Archipelago (Completed)

[Explorer of Time]

Mission 35/83: Forbidden Weapon

This mission, our Protoss fleet attacked a facility on the planet Glacius, which had already been taken by Alarak's Tal'darim Protoss. Alarak had already looted much of the facility, and when we arrived, he realized he had no hope of holding on to the facility and started blasting it with his Mothership's giant laser beam to stop us from plundering the three treasures that Glacius had left.

We trained a Mothership of our own, along with some Carriers and Instigators, and swept through the facility fairly easily, with more than enough time left to collect everything before Alarak destroyed our goal. First off, we got a Yamatano Dragon Scroll card for Arcaneum's Yu-Gi-Oh game, and then we found a Hidden Dragon keychain for Sora on our way to the vault. The vault itself sadly held only an EnergyPowder, which we gave to 5qwerty's FireRed.

On the other hand, we've finally had a stroke of good luck in locating Char Aleph, the infested platform in orbit above Char that holds Setsuna's Magic Firefly within its southeastern coolant tower. To get there, we need only to make a short stop at Aiur for an easy mission, then we'll have direct access to Char Aleph and by extension the Magic Firefly.

 

[Explorer of Time]

Mission 36/83: The Growing Shadow

Our stop in Aiur involved setting up a small Protoss base, fighting some Zerg and Khalai Protoss, and gathering a few treasures on while we waited for our ships to refuel. First, we fought our way to an abandoned Protoss base, collected a Ruler lying on the ground there, and trained an army of Avengers to supplement the Stalkers we started off with.

We then moved to activate three Void Pylons to warp in more Stalkers and three of this area's six items. The first Void Pylon had a Sugar Packet, which we can't find any possible use for. So we did what we always do with junk that seems completely useless; we gave it and the Ruler we previously found to Ness. The other two Void Pylons had some more minerals, which we kept, and a Spelon Berry that we gave to 5qwerty in FireRed. We then arrived at the enemy Protoss base, picked up an Aspear berry for Arcaneum's LeafGreen, and sent a few Stalkers (plus our hero Zeratul who had arrived late), to fight some more Protoss until they found the last treasure, 21 Coins for Vendily.

We then sent our troops back to our base, which we kept on Aiur for when we need to return, and sent our Terran fleet to Char Aleph to finally get that Magic Firefly for Setsuna.

 

[Explorer of Time]

Mission 37/83: Shatter the Sky

We have finally located Char Aleph and destroyed the infested space station for Setsuna! This is normally a decently hard level, but having Spear of Adun access in non-Protoss missions made it much easier. All I really had to do was send a cloaked Banshee or Wraith over to a Coolant Tower and then hit it with Purifier Beam or Solar Bombardment to guarantee its destruction, in the process taking out that entire Zerg platform.

We got seven treasures this time, four from the Coolant Towers, one from the Leviathan, and two from destroyed Hatcheries. The first Hatchery we destroyed had a Sitrus Berry, which I wouldn't eat since it came from a gross Zerg building, but 5qwerty's Pokemon might feel different about it. I found three items for Arcaneum in LeafGreen, a Dive Ball from the other Hatchery, a Watmel Berry from the Leviathan, and a Fab Mail from the first Coolant Tower.

The next Coolant Tower had a Bean Starter for CoolKid's Stardew Valley. The third Coolant Tower had a Maceo Skateboard for the Bomb Rush Crew, and the fourth had the Magic Firefly that Setsuna had requested. It thankfully survived the bombardment of its Coolant Tower and the platform's subsequent explosion, and we sent it off as soon as possible. We wish you luck exploring the Corrupted Future!

As for Char Aleph, there's nobody else here to raid in orbit of Char, and we aren't yet prepared for a full-scale raid upon its surface. We've set the remains of the station on a deteriorating trajectory which will eventually crash into an ocean of lava, so that it can't be used against us when the time comes to attack Char itself. Right now, our first priority is to find the Path of Resistance for Setsuna, which we can find in the next three to five missions, depending on how long it takes to locate the planet Valhalla. This probably won't happen until tomorrow, though.

I've also gotten another hint of my own. Arcaneum, I want to find Khaydarin Monoliths for my static defenses. They're located at "Clan Boss: Firemane (2)", and I don't know what that is. If it's something reasonable for you to obtain, I'd like them soon, though Hydralisks should still be a priority over the Monoliths if you don't have time for both.

