Topic: Returnal

@JohnnyShoulder Well, you’ll need to beat Ophion to complete act 3 so get cracking!

@Thrillho I've got my first Sunface Fragment, so only 5 left to get.

@adrianthealchemist Sometimes that can work out but those mini bosses in six (if it’s the one with the big fists) can be damn stupid. They take such a chunk out of your health on a single hit and they move pretty fast.

@render and can give you several malfunctions in a single fight if you’re too slow

@JohnnyShoulder So how do I get an Astronaut again? I’m kicking myself for blowing such a valuable item. I read you have to wait for it to be a random item in a fabricator? If so, I’ve not seen it appear again in my 10-15 runs after unlocking it. Is there a trick to getting it? Does it typically show up in that ether machine at the beginning?

@Th3solution Astronaut Figurines appear every single run (at least in my experience) in the fabricator room in Biome 1 or 4.

@nessisonett So that’s the room with the four options to fabricate and then the place to exchange obolites for ether, etc?
I’ve never seen it there. It’s in one of the fabricators? I always have lame things for sale there, like something to take 2s off the alt-fire or some kind of worthless consumable.

@Th3solution Yeah, I think I only saw it not for sale in that room once. Strange.

@nessisonett Really?! Aw man, that could be a game changer. In fairness, I haven’t made it to that room in about half of my 25ish runs, but never seen it there. Here’s hoping 🤞🏼!

@Th3solution I seem to have played a different game from you though. I mean you actually have online elements in yours.

@nessisonett Yes, I have a downed corpse in pretty much every room that has multiple enemies. At least 4-5 times per run. I avoid them like the plague now though. I’m not good enough to exact revenge.

Are you playing the latest patch?
Maybe the patch made the game harder. More online big baddies to try, less useful power ups.

@Th3solution I haven’t touched it since that big patch. Checked it once to see if my trophies popped but they didn’t so I see no reason to go back to it.

@Th3solution My experience seems to mirror yours @nessisonett in that 9 / 10 I get an astronaut for sale. If not an astro then it's the blade balancer. There's also a parasite that even though isn't quite as useful as the astro will give you a second chance, the downside is that it takes a large chunk of integrity when it brings you back. That's better than being dead though 😁

Those corpses are everywhere now so there must be a reasonable number of people dying out there. I'll have a go every now and then but only if I've got a good weapon as I find the mini bosses that spawn are usually worse than the normal ones you'd find in those rooms.

@Th3solution Yeah as Ness stated, the Astronaut can be found in the fabricator room, a rare drop in chests, or on its own fabricator. It is RNG, so there is no trick to getting it really. In Biomes 4 and 5 I find I'm getting it most of the time, but the fabricator appears in a fixed place in those biomes.

If your facing the boss, I would possibly try and get to the fabricator room and spend your obolites to give yourself a better chance of beating it. But if you have full health you run the risk of getting damaged when trying to find the fabricator room. It is the whole risk v reward dice roll that you have to decide what you think is best to do for that run. If you are low on health, do you continue and try and get some more health pickups and risk dieing?

But it is upto you really, if you have found the boss gate it is good to face the boss just learn the patterns. What I sometimes do is don't attack the boss for a bit and just concentrate on avoiding the attacks, so it almost become second nature.

@JohnnyShoulder The two times I’ve faced the boss, I’ve pretty much cleared the map beforehand and I go back to mop up any missed items so I’ve been at full health. Well… I take that back — I avoid the challenge room with a star over it. Tried that once and learned my lesson there. I have no business trying to clear that room yet.

I’ve had mixed results with remapping the controls. Certainly several of my deaths on the recent runs involve me hitting circle to dash out of instinct, but I’m gradually rewiring my brain to use R1 for dash. I left jump on the cross button. I just don’t see ever being able to wrap my head around having it anywhere else. The ‘always on’ sprint has been fine but yes, I’ve sprinted off a few ledges but mistake, but overall it’s better to just have the constant sprinting. I also have the reticle larger and darker and I do think it helps me overload a little better. It makes the game less pretty and cinematic, but I can’t worry about that right now until I can advance past this biome. And I’m considering intensifying my stick deadzone to be more reactive, but haven’t yet. As well as I think I saw a setting for extra assistance with camera and aim focus and I think I need to max that out.

