Immortals of Thera
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It’s turn-based, so there’s no need for fast reactions or mouse clicks. You have a virus and you force your way through system defenses while looking for a core. Once you find it and you break it open, you will find it containing anything from Carbon to a faction tower BPC.
Game Setup
Here’s what the board looks like with different pieces labeled:
It’s a little different from previous iterations, and it feels cleaner and more open. Your probability of success at hacking a given container depends on two stats: virus strength and virus coherence. Virus coherence is the “hit points” of your virus, and boosts to this mean that you survive longer when fighting an enemy defensive node. Virus strength is how much damage you deal when attempting to hack an enemy node. Of the two, bonuses to virus strength are stronger. When you attack a node, it hits back according to its virus strength, unless your attack dealt the final blow to it, in which case it dies before it can strike back. This means that virus strength bonuses, by making it faster to destroy an enemy node, also increase your survivability.
There are four different types of defensive nodes you can encounter. Each enemy node has its own strength and coherence based on what kind of node it is and how difficult the site is. Uncovering one will lock the surrounding nodes so they can’t be interacted with. Here’s what the defensive nodes look like:
A firewall and an anti-virus are basically the same thing, just with different strength/coherence combinations. Anti-viruses tend to have higher strength and lower coherence, while firewalls have middling strength and high coherence. Virus suppressors reduce the strength of your virus and have low to middle strength and a middling amount of coherence. Restoration nodes have low strength and high coherence, but boost all the exposed defense nodes for every turn they’re left alive. Lastly, the system core is the actual trigger for the lootsplosion. Mechanically, it acts like a firewall, with generally low strength and variable amounts of coherence.
There are also four utilities you can pick up, shown below alongside their effects. These utilities are incredibly helpful in ensuring your survival and getting you through some of the nastier defensive nodes.
Going Hacking
To go forth and do sites, you’ll need a ship with a probe launcher to find them check out video) a prop mod to slowboat the sometimes incredible distance from the warp-in, and as many hacking/archaeology bonuses you can cram in. You'll also want a cargo scanner, as the hackable containers can be scanned to reveal potential loot drops. As I mentioned before, you’ll want to get the most virus strength you can get, followed by increasing virus coherence. If you’re not undocking for a specific site, you should plan to do either a hacking or archaeology site - they use the same mechanic. In nullsec, a cloak to avoid ganks is probably a wise fitting choice. What you don’t need is any tank or guns. As of Odyssey, rats have been completely removed from the hacking sites, although there are "Ghost sites" that do have traps and rats to kill
When you start, you’ll have just a few unexplored nodes. Click on one, and keep clicking until you hit your first defensive node. If you find a data cache, don't flip it over until you’ve explored every node touching it-- some data caches conceal defensive nodes, and you don’t want a promising exploration route cut off too early.
When you hit that defensive node, what you do depends on what kind of node it is. If it’s a regenerative node, absolutely kill it right away. Every turn that node lives for will make the other nodes harder to kill. If it’s a virus suppressor, you might want to kill it-- check whether it will kill you first. It will take you (node coherence)/(your strength) = n attacks rounded up to kill it, and in that time it will do (node strength) * (n-1) damage to you.
So for example, if you have 110 coherence/10 strength (post-suppression) and the virus suppressor has 70 coherence/20 strength, it will take you 70/10 = 7 hits to kill it. In that time, it will do 20*6 = 120 damage to you, so you will not survive the encounter. Bad luck, find a utility to help you out. This also demonstrates the value of a strength bonus (and the deadliness of the virus suppressor): with 20 strength, your virus would destroy the defense node in 4 hits and you would take only 60 damage.
If you run into a firewall or anti-virus, just go around it while unexplored nodes exist. Pick a different route and explore the whole board before going into combat you don’t need-- the system core might be in an accessible but as-yet unexplored node, making your game easy.
A game mid-hack. Got plenty of coherence and plenty more board to explore, so it's looking good.
As you explore, you’ll likely pick up utilities to use. When to use them is a strategic decision that becomes easier with experience. You’ll want to pick them up as soon as you see them, though, in case a neighboring node is revealed to be a defensive node. If that happens, you won’t be able to access the utility until you kill the defensive node, which isn’t often worth it.