 

[Setsuna]

On the other hand, we've finally had a stroke of good luck in locating Char Aleph, the infested platform in orbit above Char that holds Setsuna's Magic Firefly within its southeastern coolant tower. To get there, we need only to make a short stop at Aiur for an easy mission, then we'll have direct access to Char Aleph and by extension the Magic Firefly.

Thanks for returning my Firefly! I appreciate all your hard work and will be doing my best to return it in kind!
The Butterfly Matriarch will be happy to have her back, but in the meantime I was able to use her power to help free a fellow Messenger from her curse, fly through the Elemental Skylands to cure another cursed victim, and to run for dear life after grabbing a Noxious Strain Ultralisk for you in the Corrupted Future. Even if he manages to not help out, I'm glad I got someone out of there safe. Checking my map, I've cleared 7 of 16 areas completely cleaned, so good progress is being made!

Edit: Make that 10 out of 16 areas cleared! Out of curiosity I decided to double-check something and it turns out a few of my checks I thought were still locked were possible if I just decided to be good at a video game. I've gone through everything and it's looking like everything remaining for me currently will require an extra item, but Path of Resilience is going to be a lot less of a priority, since I no longer have anything currently available that could make good use of it. Or it could just end up not being necessary at all, depending on how the checks are and how good at video games they require me to be. Currently at 113/136, or 83.09%. Thank you very much!

 

[Explorer of Time]

but Path of Resilience is going to be a lot less of a priority, since I no longer have anything currently available that could make good use of it. Or it could just end up not being necessary at all, depending on how the checks are and how good at video games they require me to be

For what it's worth, I don't have any other hinted items in my game at the moment, so I'll probably keep looking for it unless someone else asks me to find an item of theirs. I'm not that far off from getting it and would've gotten it earlier had it not been for some extraordinarily bad luck in actually finding the mission it's from.

There are 83 spots in my grid that its level could be in, I have found the locations of 80 of those 83. i.e. it's in one of the three last missions to have revealed locations. This is not the same as accessible or completed missions: I've completed 37 and have an additional 30 available to play in any order. Another 13 are unlockable by completing specific adjacent missions of the 30 I've already made accessible. The remaining three have to have two missions cleared to get a path to them, and I don't know which mission is in which spot until I've made an adjacent mission available to play.

If I'm explaining this badly, think of it as a 12x7 grid. I can play any mission next to a mission I've already cleared or my starting space. I can see all missions two spaces away from what I've played, but I can't play them yet. I can't see the missions three spaces (or more, but there aren't any that far anymore) away from the missions I've cleared, and they can be any mission that's not in the previous categories. Right now only three missions are unrevealed, and Engine of Destruction is one of them. (The other two are Amon's Reach and The Moebius Factor, in case anyone gets an item hint for either mission.)

EDIT: Here's a screenshot of what I'm working with right now.

Spoiler:

 

[Alex_Among_Foxes]

I'm guessing it's the top right one.

 

[Setsuna]

For what it's worth, I don't have any other hinted items in my game at the moment, so I'll probably keep looking for it unless someone else asks me to find an item of theirs. I'm not that far off from getting it and would've gotten it earlier had it not been for some extraordinarily bad luck in actually finding the mission it's from.

I appreciate it!

I think I understand the situation, having a visual example of the grid does help a lot. So the idea is you complete a mission in a specific spot on the grid to uncover more and get more information? Do your levels unlock like normal or are they also randomized/do other people's checks unlock these levels for you? I'm assuming that you've still got tons of options open to you and revealing the last few missions is just as easy as completing two missions and then using process of elimination to see which one the third is, that seems to be a great spot to be in.
Path of Resilience is (apparently) mainly gonna help me in an area I still can't access (I'll need Claustro and Pyro to do that, and don't have enough hint points to look for them), and most of my game is clean now, so again it's not going to be a huge deal if it's in the last mission you reveal. I do really appreciate several people putting in the effort to find important things for me, I feel a bit awkward asking people to do things for me, haha ;;

 

[Explorer of Time]

So the idea is you complete a mission in a specific spot on the grid to uncover more and get more information?

