Taking advantage of the darkness and chaos, Da Fei charges into the what seems to be the living quarters’ aisle and enters the next cabin. He then quietly squats beside the wall next to the door and dare not even breathe loudly.
The BOSS should have returned to his original position by now, shouldn’t it? Da Fei secretly stretches his head and take a look behind. As expected, that BOSS’ back blocks the exit of the aisle again. At the same time, Scouting is not giving warning, which is to say it cannot detect things from behind.
Da Fei heaves a sigh of relief. It is time to search this warehouse now. Hopefully Bro will find something here.
Da Fei sticks close to the wall and starts searching carefully. This cabin does not has rancid smell but a faint engine oil smell.
——System Notification: You discovered damaged Ballista. (Large Cargo, unable to carry around)
Da Fei get a shock! Ballista? Ballista of the famous skill War Machines?
Da Fei carefully touches it, that’s right! This is a destroyed Ballista! The Ballista that is known as BOSS killer!
——System Notification: You discovered Ballista Ammo. (Large Cargo, unable to carry around)
——System Notification: You discovered Mechanical Repair Tools.
——System Notification: You discovered Fishing Rod.
There is ammunition too! And also repair tools too! Could be for this ballista? That is right, how can a exploration ship set sail without being armed? The sea has strong winds and distance is far, bow and arrows are not useful so ballista is the main weapon for combat! Which is to say, this is the ship’s gun deck! The ships of this game is completely designed after antiques. In movies, battles between sail ships are 2 fleets lining up and the gun ports on the side of the ship opens and bombs each other and compete on who can last longer!
If this is the case, this gun deck should have more than 1 ballista! Da Fei continues to search in the dark and discovers 16 ballistas, 8 and each side with ammunition but not 1 is intact, all are badly damaged!
There seems to be no enemy in the whole gun deck. At the end of the gun deck is a tightly locked metal door and no where else to go. Judging by games’ normal convention, the only way out when there is no where to go is to kill BOSS.
Bro understands already!
As an expert with rich experience with games, what is the meaning of scenes like this appearing in beginners’ village? Of course it is to teach beginners War Machines and with ballista included! At a beginners’ village with no one like this, Bro’s Scouting also appears with ingenuity like this. Ballista should also more or less be the same!
If players who started normally chooses War Machines as their first skill, they must be in the cities right now accepting quests in workshops or being an apprentice earning money to buy discounted ballista, aren’t they? The only difference between here and workshops in cities should be there is no instructor here and can only learn by oneself!
As usual, find the War Machines skill book, this book should be placed in some corner in the cabin!
As long as the skill book is at hands, it is possible to fix these ballistas. Ballista has strong power and comes with Knockback and Puncture effects. Defeating that strong Zombie guarding the door should be possible!
Of course, even if not for killing that Zombie BOSS, to an aspiring sea merchant like Da Fei, War Machines is a combat skill that must be learned. When Scouting is not as good as pirates and pirates are nearing, ballista is the last line of defense. Also when met with sea monsters, there is also a need for strong weapons like ballista for self-defense.
Let’s introduce War Machines first for now.
——War Machines: Increases ballistas, siege machines, medic tents’ durability and effects. Can also repair destroyed war machines.
War Machines’ sub-skills normally are Ballista Master, Siege Master, Tent Master, Combat Repairs, Exploding Sh.e.l.ls. While War Machines covers 3 machines, sub-skills from combining with other skills are plentiful like Tripe Ballista, Incendiary Ballista, Imbue Ballista, Brimstone Rain, Plague Tent, Plague Siege Engine, Destroy Machine etc. Trying to learn all of this system will require a lot of skill points
Also, war machines cannot be buffed by Hero’s Attack/Defense and other combat skills. Furthermore, player can only carry 1 of each type of machine so there is no need to spend too many skill points just for 1 machine. Typical players either choose Ballista Master or Tent Master. As for Siege Master, that is thinking too much since siege is not something players should be considering now.
Let’s talk about ballistas next.
——Ballista: Attack 5, Defense 5, HP 100, Damage 1-2, Attack Speed 5, Movement Speed 1, special ability: Knockback, Puncture.
——Knockback: Enemies. .h.i.t by attack from ballista will have a certain chance to be knocked back.
——Puncture: After killing an enemy, the remaining force will hit the enemy behind.
This is the factory stats of ballista. Every increase in level of War Machines, ballista’s Attack/Defense add 5 each, Damage +1, max HP increase by 100.
Although the Attack/Defense of ballista is not buffed by Hero’s Attack/Defense, the damage of ballista is related to Hero’s stats. Different from normal units’ damage formula, ballista’s Damage = Ballista’s base Damage X Hero’s tactical stats total!
For example the Level 6 Da Fei is 5 Attack, 0 Defense, 0 Magic, 0 Knowledge now, Hero’s tactical stats total is 5, ballista’s Damage is 5-10, equivalent to a level 4 unit. The meaning of this formula is the stronger the Hero is, the better one can use a ballista.
