so what happens if you spare apex ending wise?

[Von Faustien]

i killed it my first run and im woundering if letting live would have ended badly

[OptoNick]

- It will kill some deckers, creepy stuff on BBS.
- It will help you with defences in final mission, as promised.
- It will give you Panzerdrohne - another crew member. Huge battle drone which will stay loyal to you even if you would decide to side up with Vauclair.
- You will be able to hand over Feuerschwinge to APEX - another creepy perspective, IMO :D

[Von Faustien]

so ai with a dragon body? that sounds bad.

[OptoNick]

Originally posted by jrr101:

so ai with a dragon body? that sounds bad.

Only control over the dragon, but who knows what plans it has for future. Don't remember what was written in ending message about it.

[Lampros]

I crashed after I saved Apex. And I thought I was going to avoid this nasty bug with the mission. Oh well. At least when I re-started the game, I had gotten credit for finishing it.

[frdnwsm]

Over in the HK folder, some folks were denigrating using a decker-rigger character. They claimed it was only possible in HK because of extra cash, and that it would never work in DF. So, I did a DF run with a decker-rigger, and proved them wrong. It works fine. I mean, Blitz is a decker-rigger, and my guy was better constructed, skill wise.

This also gave me the opportunity to explore both game options regarding APEX. In my first run, I took it down; in this run I sided with it. And found out something interesting.

At the risk of sounding heretical, whether you side with APEX or destroy it has no actual practical effect on the outcome of the game. By practical effect, I mean the flow of game events themselves. Yes, you get the ambiguous ending, with unresolved questions about exactly what APEX intends to do in the future, but that's not what I am talking about.

If you decide to take APEX down, the process takes a while, and you have to defend the node control panels from hordes of Parson's Communion fanatics while your decker infiltrates in the matrix. If you side with APEX, it takes a while and you ... umm, have to defend the node controls from ... hordes of Communion fana... hey! It's exactly the same scenario!

Ah, but having the APEX/Monica decker persona help you in the Matrix surely makes things easier, right? Well, no. The game devs took this into account, and if you enter the Matrix with APEX on your side, you hit something like 3x as much IC. You NEED two deckers to get through them all. As a result, the overall level of difficulty remains about the same.

If you take down APEX, some of the Manor defences go down. If you help APEX, it takes down some of the Manor defenses. Hmm, I'm detecting a pattern here. OK, now, if you do side with APEX, it gives you "Panzerdrohne" as another potential party member. Has anyone actually used this piece of junk?

This wouldn't be bad if you could use it as a regular drone, substituting for one of your rigger's own drones; it's basically got more Armor/HP/firepower than your class S. But instead, you need to take up a party member slot if you want to use it. Unfortunately, it totally lacks the flexibility of a live party member. It's just a floating gun turret. And if you want to keep it at full strength, you need to bring drone repair kits along, which takes up equipment slots that could be used for medikits. All in all, not a huge enticement to side with APEX.

[steelcoresoviet]

I have to agree with you; siding with APEX should give you a bonus party member and make the early Harfield run (pre Vauclair interview) into a cakewalk.

If you make a deal with the devil, it should pay dividends... AT FIRST.
Doesn't mean I think it's a good idea, but it should appear to be.

[Lampros]

Originally posted by steelcoresoviet:

I have to agree with you; siding with APEX should give you a bonus party member and make the early Harfield run (pre Vauclair interview) into a cakewalk.

If you make a deal with the devil, it should pay dividends... AT FIRST.
Doesn't mean I think it's a good idea, but it should appear to be.

Oh, so it was not the morally correct choice then? :(

[Von Faustien]

Originally posted by Lampros:

Originally posted by steelcoresoviet:

I have to agree with you; siding with APEX should give you a bonus party member and make the early Harfield run (pre Vauclair interview) into a cakewalk.

If you make a deal with the devil, it should pay dividends... AT FIRST.
Doesn't mean I think it's a good idea, but it should appear to be.

Oh, so it was not the morally correct choice then? :(

that depends if this was hopefull or normal scifi like say masseffect, star trek or something maybe. but seeing as this is a cynical dystopian universe im saying like pretty much everything with power in shadowrun the ai is going to be a ♥♥♥♥

[Voldski]

Originally posted by Lampros:

Originally posted by steelcoresoviet:

I have to agree with you; siding with APEX should give you a bonus party member and make the early Harfield run (pre Vauclair interview) into a cakewalk.

If you make a deal with the devil, it should pay dividends... AT FIRST.
Doesn't mean I think it's a good idea, but it should appear to be.

Oh, so it was not the morally correct choice then? :(

Well, if you talk to APEX you will learn a lot about it. One thing is it is a predator, it takes whatever it think it needs and have zero remorse about it or manipulating to get it. But like putting a predatorial dictator in power.

As for the dragon, it is basically good at its cause. IF you ask enough question you will know reason it attacked to begin with was because it percieved mankind had violated the earth, that it was supposed to warden over. So it lost it's mind and lashed out at people it use to care for, also you will know its one few morally good dragons.

From what i can gathered from everything i read is if you free it it flies away, likely over to elf kingdoms which appearently still gaurds over nature and mother earth.

[steelcoresoviet]

If you free her she goes back to bed.

[Zadok]

If you free APEX the early Harfeld is a lot easier because the defense turrets are NOT destroyed but on your side. It also killed some guys so you skip a fight.

However: it DEMANDS that you hand over Feuerschwinge to her and won't take kindly to a rejection here...

[Open Reading Frame]

Biggest difference I've seen is that in the pre-credits text epilogue is if you free APEX, the S-K/Germany attack on Berlin is kind of repelled, and Berlin becomes half not F-state, half F-state. If you kill APEX, the attack succeeds and the Flux State ends.

[Von Faustien]

Originally posted by Falling Man II:

Biggest difference I've seen is that in the pre-credits text epilogue is if you free APEX, the S-K/Germany attack on Berlin is kind of repelled, and Berlin becomes half not F-state, half F-state. If you kill APEX, the attack succeeds and the Flux State ends.

uh the city gets divided by a wall in flux and corp owned in the none apex ending too

[Watchman]

Originally posted by Lampros:

Oh, so it was not the morally correct choice then? :(

Bruh, this is the cyberpunk genre.

Anyways.

IIRC if you hand the dragon over to APEX the epilogue has a mention of rumours about high-level secret talks between representatives of the (effectively Great Dragon-ruled) Amazonia and what's still left of the F-State...