The agents of this thread are pretty fucking too: Let's Play Lobotomy Corporation
Two more things: One, I have updated the fanart post once more. I keep it up to date with the freshest memes from both here and SA, so there's a lot of cool stuff there.
Secondly, while I have no money or prizes to offer I would like to put forward a contest:
Guess how high the Retry count will be when we beat the game, and win Ultimate Bragging Rights!!!
We're at 4 retries so far already, so I figure we might as well make a game of how high that number's going to get. Again, I can't offer any real prizes, but consider that these are no ordinary bragging rights.
They're Ultimate Bragging Rights.
If you want to make a guess, head right over here to sign up! I'll keep this open until the end of Day 24 - Gameplay, to give everyone plenty of time to think it over.
Secondly, while I have no money or prizes to offer I would like to put forward a contest:
Guess how high the Retry count will be when we beat the game, and win Ultimate Bragging Rights!!! We're at 4 retries so far already, so I figure we might as well make a game of how high that number's going to get. Again, I can't offer any real prizes, but consider that these are no ordinary bragging rights.
They're Ultimate Bragging Rights.
If you want to make a guess, head right over here to sign up! I'll keep this open until the end of Day 24 - Gameplay, to give everyone plenty of time to think it over.
just going to talk about violet noon: it's either the stuff of nightmares, or it's trivial. after one or two drops you're going to notice that it doesn't land outside of the big rooms, so as long as you don't forget to clear your agents out it's harmless.
of course this brings up another case of "clerks are a liability." cause you can't order them to clear out, and especially for safety and training the clerks bunch up in the main room really hard. the highest death count I've seen to make a CRS breach from full QP is 30. My first run to through the fifth department had three CRS, and one was an ALEPH. violet noons were a Problem.
of course this brings up another case of "clerks are a liability." cause you can't order them to clear out, and especially for safety and training the clerks bunch up in the main room really hard. the highest death count I've seen to make a CRS breach from full QP is 30. My first run to through the fifth department had three CRS, and one was an ALEPH. violet noons were a Problem.
Day 21: Story
Music: Romantic
That was something you once told me. Now I understand what you meant…
In summary: Angela tells us that we once told her that forgotten things can be more beautiful, and that we're showing her what that means right now.
I don't think I've ever said anything like that, though?
I am an incomparable, perfect AI. My memory contains a large amount of information about our interactions. If I am saying you have said something, you have absolutely said it.
Really doesn't sound like me, but whatever.
Now, I know I promised ten lines of text, and there were a total of four. The reason for that is that we have six additional lines of dummied out text left in the script after the scene fades out! This never actually shows up in the game proper so it shouldn't be considered canon-but I'm including it here for completion.
It's about time you got here, Manager!
There wasn't any way I could do it earlier. So, how about we introduce ourselves?
That sounds nice. I'm-
No time for that! Don't you have any idea how busy we are? He's not in the Upper Layer anymore, Tiphereth. There's no time to baby him.
But I think he'll do a fine job, Tiphereth.
We'll see about that. Either way, we have to go! We need all hands on deck to open up our department!
She's high-strung… Well, I guess I can't blame her. Two abnormalities at once? Just what kind of a department is Central, anyways..?
Next time, on Lobotomy Corporation: We've kept Malkuth waiting long enough. Time to kill a Dusk ordeal.
Music: Insignia Decay
Ahh... there's nothing like a good bear-brand beer to take the edge off after a hard day at work. Just wish they hadn't put the vending machine all the way up in Control…
Evening, Talow.
Can I… help you?
You've been doing a lot of that, lately. Can't believe it took me this long to notice.
What are you talking about? 
My fourth day on the job. You just happened to know how to properly use E.G.O weapons.
They make sure you know how to use them. I didn't do-
"Go with the flow of the body and mind when using a weapon." You said at the time that someone told you that was how E.G.O gear works. Who was it? Mizu? Neither of you had any combat experience before that day-there wasn't anything to fight.
It was in orientation.
We both had the same class. They didn't mention anything about it. I should have realized something was funny then-but I was looking elsewhere so I didn't notice.
I think you've looked into the mirror one too many times. 
There are other instances. The scarecrow, when Training opened. You knew exactly what it would do, before it even happened. Then there were the bees four days ago.
Medea was the one who called you, I had nothing to do with that.
I checked the paperwork, Talow. The feedback was filed that same morning, by you, from the day before. Were you even in Control on that day, Talow?
You must have missed me.
I have access to the CCTV records, Talow.
You really are always trouble... aren't you, Bishop?
Can I take that as a confession?
If I say no, you'll just mention how I was the one to notice where the Violet Noon was coming from, right?
And that you were the reason Medea was outside-out of the line of fire. You were also more surprised than anyone that nobody died.
Take it however you like. This conversation doesn't matter anyways. You'll be dead soon no matter what I say.
Hah! You don't even know who you're-
Rank 7 Fixer Bishop Moriarty, please just... Stop. 
How do you know about that?
Two weeks. If you can survive for two weeks, I'll tell you then.
That seems pointless. The manager's been way more successful than the records show anyone's ever been before. No matter how hard things get, we'll be fine.
You'd think that... but management frowns on freelance detective work, Bishop.
The manager already knows. I'm working with him.
This is a waste of time. Two weeks. You'll see what I mean.
Don't you walk away from me!
You're not going to fire~
Don't tell me what I'll do! You don't know me!
I know you can't hurt someone who's defenseless. If I needed someone to shoot me in the back, I'd ask Mizu.
...Two weeks! You'd better not be lying!
I'm not. I just really hate going over things pointlessly, time after time. Oh, and don't tell that precious manager of yours about any of this.
...Why not?
When you die, I'd rather not go down with you.
You… you don't make any sense, you know that?!
I know.
I stopped trying to make sense of things a long time ago.
This isn't over!
Dude!
I know! I saw!
That was amazing!
They've totally taken their rivalry to the next level! Is that the true power of a level 5 agent?!
I don't know, but we definitely need to practice more.
Music: Romantic
That was something you once told me. Now I understand what you meant…In summary: Angela tells us that we once told her that forgotten things can be more beautiful, and that we're showing her what that means right now.
I don't think I've ever said anything like that, though? I am an incomparable, perfect AI. My memory contains a large amount of information about our interactions. If I am saying you have said something, you have absolutely said it. Really doesn't sound like me, but whatever.Now, I know I promised ten lines of text, and there were a total of four. The reason for that is that we have six additional lines of dummied out text left in the script after the scene fades out! This never actually shows up in the game proper so it shouldn't be considered canon-but I'm including it here for completion.
These lines were retranslated just like the rest of the game, despite the fact that nobody would ever actually see them. The discussion on Ordeals proper gets moved elsewhere, and I think the specifics may have changed slightly as well, which I assume is part of why this isn't around anymore. Still, my compliments to the new translation team for this one. :tipshat:
It's about time you got here, Manager! There wasn't any way I could do it earlier. So, how about we introduce ourselves? That sounds nice. I'm- No time for that! Don't you have any idea how busy we are? He's not in the Upper Layer anymore, Tiphereth. There's no time to baby him. But I think he'll do a fine job, Tiphereth. We'll see about that. Either way, we have to go! We need all hands on deck to open up our department! She's high-strung… Well, I guess I can't blame her. Two abnormalities at once? Just what kind of a department is Central, anyways..?Next time, on Lobotomy Corporation: We've kept Malkuth waiting long enough. Time to kill a Dusk ordeal.
Music: Insignia Decay
Ahh... there's nothing like a good bear-brand beer to take the edge off after a hard day at work. Just wish they hadn't put the vending machine all the way up in Control… Evening, Talow. Can I… help you? You've been doing a lot of that, lately. Can't believe it took me this long to notice. What are you talking about? My fourth day on the job. You just happened to know how to properly use E.G.O weapons. They make sure you know how to use them. I didn't do- "Go with the flow of the body and mind when using a weapon." You said at the time that someone told you that was how E.G.O gear works. Who was it? Mizu? Neither of you had any combat experience before that day-there wasn't anything to fight. It was in orientation. We both had the same class. They didn't mention anything about it. I should have realized something was funny then-but I was looking elsewhere so I didn't notice. I think you've looked into the mirror one too many times. There are other instances. The scarecrow, when Training opened. You knew exactly what it would do, before it even happened. Then there were the bees four days ago. Medea was the one who called you, I had nothing to do with that. I checked the paperwork, Talow. The feedback was filed that same morning, by you, from the day before. Were you even in Control on that day, Talow? You must have missed me. I have access to the CCTV records, Talow. You really are always trouble... aren't you, Bishop? Can I take that as a confession? If I say no, you'll just mention how I was the one to notice where the Violet Noon was coming from, right? And that you were the reason Medea was outside-out of the line of fire. You were also more surprised than anyone that nobody died. Take it however you like. This conversation doesn't matter anyways. You'll be dead soon no matter what I say. Hah! You don't even know who you're- Rank 7 Fixer Bishop Moriarty, please just... Stop. How do you know about that? Two weeks. If you can survive for two weeks, I'll tell you then. That seems pointless. The manager's been way more successful than the records show anyone's ever been before. No matter how hard things get, we'll be fine. You'd think that... but management frowns on freelance detective work, Bishop. The manager already knows. I'm working with him. This is a waste of time. Two weeks. You'll see what I mean. Don't you walk away from me! You're not going to fire~ Don't tell me what I'll do! You don't know me! I know you can't hurt someone who's defenseless. If I needed someone to shoot me in the back, I'd ask Mizu. ...Two weeks! You'd better not be lying! I'm not. I just really hate going over things pointlessly, time after time. Oh, and don't tell that precious manager of yours about any of this. ...Why not? When you die, I'd rather not go down with you. You… you don't make any sense, you know that?! I know. I stopped trying to make sense of things a long time ago. This isn't over! Dude! I know! I saw! That was amazing! They've totally taken their rivalry to the next level! Is that the true power of a level 5 agent?! I don't know, but we definitely need to practice more.
This is a fun tune, like something out of System Shock 2.
I'm enjoying the extra writing you're doing.
I guess I'm the only one being thrown by the fact that there's two Tiphereth. That won't get confusing, surely.
(I want to put them in my pockets. They're so cute.)
(I want to put them in my pockets. They're so cute.)
I'm on my LP-making weekend, so while the thread has some downtime here's something to consider:
In the near-ish future, we'll be finding out what Core Suppressions are (the first one will be on day 25, assuming we don't miss any missions-and we won't). Without getting too into it, they're very interesting to watch in motion and I'd like to get a video of them with my mouse cursor enabled to show how I handle them. However, having a mouse cursor in the SSLP section of the thread would be against the aesthetic I like. Because of this, I'm currently thinking that I'll just record each one of them twice.
One time will be a mouse-enabled video of the suppression in which I play the game normally, showing off how to beat the Suppression and letting you guys see exactly how I play the game. There won't be any commentary, and edits will be kept to the minimum of sound mixing to avoid exploding any eardrums-it'll be intended as a pure gameplay video.
The other time I'll turn the mouse capture off, focus on capturing footage, and use that for the actual update. Depending on a couple of factors I may use either one of the two runs as the version I pick up from, which shouldn't really effect thread continuity outside of a couple stat points (and I won't count these against the retry count since I'm doing it twice on purpose).
This does mean suppression updates will come out a bit slower, but I really want to both show off the full gameplay experience for this stuff and also keep the mouse cursor out of my beautiful screencaps. I'm a little vain, I guess.
As always, I'm also open to any other ideas that could improve upon this working plan-but I really don't mind playing those days multiple times. They're a lot of fun.
Anyways, ya'll have a great day!
In the near-ish future, we'll be finding out what Core Suppressions are (the first one will be on day 25, assuming we don't miss any missions-and we won't). Without getting too into it, they're very interesting to watch in motion and I'd like to get a video of them with my mouse cursor enabled to show how I handle them. However, having a mouse cursor in the SSLP section of the thread would be against the aesthetic I like. Because of this, I'm currently thinking that I'll just record each one of them twice.
One time will be a mouse-enabled video of the suppression in which I play the game normally, showing off how to beat the Suppression and letting you guys see exactly how I play the game. There won't be any commentary, and edits will be kept to the minimum of sound mixing to avoid exploding any eardrums-it'll be intended as a pure gameplay video.
The other time I'll turn the mouse capture off, focus on capturing footage, and use that for the actual update. Depending on a couple of factors I may use either one of the two runs as the version I pick up from, which shouldn't really effect thread continuity outside of a couple stat points (and I won't count these against the retry count since I'm doing it twice on purpose).
