Excavation Is Flawed (And So Is Cryotic)

[(XBOX)Grihaly]

I probably would have noticed this sooner, if I played Excavation more often. So I finally got the Trinity Prime systems, I'm about to go craft them, and I see 9,000 CRYOTIC as a crafting requirement. Like, what? I never liked Excavation to begin with but 9,000 Cryotic is just absurd. Alright, let's get to the point of this thread: Excavation.

 

Power Cells: First off something positive, thank you DE for getting rid of that horrendous Scanner, but Excavation is still sub-par even with out that holding it down. The time, it takes 100 seconds. and they start with half that for power, requiring 3 power cells. Not only do you have to defend the Excavators, which do not regen health, you also have to go out and grab power cells. At least in mobile defense the objective can regenerate health, and you can properly defend at the same time, but in Excavation? Nope. Damage is permanent, multiple power cells are needed.

 

The Waiting is the Hardest Part: Did anyone get that reference? Anyway, Excavation wouldn't be so flawed if it weren't for waiting for the power cell carriers. Defending one or two excavators at zero power, making zero progress, because zero cell carriers are spawning, is a straight kick in the teeth. Enemy, after enemy, after enemy, moa after moa, osprey after osprey, tech after tech, but no cell carriers... And no Cryotic. And if you go out to grab a cell from a previous spot, those excavators are probably going to get destroyed. Power cell carriers should have the highest spawn frequency, really, that's a no-brainer.

 

Rewards, Scaling, and the Lack-there-of: Now I don't play Excavation for rewards, I play it for Cryotic (we'll get to that one next!) since it is rewarded the same at all locations, why not play on Venus, where the enemies start at around level 5-10? I mean, I'm just doing it for Cryotic, I don't care about that half-ranked silver core... An hour later the enemies are now level 50-60, and my rewards for a successful excavation are still a half-ranked core, or maybe ammo drum. BUT THE ENEMIES ARE LEVEL 50+! I get that it's a low level planet, but when the enemies are 10x their starting level, the rewards should be 10x their starting quality.

 

Cryotic: Remember back during Cryotic Front, when the Cryotic earned in Excavation scaled with planet level? 100 on Earth, 200 on Phobos, 300 on Europa. DE, what happened to Excavation?! Getting 100 on Venus, and 100 on Neptune from one extractor is a steaming pile of bull. Not only is the single way of acquiring Cryotic extremely slow and redundantly boring, you get a depressingly low amount for how long it takes. About an hour gets you about 2,000 Cryotic. Go to Uranus, farm some poly, you'll have 2,000 in 20 minutes. Or go to one of the other handful of planets with it. Sure, there are multiple locations to get Cryotic, but only one mode you can get it! And DE, we get it, it's a new-ish resource, but you don't need to shove it down our throats by making it a crafting requirement for virtually every new item. Kulstar, 4,800 Cryotic, Cerata, 2,500 Cryotic, Ivara chassis, 2,000 Cryotic, Trinity Prime systems, 9,000 Cryotic (I reiterate: lolwut?) seriously, STOP IT!

 

The Cryotic Drought of 2015: If Eyes of Blight never happened, this thread probably never would have either. I had something like 27,000 Cryotic before EoB happened (and after using several thousand of it on weapons like the Glaxion and Opticor) and I used all of it trying to save the Relays in that rigged event. I burned through 27,000 Cryotic for nothing, and now there's things that need 9,000 cryotic. Even if I passed on EoB, that would have been 1/3 of my inventory for one whopping set of systems.

 

How it can go from Drag to Fun: Excavation (and Cryotic farming) can be made better in a number of ways: 

 

1: Get rid of power cells. It might make it like a clone of Mobile Defense, but if that gave Cryotic, I'd never touch Excavation again.

 

2: Give power cell carriers the highest spawn frequency (though this would just be a cop-out and sheer laziness).

 

3: Scale Cryotic earned with planet level. If Neptune gave 500, or even higher for successful Excavations, I'd go there for my farming.

 

4: Give Cryotic the Tellurium treatment. Not too long ago (I think it was when the sealab tileset was released) Tellurium was made available as a drop on the planets with Archwing missions (or is it just nodes where you can transfer in-and-out?) please, let Cryotic be a rare drop from enemies on outdoor tilesets, even in low increments (2-5?) so it doesn't make Excavation obsolete.

 

5: 1, 3, and 4. This is really the best choice.

 

If you made it here, thank you for reading, and if you have better ideas, I'd love to hear them!

[(XBOX)TheMadCash]

Excavation is my least favorite game mod. When i see i have to do a Excavation in a Sortie. I drop a tear

[ACorpse]

OK I'm just going to mention a few things.

 

1) Excavators no longer start at half power, they start at 20% (I believe). Just a minor correction.

2) I have a ton of useless cryotic from alerts and keyfarming (over 56k). There really need to be more optional uses for it.

3) I agree with cell carrier frequency. At least now distant cells despawn allowing for carriers to spawn nearby. It was aggravating to have a mountain of cells half the map away and hence no way to get any to spawn close by.

4) Scaling. If all you want is cryotic, exit when it gets a bit harder and redo it. No need to make things hard for yourself.

5) If you're suggesting cryotic is used to dilute some other drop table you're going to make some people grumpy. At least if you need cryotic you know exactly where to go and what to do to get it. Don't make some random drop less likely by adding cryotic to that drop table when many people have no need for it at all.

[(XBOX)Odin Highwind]

The cryotic gains should be looked at, and the health of the pods should be tweaked as aforementioned. As far as the rewards, they're kinda meh, but I do still like getting the void keys from them. Granted, out of all the game modes, hijack is my least favorite, with excavation a close 3rd. Exterms are 2nd..

[(XBOX)Grihaly]

OK I'm just going to mention a few things.

 

1) Excavators no longer start at half power, they start at 20% (I believe). Just a minor correction.

2) I have a ton of useless cryotic from alerts and keyfarming (over 56k). There really need to be more optional uses for it.

3) I agree with cell carrier frequency. At least now distant cells despawn allowing for carriers to spawn nearby. It was aggravating to have a mountain of cells half the map away and hence no way to get any to spawn close by.

4) Scaling. If all you want is cryotic, exit when it gets a bit harder and redo it. No need to make things hard for yourself.

5) If you're suggesting cryotic is used to dilute some other drop table you're going to make some people grumpy. At least if you need cryotic you know exactly where to go and what to do to get it. Don't make some random drop less likely by adding cryotic to that drop table when many people have no need for it at all.

According to the wiki, as of 18.4 they start at 20. Great, so looking forward to that.

Like I said, I only do Excavations when I need Cryotic, because it's just not fun, if it were a possibility, I wouldn't even play it.

Agreed.

That's what I do, but as the enemies get higher, so should the rewards is what I'm saying.

It was just one of several suggestions.

[(XBOX)Grihaly]

I played Excavation the other day, this time with in a cell with two other good people. It was smooth, but the problems I mentioned are by no means any less relevant.