easy...]

I enjoyed in FF smashing all the minor creatures and grabbing their drops of organic juices and bits. It was always satisfying to blow up a nest.

I find that my plasma canon runs out of juice too quickly relative to how little damage it does. If it did more damage, then it would make sense that it runs out so quickly. A direct hit on a Tsi-Hu does not kill him, and then soon I am out and waiting for a recharge. I would like a bit more power for the recharge rate currently.

My shoulder rockets bloom up too close to the camera for my liking when I launch them.

I enjoy the picking up of the resources and can see in hectic combat that it will be a fun dynamic to try to grab some good ones which are in the thick of combat or in a swarm of Tsi-Hu. [EDIT: Playing more which are increased in difficulty, I find this is 100% true.]

I agree with a post that it is different from FF where the risk is reduced as we lose nothing of what we have picked up already if the THMPR gets destroyed. The idea of colecting resources and then depositing them when the derp ship arrives is an interesting one, or having to fill up a collection box. I imagine, though, that when we are in a full on encounter, that may not matter as there will be lots of risk to try to pick them up in the first place. [EDIT: I have now done quite a few encounters, and when they are challenging, there is so much happening and so much to do protecting the THMPR that running around to pick them up and keeping them seems quite natural and fine as a mechanic. If I had to run around and pick them up and then drop them off, it would make the hard encounters (as solo) perhaps too hard as I constantly had to protect the THMPR and leaving it for even a short time had it ding ding dinged to death. With a multiplayer encounter, it would be different as some could focus on grabbing the resources and others on protecting the THMPT and the other players.

I am liking the assault rifle fire better, but it still feels to me a bit hard to aim and other than the shoulder rockets I do not feel godly in my destructive power. The shoulder rockets are really nice as a fire and forget weapon, but they make the regular weapons seem paltry in comparison. [EDIT: As I have now learned to swap as the plasma recharges and mix in deeep stryyykees, that feeling goes away.]

THE BAD: I just did another solo enounter. I never had any white cube portals spawn ever. I had only about 4 or 5 at most batches of Tsi-Hu each of 3 at a time pretty much the same spot. I had quite a few resource lumps that had "0" resources when I picked thum up. It was no challenge as no enemies spawned pretty much the entire encounter.

THE GOOD: I did another right after. It was hectic with lots of Tsi-Hu all over in random places, plenty of cube portals, and my THMPR got destroyed.

AND THE PRETTY: That is excellent that the nature of the two was so different, but the first one was not challenging enough. It will be EXCELLENT to have variation like this so that we never know what to expect. FF was flawed in that the encounters had known aspects to them that repeated from one to the other in terms of waves and what to expect as they progressed.

THEN THE PRETTY DAMNED GOOD: In a third solo as I am all alone still, it was in between the other two and once again I really enjoyed the fact that it was totally unknown what to expect. I enjoyed swapping from plasma to assault as I ran out of ammo or charge and flying up and DEEEEEEEEEppp stryking. It was the best so far. The fact that the plasma canon ran out, this time made me swap to the assault instead of complaining in the forum about the plasma canon. I was, in spite of solo, having lots of fun swapping weapons, hopping around, blasting and smashing. The only bad bit was that I found it hard to aim the DEEEP STrykeeee effectively. It was loads of fun to send some missiles out at the distant Tsi-Hu and them focus on closer ones.

MISSILES AND SUCH: At first I was frustrated that my missiles now need more than one to kill a Tsi-Hu, but now I enjoy it. I know I can stack missiles to kill one, or spam them on more Tsi-Hu and then blast them with the canon to finish them off. I can see that as we tailor or weapons to have more or less AOE, damage and such in min max type of things, it will be even more fun. Blast a swarm, finish off the weak survivors, or stack up rockets on a mini-boss. It gives a lot of variety with builds.

I also found, in THE BAD, which likely was because I was mostly solo playing, that I was always on the ground to grab resources and never flew up much because of that. So, while it was fun picking them up, it also tied me to the ground. However, in THE GOOD, I was flying around and moving a lot more to engage the widely spawning enemies. I even deeeeeeepe stryyyked.

THE SUPER GLORIOUS FRENZY OF NEAR DEATH AND DINGS DINGS DINGS: I did another solo. Once again HIGH PRAISE for the total random nature. It was glorious and I just barely missed saving my THMPR. Once again, it has an excellent mix of enemies and I was frantically trying to stop the dings as my THMPR got smacked. It was great to have some masses of the white cubes swarming the thumper, so I could not leave it. At the same time, I really had to leave it to deal with the ranged Tsi-Hu. I had to keep swapping weapons, using missiles, using deerereeerp strykkeee, jump jetting up, hopping all around, grabbing the resources...

It was unclear to me what the dome over the THMPR meant.

I agree with others in the post I can no longer see in the forums for some reason that the random dropping of stuff is a nice touch and whatever the "stuff" will ultimately become, the fact that it will serve to make every THMPR enounter even more different from every other one will be great fun.
 
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