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games:sc13:crew_positions:space_dragon

Space Dragon

  • Access: None
  • Additional Access: You can crush through walls, you're a fucking dragon!
  • Difficulty: Hard
  • Supervisors: None
  • Duties: Breathe fire, chow down, hoard all the station's gold, summon forth the carptide.
  • Guides: This is the guide.
  • Quote: “All of the stations on the rim are out fighting space dragons, and what do I get? Announcement Duty.” - CentCom Officer Brad.

Space provides many hazards, which incidentally includes giant fire breathing dragons. Don't question how their breath remains intact as it travels through a vacuum.

Preface

There exists an event to spawn a Space Dragon. On Dynamic, however, Space Dragon is one of the possible midround spawns available for the gamemode to throw at the crew. While not extremely common, it also isn't extremely rare either.

The Space Dragon, upon being possessed by ghosts, will spawn somewhere in the outskirts of the station, within space. CorpComm will notify the crew of this, telling them to gear up for the inevitable carp tide.

Objectives

The Space Dragon's goal will always be to open up three carp rifts or to get the shuttle to arrive while it is doing so. Once the third rift is opened, an infinite amount of player-controlled carp can be spawned from the rifts. Space Dragon also gets a permanent speed buff to accompany this effect.

Rifts take 5 minutes to charge, and the whereabouts of the rift will be unannounced for the first 2 1/2 minutes of the rift spawning in. After that time is passed, CorpComm will deliver an announcement stating its location. Once fully charged, the rift will periodically spawn AI-controlled carp and move around every so often, along with it being totally indestructible by all means. Space Dragon will also get a temporary 30-second speed boost when this happens along with all of its health fully restored, allowing it to slip away from any situation and to find another location to place a rift or to charge at its attackers with more efficiency for a time.

The Space Dragon cannot re-use the same location for their rifts and must place them in different locations. The locations where this is possible are also limited solely to locations in the station (and the AI satellite). However, there is nothing stopping the dragon from choosing three locations adjacent to each other.

Space Dragon gets 5 minutes to place down each rift before the Space Dragon itself vanishes. This makes the rift objective not optional for the Space Dragon unless they just want to go ham only for 5 minutes. Should the dragon's currently charging rift be destroyed, any previously charged rifts will vanish and the dragon will suffer a massive debuff to speed and its gust attack, along with it being blocked from creating any more rifts. This makes it a much easier target to track and eliminate, so avoiding this circumstance at all costs should be a priority. It should also be noted that if the Space Dragon is killed, a similar effect will occur. If the dragon is somehow revived afterwards, it will still suffer the same debuffs and inability to create rifts.

Should the shuttle arrive while Space Dragon is still active, it will also achieve its victory state even without all three rifts. All current rifts will allow the infinite spawning of sentient carp and become invulnerable, and Space Dragon will also get its permanent speed buff as if it charged all three rifts normally. This makes Space Dragon a noticeable threat during possible evacuation procedures, as the crew will need to eliminate the dragon before the shuttle arrives or brave for the worst.

Stats

  • Health: 325
  • Melee Damage 35. 30 Armor Piercing.
  • Speed: Normal

Abilities

Breathe Fire: When a tile is clicked outside of melee range, the space dragon sends out a column of flame from its mouth, dealing heavy damage and setting on fire anything that it hits. Virtually identical to the Ash Drake's fire breath, although it does travel faster and deal more direct damage at the cost of there only being one line of fire, as opposed to the Ash Drake's three or nine. It leaves a fiery trail behind, which will also set the careless on fire. Very fast cooldown can be used frequently. Will damage exosuits.

Crush: The Space Dragon can destroy walls by clicking on them. Regular walls take 4 seconds to break and reinforced walls 12. Note that only one wall can be broken at a time, but other actions such as breathing fire and wind dust are still available while performing this action.

Gust Attack: The Space Dragon rises into the air for a short bit, then uses his wings to create a force that stuns and knocks back friend and foe alike in a 4 tile radius. The move doesn't come out immediately, but fast enough even with the animation tell to be successful. Enemies hit are sent flying away from Space Dragon, and afterward Space Dragon will be temporarily vulnerable and unable to act. The first time this move is used, this downtime is relatively short, but the amount of time the tired animation lasts for is increased each time the move is used. The move will return to its original snappiness over time, but it must not be used in order for it to happen.

Devour: When the space dragon uses a melee attack on a dead mob, said mob is eaten, healing the space dragon with half of the eaten mob's maximum health. This is what makes the space dragon so potent, as it provides staying power. Even a couple of human corpses enables the space dragon to survive a drawn out, prolonged engagement with security. Once the Space Dragon is killed, all corpses leave its body to be revived like slaughter demons.

