TinyHippo

Hey, now I never said it would be easy, just that it's easier than actually killing Rockwell who at this point has taken over half the ship. Really, I don't see any way to beat him here without some kind of super catastrophe that destroys most of the ship. If we kill him, we've destroyed most of the ship, and if we don't kill him and leave the ship intact, then he wins. The only alternative is for us and Rockwell to reach our destination together, and, well... I suppose that's a valid alternative as well... That would end up being the most uneasy trip ever, for both us and him, really, all things considered.

Do you think any of the devs ever look at this thread and laugh about how close/far off we are from what they have in mind?

Well, it's actually pretty easy to destroy a giant flying ship, you just have to turn off safe mode and drive it into the surface below you. Jokes aside, successful (read: You can walk away from it) crash landings are a thing that happens. Modern planes do crash land in emergencies, and passengers do leave safely after. All we need is control of the ship, which is actually not very simple considering that Rockwell still doesn't have that control...

Also, this is now my current headcanon for how Element reached Earth, and unless we get someone reliable to explicitly say otherwise, I will not change my mind on this. Oh I'm laughing alright

"I control this vessel now, I command its evolution, and very soon... Its destination From there, my will shall spread across the cosmos forever Infinite, and undying And there's nothing you, or that witless puppet, That shadow, of Her Can do to stop me I have already set my designs in motion Our future awaits, Survivor" So yes, it certainly sounds like once he reaches his destination, he'll be able to spread all throughout the universe, which is certainly not good for us. That was just one of many different things I was coming up with where we complete our goal without killing him, but my point still stands: Unless Helena put us in there specifically to kill Rockwell, we don't need to kill him to achieve our goal. In my opinion, the easiest way to defeat Rockwell in this case would be to gain control of the CS, arrive at our destination, and crashland the ship into the planet, rendering it unusable, and trapping Rockwell down there with us, preventing him from reaching his destination. I think you're taking that a bit out of context actually, here's the whole note: "It's unclear to me whether it was a matter of evolution or awakening. That is to say, I'm not certain if the violet poison turned into the all consuming virus it is now, or if it always was that way. Either is possible. Was it an infection, carried across the universe like interstellar pollen, or a remarkable resource, mutated into a monstrosity? Was our garden invaded, or twisted by the greed and ambition of its keepers? I don't know the answer. I'm not sure it matters. What's clear is that it's merciless. Unfeeling. It's driven by base instincts and primal emotion - propagation, hunger, and hatred - and it spreads those to its shadows. Hatred most of all." Helena seems to be musing about the nature of Element in this note, not providing us with facts about its origin and how Corruption spread.

The original destination certainly isn't somewhere that we thought had lots of element... Remember that the Genesis Simulation, which is interlinked with the Colony Ship, was an escape plan. It wouldn't lead to somewhere that could potentially have its own King Titan already. Our destination is almost certainly a fairly Earth-like planet, or whatever we could find that was the closest to Earth. Earth certainly could be the origin point of element too, Santiago talks about mining element as if it's a normal thing for his people, which implies that Element was in the Earth, and the Sanctuary was built over a massive deposit of element as well. The other possibility is that element came to Earth, likely in the form of a meteor, although some alien or something could've also came by a long time ago using element and that element just grew over time. Really, its origin could be anywhere at this point, we don't really know anything about that.