This does mean suppression updates will come out a bit slower, but I really want to both show off the full gameplay experience for this stuff and also keep the mouse cursor out of my beautiful screencaps. I'm a little vain, I guess.
As always, I'm also open to any other ideas that could improve upon this working plan-but I really don't mind playing those days multiple times. They're a lot of fun.Anyways, ya'll have a great day!
Last edited by TeeQueue on Wed Aug 12, 2020 2:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I can't wait for the blind members of the thread(s) to have their minds blown when we get to core suppressions.
I just got to that point last night.
Not saying shit, but I'm glad I didn't take some of the finickier abnormalities this run.
Not saying shit, but I'm glad I didn't take some of the finickier abnormalities this run.
Have you considered Camtasia? This screen capture app lets you record your footage and also records the mouse - but on a separate layer so you can hide it later.
Day 21: Gameplay
I knew he was incompetent! I knew it!
Hey, I'm not-
Then how do you explain that absolutely horrific performance before!
Moments earlier…
Manager…
Hold on, I'm almost done getting the last bit of energy we need to extract this E.G.O weapon.
I do not believe it can wait, X.
...oh shit. Netzach, why didn't you-
zzz… huh? Oh. Alarm's goin' off, boss.
Dammit. Kaori, get there now!
I'm heere. But it's eempty…
If you're wondering why I haven't played any music, it's because Blue Star breaching overrides any musical cues entirely, and gives you a low pitched humming noise. This is unfortunate, because the Trumpet themes are all wonderful.
Anyways, Blue Star appears randomly in a main room, and instantly kills everyone with Prudence 3 or less, and Temperance 2 or less in that room.
Every few seconds it pings, it deals 15-20 White damage to the entire facility. Anyone whose SP is reduced to 0 is sucked into the center of the star. It has 2200 HP, and ALEPH-tier defenses-its only weakness is Pale damage, which we lack.
We have no way to mitigate damage, making this a straight DPS race we don't have any way of winning, especially once the deaths begin causing fear damage to the rest of our agents.
We're all dead, aren't we?
Pretty much.
On the upside, it's mercifully quick.
And in the end, all that remains is the hollow pride of a weathered knight.
You absolute moron. You complete knobhead. You careless buffoon. Do you understand what you are doing to our employees? We cannot possibly create energy like this.
Yeah… yeah… Let's just rewind things and try again.
Retry count: 5. No excuses here, I just glazed over a meltdown like I did a couple times with 1.76. We just couldn't live through this one.
---
...I just forgot something. Won't happen again.
Nice try, Manager. We both know you won't make it through the day without another catastrophe.
Given, but that's Malkuth's fault.
What? I haven't done anything!
Music: neutral 2
Each layer gets an entirely new screen, so we have to page up and down between them in the deployment phase now. We've swapped Mizu into the ALEPH gear, and moved Talow down to Central. We've also shuffled around our agents in general.
You wanted me to take out a Dusk ordeal, remember?
Oh right! I'm still waiting on that. Good luck, Manager!
I'm sure it'll go better this time, sir.
In fairness, I don't see how it could have gone much worse. Let's do this.
You guys had better not screw up!
Just don't do anything dangerous.
So before we go any further, I just want to talk about how Central is built for a moment: There's a massive main room and hallways branching off to either side, but the way they're linked is sort of terrible. Let me draw you a picture.
The bottom half of Central mirrors the top half, so I've put it all here despite not having part of it until day 23. The doors at the top go up to the bottom room of Information. Our agents start on levels 1 and 3, so if you follow the arrow, you can see that to access the first set of abnormalities our agents have to go all the way to the right of their current room, then all the way across the second level (2 or 4) to get to the hallway in question. This is hilariously inefficient, so the most important thing to do in Central is always immediately move all of your agents down to levels 2 and 4.
Who the hell built this department like this?
Every square inch of this facility was designed by our founder, A, and recreated per his specifications with painstaking detail. I am certain he has a great reason behind everything he has placed in this facility.
Then where's that upper-left door go?
We do not discuss the upper-left door.
You're here? I thought you'd already be working with the new Abnormalities.
I was just leaving, but I got a liiitle lost. This place is big.
Isn't it just one long corridor..?
Well yeah, but there's like, three whole directions it goes in.
Alright. Time to lead. You can do this!
Okay, so… We've got two abnormalities. Seyser, you and me are going to be alternating working with the cute robot thing.
Sounds good.
Talow, you're going to be working with the bird that has those scales around its neck. Mizu, you're… ...
Already in the cell. Of course you are. 
Ooh, this cutie's shaving away at my soul. That's kind of forward, huh? I like it~
This effect means that this bird isn't playing around: It's Pale damage. Pale damage is always dealt to employees as a % of their max HP, so 100 pale damage will kill you. Here, Mizu's taking 6 damage per failure out of her 106 HP, meaning she's taking ~5 Pale damage. Pale damage is incredibly dangerous to our agents, and right now only Talow and Mizu can work this bird safely.
I like the other one just fine, but you're a cutie too… and that birdie should have definitely bought me dinner first.
How… huh… She was just working with the bird, and now..?
First time watching her work, huh? You get used to it. It's best to just wait for her to finish before you do anything.
We get some names for the two abnormalities. Neither one is their true name, but they'll do for now. Talow keeps working Long Bird, while Tylana and SeyserKoze alternate with Little Helper.
And… pose!
:chome: How am I doing?
That's way better. I'm sure we'll get moved to a new department before too long.
...what are you doing?
We're following your example, and practicing to become paragons of Justice!
...ookay then. You just keep. Doing that. I don't think we're getting any orders today anyways.
Control is no longer a useful training location, outside of having Mirror around. We'll probably be sending some tougher agents back up here soon to hold the fort-now that we're past the start of the game, our LOB bonuses are going to be picking up quickly.
So those two weirdos from Control decided to ask me to pose with them? Not really sure what it was all about, so I said no. Seems like a waste of time.
:nono:
Don't you judge me, stupid bird.
Violet Dawn.
It's futile. Come as often as you like, but you shall never break through our ironclad defenses.
These things are getting a little underwhelming. Not that they were ever particularly whelming in the first place.
Violet Done.
First Punishing Bird, now you… I hope we don't have to deal with that anytime soon.
Talow manages to get the rest of the information for our new friend, Judgment Bird. It's a very basic abnormality if we ignore the part where it deals Pale damage, and it has some incredibly nice ALEPH-tier gear. We want all of it, so we'll be here for another 270 boxes.
Who was it?! Which third-rate employee with a fourth-rate work ethic screwed up the bee?!
It doesn't matter-we just have to contain the infection!
I was getting bored anyways! Messing around with Blue Star all day isn't going to get my blood boiling like this.
Hey, Boksi. Looks like you got your ass kicked.
Most of this blood is from the bees.
HAHA, these things don't bleed! They're too chitinous!
Quiet, you!
It's okay. I took some hits too. You don't have to pretend you're tough.
Yeah, we all know you suck anyways.
Good work, Seyser! We managed to get all the information together. I'll have a clerk ferry it up to Information.
Thanks, Tylana!
All-Around Helper, as it's really named, is an also-boring abnormality-though one which is much more likely to escape than Judgement Bird due to a much tighter requirement for good results.
Crimson Noon.
Bwee-deet dee dee bwee dee dee bumm-ba dum bum ba dum badum...
What is he doing?
I think it’s called Roundabout, sir!
Well, it seems to work so I guess I shouldn't complain..?
You don't need to worry at all, Manager. The second their unnecessary habits stop them from being able to perform their duties properly, I'll remove them from the Control team in one manner or another!
Yeah, we'll circle back around to that.
Seriously?
Of course I'm serious! Why are you like this?! Can't you do anything?!
Okay, Mizu go say hello to the cutie.
Just Mizu?!
I'm sure it'll be fine if the Manager says so.
Exactly. Just watch.
Ooh, you want to play? Then let's play, cutie!
When All-Around Helper escapes, it wanders the facility until it's in the same room as something to attack. At that point, it starts to spin and a tiny orange bar under its HP charges up. When full, it dashes forward quickly, hitting anything in front of it for Red damage.
That tickled!
Told you it'd be fine.
It'd still be more efficient to send multiple agents to suppress it.
The others may take more damage than Mizu, though. When in doubt, defense is the best offense.
I'm not sure that's right, sir…
After it charges, it powers down for a moment and is vulnerable. It then stands up and repeats the process. It can't hurt Mizu, though, so…
We're reading an incoming Green Dusk, Manager.
So it's going to be robots, eh? Okay. I can deal with robots.
I see you are handling the bird once more.
Well... someone has to do it, and this way nobody else has to get hurt.
How praiseworthy.
Job's aall done, booss..!
Alright, go ahead and head up to Control. It's our staging area.
Roger thaat…
Hey guyys.
Crowded in here, isn't it?
Can't be helped. You're all going to be staying here until I figure out what's going on.
Medea's missing. And Mizu too… where are they?
Special mission.
Your duties are simple: We're going to need a first wave to test the Dusk's capabilities. You're the strongest agents in the facility right now, defensively speaking, so the Manager's decided to send you in.
I'll do my best!
Ooh, a new wandering cutie, and I get first pick? Leave it to me!
Music: First Trumpet
Let's do this.
It's right next to you! Go get it.
It's a hard target! We'll be needing more offense to deal with this thing!
I smell more cuties within the cutie..!
...Wait, what.
Our new Ordeal is the Green Dusk, and it's all about making more Green Ordeals for us to fight. Green Ordeals being all about Red damage, anything that worked well vs Green Noons is just fine here. They themselves are incredibly tanky due to their ALEPH tier defenses and high HP, but if you can get to them without the robots around they're defenseless on their own. The problem here is that they can spam out Green Noons if we're unlucky-and I'm incredibly unlucky. That means a lot of Red damage, and that will shred through even our tankiest agents.
It drops two Noons and a Dawn on our heads, and while Medea and Mizu are tanky, they still take a good chunk of damage.
We're gonna have all sorts of fun today!
Has anyone ever told you you have a strange definition of fun?
Yep!
That was a slog, and it was just one of them. And there's… three more? Hold on, I need to stop time 'til I make a plan.
X, did you know that when time is halted like this only you and I can perceive it?
Not even the Sephirot?
They would have to be able to access the TT2 protocol, and this is not an authority granted to any but the highest clearance levels within the company.
That does explain why their messages don't go away until I've restarted the timestream… but why are you telling me this now?
It has occurred to me that, given my status as a superior AI, you may wish to register your awe regarding my helpfulness in performing your duties. It would make sense, as I am the greatest partner you could have. If you wish to perform such an action without worrying about the jealousy of the lesser AI, it would be possible to do so within this frozen space.
Yeah, uhuh, cool. Planning now.
...Very well, X.
---
Eureka! I've got it!
…
Okay, let me unpause and explain it to everyone.
Because we have no way to mitigate Red damage and even our best agents will keel over from all the chainsaws eventually, Green Dusk is best fought as a war of attrition. I prep a killteam of Mizu, Talow, Sephiroth, and Medea-all our agents with WAW-level or better armor-and prepare to send them on sneaking missions into the Horrible Death Zone to take out the targets one at a time. They'll be my main focus, micromanaging them between the targets and the main rooms to heal in between.
Tenebrais, D.A.D., and Twee have decent enough armor and weapons to handle wandering threats, and are positioned at the Central main room so they can heal between fights. They'll run out to engage any enemy that goes into one of the killzones, then return home to heal-that'll keep the ordeals away from our more vulnerable agents sitting in the bunkers.
This plan… it could work, but you'd have to remain on top of things.
Don't worry. When it comes to things like this, our facility is always at its best.
Let's believe in them, Tiphereth.
You're being naive, Tiphereth.
In that case, how about I give you two command back home? Their safety'll be in your hands.
Hmph! You better not be trying to get on my good side.
Oh, I'd never.
I think we should try, Tiphereth.
Fine… Let's get this over with.
You seem down, Tenebrais.
I wanted to go into the horrible death zone. Give it a new reason to be called that.
Calm down, kiddo. You'll get plenty of chances to break things, I'm sure.
Good luck, everyone! I'm sure you'll beat them-even if you have to unleash a last minute superpower to do it!
I just wish there was more we could do than sit and wait in here.
Tell me about it. We need that extra gear ASAP.
I've got eyes on the first one-moving in now.
