Spiral Knights - Ironclaw Munitions Factory

Ironclaw Munitions Factory - first impressions

17 replies [Last post]

Sat, 12/31/2011 - 00:29

Metagenic

My best friend kindly invited me down to IMF for the first time with a full party, so I joined. Some things I noticed after we beat the boss:

- Lag is terrible. I live in Asia and always play on a 1-bar connection, but lag hasn't actually visibly hampered my gameplay until IMF.

- Crowns and heat are terrible. I may be slightly mistaken, but I think I only earned 2.5k cr from the whole stratum, not counting the preceding arena. And my Avenger's heat bar went up by a total of like 4 millimeters.

- Stratum is decent. I like the atmosphere and the graphic design, but there were very few enemies compared to FSC or RJP and most of the Factory involves sequences where you just have to walk past scripted missile firing ranges. The enemies were easily beaten with my Gigawatt Pulsar, and the only foes I found challenging were the Retrodes.

- Boss fight was fun. It was a great change from RJP, where all the players have to do is dish out damage into the Jelly King until he falls. However, it was actually kind of difficult to take damage - I can kill Scuttlebots in my sleep and the falling missiles were insanely predictable.

Sat, 12/31/2011 - 01:15

Nechrome

Heh. you have no idea what I

Heh. you have no idea what I wen't through when I first did IMF.

-Lag is semi-terrible. I live in America, but I remember having more lag here than anywhere else in the Clockworks.

-Crowns-heat are okay. Your heat prolly went up so little because your sword is 4*, so it requires mega-amount of heat to level up.

-Stratum is really annoying. To much shock. But constructs are fun to smush with Khorovod. Rockets are also very annoying. Died maybe about 7 times in my first encounter with them. Atmosphere sort of... wierd.

-Boss fight was confluzzling. To much switches, rockets are also annoying, scuttlebots annoying as well, but easy to kill, and to much shock bullets. Had to use up my only mist tank to rev myself, when my cost was 80 ME/CE. That was prolly the most annoying part of my run.

Sat, 12/31/2011 - 01:17

Heavy-Duty

...

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
'Nuff said. Kept me from getting my beloved Pulsar.

Sat, 12/31/2011 - 01:18

Nicoya-Kitty

yeah, that's pretty much IMF.

Sat, 12/31/2011 - 02:39

Shue-Donnym

Wat

I find soloing pretty easy actually. Elemental brandishes are a great sword for the place, and spamming my toxic catalyzer keeps gremlins away. Elemental brandish also rips Twins apart solo. My first solo resulted in me walking out of the factory with HALF A PIP OF HEALTH LEFT. It also brought a sense of accomplishment. Also, predicting lag really helps in not getting missiled to death. Ow.

Sat, 12/31/2011 - 03:58

Metagenic

@Heavy-Duty

Now that I think of it, I kinda cheated. I bought a Pulsar with cr long ago, upgraded it, then beat the stratum for the first time with a weapon I wasn't supposed to be using until AFTER I beat it 5 times.

Sat, 12/31/2011 - 04:04

Alphacommando

Like Lordofnecromancers did,

Like Lordofnecromancers did, I'm going to write that to fit what happened to me:

- Lag is almost nonexistent. I live in Australia and always play on a 1-bar connection, but lag hasn't actually visibly hampered my gameplay much, not even in IMF.

- Crowns and heat are nice. I think I earned 4-6.5k cr from the whole stratum, not counting the preceding arena.

- Stratum is decent. I like the atmosphere and the graphic design, and there were quite a few enemies. A little bit of the Factory involves sequences where you just have to walk past scripted missile firing ranges. The enemies were very difficult to beat, even with an elemental weapon, and the only foes I even found the Scuttlebots challenging. I especially hated the first factory level - it was horrible. I died I don't know how many times.

- Boss fight was okay. I didn't die once until I stepped on the giant token thing (don't ask me how I died - I have no idea) but I found the missiles deadly and the Scuttlebots rather pesky. The falling bombs were easily dodged however, but once I did get hit by a laser beam and it chewed my health down by about 6-8 bars. Ouch. I did find it easier to not get hit, but harder to get the Twins to hit each other, once they started moving. But in the end I found the rewards not quite worth the fight.

Sat, 12/31/2011 - 09:01

Traevelliath

IMF

From my experience, the IMF only gives like 600 less crowns than the RJP. Also the RT tokens are FAR more useful for Gunslingers while the RJP tokens are FAR more useful for Swordsmen.

Just my two cents.

Sat, 12/31/2011 - 11:05

Maeko

Goodness, you should have

Goodness, you should have seen the stratum when it was first released.

I played it about 20 minutes after the update, here's my 2 cents;

I play in mid-western America with an average of 3-4 bars, everyone in my party were teleporting around, constant speed ups, slowdowns, and stuttering abound, I can't tell you how many times you would be playing normally when everything on screen would just walk away from the level for about five minutes. When it came back, you were dead. Because of this, no one was making it to the second level, letalone the invisible death lasers before the boss

This stuff was better optimized and more or less fixed within 30 minutes with another update.

