A Beginner's Guide to Constructing Your Phase Two Outpost. Section 9.1: Alternative Strategies

Interview Conducted by Colonel Jefferson Ames, U.S. Army.

Interview subject, The Great Impressario Rodari of Sirius Major, in an expansive mood after a party in his honor at the Aldebaran Embassy.

Since you and your allies are new to Phase Two and have never built an outpost before you might want to consider an alternative strategy.

Yes, there's plenty of ways to win the game. The biggest conglomerations are going to take and hold an alpha node or three while their contracted allies gather more resources. They are either gearing up for their Phase Three efforts or to sell to the dedicated Phase Three groups. You could offer to work with some of them. Put your crew to work as mercenaries, hire out your crafters and anyone who's good at farming. The conglomerates are always looking to hire locals for that sort of work.

Option two: become pirates Nobody likes pirates, but there's always a couple of groups in every map. The pirate outfits go around attacking outposts they think might be vulnerable. They don't necessarily have to win for long. Even just taking and claiming a node for themselves can generate money, plus you get a soul coin bounty if you destroy someone's outpost entirely. 20% of what they've put in to building it.

The real key is you don't necessarily even have to succeed just make it look like you're going to and then demand a ransom in order to leave What's that word? Danegeld? I don't know that one.

Oh, yes. Yes, exactly. Just be careful if you try that strategy you might piss off the wrong people.

I sat bolt upright in the bunkhouse as someone shook me awake.

Jones stood over me looking worried. One of the Smiths was at Grandpa's side pulling him out of a sleep cycle.

I checked. It had only been two hours. I hadn't even got my Rested buff. "What's wrong?"

"We've got invaders."

I leapt out of bed and grabbed for my gun belt, strapped it on, then shrugged into my coat.

Grandpa was on his feet. Sage sat up, swinging her legs over the edge of the top bunk she had claimed a few hours before. I checked my map. There were a bunch of red dots heading toward our outpost in three groups of five. They were making a pincer movement. Creep showed up on the map as a steady stream of orange dots, so I knew these had to be something different.

We rolled out of the bunkhouse and surveyed the outpost. Our crafters were hard at work refining the materials the farmers were bringing back.

"Anyone had eyes on them yet?" Grandpa asked.

"We've sent out Ragtag as spotters," Jones said. "They're supposed to get eyes on but not engage."

"Good," Grandpa said. "I want the farmers and crafters pulled back." He sent out the order right away. We got an instant flood of questions. "NOW!" Grandpa bellowed to everyone in hearing range. Reluctantly, the crafters left their work and streamed up the hill to the node.

"They can't be harmed," tall Smith objected. "We might as well leave them out there."

"I guarantee you people who have been playing this game longer than we’ve been using tools have tricks up their sleeves," Grandpa said grimly. "I can think of three or four ways to interfere without any physical harm myself."

He sent out a followup message on the coalition's main communication channel with more details. That also alerted our allies back in Threshold.

What was going on? I sent Veda a message. She replied back almost immediately. I'm not surprised, seeing as you idiots went after the wrong node, of course someone's going to try to take it away from you.

I winced. Ouch. So you heard.

Juana filled me in. We need to talk, Shad.

I sighed. Even as a guy who'd never had a serious girlfriend, the phrase "we need to talk" left me in chills.

I’ve kinda got an invasion to deal with here.

We got a reply from one of our scouts. Lara reported, I have eyes on the southwest group. There's five of them. They look like orcs to me. They're from the Firebrand Cooperative

I passed the message along to Veda. Grandpa was asking for more intel from our spies, guesses as to what their abilities were, that sort of thing.

Veda replied back to me. Firebrand is a known merc and pirate operation. They could be hired out on behalf of one of the larger conglomerates. I’ve heard Gustaril Corporation is making a play for a foothold in this sector. Or they could be opportunistic, trying to force you guys to pay a ransom.

Not gonna happen I replied at once.

