how to fight the flying viruses?

[Padischli]

first time playing system shock i got through medical and research pretty well and im exploring maintance and these viruses keep ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ me over they take a ton of damage and you still get poisoned with an energy shield how do you deal with them and also is the laser rapier better than the wrench?

[Depili]

laser rapier is your solution to all of lifes problems.

[Orogogus]

The viruses are probably the only thing I use the shotgun for. I ditch it once I'm done with Research, Reactor and Maintenance. The Sparq beam is my usual go-to weapon, but it's not great against the viruses.

The laser rapier is way better than the wrench, but it does use power. I tend to base my exploration around where the power stations are. If you're a player who wanders around most of the time with no power then the rapier won't do you much good. That said, it's not as good as it was in the original game since in the remake I feel you get shot up a lot more on the approach.

[Solid Gamer]

shotgun

[Padischli]

Originally posted by Solid Gamer:

shotgun

3 shots is alot i havent found a whole lot of ammo

[Javier]

I’d cheese the AI by running into another room and sniping them off. At that point of the game get the spark upgraded and use the middle setting. I think they die in 3 hits

[Morphic]

I used dragon breath shotgun against them. 2 shots and just back off and the DoT from fire usually finishes them off. Overall that or grenades seems to be the best bet against them since they are inexplicably tanky compared to everything else at that point.

[Earin Copper]

I wasn't sure how to deal with them either, so I assumed you weren't meant to deal with them at that point. I found the lift to the next level up and came back later. Being better supplied and equipped all-round made it significantly easier to handle.

[Stargoat]

Originally posted by Minant:

I wasn't sure how to deal with them either, so I assumed you weren't meant to deal with them at that point. I found the lift to the next level up and came back later. Being better supplied and equipped all-round made it significantly easier to handle.

Sounds like my experience in OG SShock, haha. Maintenance was scary back then :(

[recursor]

Your first trip through you can pick up enough Dragon's Breath rounds to clear them all out, as two shots will put one down. There's also the V2 Sensaround that lets you spot them in the corner of the level. On your return trip, a single gas grenade from the grenade launcher will kill them, which also lets you put those otherwise questionable gas grenades to work.

The laser rapier certainly works, but the fact is that this is probably the best use of both gas grenades and dragon's breath ammo, so that's still pretty efficient.

[Stargoat]

Originally posted by recursor:

Your first trip through you can pick up enough Dragon's Breath rounds to clear them all out, as two shots will put one down. There's also the V2 Sensaround that lets you spot them in the corner of the level. On your return trip, a single gas grenade from the grenade launcher will kill them, which also lets you put those otherwise questionable gas grenades to work.

The laser rapier certainly works, but the fact is that this is probably the best use of both gas grenades and dragon's breath ammo, so that's still pretty efficient.

I find launched gas grenades are decent against virus mutants too. But yeah, limited utility.

[Orogogus]

I saw Marc LeBlanc stream his playthrough and get surprisingly good use of launched gas grenades to put down cyborg mutants. I guess they're not very speedy and tend to eat a lot of the gas cloud while they're setting up and firing their laser beam attack. I was like, I think it's going to take a lot more than that to put them down, but I think two or three grenades do them in. Granted, they're not usually very hard to kill as long as you have something to hide behind, but I wasn't expecting the gas grenades to do anything.

[recursor]

Actually, just put up a vid on the return trip through Maintenance. Shows how the Grenade Launcher can easily take out all the virii on the level without suffering any hits. There are at least four telltale signs you can spot: the red dots on the minimap from Sensaround, the floor lifts that remain visible until they move off of them, a slight red glow in the dark (e.g. at 0:39) , or a shadow underneath a direct light source. If you spot them before they spot you, just tag them and move on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nJ3YI89Jfg

Originally posted by Orogogus:

I saw Marc LeBlanc stream his playthrough and get surprisingly good use of launched gas grenades to put down cyborg mutants.

Oh, there's actually a surprise bonus you get with the cyborg mutants. They will take the time to move out of the damaging AoE of a gas grenade before starting to attack you again. With their lumbering speed, that gives you time to take them out or even chain gas grenades so they keep shuffling without fighting back.

That works pretty well, but I just usually found that sidestepping back into cover means you could use pretty much any weapon.

[Stargoat]

A few other notes on spotting alpha strain mutants:

- Even if you haven't spotted other signs, you can scan a hallway using target identifier if you suspect one is down there
- Less efficiently, you can take a shot and the hit indicator will light up
- Vision patches will highlight them
- Like most other enemies in the game, you can hear them if they're close

And also:

- As with other enemies, they'll investigate your location if you trigger a camera alarm. This is important when you first enter Maintenance, since you can get ambushed by mutants on one side and star wars bots on the other
- There's one room, from memory, which apparently has an explosive cannister next to the door. Even if you dodge the mutant's weird blood attack, you can still get exploded!

[Javier]

I never found the grenade launcher where was it?

[Stargoat]

Originally posted by Javier:

I never found the grenade launcher where was it?

It's in Storage, in the Sec-1 Bot Hell room near the plastique