I was thinking something less along the lines of us losing, and more like us not completely winning. Well, let me put it a different way. To lose, you need to have a goal that you failed to achieve. What is the goal of the colony ship? There are a few possibilities: It could be to exist as a permanent home out in space, it could serve as a boat to get to somewhere else where they would create a colony, or it would stay out of danger for a while before returning home (least likely imo) As long as the colony ship remains able to preserve the life on it and take its contents to the intended destination then nothing is wrong. That said, Rockwell also seems to have purposefully left much of the ship as it was, meaning the original goal of the Colony Ship is still being achieved, and that could be called a victory. Thing is, Rockwell also seems intent on changing the destination, assuming from how he will 'very soon' be able to control its destination. To keep the CS safe and ensure it completes its mission, all we have to do is make sure it reaches its destination. This can be done without killing Rockwell once and for all. Hell, it would be a win if we're only able to beat back Rockwell for long enough for the ship to reach the destination and offload the people and creatures on it, even if Rockwell takes control of the ship after and flies off. In other words, just because we don't kill Rockwell for good doesn't mean we lose... There's a lot of space in between those extremes. I'm thinking something close to us fighting off Rockwell and forcing him to retreat deeper into the ship while we reach our destination and arrive (relatively) safely and abandon the infested ship before he has a chance to retaliate, but there are still plenty of other options: -We could send down escape pod 'arks' containing life safely to the planet surface of whichever planet we're over at the time -We could blast off parts of the ship that Rockwell's taken over to disconnect us from him while we proceed down the ship's intended path -We could destroy the ship completely, causing it to crash into the planet below. This would be a disaster for much of the life on it, but due to safety mechanisms (similar to how the arks crashed down safely,) there are still lots of things that would survive. This would stop Rockwell from being able to use the ship, and, if done over our destination, would still complete the goals of the CS. Or even still, we could kill Rockwell on the ship, but there's no telling if that's all of him there is... He could have pieces of himself everywhere. Remember, we already killed Rockwell once on Aberration. Just because we kill what we can fight at the time, doesn't mean it's over. That's what I mean when I say I think that we don't kill Rockwell for good here. As for the hole, I think he damage a part of the station which revealed an inner chamber that he fell into when he took control of the station, not that he created the control pit with his attacks. Also, I don't know that we should say the ship was made at Arat Prime. Arat Prime could still be something other than the construction place of the CS. I'd say it's more likely that it was a control site/launching site/both. While it could also be the construction site, I think that it being a control station is more relevant, since it's still linked to the ship in some way, whereas if it were just built at AP, then that would imply there isn't likely any link anymore. I'm just being picky with word choice though I think, you probably meant the same thing. And onto when he got on the ship... It was definitely after Aberration fell, if we assume that the ship was launched as a backup if the Arks didn't work, then the ship was long gone when Aberration touched down. That would mean that Rockwell reached the Genesis Simulation first, then went into the Colony Ship after by going through the Simulation, much like how we did, only since he came first and changed things around, we had to jump through quite a few extra hoops.

We are for sure the same survivor that went from The Island to Extinction. We know this because HLN-A tells us on The Island (or one of the other maps, I don't remember) that we were chosen for the Genesis Simulation. Most likely, you're right on how Rockwell got there. It would seem that both us and him got to the colony ship the same way, he just got there first.

No idea on 1 For 2, I'd say at least a year after Genesis Part 2 is released, probably longer, but less than 3 years for sure. That is assuming that they are, in fact, working on Ark 2 after Genesis. And 3, I'd expect basically what Fyre does. It would be after the events of Genesis, and I expect he's right and that we'll end up where Element came from eventually. Unrelated to the question, but I just want to bring this up... Is anyone else getting the feeling that we don't stop Rockwell completely by the end of Genesis

A fish also has a brain that's 1 millionth the size of Rockwell's brain. While those are valid points anyway, I still think you're underestimating his ability to interpret what he sees. Being as large as he is means he has a similarly massive brain, and he also has access to the ship if he ever wanted more processing power. Basically, I think he's capable of processing all the images he gets from the eyes, though there isn't really evidence for or against that claim afaik, it's just me making assumptions and going off gut feelings. If he was more human I'd agree with you that there's no way he could keep track of all of them (I couldn't, you couldn't, no one in this thread could,) but I think he's far enough beyond a normal human that he could do it. Quite frankly, I don't see either of us convincing the other of our point of view though, since there's no evidence on either side and we're just going off what seems more correct to us, so maybe we should agree to disagree on this.

I get what you're saying, but I think you're underestimating him here. Rockwell can see you with an eye, and he knows where that is, very similar to how you know where your hands are even if you cant see them. You just know where your parts are relative to eachother. To make a simple comparison, many fish have one eye on either side of their head. When they see something coming from the left, they know it's coming from the left and not the right. I do believe Rockwell is bit more advanced than fish. I don't really think there's any way that Rockwell can't keep track of where we are as long as he can see us. I'd agree with you if we replaced Rockwell with a normal human and all the eyes with security cameras, but things are different when it's all one living organism.

Glad to hear! I assumed it would work but then doubt was planted... Seriously though, imagine mind controlling a wild giga for even 30 seconds. You don't even need to control it after that, just move it into position and it'll rip and tear on whatever it's next to because it's a wild giga. SURELY, no one would ever use this to be rude to other players on a pve server, right?

Oh really! I must've missed (or forgot) that bit! To clarify, are you saying we can mind control wild dinos, gigas, or both?

We probably can. Maybe. I hope so, anyway. But we probably can't on things like gigas anyway.

That would make sense, but why would Rockwell need a roaming sentry when he already has eyes all over the place? I'm not so sure that it's supposed to look for threats, but more likely, it's supposed to get rid of them. Or maybe, thinking about it, there is a significant advantage to having multiple eyes moving around to follow a target over only having stationary eyes. The difference between a wall camera and a drone; a drone provides much more relevant details and is more reliable and can't as easily be hidden from. So I'd like to make a slight revision to your idea: It's not supposed to find threats, but keep track of and follow threats, if it doesn't attempt to dispose of said threats itself. Also, a little thing I noticed: The Seers' eyes are all blue, while all of Rockwell's floor/wall eyes are purple-greyish. That's probably an important detail. As for taming, I think it would be crazy cool to have one, but I have a feeling we won't be able to tame them. I bet it's gonna have some really interesting attacks though. I just want to throw a noglin at a wild giga to be able to use the full power of a giga, if only for a short time. Is that too much to ask for?