Exactly, you get the idea. I still don't know what items are in specific missions unless someone uses a Hint, but some missions are easier than others and I can unlock more items by playing those easy missions first, so the mission randomization still matters even if I'm playing completely blind. Plus the strengths of my factions are very uneven, so I want to play mostly Terran missions right now since they're my strongest faction. Protoss are weaker right now but were stronger earlier in the Archipelago, and finally Zerg are my weakest faction since I still don't have a better anti-air unit than Swarm Queens or Infestors.

Do your levels unlock like normal or are they also randomized/do other people's checks unlock these levels for you?

My levels are randomized, the base game has them in a much more locked-down mission order, though it's not completely linear. The original unrandomized game has three of its campaigns in a tree-like structure, with the Terran campaign having some optional missions, and the Zerg and Protoss campaigns being shorter and even more linear, while the final Nova: Covert Ops campaign is a linear sequence of nine missions.

I'm assuming that you've still got tons of options open to you and revealing the last few missions is just as easy as completing two missions and then using process of elimination to see which one the third is, that seems to be a great spot to be in.

That's correct. I did most of the work in revealing the grid over the weekend, so that I'd be able to find hinted items in less time during the weekdays where I don't have quite as much time available to play.

I do really appreciate several people putting in the effort to find important things for me, I feel a bit awkward asking people to do things for me, haha ;;

No, it's completely fine. Finding things other people request has been my favorite thing about the Archipelago challenge so far.

 

[Explorer of Time]

Mission 38/83: Night Terrors

Taking Alex's advice to see if the "top right one" held the location of the Dominion's secret shipyard world, we sent Nova and the rest of our Terran fleets to the planet Jarban Minor, where they fought the Zerg and Tal'darim Protoss for the planet's large supply of treasure. Upon arrival, we were given Liberators as reinforcements, sent by Cherrim from The World That Never Was, but we didn't build any apart from the starting Liberators.

We easily cleared off the map of hostiles, mostly with a full batch of Mercenaries and a few Banshees, Wraiths, and Marines as backup, with the Tal'darim base being destroyed first, after being weakened significantly by multiple orbital bombardments from the Spear of Adun. The Tal'darim First Ascendant, Ji'nara, was killed in action as our Purifier Beam destroyed her mothership. We then cleared out the Zerg, and then started extracting all the planet's valuables, with only a single Banshee lost to the Zerg in the fight over the Terrazine Extractors, and the Tal'darim reinforcements repeatedly destroyed by a set of bunkers at their spawn point.

Our first treasure was a Sapphire for 5qwerty in FireRed, which, despite its looks, is likely to be irrelevant since it's a Key Item only usable after beating the game. We then moved to an abandoned Science Facility that studied Yu-Gi-Oh cards, which contained a Book of Secret Arts immediately inside and a Tripwire Beast card inside an Eradicator robot that Nova destroyed, and we send these both to Arcaneum. Next up, Nova entered an abandoned mine, found a Kelpsy Berry inside and a Rare Candy being held by a Zerg Blightbringer that Nova had killed, and we sent them both to Arcaneum as well, in LeafGreen.

Then the time came to harvest the planet's Terrazine. The first node helped us power Auto Launchers for our Vultures. The third Terrazine node was used to brew a Refresher for confused_piplup, and the fourth will be used to power up Sensor Towers for us. The fifth Terrazine node was forged into a Vessel Fragment for 5qwerty in Hollow Knight. The final Terrazine Node was accidentally set aflame, and became an eternally-burning Fire Element, which we believe can be used to teach fire magic to Sora and his party.

Unfortunately, it seems that Alex was wrong about the location of Valhalla and the mission that we uncovered turned out to be Amon's Reach, on Shakuras. However, by process of elimination, we will find the exact location of Valhalla next mission whether we guess right or not.

There are no further enemies, treasures, or items on Jarban Minor. We will have no further missions here, though we're keeping the planet since we already have a well-fortified base.

 

[Explorer of Time]

Mission 39/83: Echoes of the Future

Still looking for Valhalla, we returned to Aiur just in case either of our visits had missed a lead, this time searching near the corpse of the deceased Zerg Overmind. We built up an army of Protoss Carriers alongside our Mothership and an Arbiter, and completely wiped out all the Zerg bases, including the ones we can't normally attack in the unrandomized game because the player doesn't have access to any air unit that can attack.

We found flight co-ordinates to One Island from the Nexus we reactivated, and gave them to 5qwerty in FireRed. Then, we reactivated two Obelisks and obtained the information encoded within. The first had information teaching how to use the skill Auto Wisdom, which we sent to Sora. The second had a Wanderer's Journal carved into its surface which was removed after activation and sent to 5qwerty in Hollow Knight.