You have desecrated Mother's halls for too long!
Now, the upside of the random spawns is that we will rarely ever have to deal with more than 1-2 Noons at a time.
Oh, hell.
The downside? My luck is terrible-This box immediately drops 3 Noons on top of Talow and Sephiroth.
Two chainsaw attacks x 3 Noons and I retreat them to the main room below to heal, letting Mizu and Medea deal with the Dusk. Mizu's weapon deals AOE damage and they're far tankier than the other two, so they'll be fine.
...only just now do I realize that it probably would have been smarter to have the melee guys have the stronger defenses, but whatever!
Medea and me cleared out all the cuties up there. Two more to go!
Those beasts… en masse they can even slow a SOLDIER 1st class… Terrifying.
That was three Noons and a couple of Dawns. Are you okay?
Well, you two did soften up the Noons for us, so we could finish them off as they approached.
Alright. We'll rest up here for a minute. Check on the others!
Alright, take it easy. Tiphereths, how's it going up there?
It's just 'Tiphereth.'
The Noon's dead, so I'll leave the cleanup to you kiddos.
Stay safe, D.A.D.!
Now this is what I'm talking about!! I could do this all day!
We've seen a couple of incursions, but it's nothing that my agents couldn't handle perfectly!
Keep out of it, you busybody! He was asking me!
Ah, I'm so sorry. I just thought that the Sephirah of the Control team would be best to talk about the Control team's situation!
Ugh… stupid Uppers. Anyways, we're fine! You'd better not screw this up.
I won't. Team, we're going to cross over to Training's main room and use it as a staging area for the Information team dusk.
They should take lower Control, it's less full of Ordeals right now.
Good idea. I thought you'd be upset at all the clerks dying.
I am. This one is because of Malkuth's research request, however, so I'm letting you off the hook for pushing things too far, just this once.
I appreciate it.
...Well, it's important to understand the threats that we face to this facility, on the whole. I'm sure this is a net positive experience for everyone.
Hey, Tenebrais? Why do you always get so into this?
Busy now! If you've got time to talk, hit harder!
Well, will you tell me later?
I'll think about it!
Two down!
The Training main room is still clear, Manager.
That'll serve as a good staging area. Everyone, head back there and heal up.
Okie-dokie!
What's he doing?
Someone's alive down here?
Sure am. While you guys've been off having the party, I suddenly had ten times more paperwork dropped in my lap. Thanks for that.
You should go home for the rest of the day.
Right now, captain? But we're still-
That's an order, Beta27. Get out of here.
Uh… Yes, ma'am. Of course.
...You didn't have to do that.
Sure I did. If they stayed here, then they'd definitely have died as soon as we left.
It is true. People die a lot around here. Not me, obviously.
Or me.
To be fair, I'm not sure how much either of you qualifies as a person anymore.
Soooo… storytime?
Ugh… fine. You know I'm from the Backstreets, right?
Yeah-which district?
Twelve, obviously. Don't ask dumb questions. Point is, down there everyone's so focused on just getting by. Thinking in terms of plusses and minuses, and trying to keep their bank account over 0. Not something a Nest kid like you or mosshead would understand. I was like that, too.
So what changed?
Some of the other rats decided they wanted to try tearing us apart for scraps. I felt something snap… then, well, you ever seen a person's skull break apart from bashing it into a wall?
...uh…
Just stick around here. You'll get to see it sometime, I'm sure.
That sounds… horrible!
Does it? For the first time I wasn't thinking how the world was trying to make me think. There was me, and an enemy to crush, and it felt great.
So you're basically always after that feeling again, huh..?
Something like that. I just only feel alive if I'm risking everything in a fight against something else.
Just don't go too far and get yourself killed, you hear me?
That'd mean I wasn't strong enough to keep up with the freaks that show up around here. No way that could ever be true.
...you know I think I should get back to work now.
It's about time! Central's full of those Green Ordeals.
Be careful, Manager.
Tiphereth isn't kidding-that's four Noons in the main room. As a reminder, that's as many that spawn in an ENTIRE Green Noon Ordeal prior to day 21, and this doesn't include the 5-10 we've killed prior to this point.
The killteam runs past the 3 noons and into the Dusk's hallway, kills a fourth Noon, and then starts to dogpile on the Dusk until…
Three more Noons spawn at once, and another one walks in from the main room.
Fall back, everyone!
Training is still safe, head there!
We need a better plan.
Mm… actually, I'm picking up that the Noons have cleared out of that room. If you head back, you should be able to sneak by them.
It's the best plan we have. Let's do it.
The second time around is the charm, and we're finally done killing the spawners. It's all mopup from here. I do make a major error here-see how the team is cut into two groups? It turns out Sephiroth's speed is just right to catch the sawblade attacks from Green Noons that Medea and Mizu trigger as they run by.
How strange that I should remember the war against Wutai now, of all times? There were far more of those ninja, but they were far less formidable opponents.
It does not go well for him, of course. Still, we're through the hard part so now we just have to mop up.
Oh. You're back.
Don't sound so disappointed.
She was just having a lot of fun.
Well, there should still be a couple left to mop up. Want to take care of them?
Do I ever.
Alright, let's clean 'em up.
Now that we've recombined our kill and defense team, we can shred the remaining Ordeals. These four Noons aren't able to get through a fortified position.
Music: neutral 1
At last, it is done.
Hell yeah!
You actually did it. I can't believe it.
Yeah, I get that a lot. Malkuth, will that do?
Yes, Manager! I'd like to resume my duties in Control at this time. Would you please excuse yourselves, Tiphereth?
Yeah, I'm leaving.
Have a good day, Malkuth.
Now then-your orders, Manager?
Don't need you right now. I'll call you if anything melts down.
...Yes, sir!
Now that the Dusk is over, the remainder of the day is spent just focusing on finishing off Judgment Bird and All-Around Helper's gear. Nothing else interesting should-
I am getting really tired of your sass, mister!
Oh right, Medea can solo the Scarecrow now. I guess that happened.
Hell of a day, huh.
It has certainly been eventful, Manager. Our E.G.O equipment processing has been fully completed at this time. I take it you would like to end the day?
Yeah, let's quit while we're ahead.
I can't help but feel we haven't done much today.
I wouldn't worry about it. An uneventful day is the greatest blessing we agents can have.
Okay, everyone. It's time to pack it in. We're done for the day.
I heard they released a new episode of Gacha-Dat Hero if you guys want to watch after work.
Count me in.
...I've got other stuff to do. Maybe some other time.
You did it, Manager!
Barely.
No new maxout club members yet, though we've got a couple of people who are incredibly close. It's time to pick another pair of abnormalities.
Music: never frozen bottom flows
O-05-47: You've pressed it numerous times and you still have something you want to know about it?
O-01-04: In the name of Love and Justice~ Here comes Magical Girl!
F-05-32: This is a forest full of hearts. No matter how many he cuts down, the forest still remains dense.
Oh boy! It's time to pick between three completely terrible choices again!
We've talked about -04 before, so let's start there. We could actually take care of her clerk death requirement now, between Scarecrow and Helper being easy to release and suppress and with Queen Bee taking care of large numbers of clerks. However, this would take a significant amount of time that I would rather not be forced to waste. Still love her, but still no for right now. Show up on day 33 or later, please.
Next is -47, which is a meme ZAYIN that has no gear, very few positive benefits, and is actually able to delete all of your purchased E.G.O equipment due to some questionable programming choices. Hard pass for now, which means we have a winner by default.
I kind of hate this thing, and we'll go into why when we see it properly.
T-09-82: It literally makes itself into "the safest place on Earth."
D-09-104: "...Is your future totally grim? Have you hit absolute rock bottom, not a single way out in sight?"
T-09-80: "The tree simply reaped from what it sowed."
It's tool time again right after, and we have an easy, if painful, choice to make. First off, -80 is a healing abnormality which comes with the minor side effect of making agents violently explosive. Pass. -82 is more interesting. It's a heavily defensive abnormality which can be used to cheese a specific mission we'll have to deal with later on without much issue. It's good enough to be an instant pick for me against almost any other abnormality in the game.
Unfortunately for -82, one of those abnormalities is right next to it. -104 is our first actual meltdown eater, and it can save us from most situations at the cost of a single Level 5 agent, once per day. This sounds steep, but trust me-it can be very worth it. Most importantly, it's a tool that is almost entirely positive in nature, having a drawback only if we ignore the instruction manual entirely.
Please show up next time too, -82. I want you in my facility, I promise! :sadwave:
Next time, on Lobotomy Corporation: The CEO contacts us!
New Guidelines
All-Around Helper
Judgment Bird
New Gear
Requirements: Fortitude 2
Requirements: Prudence 2
Requirements: Level 5, Justice 5
Requirements: Level 5, Justice 5
New Story
All-Around Helper
Judgment Bird
I knew he was incompetent! I knew it! Hey, I'm not- Then how do you explain that absolutely horrific performance before!Moments earlier…
Manager… Hold on, I'm almost done getting the last bit of energy we need to extract this E.G.O weapon. I do not believe it can wait, X. ...oh shit. Netzach, why didn't you- zzz… huh? Oh. Alarm's goin' off, boss. Dammit. Kaori, get there now! I'm heere. But it's eempty…If you're wondering why I haven't played any music, it's because Blue Star breaching overrides any musical cues entirely, and gives you a low pitched humming noise. This is unfortunate, because the Trumpet themes are all wonderful.
Anyways, Blue Star appears randomly in a main room, and instantly kills everyone with Prudence 3 or less, and Temperance 2 or less in that room.
Every few seconds it pings, it deals 15-20 White damage to the entire facility. Anyone whose SP is reduced to 0 is sucked into the center of the star. It has 2200 HP, and ALEPH-tier defenses-its only weakness is Pale damage, which we lack.
We have no way to mitigate damage, making this a straight DPS race we don't have any way of winning, especially once the deaths begin causing fear damage to the rest of our agents.
We're all dead, aren't we? Pretty much.On the upside, it's mercifully quick.
And in the end, all that remains is the hollow pride of a weathered knight.
You absolute moron. You complete knobhead. You careless buffoon. Do you understand what you are doing to our employees? We cannot possibly create energy like this. Yeah… yeah… Let's just rewind things and try again.Retry count: 5. No excuses here, I just glazed over a meltdown like I did a couple times with 1.76. We just couldn't live through this one.
---
...I just forgot something. Won't happen again. Nice try, Manager. We both know you won't make it through the day without another catastrophe. Given, but that's Malkuth's fault. What? I haven't done anything!Music: neutral 2
Each layer gets an entirely new screen, so we have to page up and down between them in the deployment phase now. We've swapped Mizu into the ALEPH gear, and moved Talow down to Central. We've also shuffled around our agents in general.
You wanted me to take out a Dusk ordeal, remember? Oh right! I'm still waiting on that. Good luck, Manager! I'm sure it'll go better this time, sir. In fairness, I don't see how it could have gone much worse. Let's do this. You guys had better not screw up! Just don't do anything dangerous.So before we go any further, I just want to talk about how Central is built for a moment: There's a massive main room and hallways branching off to either side, but the way they're linked is sort of terrible. Let me draw you a picture.
The bottom half of Central mirrors the top half, so I've put it all here despite not having part of it until day 23. The doors at the top go up to the bottom room of Information. Our agents start on levels 1 and 3, so if you follow the arrow, you can see that to access the first set of abnormalities our agents have to go all the way to the right of their current room, then all the way across the second level (2 or 4) to get to the hallway in question. This is hilariously inefficient, so the most important thing to do in Central is always immediately move all of your agents down to levels 2 and 4.
Who the hell built this department like this? Every square inch of this facility was designed by our founder, A, and recreated per his specifications with painstaking detail. I am certain he has a great reason behind everything he has placed in this facility. Then where's that upper-left door go? We do not discuss the upper-left door. You're here? I thought you'd already be working with the new Abnormalities. I was just leaving, but I got a liiitle lost. This place is big. Isn't it just one long corridor..? Well yeah, but there's like, three whole directions it goes in. Alright. Time to lead. You can do this! Okay, so… We've got two abnormalities. Seyser, you and me are going to be alternating working with the cute robot thing. Sounds good. Talow, you're going to be working with the bird that has those scales around its neck. Mizu, you're… ... Already in the cell. Of course you are. Ooh, this cutie's shaving away at my soul. That's kind of forward, huh? I like it~This effect means that this bird isn't playing around: It's Pale damage. Pale damage is always dealt to employees as a % of their max HP, so 100 pale damage will kill you. Here, Mizu's taking 6 damage per failure out of her 106 HP, meaning she's taking ~5 Pale damage. Pale damage is incredibly dangerous to our agents, and right now only Talow and Mizu can work this bird safely.