Which means even Hero that is not combat-oriented with his skills, as long as level is high, one can still unleash the power of ballista. Therefore, even if Da Fei wants to be a merchant, there is no losses to learning ballista at all.
If Master War Machines is learned, the stats of Ballista will be: Attack 30, Defense 30, 600 HP, base Damage 6-7. The Da Fei with 5 stats total using Ballista will have Damage of 30-35. This Damage is close to the standard of a level 7 unit already! If the sub-skill Ballista Master is learned, that will be firing 2 continuous shots and the damage will be doubled!
Which is to say, beginners learning ballista from the start is equivalent to carrying a level 7 unit with him everywhere. Furthermore, it does not occupy Hero’s Tactical Position, it is an additional unit. For beginners at the start, this is a relatively strong long-range firepower which can challenge some stronger monsters above their levels, especially those long-range monsters that normal players cannot even reach.
Therefore, during beta, players that start with ballista or first aid tent are collectively known as Mechanical Start with obvious advantage.
If players raise to level 30, just the tactical stat points gained from leveling is already 50, the final Damage of ballista reaches 300-350 which far surpa.s.ses any regular units, unbelievably high! Insta-killing level 7 unit with 1 shot is nothing, G.o.d knows how many normal minions will be punctured through with 1 shot. Getting hit by ballista on the sea really tests the quality of the ship!
Anyways, the ballista known as BOSS killer is like a BOSS itself! Of course, player can only bring 1 of BOSS like this.
Saying until here, it is time to talk about the weak points of ballista.
Although ballista is a BOSS-like existence, its size is too big, the aiming is inconvenient, accuracy towards moving enemies is not high and shooting speed is slow. When enemies circle to the back of ballista, then there is nothing it can do and is even more helpless against flying units.
During beta testing, the value of ballista on the battlefield is a 600 HP sandbag to absorb the first round of fire from enemies’ magic troops. It can be considered as having huge contributions anyways. Therefore, at later stage, ballista has a weak presence instead.
And then the biggest weakness is ballista’s Movement Speed is only 1! That means the longest it can move is 1 meter in 1 second. Player marching with ballista is like crawling turtle. It is not any faster even if Master Logistics is learned. Furthermore, it can only move on main roads and not on side roads! Of course, the solution is to pack ballista into parts but before combat, there is a need to spent a very long time to a.s.sembly. If one is discovered by enemies and attacked when a.s.sembling, let’s pretend one did not learn this skill before.
And then, the repair of ballista requires carrying of spare parts around and costs are high.
Lastly, player with ballista can only win and not lose. If lost…hehe, finally no need to worry about the slow marching speed already.
All in all, ballista can only provide player with huge firepower support in the beginning and can also give player a lot of ball ache. How to use it depends on the player’s training strategy.
For Da Fei, these weakness is non-existent because naval battle is a different concept compared to ground battles.
Ship is a moving fortress. As long as this ship is gotten, that ballista will be fired in the gun deck. For enemies to destroy the ballista, they have to destroy the gun deck first and the ship body outside the gun deck has the strongest armor among the whole ship. Therefore, there is no need to worry about ballista being disabled from the start.
Transporting is not a problem because the ballista moves with the ship.
The problem with accuracy is not even a problem. The target of naval battles is pirate ship. Even if one is blind, there is no need to worry about not hitting the enemy, isn’t it?
In actual fact, aren’t all the super cannons in history all installed on ships. Only ships are the real homes of ballista so Da Fei definitely is going to learn this skill!
……
After half a day of searching now, Da Fei finally finds a book in a box, found it! Under closer inspection, it is not a golden skill book but ＜Mechanic’s Manual to Ballista’s Maintenance and Repair＞!
——＜Mechanic’s Manual to Ballista’s Maintenance and Repair＞: Support item. Equipping this item will gain the skill to disa.s.semble and a.s.semble ballista.
Ha! So it is an equipment just like dark magic tome! So that’s how it is!
In the game, other than the tradition equipment slots like weapon, helmet, ring and accessory, players still has a few equipment slot for a few support item. Sundries that gives all kinds of skills, add morale, add luck are equipped in this slot.
Although the skill book of War Machines is not found, this book equipment is even better because there is no need for skill points to learn, it will take effect just by equipping it! If the skill book is really found, Bro do not have skill points and can only stare at it.
Seems like the use of this scene is just as Bro expected, it is to let Bro disa.s.semble all these destroyed ballistas and then use the intact parts to a.s.semble a new ballista! This is really giving out ballista! Giving ballista for what? Of course is to kill the Zombie BOSS at the door! It is blocking the door with back facing me, isn’t that just waiting for Bro to back-stab it! Even without the support from War Machines, the 100 HP of this ballista is not for show!