Next, we moved on to the Overmind's tendrils to actually finish the mission. A dead Marine had dropped a bottle of Fresh Water near the southwest tendril, which we sent to Arcaneum in LeafGreen. The northwest tendril had a TM38 Fire Blast lodged in its flesh, which we carefully removed, cleaned, and sent to Raven in Red or Blue. The northeast tendril had nothing, but the Southeast tendril had a Beastmode Hip Hop Mixtape CD lodged in a music player in a nearby destroyed Siege Tank.

Finally, we got co-ordinates to Valhalla at last, but unfortunately it was via the process of elimination as we found out that Valhalla was not in any of the possible locations we searched except its actual position. It is the very last planet we've found, and as of right now, the only one that requires us to do two separate missions to get to. Thankfully, we finally know we'll find the item we need in three missions. We now have a concrete path to the Path of Resilience, with only a Moebius Corps space station and a single Protoss starship standing in our way.

Knowing this, and with the Overmind's carcass coming under increasingly heavy Zerg attack, we withdrew most of our Protoss forces offworld and sent the last few to guard our other outpost on the planet.

 

[Devalue]

Nearly reached the six day mark. Sits at about 42.5% of all items found. How is everyone's game(s) so far? Too easy/difficult? Is there any setting you wish you had changed? Do you feel like you have enough time to complete your game in (ideally) the next week or two?
_______

Already beat Civilization 6. Fretted about whether or not to turn on Boostsanity. Ended up being fine. (Played with it several times before, but not with so many games in the mix.) Might start turning off the Secret Societies gamemode (or hit up random.org to decide gamemodes). Felt like too much of a guaranteed win, despite not actually doing tourism. Could also just ban Voidsingers. Shrugs.

Cruised along in Earthbound pretty well. Ran into a few tough spots here and there. Still made it through with some lucky drops, good equipment, and a little grinding. Has not received another party member yet. Does not really need them, minus Paula to beat Giygas. Auto-battles most enemies. Should be able to beat the game pretty quickly once the right progression items come in.

Honestly expected to beat Earthbound before Civilization 6, also. Tore through it in the other two playthroughs between low Sanctuary requirements (3 and 4) and having multiple ways to access areas. Generated one seed with Earthbound and Link to the Past in it. Completed Earthbound before Link to the Past got a sword (which was intended, according to the spoiler log). Could be an entrance randomizer thing, in fairness. Entered a lot of dungeons without needing to beat a boss.

 

[Setsuna]

Nearly reached the six day mark. Sits at about 42.5% of all items found. How is everyone's game(s) so far? Too easy/difficult? Is there any setting you wish you had changed? Do you feel like you have enough time to complete your game in (ideally) the next week or two?

This isn't directly related to these questions, but I did just want to say this whole thing's been super fun! If anything, I should have signed up with another game or two because despite being unable to progress at multiple points I've just really wanted to continue playing my game and try whatever I could to keep going. I'm thankful both to you for hosting and to everyone else here for signing up! I'd love to do another one of these and enter with maybe two or three games!

Mine has been more difficult than I expected, and it's been awesome. The Messenger is a game I've only finished once, last month, but it's been really fun being tested on my knowledge and skill of it, the game is designed so well and that makes progressing through entire areas backwards or without the necessary upgrades both unique and possible in the first place. Every time I've gotten something super helpful to help me progress it's been really exciting. I've been taught new techniques to use in a fantastic game and been tested on what I can achieve and both of those are exhilarating.

My game has the problem of requiring multiple of a specific item in order to finish the game. There are six Keys (one of which has been found) that are required to gain access to the final area, where I can then fight the final boss, as well as four Phobekins (two of which I've already found, Claustro and Pyro being the remaining two) required to unlock an entire area for me. My ability to finish the game mainly depends on the Keys being found, which I've been just assuming people will send me whenever they happen to run into them, I've been using my hints on things to complete the other areas I've mostly cleared.
With the pace we're going at, I'm assuming that I'll be able to complete my game in that time since I'm most of the way through, but I'm unsure of that because looking at the multi-world tracker I see there are some games that haven't really been played or checked much. Since these games are at the very least double the size of mine, I can't help but worry there's something important for people in those games that haven't been able to be checked yet. And I can only speak for myself. But I don't want it to sound like I'm blaming or rushing anyone, I'm extremely grateful and it gives me some peace of mind to have hints to tell me where the things I need are, and those people are more than welcome to go at their own pace.