I like the other one just fine, but you're a cutie too… and that birdie should have definitely bought me dinner first. How… huh… She was just working with the bird, and now..? First time watching her work, huh? You get used to it. It's best to just wait for her to finish before you do anything.We get some names for the two abnormalities. Neither one is their true name, but they'll do for now. Talow keeps working Long Bird, while Tylana and SeyserKoze alternate with Little Helper.
And… pose! :chome: How am I doing? That's way better. I'm sure we'll get moved to a new department before too long. ...what are you doing? We're following your example, and practicing to become paragons of Justice! ...ookay then. You just keep. Doing that. I don't think we're getting any orders today anyways.Control is no longer a useful training location, outside of having Mirror around. We'll probably be sending some tougher agents back up here soon to hold the fort-now that we're past the start of the game, our LOB bonuses are going to be picking up quickly.
So those two weirdos from Control decided to ask me to pose with them? Not really sure what it was all about, so I said no. Seems like a waste of time. :nono: Don't you judge me, stupid bird.Violet Dawn.
It's futile. Come as often as you like, but you shall never break through our ironclad defenses. These things are getting a little underwhelming. Not that they were ever particularly whelming in the first place.Violet Done.
First Punishing Bird, now you… I hope we don't have to deal with that anytime soon.Talow manages to get the rest of the information for our new friend, Judgment Bird. It's a very basic abnormality if we ignore the part where it deals Pale damage, and it has some incredibly nice ALEPH-tier gear. We want all of it, so we'll be here for another 270 boxes.
Who was it?! Which third-rate employee with a fourth-rate work ethic screwed up the bee?! It doesn't matter-we just have to contain the infection! I was getting bored anyways! Messing around with Blue Star all day isn't going to get my blood boiling like this. Hey, Boksi. Looks like you got your ass kicked. Most of this blood is from the bees. HAHA, these things don't bleed! They're too chitinous! Quiet, you! It's okay. I took some hits too. You don't have to pretend you're tough. Yeah, we all know you suck anyways. Good work, Seyser! We managed to get all the information together. I'll have a clerk ferry it up to Information. Thanks, Tylana!All-Around Helper, as it's really named, is an also-boring abnormality-though one which is much more likely to escape than Judgement Bird due to a much tighter requirement for good results.
Crimson Noon.
Bwee-deet dee dee bwee dee dee bumm-ba dum bum ba dum badum... What is he doing? I think it’s called Roundabout, sir! Well, it seems to work so I guess I shouldn't complain..? You don't need to worry at all, Manager. The second their unnecessary habits stop them from being able to perform their duties properly, I'll remove them from the Control team in one manner or another! Yeah, we'll circle back around to that. Seriously? Of course I'm serious! Why are you like this?! Can't you do anything?! Okay, Mizu go say hello to the cutie. Just Mizu?! I'm sure it'll be fine if the Manager says so. Exactly. Just watch. Ooh, you want to play? Then let's play, cutie!When All-Around Helper escapes, it wanders the facility until it's in the same room as something to attack. At that point, it starts to spin and a tiny orange bar under its HP charges up. When full, it dashes forward quickly, hitting anything in front of it for Red damage.
That tickled! Told you it'd be fine. It'd still be more efficient to send multiple agents to suppress it. The others may take more damage than Mizu, though. When in doubt, defense is the best offense. I'm not sure that's right, sir…After it charges, it powers down for a moment and is vulnerable. It then stands up and repeats the process. It can't hurt Mizu, though, so…
We're reading an incoming Green Dusk, Manager. So it's going to be robots, eh? Okay. I can deal with robots. I see you are handling the bird once more. Well... someone has to do it, and this way nobody else has to get hurt. How praiseworthy. Job's aall done, booss..! Alright, go ahead and head up to Control. It's our staging area. Roger thaat… Hey guyys. Crowded in here, isn't it? Can't be helped. You're all going to be staying here until I figure out what's going on. Medea's missing. And Mizu too… where are they? Special mission. Your duties are simple: We're going to need a first wave to test the Dusk's capabilities. You're the strongest agents in the facility right now, defensively speaking, so the Manager's decided to send you in. I'll do my best! Ooh, a new wandering cutie, and I get first pick? Leave it to me!Music: First Trumpet
Let's do this. It's right next to you! Go get it. It's a hard target! We'll be needing more offense to deal with this thing! I smell more cuties within the cutie..! ...Wait, what.Our new Ordeal is the Green Dusk, and it's all about making more Green Ordeals for us to fight. Green Ordeals being all about Red damage, anything that worked well vs Green Noons is just fine here. They themselves are incredibly tanky due to their ALEPH tier defenses and high HP, but if you can get to them without the robots around they're defenseless on their own. The problem here is that they can spam out Green Noons if we're unlucky-and I'm incredibly unlucky. That means a lot of Red damage, and that will shred through even our tankiest agents.
It drops two Noons and a Dawn on our heads, and while Medea and Mizu are tanky, they still take a good chunk of damage.
We're gonna have all sorts of fun today! Has anyone ever told you you have a strange definition of fun? Yep! That was a slog, and it was just one of them. And there's… three more? Hold on, I need to stop time 'til I make a plan. X, did you know that when time is halted like this only you and I can perceive it? Not even the Sephirot? They would have to be able to access the TT2 protocol, and this is not an authority granted to any but the highest clearance levels within the company. That does explain why their messages don't go away until I've restarted the timestream… but why are you telling me this now? It has occurred to me that, given my status as a superior AI, you may wish to register your awe regarding my helpfulness in performing your duties. It would make sense, as I am the greatest partner you could have. If you wish to perform such an action without worrying about the jealousy of the lesser AI, it would be possible to do so within this frozen space. Yeah, uhuh, cool. Planning now. ...Very well, X.---
Eureka! I've got it! … Okay, let me unpause and explain it to everyone.Because we have no way to mitigate Red damage and even our best agents will keel over from all the chainsaws eventually, Green Dusk is best fought as a war of attrition. I prep a killteam of Mizu, Talow, Sephiroth, and Medea-all our agents with WAW-level or better armor-and prepare to send them on sneaking missions into the Horrible Death Zone to take out the targets one at a time. They'll be my main focus, micromanaging them between the targets and the main rooms to heal in between.
Tenebrais, D.A.D., and Twee have decent enough armor and weapons to handle wandering threats, and are positioned at the Central main room so they can heal between fights. They'll run out to engage any enemy that goes into one of the killzones, then return home to heal-that'll keep the ordeals away from our more vulnerable agents sitting in the bunkers.
This plan… it could work, but you'd have to remain on top of things. Don't worry. When it comes to things like this, our facility is always at its best. Let's believe in them, Tiphereth. You're being naive, Tiphereth. In that case, how about I give you two command back home? Their safety'll be in your hands. Hmph! You better not be trying to get on my good side. Oh, I'd never. I think we should try, Tiphereth. Fine… Let's get this over with. You seem down, Tenebrais. I wanted to go into the horrible death zone. Give it a new reason to be called that. Calm down, kiddo. You'll get plenty of chances to break things, I'm sure. Good luck, everyone! I'm sure you'll beat them-even if you have to unleash a last minute superpower to do it! I just wish there was more we could do than sit and wait in here. Tell me about it. We need that extra gear ASAP. I've got eyes on the first one-moving in now. You have desecrated Mother's halls for too long!Now, the upside of the random spawns is that we will rarely ever have to deal with more than 1-2 Noons at a time.
Oh, hell.The downside? My luck is terrible-This box immediately drops 3 Noons on top of Talow and Sephiroth.
Two chainsaw attacks x 3 Noons and I retreat them to the main room below to heal, letting Mizu and Medea deal with the Dusk. Mizu's weapon deals AOE damage and they're far tankier than the other two, so they'll be fine.
...only just now do I realize that it probably would have been smarter to have the melee guys have the stronger defenses, but whatever!
Medea and me cleared out all the cuties up there. Two more to go! Those beasts… en masse they can even slow a SOLDIER 1st class… Terrifying. That was three Noons and a couple of Dawns. Are you okay? Well, you two did soften up the Noons for us, so we could finish them off as they approached. Alright. We'll rest up here for a minute. Check on the others! Alright, take it easy. Tiphereths, how's it going up there? It's just 'Tiphereth.' The Noon's dead, so I'll leave the cleanup to you kiddos. Stay safe, D.A.D.! Now this is what I'm talking about!! I could do this all day! We've seen a couple of incursions, but it's nothing that my agents couldn't handle perfectly! Keep out of it, you busybody! He was asking me! Ah, I'm so sorry. I just thought that the Sephirah of the Control team would be best to talk about the Control team's situation! Ugh… stupid Uppers. Anyways, we're fine! You'd better not screw this up. I won't. Team, we're going to cross over to Training's main room and use it as a staging area for the Information team dusk. They should take lower Control, it's less full of Ordeals right now. Good idea. I thought you'd be upset at all the clerks dying. I am. This one is because of Malkuth's research request, however, so I'm letting you off the hook for pushing things too far, just this once. I appreciate it. ...Well, it's important to understand the threats that we face to this facility, on the whole. I'm sure this is a net positive experience for everyone. Hey, Tenebrais? Why do you always get so into this? Busy now! If you've got time to talk, hit harder! Well, will you tell me later? I'll think about it! Two down! The Training main room is still clear, Manager. That'll serve as a good staging area. Everyone, head back there and heal up. Okie-dokie! What's he doing? Someone's alive down here? Sure am. While you guys've been off having the party, I suddenly had ten times more paperwork dropped in my lap. Thanks for that. You should go home for the rest of the day. Right now, captain? But we're still- That's an order, Beta27. Get out of here. Uh… Yes, ma'am. Of course. ...You didn't have to do that. Sure I did. If they stayed here, then they'd definitely have died as soon as we left. It is true. People die a lot around here. Not me, obviously. Or me. To be fair, I'm not sure how much either of you qualifies as a person anymore. Soooo… storytime? Ugh… fine. You know I'm from the Backstreets, right? Yeah-which district? Twelve, obviously. Don't ask dumb questions. Point is, down there everyone's so focused on just getting by. Thinking in terms of plusses and minuses, and trying to keep their bank account over 0. Not something a Nest kid like you or mosshead would understand. I was like that, too. So what changed? Some of the other rats decided they wanted to try tearing us apart for scraps. I felt something snap… then, well, you ever seen a person's skull break apart from bashing it into a wall? ...uh… Just stick around here. You'll get to see it sometime, I'm sure. That sounds… horrible! Does it? For the first time I wasn't thinking how the world was trying to make me think. There was me, and an enemy to crush, and it felt great. So you're basically always after that feeling again, huh..? Something like that. I just only feel alive if I'm risking everything in a fight against something else. Just don't go too far and get yourself killed, you hear me? That'd mean I wasn't strong enough to keep up with the freaks that show up around here. No way that could ever be true. ...you know I think I should get back to work now. It's about time! Central's full of those Green Ordeals. Be careful, Manager.Tiphereth isn't kidding-that's four Noons in the main room. As a reminder, that's as many that spawn in an ENTIRE Green Noon Ordeal prior to day 21, and this doesn't include the 5-10 we've killed prior to this point.
The killteam runs past the 3 noons and into the Dusk's hallway, kills a fourth Noon, and then starts to dogpile on the Dusk until…
Three more Noons spawn at once, and another one walks in from the main room.
Fall back, everyone! Training is still safe, head there! We need a better plan. Mm… actually, I'm picking up that the Noons have cleared out of that room. If you head back, you should be able to sneak by them. It's the best plan we have. Let's do it.The second time around is the charm, and we're finally done killing the spawners. It's all mopup from here. I do make a major error here-see how the team is cut into two groups? It turns out Sephiroth's speed is just right to catch the sawblade attacks from Green Noons that Medea and Mizu trigger as they run by.
How strange that I should remember the war against Wutai now, of all times? There were far more of those ninja, but they were far less formidable opponents.It does not go well for him, of course. Still, we're through the hard part so now we just have to mop up.
Oh. You're back. Don't sound so disappointed. She was just having a lot of fun. Well, there should still be a couple left to mop up. Want to take care of them? Do I ever. Alright, let's clean 'em up.Now that we've recombined our kill and defense team, we can shred the remaining Ordeals. These four Noons aren't able to get through a fortified position.
