********* *Captive* **************** *by James Judge* **************** Welcome to part three of this Captive guide. For those of you who missed the previous instalments we looked at the first two bases of the first mission and in the next two parts we'll be looking at the next two bases - Meestre and Triekos. Before we start looking at the individual bases, let's look at how your droids should be progressing. Throughout the past two bases you should have been getting loads of experience points from killing all the monsters you've come across. You should have been spending those points on increasing your droids' attributes so that you can use better weapons and armour when you come across them. By the end of the second base you should have gotten all your droids to have a Robotics score of about 5 and a brawling score of 9. For the back two characters you could have given them a sword skill of 9 to open up their hand-gun ability and then use any spare XPs to help the front two droids to achieve a sword skill of 16 (or if you've got loads of experience to 24 - I tend to go for 24 but this time round I've gone for 16 and, because of it, been able to give my droids a hand-gun score of 24 easily). By the end of the third base (Meestre) your scores should be around these marks: ******************************************** *Skill * Alpha * Beta * Gamma * Delta * ******************************************** *Robotics * 5 * 7 * 7 * 6 * *Brawling * 9 * 9 * 9 * 9 * *Swords * 16 * 16 * 9 * 9 * *Handguns * 24 * 24 * 24 * 24 * *Rifles * 3 * 3 * 4 * 2 * ******************************************** *Dexterity * 32 * 29 * 15 * 29 * *Vitality * 30 * 31 * 31 * 15 * *Wisdom * 20 * 26 * 30 * 29 * ******************************************** *Health * 176 * 176 * 176 * 176 * ******************************************** (NB Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta are my four droids. Alpha and Beta are the front pair and Gamma and Delta are the back two) We can see that, skill wise, the four droids are pretty equal apart from Alpha and Beta's Sword skill which is much higher than Gamma or Delta's. This is because they are the two that have been using the Light Swords and, so, need the higher score. The only way I was able to get their score high in this ability was to use all their experience points and, using the method I outlined last time, some of the other two droids' experience points. As you can see Alpha and Beta's Wisdom is far lower than the other two's and this means they get less experience and, so, find it harder to progress levels. I've tried to make up for this by increasing their Robotics score but this will still lack as after a few levels increases in this area cost a lot and concentrating here may mean that I wouldn't have been able to get all the droids up to 24 in Hand-guns. Anyway, even with the lower Wisdom scores I am happy with the way the droids are progressing. The reason why I didn't concentrate on Brawling was that we came across Swords quickly enough not to need to use Power Gloves (which are dotted around in some cupboard or you could have bought them from a shop). In fact when I played through for the second time I didn't even have to use Knuckle-Dusters! To progress from one ability to the next you MUST attain a score of 9 or above. Only go above 9 if you are going to use that weapon a lot. So, we won't be using rifles intensively (when we come across them) so I'd probably only train one person up to 24 points and leave the rest on 9. This way we'll be able to progress straight onto automatic weapons which will be our main weapon for the rest of this Mission when we come across them. On with the show... *************************************** *Mission 1, Base 3 - Meestre (48E 63S)* *************************************** This is the level where the game starts to increase the pressure - you've had it incredibly easy so far into the game... While the level may only be pretty small in the great scheme of things, what makes it difficult to complete is the number of levels (five of them) and the fact that there are lots of twisty, winding corridors that can prove a bit of a nuisance - especially if you get trapped between two monsters and have no escape... Secondly the monsters get tougher here - they soak up more damage (the sparking method works on the Goblins and Troops, but only after two or three glove-fulls, and doesn't even scratch the Plant Poppers now) and give more damage in return. Also there are a number of grates which close off the passage behind you. There are no places where this will put you in dire straits, but if you don't plan well enough (ie get enough power and repair yourself, as well as check the area you're just about to enter with the radar for any monsters) you will start getting into difficulties. The final problem in this base is the number of ladders. Normally this wouldn't pose a problem, but here we enter a different level in the middle of a corridor that is full of nasty monsters. This happens quite a few times and the only way to overcome it is to keep on jumping up the ladder, getting a few hits in, and then ducking down to the previous level to wait for your weapons to recycle. It might be worth waiting a couple of extra seconds before you go back into the fray because (a) you may get lucky and a monster will wander over the ladder and (b) your enemies will turn around after a little while to go a few squares away. If they have their