I hadn't noticed those, and they do look kinda strange. They could be storage I suppose, but overall it just looks abnormal to me. I'm not really sure what to make of them honestly. As for the planet, I don't really have any ideas about which planet exactly it is, but it is clearly important. Sure, it could be Mars, but it could also be in a different solar system, we just don't know, and I don't think there have been any info drops about it yet. Personally, I'm leaning towards it being either a 'normal' enemy that you encounter in the end-game area and missions, or a mini-boss that is the target of certain missions.

Yea that would be cool. It definitely seems like a boss enemy even if it isn't the end boss. Those tentacles are 100% Rockwell's, which implies to me that you'll find Rockwell tentacles inside the Rockwell biomes, either in boss fights or as normal enemies out there even. I agree, the sphere definitely looks like a weak point, and that would make this the first 'boss' (assuming it is a boss and not just a 'normal' enemy) that has a weak point I think. I thought that was just a roar or something similar. It didn't really seem to have a normal mouth so if it can roar, I imagine that that's how it would.

There were more than one of those in the teaser, which doesn't seem very final boss-esque to me, but it certainly isn't Rockwell's brain or anything. I'd say that it's either just an enemy in the Rockwell biome(s?) or perhaps a mission boss (because it does seem like a very tough enemy,) but not the final boss.

I don't think Rockwell is scared of us really... In all honesty, he's had plenty of chances to get rid of us by now. All he would have had to do is destroy the pod we were sleeping in while we were in the Sim, or kill us immediately after grabbing us (well, we had the feddie tek suit, I have no idea if that would have saved us. Better yet, he could probably turn off the respawn system for us if he wanted us gone. If he wanted us gone so badly, if he was so scared, he wouldn't give us multiple chances. The other thing you brought up though, about leaving a piece of him on Earth, is something that's been bothering me too. We know that element can allow complex hiveminds to be created (See: King Titan and Corruption.) At the same time, however, once we killed the King Titan, the rest of the hivemind was practically gone, which implies that there should be a primary target that we can kill that would neutralize most of what Rockwell has going on. In this case, it would be somewhere on the ship for sure. That's not all of it though, The King Titan didn't have access to what Rockwell has access to: The Tek systems. Rockwell demonstrated his ability to link with tek systems on Aberration, he could, essentially, create a backup of himself using the colony ship, and send that backup all over the place. There's also no telling if he perfected the element system so that he can have multiple brains for the hivemind as well. As crazy as he is, Rockwell is smart too. Surely it can't be as simple as just killing some part of him here

For reference:

Nothing that comes to mind, but there might've been something small they said on the side of another topic. Nothing major though. They didn't say, we have no idea yet.

They said we would have missions, but different from what we had on part 1. They weren't terribly specific, but they did say that all missions would be outside of the normal playing area (so no areas where you want to build but can't) and they said that they'd improve them based on feedback from part 1. So yes there will be missions but we can expect them to be significantly different from part 1 missions.

I'm guessing we either have to fight the robot carrying the crate to get the loot, or the robot just lets us have it. All things considered, we probably have to fight for it. As for element, I suspect we'll probably get it primarily as rewards from the new missions, and as strange as it sounds, it wouldn't surprise me if one of the missions is to go diving into Rockwell specifically to take some of his element.

Lots of different ammo types, all swappable at will without using any actual arrows. It really does seem like a fun weapon. Jelly? Are you talking about the 6-eyed flying squid thing that opens up in front of us and HLN-A? I've taken to just calling it a squid. Anyway, the robots in the tek city were not normal meks, they're certainly something new. The thing that grabbed the glowbug was just a seeker, nothing new. As for the eyes, the biome description certainly implies that Rockwell can track us while we're down there, so I'd say yes, he can see us. There are also mouths down there in that area too, so he can probably attack us with those too. I'd wager that the flying squid things are also just another part of Rockwell. The noglin can mind control what it grabs on to. I also find it interesting that it's in Rockwell. It's a very interesting thing, but I don't think it's part of a hivemind at all or anything. Yea, I was thinking the same at first, but there were quite a few of them there, it seems a bit common for supply drops... but we only saw one small part, so I think you're right.

Just because of how it works, I'm going to say it's probably its own dedicated weapon, not a utility skin. I'm pretty sure the stun won't be torpor though. They described the stun as 'stun beams' that'll stop the target for a bit after the beams have been active for long enough, and after that, the target will be immune to stuns for a time. Just doesn't really sound like torpor to me.