Music: neutral 1
At last, it is done.
Hell yeah! You actually did it. I can't believe it. Yeah, I get that a lot. Malkuth, will that do? Yes, Manager! I'd like to resume my duties in Control at this time. Would you please excuse yourselves, Tiphereth? Yeah, I'm leaving. Have a good day, Malkuth. Now then-your orders, Manager? Don't need you right now. I'll call you if anything melts down. ...Yes, sir!Now that the Dusk is over, the remainder of the day is spent just focusing on finishing off Judgment Bird and All-Around Helper's gear. Nothing else interesting should-
I am getting really tired of your sass, mister!Oh right, Medea can solo the Scarecrow now. I guess that happened.
Hell of a day, huh. It has certainly been eventful, Manager. Our E.G.O equipment processing has been fully completed at this time. I take it you would like to end the day? Yeah, let's quit while we're ahead. I can't help but feel we haven't done much today. I wouldn't worry about it. An uneventful day is the greatest blessing we agents can have. Okay, everyone. It's time to pack it in. We're done for the day. I heard they released a new episode of Gacha-Dat Hero if you guys want to watch after work. Count me in. ...I've got other stuff to do. Maybe some other time. You did it, Manager! Barely.No new maxout club members yet, though we've got a couple of people who are incredibly close. It's time to pick another pair of abnormalities.
Music: never frozen bottom flows
O-05-47: You've pressed it numerous times and you still have something you want to know about it?
O-01-04: In the name of Love and Justice~ Here comes Magical Girl!
F-05-32: This is a forest full of hearts. No matter how many he cuts down, the forest still remains dense.
Oh boy! It's time to pick between three completely terrible choices again!
We've talked about -04 before, so let's start there. We could actually take care of her clerk death requirement now, between Scarecrow and Helper being easy to release and suppress and with Queen Bee taking care of large numbers of clerks. However, this would take a significant amount of time that I would rather not be forced to waste. Still love her, but still no for right now. Show up on day 33 or later, please.
Next is -47, which is a meme ZAYIN that has no gear, very few positive benefits, and is actually able to delete all of your purchased E.G.O equipment due to some questionable programming choices. Hard pass for now, which means we have a winner by default.
I kind of hate this thing, and we'll go into why when we see it properly.
T-09-82: It literally makes itself into "the safest place on Earth."
D-09-104: "...Is your future totally grim? Have you hit absolute rock bottom, not a single way out in sight?"
T-09-80: "The tree simply reaped from what it sowed."
It's tool time again right after, and we have an easy, if painful, choice to make. First off, -80 is a healing abnormality which comes with the minor side effect of making agents violently explosive. Pass. -82 is more interesting. It's a heavily defensive abnormality which can be used to cheese a specific mission we'll have to deal with later on without much issue. It's good enough to be an instant pick for me against almost any other abnormality in the game.
Unfortunately for -82, one of those abnormalities is right next to it. -104 is our first actual meltdown eater, and it can save us from most situations at the cost of a single Level 5 agent, once per day. This sounds steep, but trust me-it can be very worth it. Most importantly, it's a tool that is almost entirely positive in nature, having a drawback only if we ignore the instruction manual entirely.
Please show up next time too, -82. I want you in my facility, I promise! :sadwave:
Next time, on Lobotomy Corporation: The CEO contacts us!
New Guidelines
All-Around Helper
Judgment Bird
New Gear
Requirements: Fortitude 2
Requirements: Prudence 2
Requirements: Level 5, Justice 5
Requirements: Level 5, Justice 5
New Story
All-Around Helper
Judgment Bird
-04 is one I had to do some resets on because my facility play style was not built for her, and second on -104 being amazing it saved my bacon in a pinch.
oh hey, it's Boring Bird. it's such a shame that that rad design is wasted on the most boring category of abnormality. it's not even a 1QP. now if you don't have the equipment to work it then the pale damage can make it mega dicey to try to work, but for the most part it's just boring.
-104 is great, it's just a trolley problem in tool form; a level 5 agent is a big cost, but you saw what happened when Blue Star breached.
-104 is great, it's just a trolley problem in tool form; a level 5 agent is a big cost, but you saw what happened when Blue Star breached.
10 make character
20 build character
30 form attachment to character
40 throw character to -104
50 goto 10
Clearly Mr. Blond is the rival loner who just needs to learn the Power of Friendship(tm)!
Mechanics Talk 15: Work Damage Calculation
Today we'll be covering something I did only once in the form of mad post-it note scribblings: figuring out average expected work damage. I mostly eyeball it because it's faster, but for anyone who wants a more surefire way to calculate expected damage we'll be covering that today.
The first step in figuring out average work damage is to figure out an abnormality's average damage. Today, let's work with Blue Star, which has a damage range of 6-9 White damage. Adding that together and dividing that by 2 we get an average damage of 7.5 White damage per failed box. The second thing we need to know is how many boxes the abnormality generates. Again looking at Blue Star, it creates 33 per work. This is where things get complicated.
The next number we need to figure out is our Work Success rate. This is a little bit more complicated, and requires either a mod to show your work success % (The 'More information mod' does this if you are modding your game) or access to a gigantic list of all of the base success rates of every Abnormality in the game, which is full of spoilers and shouldn't be viewed unless you really want to know the names and general information of every abnormality in the game.
If you do, it's over here, but please continue not mentioning any information on this list in the thread, because much like the wiki it is full of spoilers. If we look at Blue Star's Insight work rates, they're a solid 50% across the board-so we'll work with that. From there, we look at our agent's Work Success bonus (remember that they get +1 to the success rate for every 5 points in the Work Success stat) Let's say they have 100 Temperance, for a +20 to the success rate, for a total of 70%. Then, because our Observation Level is 4, we get +8 more to the success rate for a final total of 78%. And now we do math.
Taking the 33 PE boxes that Blue Star has, we multiply it by 0.78 for our total success rate to get an expected result of 25.74 successes-between 25 and 26 boxes. This leaves an average result of 7-8 failures, which would give us an average result of 7.5 damage times 7-8 failures to get an average damage of 52.5-60 damage, depending. Ouch! That's not where we should stop, though, unless we want to risk a panic. Not all of our runs are going to be average.
Estimating for a bell curve is a realm of mathematics that is beyond me, a simple middle manager, so my go-to rule is to assume that I will fail up to (1 per 10% below 100%) time(s) than the average says I will. For Blue Star, that puts the lowest bound at 22 boxes out of 33, a total of 11 hits for a net of 82.5 base damage. We could do this math for the other end of the bell curve as well, but that side won't kill your agents so who cares?
This gives us 3 numbers to work with, 52.5, 60, and 82.5 for our averages and our high end damage. What we want to do is find modifiers among our gear that will let the first 2 numbers hit less than 70% of our SP, while keeping that last number from killing us outright. Since Blue Star requires a Prudence of 5 to work, our minimum Prudence to work it would be 85-making the entire thing a nonissue. Just don't wear something that gives you a net weakness and your agent will be fine.
That said, let's calculate things anyways just to be safe. Laetita's suit is a 0.7 W damage HE-tier armor, making it perfect for a test calculation. We take that 0.7 modifier, and then multiply it by 1.2 (the modifier for an ALEPH level hitting a HE level threat) to get a final modifier of 0.84x.
This means that, if we were to work Blue Star with a 100 Temperance and Laetitia's armor, we could usually expect to take ~44-50 damage per work, and a bad run would get as high as ~69.3. Not only is that survivable, we could actually squeeze in a couple more failures on our hypothetical 85 SP agent without actually hitting a panic-a nice cushion to have.
Obviously there are some things that I don't take into account here (Overloads being the biggest one, remember that after the first work the success rates for ALEPH/WAWs fall), but the math can be applied to those as well-just redo the success% with the new numbers, and rework the math from there.
If all of this math is intimidating, then take heart-you really don't need to do this to figure out how well your agents will do on a work, and after playing for long enough it becomes second-nature to be able to sort of eyeball this information on the fly.
Still, if ever you want to know if x agent in y armor can survive z work with a abnormality, sometimes it's a good idea to do the numbers. Especially if it mathematically proves that Laetitia is a good girl who has done nothing wrong in her life.
Today we'll be covering something I did only once in the form of mad post-it note scribblings: figuring out average expected work damage. I mostly eyeball it because it's faster, but for anyone who wants a more surefire way to calculate expected damage we'll be covering that today.
The first step in figuring out average work damage is to figure out an abnormality's average damage. Today, let's work with Blue Star, which has a damage range of 6-9 White damage. Adding that together and dividing that by 2 we get an average damage of 7.5 White damage per failed box. The second thing we need to know is how many boxes the abnormality generates. Again looking at Blue Star, it creates 33 per work. This is where things get complicated.
The next number we need to figure out is our Work Success rate. This is a little bit more complicated, and requires either a mod to show your work success % (The 'More information mod' does this if you are modding your game) or access to a gigantic list of all of the base success rates of every Abnormality in the game, which is full of spoilers and shouldn't be viewed unless you really want to know the names and general information of every abnormality in the game.
If you do, it's over here, but please continue not mentioning any information on this list in the thread, because much like the wiki it is full of spoilers. If we look at Blue Star's Insight work rates, they're a solid 50% across the board-so we'll work with that. From there, we look at our agent's Work Success bonus (remember that they get +1 to the success rate for every 5 points in the Work Success stat) Let's say they have 100 Temperance, for a +20 to the success rate, for a total of 70%. Then, because our Observation Level is 4, we get +8 more to the success rate for a final total of 78%. And now we do math.
Taking the 33 PE boxes that Blue Star has, we multiply it by 0.78 for our total success rate to get an expected result of 25.74 successes-between 25 and 26 boxes. This leaves an average result of 7-8 failures, which would give us an average result of 7.5 damage times 7-8 failures to get an average damage of 52.5-60 damage, depending. Ouch! That's not where we should stop, though, unless we want to risk a panic. Not all of our runs are going to be average.
Estimating for a bell curve is a realm of mathematics that is beyond me, a simple middle manager, so my go-to rule is to assume that I will fail up to (1 per 10% below 100%) time(s) than the average says I will. For Blue Star, that puts the lowest bound at 22 boxes out of 33, a total of 11 hits for a net of 82.5 base damage. We could do this math for the other end of the bell curve as well, but that side won't kill your agents so who cares?
This gives us 3 numbers to work with, 52.5, 60, and 82.5 for our averages and our high end damage. What we want to do is find modifiers among our gear that will let the first 2 numbers hit less than 70% of our SP, while keeping that last number from killing us outright. Since Blue Star requires a Prudence of 5 to work, our minimum Prudence to work it would be 85-making the entire thing a nonissue. Just don't wear something that gives you a net weakness and your agent will be fine.
That said, let's calculate things anyways just to be safe. Laetita's suit is a 0.7 W damage HE-tier armor, making it perfect for a test calculation. We take that 0.7 modifier, and then multiply it by 1.2 (the modifier for an ALEPH level hitting a HE level threat) to get a final modifier of 0.84x.
This means that, if we were to work Blue Star with a 100 Temperance and Laetitia's armor, we could usually expect to take ~44-50 damage per work, and a bad run would get as high as ~69.3. Not only is that survivable, we could actually squeeze in a couple more failures on our hypothetical 85 SP agent without actually hitting a panic-a nice cushion to have.
Obviously there are some things that I don't take into account here (Overloads being the biggest one, remember that after the first work the success rates for ALEPH/WAWs fall), but the math can be applied to those as well-just redo the success% with the new numbers, and rework the math from there.
If all of this math is intimidating, then take heart-you really don't need to do this to figure out how well your agents will do on a work, and after playing for long enough it becomes second-nature to be able to sort of eyeball this information on the fly.
Still, if ever you want to know if x agent in y armor can survive z work with a abnormality, sometimes it's a good idea to do the numbers. Especially if it mathematically proves that Laetitia is a good girl who has done nothing wrong in her life.
As I said in SA, -32 can eat a bag of dicks. I’ll talk about it more when we see it in the facility, but having it in the facility is rough.
Also, unless you are a wizard at Lob Corp like TeeQueue is, you need to be very careful when taking on your first dusk ordeal. Dusks can easily wreck your day if you don’t have the EGO gear to deal with it, especially Green Noon. I ended up managing to make it through with 1 fatality when I first encountered it because I had the stupidly strong Justitia alongside gear with decent/good red protection but was stupid enough to command a death ball with red weakness ego gear that ended up killing one of my members.