I told Grandpa what Veda had said then added, "If they're pirates, that's good news."

"Why’s that?" tall Smith asked me sharply.

"If we have one of the larger conglomerates seriously after our node we’ll have a much harder chance. The pirates, all we have to do is make it too expensive for them to keep attacking us."

"I think I see what you’re getting at," Smith said, nodding. "It’s the death penalty, right? Kill them enough and their respawn goes up."

"Exactly. There’s fifteen of them. That means if we get 45 kills on them in an hour, their respawn timer goes up. Permanently. I'm betting they won't stick around for that. We should be able to drive them off if we hit them hard enough. Once we get close to 45 kills, they’ll back off."

"Yes," Grandpa agreed, "but we've got to make sure that we keep our own death count low. We can’t afford that penalty ourselves."

He messaged Team Ragtag. Return to base. Avoid contact with the enemy. Do not I repeat do not engage. Pretend that your deaths matter. They sent back affirmative replies.

I watched my map as our scouts’ green dots moved carefully away from the red. "They’re not making any kind of effort to hide from us. No camouflage skills. I would think pirates would have one of those," I said.

"Unless they're letting us know they're coming so they can start the extortion talks immediately," Grandpa said grimly. "Communication array up yet?"

Juana had wanted to build that next but I had overruled her in favor of a couple of buffs to our Turrets. "Not yet," I admitted. "We have the advantage here. We're behind defensive walls and our turrets will help us."

"But they know what they're doing," Grandpa reminded me helpfully.

"Yes, but we are desperate." I hoped that would help.

The farmers streamed up through the gates. I mentally checked them off my list as they filed through the portal. I called up the outpost options and changed the wall settings. Now each of the two inner walls had a parapet running around the inside, four feet below the top of the wall. We’d be able to stand on our walls and shoot, then duck down behind cover.

Team Ragtag had almost made it back by now. I looked nervously at our node. It was fine, surrounded by an intangible haze of shields. That could change quickly.

Ragtag wound their way through our lines of defenses, passing the last couple farmers to report in, and joined us atop the hill. "All right," Grandpa said crisply. "How close are they?"

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I checked my map. "Still about five minutes out."

"Ok, listen up people!" Grandpa shouted. "I expect them to make a priority of the respawn point. They do that then we'll be forced to respawn back on the boat. At that point we’re fucked. Anyone who's killed will be out of the fight for too long."

Even Sage looked grim and serious, holding still as she listened to me intently.

"We want to let the defenses do as much as they can. We’ll stay behind walls, use abilities from here. Kill them without getting killed, protect the respawn point."

Everyone was nodding agreement. I checked my map again. The first team of enemies had reached the edge of our clearing and stopped, waiting for their friends to catch up. I passed the information along. The idea of letting them dictate the terms of our engagement didn't sit right with me.

I turned to Jones. "What's the range on your drone bird?"

"About three quarters of a mile. Why?"

"I have an idea," I said. "Let's send it up and see."

Jones had the ability to share out his drone’s vision to anyone else on the same side. The bird-like drone circled above our hidden enemy. Jones had it on a heat-seeking mode. We could see their bodies outlined through the foliage. They were moving toward the edge of the jungle. A moment later, they stepped out and the drone gave us a clear view.

I leaned forward, despite not needing to do anything to improve my vision, and got my first look at the invaders.

They were orcs, alright. Tall, green-skinned, bald, with teeth that protruded out above their lower jaws that I could see even from atop the hill. Unlike a stereotypical fantasy orc, they weren't wearing loincloths or battered chainmail. They wore silvery bodysuits, tight at ankle and wrist and billowing a bit in the middle, with logos on the front and back so thick they looked like NASCAR drivers.

One squad of five carried odd halberds, very long weapons with an axe head at one end and a nasty hook at the other. The second group to emerge from the brush carried rifles. There were no obvious magazines. The rifles were silvery, sleek, and wicked looking. I kind of wanted to get my hands on one. The third squad was hanging back for some reason.