I’ll update you all but is there anyone else who’s not seeing astronauts ever in their fabricators? I’m surprised I haven’t since like I say, I am clearing the map and going into every room (minus the challenge room)
I also have been destroying pillars and statues like suggested to look for obolites and have had zero luck. I think maybe once there was some obolites in one statue.

I guess it makes me feel a little better about my struggles if maybe I’m playing a slightly more stingy version where I’m not getting quite as lucky as average.

@adrianthealchemist Yeah, thanks — I’ll keep my fingers crossed and maybe I need to contribute to that online bank to trigger getting the astronaut. I’ve never spent my credits in that. I’ll try it to see if that triggers things.

And yeah, I have been getting items and occasional obolites in the purple exploding flowers. Usually they are malignant though.
I also go into every single one of the collapsing floor rooms and typically find a chest, sometimes 3, and every 4th or 5th time it’s a room chock full of obolites. But yeah, the most obolites I’ve been able to collect on one run is about 500. Usually it is about 300-400. I’m not too good at getting to them before they disappear and I’ve decided that I need to prioritize survival and keeping my distance over rushing over there to pick them up and taking my eyes away from the other enemies. I’ve frequently taken damage that way by being too greedy. But it means I end up pretty poor money-wise during my runs.

@Th3solution They will sometimes be in a chest if your lucky as well as being at the fabricators.

@Th3solution There's a few parasites that can help with affording things from the fabs. There's one which allows obolites to hand around for 1.5s longer, which makes an amazing difference considering it's such a small amount of time, and there's also one that reduces the cost of items by 15%. That one is a double edged sword though as the downside to it is obolites disappear 1.5s quicker but it might be that the 15% off actually works out better. Like everything though it's a matter of being lucky to find these things in a cycle!

@render Yeah, I’ve been able to have runs which involved those two power ups. And actually, as far as obolite pick ups, I personally seem to have benefitted most from the one (I think it was a parasite) that made your obolite attraction radius double at the expense of them hanging around for less time (I think likewise was a 1.5s sacrifice in time before disappearing). The lack of necessary proximity was better for me than longer duration. At least that was my experience on the one time I happened upon that parasite.

Speaking of parasites, I find most (but not all) helpful, but malignancies have been the death of me a few times. Losing 75% weapon efficiency or having to take damage when I pick up an item, stuff like that just can ruin a run. For me I have been less prone to take malignant items lately. It’s weird because sometimes it’s well worth it because the clearance criteria is something super simple like “use a consumable” and I happen to have a worthless consumable and I just burn it to get rid of the malignancy. Once I picked up a malignancy and the cure was “pick up a parasite” and I was satisfied because I figured that was easy since I’ll typically pick most of them up, ..then I went the whole stage without seeing any parasites. Grrr…

The other random thing about parasites is that they are strangely comforting to me, from an emotional standpoint. I know it sounds silly, but the game is very lonesome and foreboding thematically and the world is pretty scary, so having a little companion in my arm chirping and squirming around has an unexpected soothing effect on my psyche 😅

@Th3solution Good call! I forgot about the attraction radius one but sounds like you've been making the most of that. Unless you can find another one that perfectly cancels out the downside there's always going to be a hit on your collection somewhere. There's a good weapon trait called obolite magnet, which you might get lucky on getting sometimes, that allows obolites to be deposited right to your feet on killing a hostile. When I've had that I've gathered a ton of them and then you can really go to town on the fabs.

I've been through various phases with the malignant items. First I was taking my chances with things, then after a while decided to start playing it safe so didn't touch anything malignant. Eventually I found I was gambling on things that were moderate / high in the first few biomes but nothing after that and then once I'd finished the game I'd just go for it and pick up anything. Sometimes I've been really lucky and picked up 4 - 5 items in a row without anything happening and then other times I've been hit with something every time. That's when those malfunctions really sting. I especially hate the 2.5s added cool down time to dash and the pools of acid on hostile death ones, both usually lead to my demise 😆.