Sat, 12/31/2011 - 11:22

Myllakka

---

The lag in IMF is pretty bad, on par with FSC for me. It's not unplayable or anything, but I get noticeably more lag there. I'd agree that IMF is a lot easier to play than RJP, since after you run it a few times (or if you go with someone who knows the layout well), it gets super easy since there's one or two rooms with tons of enemies and the rest are just timing yourself correctly to avoid the rockets. I usually tell people who don't know the area well to wait while I run ahead and turn the rockets off, if possible.

I ♥ the Twins boss fight. It's gratifying when everyone works well together and we hit the twin straight into the next stage.

Sat, 12/31/2011 - 12:29

#10

Psycho-Dani

Chain-running IMF for tokens, my 2 cents

About a week ago I wanted a second quicksilver set, so spent a few days in IMF. This was my experience, bearing in mind I'm 80% bombs

-Lag is hardly an issue, on my laptop it was like a slideshow, but my desktop runs it fine, connection wasn't an issue in the UK

-Crowns and heat are acceptable. Yes I'm a 5* player so it's not an issue, but the run still pays for itself

-Stratum is decent. Yet annoying, 9/10 seconds of shock is damn right annoying

-Boss fight is FUN. total change from normal SK gameplay, to me it feels more like a boss fight, instead of just smacking away at a jelly cube, wierd rat-thing, or an overweight overlord.

Sat, 12/31/2011 - 17:37

#11

Rouge-Rogue

I did some estimations one

I did some estimations one day to see how much I got from a full run. I got about 5k, IMF can give just as big of a payout as a RJP run -- but it's all about preference I'd say.

Lag is the only problem, but I usually don't have a problem, unless it's one of those days.

I also like the twins fight better. There's just more fun to be had compared to just hack and slash that is JK.

Sat, 12/31/2011 - 18:09

#12

Slayzz

IMF isn't worth doing, unless

IMF isn't worth doing, unless you really enjoy fighting Roarmy. Heat and Crowns are significantly less (Depth 16 in JK gave about half a bar of heat on a level 9 Neutralizer (with the heat amp- super cheap at AH), while Depth 16 IMF gave a grand total of 3 millimeters on level 9 neutralizer. Plus, unless there are arenas in the run, IMF has about 1/2 to 3/4 the amount of crowns than RJP.
Despite the drawbacks of the run, the boss fight is excellent. (Unless you play with a switch-happy noob, which I am sure many of us have)

Sat, 12/31/2011 - 18:39

#13

Tengu

I hated hated hated IMF for

I hated hated hated IMF for the longest time, until I got the patterns and spawns down, and started bringing the right weapons. It's a pretty easy farm now, though not as easy as RJP in my opinion.

If you're with other better players, the best thing to do is let them take care of the running. It would actually be easier for me if a group of 3 noobs died ASAP and ghost-watched me for tips and timing, then only spawned on the party buttons.

it's all about teamwork and timing. Almost no ramboing whatsoever. If you have 2 weapon slots, bring a nightblade and a gun for switches.
WHHYYY a Nightblade?
normal damage to robots, big damage to Grems and Jellies....the more irritating spawns in the levels.
3 weapon slots = brandish + nightblade + gun
4weapon slots = brandish + nightblade + ice bomb + gun

Sat, 12/31/2011 - 19:16

#14

Dj-Sassy

Necroed

The first thing when I saw this thread, is that I thought someone necroed it from like september, lol.

Sat, 12/31/2011 - 19:53

#15

Skgery

IMF

-Lag wasn't really a problem cuz I was playing on a super fast PC, so it was basically like playing on my other computer, which was fast enuf to do IMF floors and boss.

-The monsters are crap; they die in 2 hits(except Retrodes). Dumb thing is, they kill with shock, so if you get hit: you spasm, they hit you again, and maybe get hit by a few rockets. It's annoying. Both my weapons are good against all types of monsters so there was no disability problem. It's boring without a challenge. :/

-I like the map, it's like a puzzle, you have to be strategically smart to dodge bullets, rockets, etc.. The twins are really fun; it's also a puzzle only it gets harder the more they're damaged. At first, they stay in place and just shoot, then, after a while, they move, shoot lazers, and make bombs fall. The spawn centers are annoying tho. After you kill a monster they come back and try to %&@$ you up again. I don't like spawn centers.

-The CR and heat is ok, but It's only like 4k at a time so it's hard to save up CE(I was getting Gran Faust).

Overall, I kinda liked it, but very annoying; I share computers with my brother so i only get about 70 mist when I wake up cuz he uses mist at night(PM time), so i can't die, which isn't a problem cuz its so easy.

Sun, 01/01/2012 - 03:23

#16

Fraxur

-Lag was absolutely

-Lag was absolutely terrifying
-More challenging than RJP (because of all the rockets you have to dodge) but offers less reward
-The map, like Skgery said, is like puzzle.
-Boss fight was too easy compared to the levels before. I'm normally the one doing switches and sometimes, if I am really careful, I don't get hit at all.

Sun, 01/01/2012 - 08:34

#17

Stavrosg

Isn't it a bit late for a thread like this people?

Me and a friend are farming IMF to sell pulsars at people that can't go there because they're lagging.
We did a timed speedrun today, 17'15" for all 3 floors up until the twins were dead. No pills or remedies used through the run.
No video, but we'll make one at some point xD

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Ironclaw Munitions Factory - first impressions