 

[Explorer of Time]

How is everyone's game(s) so far? Too easy/difficult? Is there any setting you wish you had changed? Do you feel like you have enough time to complete your game in (ideally) the next week or two?

Starcraft 2 is pretty much the perfect game for this Archipelago, but next time I think I'll up the difficulty to Hard. It was suggested to put it at one level lower than what I normally play but, outside the first few levels, SC2 is actually significantly easier since I got lots of tech that I wouldn't have access to in the campaign. The buffs to the Spear of Adun from getting more than the usual four powers are also strong and, though I thematically like having them everywhere, I underestimated how strong it'd be. Mind you, I didn't expect to get both Solar Bombardment and Purifier Beam so early in the game, and I originally turned it on for all factions in case I got unlucky with Terran or Zerg units.

Apart from difficulty, the only quibble I have is that Nova's color inexplicably isn't selectable via the website and can only be changed by manually editing the YAML, so that will definitely change next time. I may also tweak starting mineral/vespene/supply quantities a bit; I left them at defaults since I didn't know how much I'd get. I'd probably decrease supply down to 4 since I'm getting more of them than I thought, and increase starting minerals up to 50 so I can train a whole worker with one at the start of the game. I might also add some static defenses as starting items next time; not having them has been annoying at parts and some ended up in really inaccessible locations.

Everything else is great. Grid-format SC2 is the platonic ideal of what I could have picked this Archipelago; I don't need any specific items, just one unit in each role per faction, and I have a nonlinear path to get hinted items for other people, even though my game is very long. I have not once been stuck this challenge, and it's nigh-impossible to hard-lock me behind another person's progression. I can definitely finish in the next two weeks, barring an out-of-game emergency. (Theoretically, I could finish this game tonight since I have access to my final mission and units that can beat it, but I do want to play every mission, and would have played a Grid variant that required all 83 missions if it was an option in the setup screen.)

EDIT: Also, everyone, please use more hints. I mentioned this to Setsuna earlier, but my favorite part of this Archipelago is tracking down and finding things in my game that other people are requesting from me, even though only Vendily and Setsuna have actually had hints for items in my game. I'd also lower the cost to use a hint next Archipelago if it's possible, even though I'm not the one who needs many hints.

 

[Alex_Among_Foxes]

How is everyone's game(s) so far? Too easy/difficult? Is there any setting you wish you had changed? Do you feel like you have enough time to complete your game in (ideally) the next week or two.

I've been loving this event so far, it's just a shame that more of the players aren't chatting here with the forum crew about stuff lol.
I wish I could add the money gain and loss caves to the randomizer list, (or even just the gain caves) but I didn't see a setting for that sadly, nor did I see one to make items scale in upgrades, which I'd call an oversite on the randomizer's part. Getting the Red Candle and Magic Sword first was neat, but it made the challenge of waiting on other people to find my better stuff less exciting. I also think I'm going to keep Triforce pieces in my game going forward, or limiting how many are shuffled down to 3 or something, because it's very possible that I won't be able to beat it until most other people beat their own games just due to Ganon's unlock requirements being out of game. As for ALttP, the only thing I straight up don't like is the color-change setting I turned on, it made the game look very ugly and I wish I could turn it off. I'll never use that setting again lol. Everything else seems fine there.
In terms of HLTB, it's completely up to RNG on Z1's Triforce pieces and my Silver Arrow and Bow. I could very easily beat the game in an hour or so if I just had the necessary stuff. ALttP'll be easier since I only need a few more major items, then it's basically GO mode.
I'd love to set this all up on my good laptop so I could run even more games next time, this has been great!

 

[Setsuna]

Alex mentioning money gain did make me realize one thing I'd change if possible, I think a lot of my item pool has been Time Shards, and I don't think it's fun to have the smaller quantity of Time Shards as items that could be sent to me. Getting sent 1 Time Shard feels like getting sent a coin in a Mario game. So I'd have removed the smaller quantities like 1, 10, or even 50 because I can get those amounts in just a couple minutes playing the game normally, and I want others to feel like something they got me is really helpful. Amounts like 300 or 500 are still helpful though, because that's easily enough to let me buy an extra item at the shop for someone.