I targeted the first halberd-bearing orc and fired Trick Shot. The range on my Trick Shot had increased as I leveled up. I could now make a shot almost half a mile away. My bullet would zip past cover and track my target to ground if necessary. I just had to be able to target in the first place, which was why I had asked Jones to send up his drone.

Two of Team Ragtag also had abilities that could be targeted a long way away and then fired. Annie was a [Magician's Apprentice]. Her skills mostly revolved around illusion and battlefield control, although she also had a couple of nice damage abilities. Right now, she targeted the orcs and cast Misdirect Audience. A flash of light accompanied by a series of popping sounds went off just behind the orcs. Most of them turned to look, compelled by the spell. The two who resisted must have higher wisdom levels than Annie's spell. Those who had looked gained a debuff [Fooled!] which would make them miss their targets more often for the next ten minutes.

At the same time, Mitch cast his once daily [Spike Their Trunks] spell. Mitch was a [Tapper]. I had at first assumed that was a typo, then realized that didn’t make sense. During our interviews I had pushed him until he admitted that he hadn't read all of the details of the class as well as he should. "I thought it was Sapper too," he said. "Everything's about blowing stuff up and making holes and things. But, well," he looked embarrassed. "I'm Canadian, you see? My brother-in-law had a great opportunity involving a bit of contraband maple syrup. I was helping him out with that when we were taken. I ended up with a whole lot of gallons of unrefined sap in my inventory and I guess the system cueued off of that when they offered me the class. I did have some sapper experience in the military though and all my abilities are good for offense."

"Are you why Mama Grace has been serving Sage authentic maple syrup with her pancakes?" I asked, raising an eyebrow. Those had been a recent addition to Mama Grace's restaurant and Sage ordered a giant stack every time we came in.

"Could be," he said. "Yeah, that's how I got hooked up with Misfits in the first place."

I had yet to see any of Mitch's special abilities in action. He also had a shotgun that he had used during the wave clearing phase of outpost construction. But the descriptions of his abilities made them sound pretty darn cool, and if Spike Their Trunks was an example, he was a powerful ally.

I watched as the five orcs with guns suddenly dropped their weapons and started swearing. Sage laughed. "Is that syrup coming out of their guns?" she asked.

"Yup," Mitch said proudly. "Those weapons won't be good for anything until they've gone and cleaned and repaired them and that won't be fast." It was a great ability, but with a day-long cooldown and limited to five opponents at a time.

The orcs checked their weapons, tried to clear to them, even waved them over their heads to no avail. Finally, the guns disappeared into thin air and they all drew different weapons. Three had bulbous pistols, two had swapped to long knives. They regrouped with the halberd orcs, even as I fired another Trick Shot.

I was chipping away at the health of my target. They had larger health pools than any of us, 180 health apiece. I checked my messages and sent Veda a quick summary of our situation. I hoped that she wasn't too mad at us to help, but this was her future on the line too, so I thought she'd get over herself sooner or later.

“Here they come!” Jones shouted, recalling his drone, as the orcs emerged from the treeline en mass.

The orcs began to storm the hill. They were fast, really, really fast, eating up the distance between us with long loping strides. I fired another Trick Shot as it came off cooldown. They were still well outside the range of my Barrage or a normal shot, but now they were close enough for Team Mongoose to take action. The soldier team had moved down into the second ring, M4s out. They were up on the walkway behind the second wall, shooting down as the orcs entered.

Our slowing turrets had them targeted. We’d put up a couple high-end designs we’d looted from the beta node at our front entrance. The range on the turrets was insane, reaching twenty feet out from the entrance. They made keeping creep off us easy. By the time the creep even reached the entrance, they were half dead. Now the turrets hit the orcs, halting their rush.