Getting complacent is the most dangerous thing in this game.
Also, unless you are a wizard at Lob Corp like TeeQueue is, you need to be very careful when taking on your first dusk ordeal. Dusks can easily wreck your day if you don’t have the EGO gear to deal with it, especially Green Noon. I ended up managing to make it through with 1 fatality when I first encountered it because I had the stupidly strong Justitia alongside gear with decent/good red protection but was stupid enough to command a death ball with red weakness ego gear that ended up killing one of my members.
Getting complacent is the most dangerous thing in this game.
It's like a time management game, but with more gore.jimmydalad wrote: ↑Sun Aug 16, 2020 12:13 pmGetting complacent is the most dangerous thing in this game.
Day 22: Story
Music: Dungeon - Maximum Security
You’ve received a document written by A himself? Perhaps you’re being recognized now. A is on a rather long journey currently. As all journeys have to end, the final destination will be home; this place.
Could this moment be a part of your journey as well?
Another pair of random lines, here. I think from here forward I'll just simplify matters and put the alternate lines in a quote box, like so:
The day still lies cold, but we know that the winter frost is almost over.
Music: Town - Alone in a Crowd
Our new Sephirah here is Tiphereth. As you can see, he is smaller than the others by a large margin. To make up for this, he is usually very chill about things.
(This question is completely pointless, by the way. Both answers lead to the same thing.
)
But if your question is whether we are biological twins, then no.
In other words, trying to differentiate us is meaningless.
Like two peas in a pod.
Isn’t that fortunate? Seeing as you’ve survived your duties long enough to meet with us, I won’t have to bore the both of us with the basics of things like what Abnormalities are and how to manage them, right? If you turn out to be a disappointment, know that not even your status as the manager will let you get away with it.
I know you’ll do fine, manager.
Here’s a word of advice. I’m nothing like those Upper Sephirot you’ve gotten used to, so don’t treat me like I’m one of them. They’re a bunch of idiots.
But in technical aspects, we’re not so different.
What I’m trying to say is, the Uppers are only good at pretending to be busy when they don’t even have much work to begin with. I can’t even believe we’re all considered to be Sephirot!
I hope that you’ll find some encouragement here.
Music: never frozen bottom flows
.....
Hi, Netzach.
Since you’re both Tiphereth, I guess that counts as you both greeting me... Here’s the plan for the joint operation drill between the Safety Team and the Central Command Team tomorrow. Please look it over.
Look it over? I bet I’ll have to rewrite the entire thing from scratch!
Just leave it over there, Netzach. I’ll give it a review and let you know.
But Netzach can work fine when he’s motivated to. You know that.
Results are not the problem here. The point is, Lady Angela is way too easy on us. If I were her, I would have punished this addict right at the first infraction.
That’d please Yesod alright. Why don’t you two go and have some serious discussion on implementing a penalty point system? I bet it’ll be productive…
Oh, just be quiet! Buzz off to that Upper Layer of yours where you belong.
Yeah, bye Netzach.
I like our Middle Sephirot, they’re cheerful and make me laugh!
How many times do I have to tell you? You shouldn’t laugh so easily. We have to be strict, stern, and stoic! We’re the centermost, the Central Command Team!
Don’t worry, Tiphereth, I know. By the way, don’t we have something to discuss with the manager?
The manager will do fine, like he always does.
And he could fail too, like he always does.
In summary: Tiphereth and Tiphereth are the heads of the Central Command team (referred to as Central from here on), a department so big and important that it requires two kids stacked together in a trenchcoat to manage. While Tiphereth is easygoing and likes his coworkers while believing in the manager, Tiphereth thinks all of her fellows are unreliable idiots and wishes she could punish them for being such failures. Tiphereth and Tiphereth balance each other out, and are probably going to try and kill us because they're both AI and this is a video game.
Wait… you're demanding I do basically... nothing different?
We've heard all about how long your days get, and you're not going to be able to get away with it forever!
Levels 9 and 10 were a bit overwhelming the last time you went that far anyways, right? You can definitely stop before then.
Anyways, just do it!
Alright. It's not the first time I've been asked to change nothing.
The game begins limiting how long we can actually farm our abnormalities at this point with missions like this. This one lets us go as far as 1 work short of level 9 before failing it, so it's generous-this will not be the case forever. Remember that we've regularly gone into 7 or 8 for our daily grinds. Part of this was in preparation for this set of missions. Overall, we won't be able to farm as much as we'd like again until day 31, and that's assuming I play perfectly.
While this won't matter for anyone playing along with this thread-since they can reset the week via Memory Repository after clearing the missions-this will give our facility a bit of a training crunch. Luckily, we should have more than enough LOB to make up for it.
Oh… Yesod? What brings you out here?
I'm bringing you the updated information on our staff.
Ah, thank you. This is good to have on hand.
That's all.
Hey, Yesod… do you think our plan's changed the manager's mind at all?
Hard to say. Zeta21's easily managed to become a top agent, but there's still a large number of clerks fatalities every day.
And that means more work for us… I have to train them, and you have to keep on recording their data.
All so that the others can avoid looking at any of it aside their ID numbers...
There must be something else we can do.
Don't be hopelessly optimistic. Our job is to follow the manager's orders, no matter how many die. We should just be thankful that it isn't the agents who are dying as well.
I... suppose… I just thought…
Hm?
Oh, it's nothing! Let me know if you ever want to try a counseling program with your agents. I'm working on new resources.
Considering what happened last time, I'll pass. Thanks anyways.
You're welcome!
Next time, on Lobotomy Corporation: Mizu causes problems again.
Hmmmhh...
What're you doing?
I've been taking notes on our leeader… So I'm reviewing them. They're iiinterestiing…
You mean D.A.D.? What's so interesting about them?
Weell… one time, after woork, I saw them playing baall with some cleerks… They were reeally good at it…
So they have a hobby.
They also neever take breaks on the job, and reacts to everything like it's no big deeal… That's really raare. I feel like they'd see an AALEPH escape and be relaaxed about it. And they neever get upset with us even when we make Queeen Beee get mad… It's like they're not… huuman…
Of course they're human. What else would they be?
I think... D.A.D. is an aalienn…
A what.
You knoow… From spaaaaaace…
...yeah, I'm going on break.
Okay. Have fuun.
Music: Dungeon - Maximum Security
You’ve received a document written by A himself? Perhaps you’re being recognized now. A is on a rather long journey currently. As all journeys have to end, the final destination will be home; this place. Could this moment be a part of your journey as well?Another pair of random lines, here. I think from here forward I'll just simplify matters and put the alternate lines in a quote box, like so:
Alternate Universes wrote:
The day still lies cold, but we know that the winter frost is almost over.In summary: We get a letter from A, who's heard that we're an amazing manager. He can't meet us in person because he's on a trip right now, and Angela waxes poetic about journeys and winter.Alternate Universes wrote:
Music: Town - Alone in a Crowd
Our new Sephirah here is Tiphereth. As you can see, he is smaller than the others by a large margin. To make up for this, he is usually very chill about things.
(This question is completely pointless, by the way. Both answers lead to the same thing.
) But if your question is whether we are biological twins, then no. In other words, trying to differentiate us is meaningless. Like two peas in a pod. Isn’t that fortunate? Seeing as you’ve survived your duties long enough to meet with us, I won’t have to bore the both of us with the basics of things like what Abnormalities are and how to manage them, right? If you turn out to be a disappointment, know that not even your status as the manager will let you get away with it. I know you’ll do fine, manager. Here’s a word of advice. I’m nothing like those Upper Sephirot you’ve gotten used to, so don’t treat me like I’m one of them. They’re a bunch of idiots. But in technical aspects, we’re not so different. What I’m trying to say is, the Uppers are only good at pretending to be busy when they don’t even have much work to begin with. I can’t even believe we’re all considered to be Sephirot! I hope that you’ll find some encouragement here.Music: never frozen bottom flows
..... Hi, Netzach. Since you’re both Tiphereth, I guess that counts as you both greeting me... Here’s the plan for the joint operation drill between the Safety Team and the Central Command Team tomorrow. Please look it over. Look it over? I bet I’ll have to rewrite the entire thing from scratch! Just leave it over there, Netzach. I’ll give it a review and let you know. But Netzach can work fine when he’s motivated to. You know that. Results are not the problem here. The point is, Lady Angela is way too easy on us. If I were her, I would have punished this addict right at the first infraction. That’d please Yesod alright. Why don’t you two go and have some serious discussion on implementing a penalty point system? I bet it’ll be productive… Oh, just be quiet! Buzz off to that Upper Layer of yours where you belong. Yeah, bye Netzach. I like our Middle Sephirot, they’re cheerful and make me laugh! How many times do I have to tell you? You shouldn’t laugh so easily. We have to be strict, stern, and stoic! We’re the centermost, the Central Command Team! Don’t worry, Tiphereth, I know. By the way, don’t we have something to discuss with the manager? The manager will do fine, like he always does. And he could fail too, like he always does.In summary: Tiphereth and Tiphereth are the heads of the Central Command team (referred to as Central from here on), a department so big and important that it requires two kids stacked together in a trenchcoat to manage. While Tiphereth is easygoing and likes his coworkers while believing in the manager, Tiphereth thinks all of her fellows are unreliable idiots and wishes she could punish them for being such failures. Tiphereth and Tiphereth balance each other out, and are probably going to try and kill us because they're both AI and this is a video game.
Wait… you're demanding I do basically... nothing different? We've heard all about how long your days get, and you're not going to be able to get away with it forever! Levels 9 and 10 were a bit overwhelming the last time you went that far anyways, right? You can definitely stop before then. Anyways, just do it! Alright. It's not the first time I've been asked to change nothing. The game begins limiting how long we can actually farm our abnormalities at this point with missions like this. This one lets us go as far as 1 work short of level 9 before failing it, so it's generous-this will not be the case forever. Remember that we've regularly gone into 7 or 8 for our daily grinds. Part of this was in preparation for this set of missions. Overall, we won't be able to farm as much as we'd like again until day 31, and that's assuming I play perfectly.
While this won't matter for anyone playing along with this thread-since they can reset the week via Memory Repository after clearing the missions-this will give our facility a bit of a training crunch. Luckily, we should have more than enough LOB to make up for it.
Oh… Yesod? What brings you out here? I'm bringing you the updated information on our staff. Ah, thank you. This is good to have on hand. That's all. Hey, Yesod… do you think our plan's changed the manager's mind at all? Hard to say. Zeta21's easily managed to become a top agent, but there's still a large number of clerks fatalities every day. And that means more work for us… I have to train them, and you have to keep on recording their data. All so that the others can avoid looking at any of it aside their ID numbers... There must be something else we can do. Don't be hopelessly optimistic. Our job is to follow the manager's orders, no matter how many die. We should just be thankful that it isn't the agents who are dying as well. I... suppose… I just thought… Hm? Oh, it's nothing! Let me know if you ever want to try a counseling program with your agents. I'm working on new resources. Considering what happened last time, I'll pass. Thanks anyways. You're welcome!Next time, on Lobotomy Corporation: Mizu causes problems again.
Hmmmhh... What're you doing? I've been taking notes on our leeader… So I'm reviewing them. They're iiinterestiing… You mean D.A.D.? What's so interesting about them? Weell… one time, after woork, I saw them playing baall with some cleerks… They were reeally good at it… So they have a hobby. They also neever take breaks on the job, and reacts to everything like it's no big deeal… That's really raare. I feel like they'd see an AALEPH escape and be relaaxed about it. And they neever get upset with us even when we make Queeen Beee get mad… It's like they're not… huuman… Of course they're human. What else would they be? I think... D.A.D. is an aalienn… A what. You knoow… From spaaaaaace… ...yeah, I'm going on break. Okay. Have fuun."your capable assistant, Angela"...yeeeah, she definitely wrote that note herself.
I feel like Angela hijacked the company a while ago, and that B was really A (using the worst alias ever).
I feel like Angela hijacked the company a while ago, and that B was really A (using the worst alias ever).
I really appreciate the adventures of the clerk survival squad, gives some good moments for the seriphirah. My only real complaint with the game was that after you finish with departments the seriphrah basically disappear, like I don’t think Malkuth has shown up in the vanilla game since information team. Which is a shame since they are all pretty great. Keep up the good work TeeQueue, always a highlight of the day.