Similarly, you’ll want to kill the core as soon as you can find it, assuming you can with your given virus strength and coherence. Again, you can use math to check this out. If it’s impossible, explore for utilities but try to avoid clicking on any of the core’s unexplored neighbors - if they’re defensive nodes, you won’t be able to hit it.
PREPARATION
Skills:
Archaeology (+10 Virus Coherence for each lvl of skill with Relic Analyzer)
Hacking (+10 Virus Coherence for each lvl of skill with Data Analyzer)
Ships:
The SOE ships are good for this as they don't need a lot of skills to fly,can warp cloaked and have (+5 Virus Strength with Data/Relic Analyzer)
T1 Magnate, Heron, Imicus, Probe (+5 Virus Strength with Data/Relic Analyzer)
T2 Buzzard etc (+10 VS with Data/Relic Analyzer)
T3 Tengu/Proteus/Loki/Legion with Emergent Locus Analyzer subsystem (+10 VS with Data/Relic Analyzer)
Modules:
Data Analyzer I (+40 VC and +20 VS) or Data Analyzer II (+60 VC and +30 VS)
Relic Analyzer I (+40 VC and +20 VS) or Relic Analyzer II (+60 VC and +30 VS)
Cargo Scanner I/II - so, you'll never miss anything tasty anymore inside the containers
Afterburner I/II or Microwarpdrive I/II - the distance between some containers can be more than 50km, max range that i experienced was 280km
Expanded Cargohold I/II - to make sure your cargo bay can hold everything
Inertia Stabilizers I/II or Nanofiber Internal Structure I/II - for better speed and agility
Rigs:
Small Emission Scope Sharpener I (+10 VC with Relic Analyzer)
Small Emission Scope Sharpener II (+20 VC with Relic Analyzer)
Small Memetic Algorithm Bank I (+10 VC with Data Analyzer)
Small Memetic Algorithm Bank II (+20 VC with Data Analyzer)
Implants:
Slot9 Poteque 'Prospector' Archaeology AC-905 (+5 VC for Relic Analyzer)
Slot9 Poteque 'Prospector' Hacking HC-905 (+5 VC for Data Analyzer)
Slot10 Poteque 'Prospector' Environmental Analysis EY-1005 (5 second increase to decay time of all scattered containers)
THE GAME
Once you attempt to hack a container you'll get something like this.
At the left bottom corner you can see two scales, the left one is your Virus Coherence (or in another words - your life) and the right one is Virus Strength (or your damage). So, the more VC/VS you get the more chances you have. In the bottom middle part there are three slots for Utility Elements, you can get them in the mini game itself. The rest of the window will be filled by nodes.
When you start a mini game you have your basis VC/VS and free Utility slots. When you click on the free nods at the middle of the screen there is a chance you'll discover Utility Element, Defensive System, System Core or nothing. The main goal of the game is to find and destroy the System Core. When you do this - You win!
The main rules are:
- the game is turn-based
- to win you have to locate and destroy a System Core
- once your Virus Coherence drops to zero, you lose
- for each container you have two attempts, after the second failure, the container will self-destruct
Defensive sub-systems:
Anti-virus - this sub-system has low 'health', but hits you hard in reply, so be carefull
Firewall - usual defensive sub-system
Virus Suppressor - this sub-system will lower your Virus Strength once it has appeared, its better to deal with it using offensive utility elements
Restoration Node - this defensive sub-system has to be 'killed' ASAP, because it repairs all defensive subsystems that are already active
System Core - once you find it, 'kill' it and you win!
Data Cache - Once you click this again, this will spawn a defensive subsystem or a utility element
Utility sub-systems:
Self Repair - when you use this tool, the next 3 turns you will gain additional VС
Polymorphic Shield - this utility is awesome: when you attack you don't get any damage in reply for the number of turns that shown in the top of the icon
Secondary Vector - this offensive utility will hit your target for you, you can even destroy some defensive sub-systems with it without any loss
Kernel Rot - decrease coherence of a target for 50%, so it's better to use it on tough targets before you attack them with something else
TACTICS
For better understanding of the game mechanics you have to practise as in any other game, but here is a couple of advices that work well:
- do not 'attack' Firewalls or Anti-Viruses while you still have other nodes to explore
- leave Data Cache nodes for the end-game, because they more often spawn defensive sub-systems than an Utility elements
- don't waste Utilities, use them wisely
- assess your chances prior to any attacking a defensive sub-system
LOOT
When you win a mini game, the container will open and you can take the loot inside