Carp Rift: The main ability and the one you use to win. Upon spawning in you will have 5 minutes to place down your rift, if you can't do this you will despawn. Once placed a ghost controlled carp can spawn out of it, resetting every 60 seconds. Carp spawned by this rift aren't different from regular carp. You and other carp, can heal on this rift for 10 health points a second. The crew will get a central command notice about its location after two minutes of it being up. You will have to defend the rift for five minutes for it to be fully charged. Once it is fully charged, it will become golden, spawn many unplayable carp, and become invincible, requiring no further defense. Additionally, you heal completely, get a sick-looking and menacing red aura, and move slightly faster for 30 seconds. Ghosts cannot respawn from a rift from which they have already spawned from, unless there are two or more carp spawns backlogged in that particular rift. Otherwise, you'll have to just wait until the Space Dragon opens up another rift.

If a rift is destroyed as it is in the process of charging, you will be met with a movement penalty and be unable to produce any more rifts, effectively preventing you from completing your objective and much of anything else.

You're Gonna Hear Me Roar

Being a Space Dragon for the first time can be intimidating but ideally, after reading this guide you won't end up as sushi by the end of the round.

Starting Out As the Dragon

When you first spawn in as Space Dragon, you'll be spawned in some area of space and prompted to pick a name and color. These choices don't particularly matter, so feel free to make yourself look snazzy however you want.

Afterward, you'll be on the clock to find and spawn in your first carp rift. Since you spawn out in the middle of space, you pretty much have easy access to any location near the exterior of the station, and even those buried in there a little can be accessed with a little wall-tearing on your part. Ideally, you want to find somewhere that people don't commonly pass by and an area that is easily defendable, meaning you'll want to find tight corridors and coverage so you can use your fire breath with extreme effectiveness while being relatively safe yourself. Its also worth noting that you probably want to avoid areas with a lot of windows, since lasers can pass through them whereas your fire breath cannot.

Once the carp rift is placed in hopefully what is a secure location, now you get to play defense. Luckily for you, you're not alone in this endeavor and also get the assistance of some carp friends, fresh off the rift. While they can be capable of slowing and preventing some attackers, more heavily armed combatants will take them out easily. They're also great at station-wide sabotage, as while you are essentially limited by your rift in terms of how far you can travel, the carps are extremely plentiful and can take more risk to hit up some important targets for you. Just note like all other living things, they aren't immune to your fire breath, so make sure you don't roast them before they outlive their usefulness. Feel free to tell them to hit up specific locations you have in mind if you think it'll give you the upper hand.

Assuming you listened to the guide and picked a relatively low-interest location to place your rift, you likely won't have to worry about any attackers for the first 2 minutes. Once that time passes, CorpComm will tell the crew exactly where you're located, in which case you can expect the crew to come for your head at that time. This is where understanding how to use your kit comes into play.

How To Fight As the Dragon

Being capable as Space Dragon isn't as hard as other roles, since where they're human, you happen to be a massive space leviathan with fire breath. Some things to note:

You have 400 effective health, whereas humans can only take 100 damage before falling into crit. However, they have armor, which you don't. Luckily, your attacks pierce armor quite often, so this shouldn't be a concern for you. Also unlike humans, you don't suffer any slowdown from taking damage. However, you are slowed down noticeably from stamina damage, albeit you cannot be incapacitated from it.

While your carp are extremely flimsy, they are as fast as humans and them approaching your targets can be a great distraction while you approach for more serious damage.

Fire is a great tactic for forcing opponents to disengage. It deals damage over time and spreads if they bump into other humans, so trying to coat groups in it is a great way to bring them down.

Likewise, wing gust is a great get-off-me-tool that forces opponents to disengage temporarily or be affected by the attack's AOE stun. However, if you find it not working out in your favor, you can also use it to launch corpses as well, specifically ones you just set on fire. Spread the love!

All nearby corpses are like health kits you can use whenever you deem necessary. Eating a corpse restores half their maximum health to you, so a human restores 100 health, which is quite significant if you think about it. Try to keep some around until you need them, it could save your life!

Space Carp corpses are also eligible for consumption as well. While they may not benefit you as much as a human's, every little bit counts. Don't let their great sacrifice go in vain!

If you don't have any corpses around, sitting on the rift will also heal you, albeit very slowly. Only use it in a pinch.

One of your most terrifying aspects is your speed. You can use it to poke at the enemy while still leaving yourself an open window to escape if things go poorly. This is important to note, as while you have 400 health it can vanish very quickly if you're not paying attention.

Assuming your opponents don't have jetpacks, you dominate in space combat. While it's unlikely you'll be fighting there due to the rifts, if you can land a wing gust on an opponent in no gravity, they'll just keep going. Be wary of miners as a space dragon. Proto-kinetic acclerators can kill you extremely quickly in low pressure, and proto-kinetic crushers treat you as a lavaland mob, meaning that you're taking around 70 damage per crusher mark proc plus any trophies the crusher happens to have on. Wing gust and its stun is invaluable to prevent yourself from getting chopped up.

While keeping the crew at bay from killing you is important, making sure nobody destroys the rift while you're distracted is also important. Make sure you don't leave it alone for too long, or someone might use that window to bring you down.

Assuming you didn't die and the rift has finished charging, congratulations! You're one-third of the way to victory, and upon fully charging a rift, you get both a full heal and a speed boost for the next 30 seconds. You can use this to punish the crew or use it to escape back out to space for your next rift placement. Then, just follow the guide for the next two rifts until you emerge victoriously or die trying.