Before the next cutscene plays after a mission, all the requirements for doing the next mission must be completed. Right now, that means Malkuth is waiting on us to complete Tiph’s 3rd mission, alongside Yesod and Hod.
Day 25 - Story(the earliest we can finish that mission) is going to give us 3 massive cutscenes in a row as a result, and in order to keep the updates from getting too long I’ll be holding them until I do the associated missions.
Yeah, this is more a result of how the game handles mission progression - if you're good at or get lucky on clearing missions ASAP you're gonna be waiting quite a while to get to the next plot beat.
Day 22: Gameplay
Music: neutral 3
Shuffling around gear, Control gets our new 3 HE suits, and Talow gets our new ALEPH wear. Tylana gets the Knight gear, since it's important to have someone who can deal with Pale damage in the bird's department.
New abnormalities to work, and a work limit to do it in. Should be a nice breather.
Ugh! Don't get careless, manager.
You guys had better not screw up!
Just don't do anything dangerous.
Hmmmmmhhh…
Huh?
Heey, Twee… Have you noticed anything… ooff?
Come to think of it… Yeah! I did notice something odd! Somehow, a raven managed to work its way into one of the break rooms. It's gotta' be an omen of something!
Thaat's not quite what I meant, but it sounds iinteresting… Go oon..?
You know she thinks you're an alien, right?
Does she?
Yeah, for some weird reason.
Huh… I see…
You're gonna mess with her, aren't you?
Probably.
Orders from the top, everyone! It looks like we're finally getting back in business. Omni, you'll be with Laetitia... in Information. Chinely, you'll be doing Fortitude work in Safety… with... Queen... Bee, and Bishop, you're going to be in Central… Working with All-Around Helper..?
Um… are you okay?
......I'm fine! As always, I expect everyone to do their job perfectly! That's all!
No need to worry.
Chinely and I have been working hard to become the ideal agents!
They're posing again…
It seems to fire them up. I just go with it.
...Looking at this thing gives me some kind of strange, unbridled rage in my gut.
What? That's dumb! It's just an abnormality, work it like one.
Right… Let's get to it.
Oooh you're a cutie-pie and you're o-kay, you've got an axe and it's sharp to-day~
Work went great! It didn't seem to move at first, but after I petted it a couple of times it started kind of bobbing and made a lot of energy.
See? It was just fine, manager! We can get Seyser to work it from now on.
And there goes my hair. That's not ominous at all!
I guess so...
Tylana, you remember the procedure for getting a new abnormality, right?
Oh, yes. Manager, do we have the PE boxes to get its basic information yet?
Sure, let me just grab it.
Okay, so it's named Warm-Hearted Woodsman. Now let's just queue up the next work…
What.
What.
Oh, that explains your hair.
It does! I was about to who-knows-what.
With all due respect, sir, I don't think we should continue working it. This abnormality seems to respond to high levels of Temperance with outright hostility-we don't know what would happen if someone were to go in there right now
Oooh… Was I too awesome?
I guess you could put it that way, sure.
But… it's been one work! This is bull!
Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce you all to Warm-Hearted Woodsman. Woodsman is an abnormality that is much like Scarecrow, but worse. Like Scarecrow, it's keyed to a specific stat-in this case Temperance, and it wants to see it at 2 or lower. When we work it with someone that has a Temperance level of 3 or higher, its QC decreases. Unlike Scarecrow, however, it doesn't immediately breach. Instead, it's a trap-it lies in wait for the next person who enters and instantly kills them before breaching. This can be avoided by just not working it, but that isn't always an option-meaning we basically have to keep around an agent with terrible Temperance or risk being stuck with a meltdown we can't work. On the upside, it'll never breach from a meltdown alone-remember that all they can do is set an abnormality's QC to 0. Annoyingly, this means we're done with it for today.
It would be possible to send an agent in, sacrifice them, and continue working. Omni's Temperance is at the level that could safely work with the creature.
We're not sacrificing people. Except for clerks.
…
And only if we have to?
Let's move on. There's a second abnormality to work with.
Oh right, the tool. Let's see if we can figure it out at least.
Talow! Get to work!
Ghh..! This thing feels like it weighs a ton..!
After the first work, a number appears. Each additional work gives it another number, until the tool is full. At that point…
This image starts flashing over the tool, and it's primed and ready to do… something.
Our information's still incomplete, sir.
Better hold off, then.
When fully charged, Backwards Clock basically trades a level 5 agent for a get out of jail free card. It clears meltdowns and suppresses almost any breaching ordeal or abnormality, which will solve a number of problems. Since we will hopefully never be in a situation where we need to get out of jail free, all this really does for us is serve as a meltdown eater-as explained earlier, if a meltdown would land on it then it's instantly cleared and we just have one less to deal with.
Um… sir, Scarecrow is having a meltdown!
Since it'll escape in either case, let's have Sephiroth and Medea handle it-
Also, Punishing Bird has breached!
Ow. Ow. I got it. Ow.
It's strange… if it simply turned around and struck at the clerks, it would be able to heal itself. However, it sees fit to continue to strike at me, a 1st class SOLDIER, instead-even though its defeat is inevitable..
Well, it is just searching for wisdom, after all.
Ugggh...
X, it appears that she has made a pun. They are meant to be humorous.
That you think that just shows you've got a long way to go to understand humans.
I know that we're supposed to be feeding you, but I was never really clear on which mouth I was supposed to put the food into. Is it this one?
...It wasn't that one.
I can see that, Netzach, thank y-what are you doing awake?
New kid working the bee. Would rather stay up 'til all the clerks die since the noise makes it impossible to sleep.
I… see. Well, glad to have you for once.
Don't worry, Miss Tenebrais! I'll protect you!
You moron, if you do that-
:gibs:
And now there's two of them. Of course.
Miss Tene-
Stay. The hell. Behind me.
Yes ma'am.
Infestation's handled up here, boss. Heading back home.
Right.
She saw what happened to the last guy, and decided to protect me. I'd heard the stories, but she really is just as compassionate as they all say!
Violet Dawn, and with it a good chance to show off Talow's new gear. The Justita sword says it hits for 2-4 Pale damage, which definitely doesn't seem very ALEPH-y.
Like riding a bike.
It does not mention that it hits 5 times per swing.
Nor that it has a special attack with 3 stronger hits, and then 6 more normal hits at the end. Justita is really good.
Violet Dawns really aren't a threat, and never have been.
Good job out there, Talow. You make that new gear really sing.
We just get along. It's odd, though-we're not really a weapons company, so I don't see why the new gear needs a demonstration like that.
Oh, I asked a while ago. The manager said he wants to know the capabilities of each of our more powerful weapons.
In other words, he's an idiot who can't get it without seeing it in action!
I'm right here, you know.
Well, maybe if you wouldn't let things break out of containment I wouldn't have to call you an idiot.
Central's been quiet all day to-
Et tu, Tiphereth?
Sorry, manager… It's my turn to announce escapes today.
Like I said earlier, All-Around Helper is volatile, and just escapes sometimes when being used for training since its Good threshold is rather high and its QC can lower on a normal.
With two ALEPH-geared agents right next door, though, an escape isn't going to accomplish much.
Talow.
Bishop. When'd you get here?
Been here all day. Still not dead.
That's always good. Drinks later?
Stop being so congenial. It's creepy.
Why? Just because you're doomed doesn't mean I don't like you.
...you are infuriating.
Yeah, I get that a lot.
So, Mr. Bird, do you have any hobbies? Likes? Dislikes? ...Friends? I've heard you know Punishing Bird. If you judge and he punishes, do you have another friend who's a jury? ...Come on, say something!
Tylana, the administrative team reminds you that Judgment Bird cannot speak.
Oh. That... would explain the bandages on its face. But what if it can speak, and just won't?
...In the event that Judgment Bird does speak, we urge you to please disregard its advice.
Not to break up this party, but we have more bees.
I'd like these things more if they wouldn't drop in on top of us all the time.
At least they're not really a threat. Just a little out there.
Where's that unpleasant woman, anyways?
She saw one of the infected clerks leaving, so she went after them alone.
HAHAHA, how dangerous!
Yep. I sure did have Tenebrais go solo a bee while she was infected with the Queen's spores. This was careless.
Heh. Still can't hold a candle to me.
Tenebrais, my readings show you're nearly, uh, dead. Maybe-
It'll heal.
Noon is here! It's landed in Central Command!
In that case, we should have Talow do a second demonstration.
Is it really worth the risk?
I'd say there's not much of a risk, wouldn't you?
Ah, as expected of you, manager!
Mustn't let these happy boys open that door, nosir! We wouldn't want Blue Star to escape!
We sure wouldn't.
Hey, don't look at me!
The greatest contemplation is born from suffering the slightest adversity during thought.
You seem down, X. Normally you would be chuckling at his pain.
Of course I'm down. We've got two new abnormalities, and I can't touch either of them. I got names, but no information, and no gear. We'll have to make up for it tomorrow.
There is always the option of facing another Green Dusk, should you prefer.
Nah, let's not. Last time was a slog and a half.
A sound decision.
Dusks make for an ideal stopping point right now-our gear isn't really built to deal with them quickly, and since our missions cut us off around here anyways we might as well stop.
Noiser today than usual.
It's because we've had fewer deaths, so the clerks are around to talk more!
It is all mother's providence raining upon the land, preparing for the harvest.
Regardless, it is a good thing to have fewer deaths.
The manager's calling for the day to end before I even got to take a nap… What a waste.
Isn't it a bit early for the day to end? We still have clerks.
At least they bring me cake. What good have you been lately, mosshead?
Hey! I take care of my share of the suppression work, and do the paperwork you illiterates can't handle. They never bring me cake, either.
I've got the files on the new abnormalities!
That's... two sheets of paper.
There wasn't much.
Even then, make sure you file them properly.
Let's get packed up quickly. I need to phone home after this.
Phone hoome, you saay..?
Talk later, we still have boxes to move.
Oh hey Bishop, been forever!
Hey, Mizu. Have you noticed Talow acting weird lately?
Nope! Everyone seems just fine to me!
Is something the matter?
Nah. I'm just thinking about something.
Oooh… you're worried because you got yelled at, huh?
What?
I worry about that too sometimes! Tiphereth's always yelling, but it's fine because Tiphereth is usually really nice!
Um… when you put it like that, it's hard to tell who you mean.
Hey! Shouldn't you be getting back to Control? We've got cleanup to do around here!
There's no rush. I'm sure he can pitch in, too.
It's not nearly as complicated as you'd think, honestly.
Boss, we're back.
Oh, are you? It's about time!
Let's get packed up. What do you need, boss?
Nothing. You weren't around, so I already took care of it all perfectly!
In that case, can we go?
No reason to stick around if there's no work, right?
...Right! I expect a good hard day's work out of you tomorrow!
Hmph. You pass, I guess.
Great job today, sir.
Congratulations to Bishop, D.A.D., Kaori, and Tylana for joining the maxout club. Everyone else is in the 80s-90s on most of their stats, I think the lowest in the entire facility is a 50 in Prudence on Omni. At this point, overtraining is an issue when we go for maxing out what's left on our agents-it's hard to eyeball how many works to do without doing a lot of math and that's…
Music: never frozen bottom flows
T-01-31: From break and ruin, the most beautiful performance begins.
O-06-20: And the many shells cried out one word, "Manager."
O-05-102: "Now you become the sky, and I, the land."
We'll start with the easy one, -31 is an ALEPH with some very dapper gear, but a really annoying working ruleset that leaves it very prone to breaching, which we either couldn't or could only barely deal with as our facility stands right now-it'd be a little close. Next is -20, another ALEPH. This one has a couple of interesting mechanics when it breaches, but is mostly a huge source of Red damage in its cell. Its gear is mechanically amazing, and I'd love to add it to our facility, but it's a hard choice because of our next abnormality. That would be -102, a WAW level abnormality which is… special. It possesses the best Helmet-type Gift in the game, provides 2 WAW weapons and 2 WAW suits, serviceably trains 3 stats and its existence will allow us to try our hand at shenanigans in the future. On the downside, picking it forces us into a predestined choice in the future. I'd really like both -20 and -102 right now, so this is a hard choice.
In the end, the possibility of shenanigans wins out over not-shenanigans.
F-04-42: The day a ripe apple fell off the tree in the garden where the princess and the king stood, the witch's heart shattered.
T-01-68: Where does one go when they die?
O-06-20: And the many shells cried out one word, "Manager."