Shuffling the location of warp portals could also be really fun, but I didn't want to turn it on since this is my first time randomizing this game. I wanted the "traditional" experience of what my personal progression would be like, and since I start in the room with all the warp portals in it, I could've potentially just gotten completely locked out of progression a lot earlier.

Besides that, it's really funny that Early Meditation guarantees it's being found early but I still haven't received it. It's not that important, it just restores my health more at checkpoints, but it makes me laugh to realize it. If anything, I'd turn it off for future runs because playing around respawning without full health has been super interesting.

I have the player options page open and I'm noticing there's an option to generate a single-player game, so I might use those settings and try it out to at least get a little bit of an idea of what that'd be like.

 

[Alex_Among_Foxes]

Besides that, it's really funny that Early Meditation guarantees it's being found early but I still haven't received it. It's not that important, it just restores my health more at checkpoints, but it makes me laugh to realize it.

This raises a very good point. @Explorer of Time does SC2's randomizer expect you to do the earlier missions first? Because it's quite possible that there are some people's important progression items 'locked in your level 2' so to speak that haven't been found yet. I'm not doing any hints, but if I can request a location be searched, it would be the earliest zone you gained access to that you haven't checked yet.

 

[Explorer of Time]

This raises a very good point. @Explorer of Time does SC2's randomizer expect you to do the earlier missions first? Because it's quite possible that there are some people's important progression items 'locked in your level 2' so to speak that haven't been found yet. I'm not doing any hints, but if I can request a location be searched, it would be the earliest zone you gained access to that you haven't checked yet.

It does not. One of my Sphere 2s had no remotely-progression-related items whatsoever and the Magic Firefly I got for Setsuna was adjacent to my ending mission. It's more likely that they ended up early on in a game someone hasn't played much yet.

I've already completed all my levels two spots away from my start space. I do have two Sphere 3 levels left, but one is one I'm waiting on Zerg anti-air for, but I will prioritize the other once I get the Path of Resilience, just in case.

 

[Explorer of Time]

Mission 40/83: Dark Whispers

We set off for Valhalla at last, with our Protoss forces stopping along the way to raid a Moebius Corps space station under heavy Zerg attack. We got Ascendant and Reaver reinforcements from 5qwerty's victory in Hallownest, plus Scout reinforcements buried beneath the Windtrace Dunes. This mission was mostly completed by massing Carriers, and we used the Spear of Adun's orbital attacks to stop the Zerg Swarm from attacking the Terrans until we could destroy their base with a couple Solar Bombardments and a Carrier attack. Once this was done, we moved in to their base and harvested their resources, building up a large Carrier fleet that easily crushed the rest of the level. We even destroyed the Terran bases that the Zerg were supposed to attack, just to make sure they wouldn't attack us.

We got five treasures, the first being a TM43 (Secret Power) for Arcaneum in LeafGreen that the Moebius Corps scientists had left near a holding cell full of Protoss prisoners. Moving forward, we found that Moebius Corps had managed to steal a Protoss Pylon and use it to warp in troops of their own; we destroyed it and grabbed a Full Heal for Raven from the wreckage. Further on, we rescued some more Protoss prisoners, and found a prototype suit of human Mega Armor that would fit Doomguy well, so we sent it off to Hell for him. Near Moebius Corps' other Pylon, we found some research about how to increase Hydralisk attack range; we kept it but it won't be very useful to us until Arcaneum can snag the Safari Zone Warden's pet Hydralisk for us. Finally, we broke the last of our prisoners free, and one gave us a Tao the Chanter Yu-Gi-Oh card.

We kept the space station as a Protoss forward base in the region, and there are no more treasures, enemies, or missions left here. Now we more forward to Valhalla, but we have a quick stop to make first.

 

[Explorer of Time]

Mission 41/83: Enemy Within

Almost at Valhalla, we encountered a large Protoss starship along the way. Not wanting to divert the bulk of our army from its goal, we warped in a single Zerg Larva, which we morphed into a Broodmother, Niadra. We then used the ample biomass on the Ark to morph dozens of Infestors, which we used to infest and mind-control the Protoss in the vessel en-masse. With the Protoss under our control, we abandoned the ruined starship and drafted the mind-controlled Protoss into our navy.