The orcs with pistols shot back at Mongeese, while the ones with halberds waded forward as if through Mitch’s maple syrup. Once in melee range, they attacked our turrets, striking them with the long bladed weapons and chipping away at their hit points. The Mongeese kept ducking behind the parapets, avoiding taking damage from the pistol shots. I fired another Trick Shot. Sage, Grandpa, and I all stood on the innermost parapet with the Ragtags filling in around the rest of the circle.

We had agreed to let Team Mongoose have the run of the second ring. They were more used to this sort of fighting, and we would only get in their way. Grandpa was looking longingly at the orcs as they made their way around the outermost ring, heading for our gate.

We had deliberately left the first gate, the entrance into our outer ring, open. Only four of the outer ring turrets, and the slowing turrets, could hit the area outside our first gate. They wouldn’t do much damage while the orcs took down our gate. Since losing it was inevitable, and we would have gained very little in return, I opted to leave the gate down and let the orcs move into the kill zone.

Team Mongoose hosed down the orcs. I checked my map. The other four orcs were still hanging back in the trees. What were they doing? I sent a message to Jones. Can you get your drone over there to find out what's going on?

Roger, he replied without missing a beat as he fired down into the oncoming orcs. We dropped one of the halberd orcs, the one I had made my target for all of my Trick Shots. Sage let out a whoop. "One down, thirty-five to go!" she yelled, pumping a fist in the air.

“Our normal turrets are barely scratching them,” tall Smith noted. “But the ones you looted are chewing the hell out of ‘em.”

“Victory for Pirate Sage!” my sister cheered. “Her awesome foresight and larceny pays off again!”

"We've got a long fight ahead of us," I cautioned her. She just grinned and cast Mucking Out the Stalls in front of the lead group of orcs. They were letting the halberd bearers go first, while the ones who had been riflemen followed behind. That might be an effective tactic, had they still had rifles, but with their mismatched weaponry, it just meant the four in the back were pretty damn ineffective. It was interesting that they didn't seem able to adjust on the fly.

I changed my target to one of the two with guns and set off another Trick Shot, and followed up with a Barrage into the same orc. The rings were tight enough together that I could now hit a target in the outer ring, as long as it was in the same sector as I was.

Grandpa looked longingly at the bogged-down orcs in Sage's muck. He fingered one of his tomahawks. "I could get down there and—"

"Nope," I said firmly.

"They won't be able to touch me with Shadow Step going."

"You could get in, but you won't be able to get out," I pointed out. "Remember, we've got to kill them more than they kill us." Grandpa sighed, but just kept hurling shuriken at each orc in turn.

The next orc to go down was one of the knife-wielders. His body lay in the muck for a moment before it shimmered and vanished. Jones sent me a message. The five in the woods are up to something, boss.

I didn't want to be distracted with the drones' point of view at the moment, so I asked Jones, What do you see?

For one, they're dressed different than these. They're wearing long purple robes with stars on them. Makes me think of wizards or something. They've got some sort of strange machinery in the woods. A thing that looks like a giant sarcophagus, and then they're building a contraption with wheels and a big ol' barrel on it. I think it's some sort of siege engine.

Uh-oh. Give me a quick shot of that, I replied. For a moment, my vision changed as Jones passed along his drone viewpoint to me. The image vanished almost as quickly as it had come, and I blinked, trying to make sense of it.

Jones was right. It looked for all the world like five orc wizards building some sort of contraption that would mean our doom. And what was with the sarcophagus? Had they brought some evil necromancer king along with them? Orcs always served evil wizards in the kind of fantasy books I had read growing up, but these were space orcs. They were different, right?

Suddenly, I noticed a dot on my map breaking away from the ones in the woods and making for us. A second later, another dot followed. I realized there were still five dots in the woods clumped up around the orcs’ gear. These two were separate.

"Ah, shit," I said aloud as they emerged from the woods. It was the halberd-bearing orc and the pistol-wielder we had just killed. They ran past the barrage of shots from our outer defenses and into the line of our first ring of defense. "They've got a portable respawn point!"