backs to you you have those few extra seconds while they turn around to inflict some damage. Also remember that you're in a corridor - you could easily have two sets of monsters attacking you from two different directions. This is where all the costly damage will be incurred and you don't want that. If you find yourself soaking up too much punishment kill your droids (by removing their chests, dropping them and then walking left and right) and start again - you want to be able to afford the Super Magnums at the start of the next level (which will cost a minimum of 15000 gold to buy the guns and one round per gun...). On this level you'll come across a lift too. When I first encountered this I thought it was a locked door and it took quite a while for me to tumble that it was, in fact, a lift! It's just like a normal lift - you press the button then you have to wait and wait and wait until it arrives. Be careful, though, as if you get trapped in the doors they do more damage than an ordinary door. Also don't use the door as a weapon - if the enemy proves to be tough then you won't have anywhere to run. Finally, if you do lure an enemy back to the lift planning to make a quick escape into the lift you'll have to do some rethinking. First off you've got the wait for the lift to arrive and secondly you can't close the doors yourself - they are fully automatic, so you may get an unwanted visitor... So, this base has five levels. You enter on level 1, the generators are on level 1 and there are two computers this time (so that means two probes and twice the weight to carry). The first computer is on level 4 and the second is on level 5. Then new monsters you come across are these: Guards Dogs. These dogs are two-headed and pack quite a punch. They move quickly and pose quite a problem to you, the low level droid. They are easily picked off if you have ranged weapons, but when you get nose to fang they prove quite difficult to kill. Best to use the four-square method to kill them. Crit-furs look like little balls of fluff, that is until you get close to them then they explode into a little creature full of fangs and claws. They move really slowly but soak up one hell of a lot of damage. On later levels I tend to kill them with a couple of mines (or at least tenderise them...) but we can't do that at the moment as we need the cash and mines are vastly over-priced items anyway (they increase in power and cost at every base). They have no ranged weapons and normally travel in groups of nine. You can't tell which is their front (I don't actually think they have one) so you have no 'rotation' time with which to hit them. But, they do have long periods of inactivity - just don't bank on it! R2-Shells are, in my books, the most dangerous creatures encountered so far. They travel in groups of nine and are very fast movers. They pack a ranged punch in the form of an electrical spark. Normally electricity wouldn't do much to your droids but these guys fire rapidly and with up to nine shots arcing their way to you at once, your droids can't take much punishment... Easily killed with ranged weapons these guys either need to be tackled in a square or with a ladder. Watch out because they are often the monster waiting behind false walls on this level, so don't get yourself trapped between an R2-Shell and a Crit-fur or else you can reload pretty darned quickly. There's the Door-men. These act like Brains, but are dressed in blue and take less damage. They still won't attack until you've attacked them first (or they've been attacked by a fellow monster...). When they die they drop the obligatory bag of gold as well as a clipboard (which can be sold for 200 gold) that gives you the passwords to the Naitan doors (the barriers made from two beams of energy...). The final new enemy is the Spinner. These are one of the fastest opponents, travelling around in a whirlwind. They go around in fours and can prove quite a problem to poorly armoured droids (ie you). The best way to kill these guys is to use the square method with an adaptation. Instead of just side-stepping once, turning and then firing side-step, turn, wait until you see them and side-step again. As they are so quick your weapons won't be ready for another barrage. There are no new pieces of armour here, but there is a place to sell some Tindron stuff if you are in real trouble (it's on level 5 accessed by going up from level two via ladders...) but at the moment you should be reloading if you become badly damaged. The new weapons on this level are guns. I'll deal with them next level as you won't have the experience to use the best guns at the moment and this base only sells #7 Magnums - the first shop on the next base sells Supers and they only cost a couple of hundred extra. For the maps, see the separate hint file... --------------------------------------------------------------------------- PS - You can contact me for any specific help with Captive through my usual address (33 Chidley Cross Road, East Peckham, Nr. Tonbridge, Kent, TN12 5BX) or telephone me on 01622 871679. I've got all passwords up to the Space Station on Mission 6 and all switch (8 and 16 way) solutions up to and including the Space Station on Mission 3. You can distribute this and any other Captive guide file I do to anyone you want. Just keep my name on it (please) and remove the telephone number if it is going to someone who doesn't read SynTax. Thanks. @~More next issue - o -