Manual Defrost's Blog

Okay, those Crey bastards have been getting closer and closer to me lately. They've updated their files and they're aware of my upgrades. This is not good news. Where are they getting their information? It can't just be observation. I'm wondering now, of course, if starting a blog was the best idea in maintaining my secret identity. I've gotten a couple emails asking for my "build". I was hesitant to reveal any information on my abilities, but now that Crey just publishes the crap online, who am I to argue right?

You can break my powers down to three categories: Ice, Travel, and Stealth.  With Ice you've got a handful of offensive and defensive powers.  I can fire variable-sized chunks of ice at opponents to great effect, or I can freeze them in solid blocks of ice damn near indefinitely.  The Crey CBX-9 was designed to immobilize an opponents feet.  I still have a unit and it works great.  My cryo-gauntlets, though, can completely lock a person down.  I tried to set it up so that I could achieve a sort of area-effect, but it missed most of the time so I dropped it.  A few months ago I discovered this trick that lets me fire more rapidly by overheating my ejection ports.  Rapid firing isn't a problem anymore.

Next you have Travel.  Now, when I got started, I had no idea what I was doing.  I mostly just used the tram to get from one zone to another.  This was proving to be a bit embarrassing, though, so I set about learning to fly.  I bought a basic hover belt from Cooke's Electronics.  These things really aren't meant to get you from one place to another so much as they keep you from falling.  Window washers use them these days instead of unreliable tethers and safety-lines.  It took a while, and some serious tinkering, but I eventually got the thing fast enough for me to use for serious flight.  I briefly upgraded to an actual flight harness, but after getting my ass handed to me by the Sky Raiders while they were invading the Terra Volta reactor, I opted out of it.  I found that I could max out the hover belt's speed and achieve more or less the same effect as real flight, but without the energy drain on my reserves or the sloppy handling.  Nifty, eh?  Ever since I started talking to Ghost Falcon, though, he's been trying to get me to consider upgrading my hip and leg assemblies for greater speed and leaping.  I could get from one place to another faster than with the hover belt, and without sacrificing stability.  I'll think about.

Finally, you get Stealth.  This was a late addition to my "build".  At first, I just wanted to avoid detection during some missions.  The basic stealth unit makes me harder to see at a distance, but close range it just makes me harder to hit.  That's fine.  Exarch turned me on to the full "ghost" package, though, and I've never looked back.  First, you get their Fawkes Invisibility Drive.  Now this thing is great.  Unfortunately, the unit takes up so many system resources that you can't fight back if they do see through it.  Doesn't sound so hot if you have to face Rikti Drones or Nemesis Tirailleurs.  But that's where the Jones Phase Unit comes in.  With this puppy, you actually step out of phase with physical reality.  You're a damned ghost, boyo.  Since it piggy-backs the Fawkes Drive, you can use them both in tandem.  At first this was a problem b/c my energy reserves would be depleted pretty quickly.  Now, though, after I've tinkered with the interface, I can hold them both almost indefinitely if I'm careful.  Also, if I do get spotted, I can just switch off the Fawkes Drive and stay phased.  They can't harm me then, and I can go about my business.  Now, if I could only get the damned thing's activation cycle down to a reasonable number, I could use the Jones Unit to avoid serious damage in a firefight.  Right now, it just takes to long to be viable.

I hope that helped those of you who were curious.

Current Mood: Chilling