Void Battle
| Void Battle | |||
| Sidequest | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| |||
| Quest information | |||
| Location | The Compound | ||
| Given by | Cognator | ||
| Rewards | 9500 classic XP / 10 oddity XP | ||
| Related quests | |||
| |||
Cognator needs your help to defeat invaders from the void.
This quest is unlocked if player has killed less than 12 Exosoldiers and have Second Sight or Psi Empathy.
Objectives
- Help the Cognator defeat the invaders from the void.
Walkthrough
The goal is to breach through the invading enemy's defenses and illuminate all four fronts. Each front consists of three Amalgamations that needs to be destroyed in order to go further. After clearing an entire front, the deployed troops on that front will return, ready to be redeployed again elsewhere.
Talk to the commander to deploy troops and decide which front should be on the offense, and which on the defense. You can inspect the Amalgamations to determine the invading strength and talk with your soldiers to determine their morale.
The northern flank is controlled by the Cognator and cannot be controlled by the player, however after certain amount of turns have passed (depends on frontline tactics and progress in the battle, usually in the second or the third turn), the entire northern flank squad is killed, forcing you to take control over it as well.
The strength of the invading entities is randomized, however as the time passes, they begin to become increasingly stronger. The strength can be determined by inspecting the Amalgamations and with Second Sight you gain additional information that makes its easier to determine their power.
Soldiers might gain Positive Void Affliction or Negative Void Affliction after a battle which consequently increases or reduces their effectiveness in combat. There are various types of both negative and positive afflictions and each of them has a different effect. By talking with the afflicted soldier, you can determine the type of the affliction and with enough Persuasion or Intimidation you can remove the negative effect from them, but each option can be only used once. Amount of persuasion and intimidation required varies. Persuasion checks appear to be 50, 75 and 100. When talking with commander, you can also address all available troops, using up one of the two possible buffs: Paint light or Project unity. These buffs have a high chance to grant positive affliction to a soldier and might also remove the negative effect from them, its effectiveness depends on the type of the negative affliction and the buff used.
If you have Ethereal Torch in your inventory, you will be able to use it in the battle by deploying it in the flank of your choice. It is not known what effect does it exactly have but it appears to increase the strength of the flank and reduce the chance of gaining negative affliction by the soldiers. Thought Control also proves very useful here - it provides a buff to all your soldiers (scaling with your effective skill) and makes them more resilient against the effects of Negative Void Affliction.
Once you clear all fronts, talk to the commander to return. If too many soldiers have died during the battle, Cognator will comment that the battle is lost and take you back to the Compound, failing the quest and becoming non-interactable similarly to as when player killed too many of his soldiers.
If you won, Cognator will decide to return to his cryochamber and put all his troops back to sleep, removing all remaining exosoldiers from the Compound and causing patrols to stop spawning. You will also be able to take his Perceptual Isolation Helmet. You can also alternatively attack him after the battle which leads to the same outcome, except that the remaining soldiers will stay in the Compound.
Additional Notes
Difficulty of the battle scales with game's Difficulty, and on DOMINATING the fight becomes extremely difficult without any investment in Thought Control.
Amalgamation Strength Levels
| Strength | Text (Normal) | Text (Second Sight) |
|---|---|---|
| Very low | A lurking, protuberant, slimy being still in its infancy. | A being at its most vulnerable stage. Lots more glide through the space above, unwilling to join the one before you. |
| Low | A whirl of malice. Hungering, metastasizing, jangling... | This presence exerts mild threat. Hordes of these can be seen far away in the distance. |
| Medium | A peculiar, tainted being, both young and old, both right and wrong. | A throng poised to inflict suffering. |
| High | An astounding wail of utter carnage hisses from the abyss. | A swarm of nightmares. |
| Very high | A bloated, sightless, nebulous abortion feeds on the bystander's thoughts. | Zounds! The penultimate essence of unspeakable terror twists the reality itself! |
| Maximum | An ungainly, unseen, croaking depravity existing on the brink of imagination. | A legion of preposterous mental debauchery warps the very fabric of the universe. |