Going for Green

Assuming you've managed to get all three rifts charged, you've carried out everything you've been expected to do. Infinite sentient carp can spawn in from all of your rifts, and chances are you absolutely crushed the crew. Anyone left is now yours to freely scorch and consume, and while you're doing it, you might as well enjoy a nice vacation to CorpComm to celebrate your effort.

Another important thing to note is that if the crew calls the shuttle while you're in the middle of working, don't worry! If the shuttle arrives while you're still at it and haven't been stopped, your objective automatically completes itself and you reap all the benefits of such. As long as you do what you're supposed to do, you won't be punished for it.

Rift Down

Should the crew be successful in destroying your rift, you are essentially screwed. You'll be extremely slow, thus an easy target, and you'll be locked out of summoning any more rifts. However, if you somehow manage to escape the scrape you're in and make it somewhere safe, you'll be free to keep on living until someone hunts you down. While you can't do much by yourself in this state, you can still be a nuisance if given the opportunity, so keep an eye out for a time to give retribution!

Glub Glub

If you're not the Space Dragon itself, you might find yourself playing as a Space Carp summon instead. While you are by all means fodder and not particularly strong, you can make a difference in a number of ways:

Unlike Space Dragon, you essentially can travel wherever you want to harass people. Attacking unarmed crewmates might be fun, but trying to destroy important structures such as supermatter equipment and telecoms might be more worth your time.

If you do find yourself damaged, you can return to a rift and float on the same tile as it to regain health.

Most crew, unlike yourself and the dragon, are not immune to the cold and pressure of space. Feel free to abuse this by smashing windows and creating hull breaches to make the crew's life harder and take some focus off the dragon.

While you might not be the best combatant alone, traveling with other space carp can take you from a minor nuisance to a true threat.

Try not to leave the Space Dragon alone for too long. While it can be dangerous with fire breath and whatnot to hang close to your superior, leaving them hanging when they need help is arguably much worse.

A Guide In Dragon Hunting

While a Space Dragon isn't an everyday affair aboard the station, having a clue on how to handle such an event can avert what would be a deadly situation. Here are some tips for crew trying to rid themselves of a carp infestation:

You don't have to kill the dragon to stop it. Try to keep an eye out for openings to destroy the rift, in some scenarios it'll be much easier to destroy the rift than it is to kill the dragon.

While armor is greatly effective at preventing carp from dealing too much damage to you, the dragon on the other hand will pierce through a good deal of it. Try not to let the dragon get in close range unless you have some trick up your sleeve!

Taking down walls to expose the rift to a safer area is a solid idea if you can perform it. Rifts cannot move, so use this to your advantage and try and open it up for long-range attacks! This also applies to opening up different entryways to the rift, the more there are, the easier it is to get by and damage it. One possible idea is to use an emitter, which will break down most walls between it and the rift and continuously fire on it as well.

If you find the dragon is staying very close to the rift, try explosives. If you don't kill the dragon or destroy the rift, you'll greatly weaken them both, allowing for other crew to go in and finish the job. Dragons will also often retreat to their rifts if they sustain too much damage, allowing you to also attempt blowing them up then if possible.

If it's safe to do so, try not to leave any corpses lying around for the dragon to consume. Each one gives it 1/4 of its health back, which could change the tide of a losing fight into a winning one for the dragon.

If you intend on attacking the dragon head-on, make sure to bring fire extinguishers. Fire breath can quickly catch a whole group on fire, and rolling to put it out could be a death sentence if the dragon notices!

While its fire breath can be extremely difficult to handle in tight corridors, the same can't be said for open areas. Try to bait the dragon into fighting in open rooms, as you'll have an easier time hitting it and it'll have a harder time hitting you.

If you're a role that has access to remote door controls, sealing a dragon into a room can be a smart way to keep it in a bad position long enough to deal damage. While it can break through walls in a relatively short time, it is forced to stay still, allowing you to hit it easily with whatever you've got during that time.

If your crew decides on calling the shuttle while a dragon is active, make sure you have a plan to defeat the dragon before it arrives or a plan to keep it from killing everyone when the shuttle does arrive. Since the rift won't be accessible as a weakness for bringing the dragon down, the latter option will require some creativity on the crew's part.

If you're not capable of bringing the dragon down yourself, try giving a helping hand to those working towards that goal. A little back-end support can go a long way in some cases!

If you defeat a dragon, try to not leave its corpse laying around. It can be revived in some circumstances and can re-emerge as a threat again if done so by some parties.

If you're a Shaft Miner, your proto-kinetic crusher works in full pressure, applies trophies to space dragons, and can kill one in around 5 mark detonations. However, you will still be attempting to melee a space dragon, so pack some lavaland armours such as the HECK suit or ash drake armour and make sure you plan for their wind gust.

games/sc13/crew_positions/space_dragon.txt · Last modified: 2023/06/15 13:53 by wizardofaus_doku

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