Winning without Dizzy and Riggs?

[Forblaze]

I'm trying to unlock the ship that requires you to win without the original three crew. With dizzy and riggs, I can clear Harder pretty comfortably. Without either though, I'm struggling on Normal. The team I'm trying to make work is Drake, Max, and Books. The problem, invariably, is that I end up stuck looking at an enemy gun with no shields and no movement.

Drake and Books both have movement and Books has shields, but not nearly enough of it with the baseline cards. I just can't get enough of either to survive.

Does anyone have any tips or anything to doing this?

[HeraldOfOpera]

Tiderunner can solve the movement issue if you unlock it instead.

[KingOfCharge]

Get heat sink B at first chance, the flippable instant movement saves you some evade, and also yeah tide’s good for mobility once you figure out how to play it.

[Forblaze]

Originally posted by HeraldOfOpera:

Tiderunner can solve the movement issue if you unlock it instead.

I unlocked tiderunner and this helped a lot. It took a few runs of dying horribly to get the hang of the ship, but I was able to do it with isaac, drake, and max.

[gussmed]

Take the Jupiter, Isaac, Books, and Drake. Isaac can block a lot of damage using objects in the 2nd row, since he can shift stuff around. The Jupiter can always launch a Jupiter Moon, so you always have at least once object to launch. Drake provides the attacks that get echoed by Jupiter Moon drones, and Books supplements both attack and defense.

[ProfessorHerb]

i think it's honestly the fact you're using Drake. Drake is good, but she needs those defensive techs. I recommend replacing her with Isaac because you can make some great moves with him, and as said above, his ships are great ways to block damage and deal damage.

[KingOfCharge]

I would not recommend that, because in the absence of the starting 3 she IS the source of those defensive techs with heat sink B. Without her or the starter 3, you’re pretty much forced to use the tiderunner to have any chance early on because otherwise you have 0 movement, which is the easiest way to get into an unwinnable situation in the game. Replacing Max would be easier as he is weak early game and that’s where you’re having a hard time without Dizzy and Riggs.

[gussmed]

Drake's EMP card is a pretty good defensive card, and it's MUCH stronger if it's multiplied by several Jupiter Moons.

To be honest, I've never gotten the hang of using Max. The problem is you have to sacrifice attack, shields, or evade if you take Max. Max's utility cards don't really make up for that. Books can do some of all three, but not enough to compensate for losing one of the specialist decks.

[ProfessorHerb]

Originally posted by gussmed:

Drake's EMP card is a pretty good defensive card, and it's MUCH stronger if it's multiplied by several Jupiter Moons.

To be honest, I've never gotten the hang of using Max. The problem is you have to sacrifice attack, shields, or evade if you take Max. Max's utility cards don't really make up for that. Books can do some of all three, but not enough to compensate for losing one of the specialist decks.

where max is best is with riggs, she has a relic where she can draw a card if you run out of cards, and max's card that exhausts a card can be reduced to 0, and this allows you to exhaust cards that cost mana till you have all 0 cost cards and then go infinite.

Not that useful to this thread without riggs, but it does explain where max is best.

[HeraldOfOpera]

Originally posted by ProfessorHerb:

Originally posted by gussmed:

Drake's EMP card is a pretty good defensive card, and it's MUCH stronger if it's multiplied by several Jupiter Moons.

To be honest, I've never gotten the hang of using Max. The problem is you have to sacrifice attack, shields, or evade if you take Max. Max's utility cards don't really make up for that. Books can do some of all three, but not enough to compensate for losing one of the specialist decks.

where max is best is with riggs, she has a relic where she can draw a card if you run out of cards, and max's card that exhausts a card can be reduced to 0, and this allows you to exhaust cards that cost mana till you have all 0 cost cards and then go infinite.

Not that useful to this thread without riggs, but it does explain where max is best.

There's a bunch of other degenerate things Max can do by breaking the rules of the game in various ways, but you're right that he only works by combining his cards with other characters' in silly ways.

[KingOfCharge]

My personal favorite degenerate Max thing is making 3+ cost cards get affected by zero doubler with admin deploy B

[Gobby]

Late to the party, but uh, you do not need ANY specific build to get this ship unlocked on normal. I struggled with this too, until I realized: The basic white cards get much better when upgraded. You can use this to shore up a major weakness of your squad-movement, shields, what have you. Once I learned this clearing hard with any comp got consistent for me.

[Veylox]

Just use Isaac and whoever and upgrade any Isaac card that summons a damaging drone so that they deal 2 damage

Then you win

[KingOfCharge]

Originally posted by Gobby:

Late to the party, but uh, you do not need ANY specific build to get this ship unlocked on normal. I struggled with this too, until I realized: The basic white cards get much better when upgraded. You can use this to shore up a major weakness of your squad-movement, shields, what have you. Once I learned this clearing hard with any comp got consistent for me.

Upgrading heat sink is an equally good solution to non-Riggs movement issues, and usually my first upgrade of the run.

[SMRT]

Books can get you movement and shields, as much as you need, but only with the right rewards. You've got a good combo, just might take a few runs.