We found a few treasures here too, but nothing very valuable. Jbsundown got a TM39 Swift for Crystal, 5qwerty got an X Attack, and Doomguy got two sets of Green Armor. Finally, when we destroyed the ship's Warp Drive, a Yu-Gi-Oh card, The Little Swordsman of Aile, was found in the wreckage. We sent it to Arcaneum.

This starship has been destroyed and abandoned, so we will not return here.

 

[Devalue]

Besides that, it's really funny that Early Meditation guarantees it's being found early but I still haven't received it. It's not that important, it just restores my health more at checkpoints, but it makes me laugh to realize it. If anything, I'd turn it off for future runs because playing around respawning without full health has been super interesting.

Guesses it to be in Stardew Valley or Bomb Rush Cyberfunk at this point. Presumably stuck it somewhere in "Sphere 1", which are locations that require no items for the player to get. Knows nothing about Bomb Rush Cyberfunk. Recalls Sphere 1 for Stardew Valley being pretty large. Should be some of the opening quests, help board quests, any events in the current season, 25ish museum donations, all friendship checks for people with birthdays in that season (not applicable here), probably a few blueprints, a few levels of the mines, and beach bridge.

Notices no Shipping Bin for PoryKid (formerly Coolkid) yet, either. Should be a Sphere 1 check too. (Edit: Looked at the spoiler log. Nooooope.)

Hm. Wait. Set Backpack to "progressive_early". Hinted for both. Got one from the Hollow Knight release, which was sphere 14. (Expects this game to be 28ish spheres.) Gets the other one in Jbsundown's Cianwood Gym. What? (Looking at the spoiler log now.) Does not list the backpacks in the seed progression. Will find out in due time. Wonders if those Progression Balance notifications had something to do with it.

Put Early Meditation in Sphere 3, for the record.

I have the player options page open and I'm noticing there's an option to generate a single-player game, so I might use those settings and try it out to at least get a little bit of an idea of what that'd be like.

Planned to talk about making your own single-player games later. Might as well now. Could make them via the website, as you did. Only creates a seed for one game, though. Allows you to generate your own seeds, with any number of games, without ever connecting to the website. To do this:

1. (Feel free to skip this step) To create YAMLs without the website, go to your main Archipelago folder and run "ArchipelagoLauncher". Click "Generate Template Options". Now, go to your Players folder, then look in the Templates folder. To edit them yourself, use a program like Notepad++.
   
   
2. Place all your game YAMLs in the Players folder. (Should see it when you open your main Archipelago folder.) Do not worry if you have a "Templates" folder in there. Will not pick those up.
   
   
3. In your main Archipelago folder, either run "ArchipelagoGenerate" OR run "ArchipelagoLauncher" and click Generate. Works either way.
   
   
4. Go to the output folder, which is in your main Archipelago folder. Should see a .zip file there. Named it something like "AP_05543597829710075176", but with different numbers. Unzip it. Contains the following things:
   • A server file
   • The patch files for your game(s) (if any)
   • A spoiler log with where the items are.
   
   
5. Run the server file. Handles all the items being sent. (Start this up whenever you want to play. Close it when you are done playing. Saves automatically, for the record.)
   
   
6. Patch your games as you did for this seed (if necessary) with the files given from the .zip file.
   
   
7. In your Archipelago client or game, connect to the server. Varies a little from game to game on how to connect to the server. Likely wants to connect to "localhost" in the client, in the field where you put "archipelago.gg:63098" before. Might be different for a game without a client. Try "0.0.0.0" or "0.0.0.0:38281" or "localhost:38281", if "localhost" does not work. Enter 38281 for the port, if it ever asks. Should connect, hopefully. (Still needs to do LUA stuff, if your game normally requires that, by the way.)

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Earthbound (Part 6)

Received a Mining Permit from the Hollow Knight release. Never entered here in past seeds. Proved very annoying. Could not autowin any battles. Indicated something kind of late-ish.

Was a nightmare to autobattle stuff. Constantly poisoned Ness. Always cures it while autobattling. Wasted so much PP trying to take it off. Compounded this with packs of Mad Ducks taking 11-13 PP with one of their moves.

Found a few decent things in there: a Progressive Coop for Porykid, which could be necessary (technically) for a bundle, plus a Mining level for possible bomb recipes. Labeled some Graffifi as progression. Cannot tell you how good/bad that is.