We've seen -68 and -20, so let's talk about -42. It's a WAW-level abnormality which trains Justice, and is very temperamental and escape-prone. It also will occasionally completely tank my framerate when it breaches, to the point where it makes the game nearly unplayable (though to be fair, when that had happened I had been playing for roughly 4-5 hours straight, it could have been memory leak related). It's perfectly serviceable, but…
Be careful what you wish for.
Next time, on Lobotomy Corporation: Tiphereth and Tiphereth talk about old times.
Music: neutral 3
Shuffling around gear, Control gets our new 3 HE suits, and Talow gets our new ALEPH wear. Tylana gets the Knight gear, since it's important to have someone who can deal with Pale damage in the bird's department.
New abnormalities to work, and a work limit to do it in. Should be a nice breather. Ugh! Don't get careless, manager. You guys had better not screw up! Just don't do anything dangerous. Hmmmmmhhh… Huh? Heey, Twee… Have you noticed anything… ooff? Come to think of it… Yeah! I did notice something odd! Somehow, a raven managed to work its way into one of the break rooms. It's gotta' be an omen of something! Thaat's not quite what I meant, but it sounds iinteresting… Go oon..? You know she thinks you're an alien, right? Does she? Yeah, for some weird reason. Huh… I see… You're gonna mess with her, aren't you? Probably. Orders from the top, everyone! It looks like we're finally getting back in business. Omni, you'll be with Laetitia... in Information. Chinely, you'll be doing Fortitude work in Safety… with... Queen... Bee, and Bishop, you're going to be in Central… Working with All-Around Helper..? Um… are you okay? ......I'm fine! As always, I expect everyone to do their job perfectly! That's all! No need to worry. Chinely and I have been working hard to become the ideal agents! They're posing again… It seems to fire them up. I just go with it. ...Looking at this thing gives me some kind of strange, unbridled rage in my gut. What? That's dumb! It's just an abnormality, work it like one. Right… Let's get to it. Oooh you're a cutie-pie and you're o-kay, you've got an axe and it's sharp to-day~ Work went great! It didn't seem to move at first, but after I petted it a couple of times it started kind of bobbing and made a lot of energy. See? It was just fine, manager! We can get Seyser to work it from now on. And there goes my hair. That's not ominous at all! I guess so... Tylana, you remember the procedure for getting a new abnormality, right? Oh, yes. Manager, do we have the PE boxes to get its basic information yet? Sure, let me just grab it. Okay, so it's named Warm-Hearted Woodsman. Now let's just queue up the next work… What. What. Oh, that explains your hair. It does! I was about to who-knows-what. With all due respect, sir, I don't think we should continue working it. This abnormality seems to respond to high levels of Temperance with outright hostility-we don't know what would happen if someone were to go in there right now Oooh… Was I too awesome? I guess you could put it that way, sure. But… it's been one work! This is bull!Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce you all to Warm-Hearted Woodsman. Woodsman is an abnormality that is much like Scarecrow, but worse. Like Scarecrow, it's keyed to a specific stat-in this case Temperance, and it wants to see it at 2 or lower. When we work it with someone that has a Temperance level of 3 or higher, its QC decreases. Unlike Scarecrow, however, it doesn't immediately breach. Instead, it's a trap-it lies in wait for the next person who enters and instantly kills them before breaching. This can be avoided by just not working it, but that isn't always an option-meaning we basically have to keep around an agent with terrible Temperance or risk being stuck with a meltdown we can't work. On the upside, it'll never breach from a meltdown alone-remember that all they can do is set an abnormality's QC to 0. Annoyingly, this means we're done with it for today.
It would be possible to send an agent in, sacrifice them, and continue working. Omni's Temperance is at the level that could safely work with the creature. We're not sacrificing people. Except for clerks. … And only if we have to? Let's move on. There's a second abnormality to work with. Oh right, the tool. Let's see if we can figure it out at least. Talow! Get to work! Ghh..! This thing feels like it weighs a ton..!After the first work, a number appears. Each additional work gives it another number, until the tool is full. At that point…
This image starts flashing over the tool, and it's primed and ready to do… something.
Our information's still incomplete, sir. Better hold off, then. When fully charged, Backwards Clock basically trades a level 5 agent for a get out of jail free card. It clears meltdowns and suppresses almost any breaching ordeal or abnormality, which will solve a number of problems. Since we will hopefully never be in a situation where we need to get out of jail free, all this really does for us is serve as a meltdown eater-as explained earlier, if a meltdown would land on it then it's instantly cleared and we just have one less to deal with.
Um… sir, Scarecrow is having a meltdown! Since it'll escape in either case, let's have Sephiroth and Medea handle it- Also, Punishing Bird has breached! Ow. Ow. I got it. Ow. It's strange… if it simply turned around and struck at the clerks, it would be able to heal itself. However, it sees fit to continue to strike at me, a 1st class SOLDIER, instead-even though its defeat is inevitable.. Well, it is just searching for wisdom, after all. Ugggh... X, it appears that she has made a pun. They are meant to be humorous. That you think that just shows you've got a long way to go to understand humans. I know that we're supposed to be feeding you, but I was never really clear on which mouth I was supposed to put the food into. Is it this one? ...It wasn't that one. I can see that, Netzach, thank y-what are you doing awake? New kid working the bee. Would rather stay up 'til all the clerks die since the noise makes it impossible to sleep. I… see. Well, glad to have you for once. Don't worry, Miss Tenebrais! I'll protect you! You moron, if you do that-:gibs:
And now there's two of them. Of course. Miss Tene- Stay. The hell. Behind me. Yes ma'am. Infestation's handled up here, boss. Heading back home. Right. She saw what happened to the last guy, and decided to protect me. I'd heard the stories, but she really is just as compassionate as they all say!Violet Dawn, and with it a good chance to show off Talow's new gear. The Justita sword says it hits for 2-4 Pale damage, which definitely doesn't seem very ALEPH-y.
Like riding a bike.It does not mention that it hits 5 times per swing.
Nor that it has a special attack with 3 stronger hits, and then 6 more normal hits at the end. Justita is really good.
Violet Dawns really aren't a threat, and never have been.
Good job out there, Talow. You make that new gear really sing. We just get along. It's odd, though-we're not really a weapons company, so I don't see why the new gear needs a demonstration like that. Oh, I asked a while ago. The manager said he wants to know the capabilities of each of our more powerful weapons. In other words, he's an idiot who can't get it without seeing it in action! I'm right here, you know. Well, maybe if you wouldn't let things break out of containment I wouldn't have to call you an idiot. Central's been quiet all day to- Et tu, Tiphereth? Sorry, manager… It's my turn to announce escapes today.Like I said earlier, All-Around Helper is volatile, and just escapes sometimes when being used for training since its Good threshold is rather high and its QC can lower on a normal.
With two ALEPH-geared agents right next door, though, an escape isn't going to accomplish much.
Talow. Bishop. When'd you get here? Been here all day. Still not dead. That's always good. Drinks later? Stop being so congenial. It's creepy. Why? Just because you're doomed doesn't mean I don't like you. ...you are infuriating. Yeah, I get that a lot. So, Mr. Bird, do you have any hobbies? Likes? Dislikes? ...Friends? I've heard you know Punishing Bird. If you judge and he punishes, do you have another friend who's a jury? ...Come on, say something! Tylana, the administrative team reminds you that Judgment Bird cannot speak. Oh. That... would explain the bandages on its face. But what if it can speak, and just won't? ...In the event that Judgment Bird does speak, we urge you to please disregard its advice. Not to break up this party, but we have more bees. I'd like these things more if they wouldn't drop in on top of us all the time. At least they're not really a threat. Just a little out there. Where's that unpleasant woman, anyways? She saw one of the infected clerks leaving, so she went after them alone. HAHAHA, how dangerous!Yep. I sure did have Tenebrais go solo a bee while she was infected with the Queen's spores. This was careless.
Heh. Still can't hold a candle to me. Tenebrais, my readings show you're nearly, uh, dead. Maybe- It'll heal. Noon is here! It's landed in Central Command! In that case, we should have Talow do a second demonstration. Is it really worth the risk? I'd say there's not much of a risk, wouldn't you? Ah, as expected of you, manager! Mustn't let these happy boys open that door, nosir! We wouldn't want Blue Star to escape! We sure wouldn't. Hey, don't look at me! The greatest contemplation is born from suffering the slightest adversity during thought. You seem down, X. Normally you would be chuckling at his pain. Of course I'm down. We've got two new abnormalities, and I can't touch either of them. I got names, but no information, and no gear. We'll have to make up for it tomorrow. There is always the option of facing another Green Dusk, should you prefer. Nah, let's not. Last time was a slog and a half. A sound decision.Dusks make for an ideal stopping point right now-our gear isn't really built to deal with them quickly, and since our missions cut us off around here anyways we might as well stop.
Noiser today than usual. It's because we've had fewer deaths, so the clerks are around to talk more! It is all mother's providence raining upon the land, preparing for the harvest. Regardless, it is a good thing to have fewer deaths. The manager's calling for the day to end before I even got to take a nap… What a waste. Isn't it a bit early for the day to end? We still have clerks. At least they bring me cake. What good have you been lately, mosshead? Hey! I take care of my share of the suppression work, and do the paperwork you illiterates can't handle. They never bring me cake, either. I've got the files on the new abnormalities! That's... two sheets of paper. There wasn't much. Even then, make sure you file them properly. Let's get packed up quickly. I need to phone home after this. Phone hoome, you saay..? Talk later, we still have boxes to move. Oh hey Bishop, been forever! Hey, Mizu. Have you noticed Talow acting weird lately? Nope! Everyone seems just fine to me! Is something the matter? Nah. I'm just thinking about something. Oooh… you're worried because you got yelled at, huh? What? I worry about that too sometimes! Tiphereth's always yelling, but it's fine because Tiphereth is usually really nice! Um… when you put it like that, it's hard to tell who you mean. Hey! Shouldn't you be getting back to Control? We've got cleanup to do around here! There's no rush. I'm sure he can pitch in, too. It's not nearly as complicated as you'd think, honestly. Boss, we're back. Oh, are you? It's about time! Let's get packed up. What do you need, boss? Nothing. You weren't around, so I already took care of it all perfectly! In that case, can we go? No reason to stick around if there's no work, right? ...Right! I expect a good hard day's work out of you tomorrow! Hmph. You pass, I guess. Great job today, sir.Congratulations to Bishop, D.A.D., Kaori, and Tylana for joining the maxout club. Everyone else is in the 80s-90s on most of their stats, I think the lowest in the entire facility is a 50 in Prudence on Omni. At this point, overtraining is an issue when we go for maxing out what's left on our agents-it's hard to eyeball how many works to do without doing a lot of math and that's…
Music: never frozen bottom flows
T-01-31: From break and ruin, the most beautiful performance begins.
O-06-20: And the many shells cried out one word, "Manager."
O-05-102: "Now you become the sky, and I, the land."
We'll start with the easy one, -31 is an ALEPH with some very dapper gear, but a really annoying working ruleset that leaves it very prone to breaching, which we either couldn't or could only barely deal with as our facility stands right now-it'd be a little close. Next is -20, another ALEPH. This one has a couple of interesting mechanics when it breaches, but is mostly a huge source of Red damage in its cell. Its gear is mechanically amazing, and I'd love to add it to our facility, but it's a hard choice because of our next abnormality. That would be -102, a WAW level abnormality which is… special. It possesses the best Helmet-type Gift in the game, provides 2 WAW weapons and 2 WAW suits, serviceably trains 3 stats and its existence will allow us to try our hand at shenanigans in the future. On the downside, picking it forces us into a predestined choice in the future. I'd really like both -20 and -102 right now, so this is a hard choice.
In the end, the possibility of shenanigans wins out over not-shenanigans.
F-04-42: The day a ripe apple fell off the tree in the garden where the princess and the king stood, the witch's heart shattered.
T-01-68: Where does one go when they die?
O-06-20: And the many shells cried out one word, "Manager."
We've seen -68 and -20, so let's talk about -42. It's a WAW-level abnormality which trains Justice, and is very temperamental and escape-prone. It also will occasionally completely tank my framerate when it breaches, to the point where it makes the game nearly unplayable (though to be fair, when that had happened I had been playing for roughly 4-5 hours straight, it could have been memory leak related). It's perfectly serviceable, but…
TQ from 1 minute ago wrote:I'd really like both -20 and -102 right now, so this is a hard choice.
Be careful what you wish for.
Next time, on Lobotomy Corporation: Tiphereth and Tiphereth talk about old times.