Ahhh, that's what the "buffs for subsequent phases" were for. I wasn't really sure since the Goliath's skills didn't really mention anything when I checked, or I might've missed a change in their text or something. Killing phase 1 on tier 6 for example gives 25792 points exactly so you would need 31,208 points for phase 2 to reach outstanding. I think that would fall on team dependent optimizations. There are definitely a few characters you could bring with good aoe that can guarantee killing the goliath *and* damaging the boss constantly to max out on 15% dmg and def while also killing phase 1.

I mentioned this in part 1, but always tier up if you can! The rewards on the lowest rating of the next tier are still better than the rewards on the highest rating of your current tier!

@@VarconScrubGaming thanks

I mentioned this in part 1 as well, but don't be afraid to tier up! The rewards on the lowest rating in the next tier are higher than the highest rating on current tier.

Every week

It's not going to look the exact same in layout, but Tier 1-5 run the same mechanics.

Yep! Make sure you read the skills of any boss you fight!

np, will do for the next part

yeah that'd work if you were overlevelled for this, but you don't really wanna wait until you're overlevelled to do this 🤣

Thanks! I've been getting by with just settings in OBS, but I'll try picking up a pop filter.

i'll work on it, thanks

@@VarconScrubGaming Specifically the plosives your microphone are picking up need to be reduced, you can find good resources to address this with that search term. Looking forward to ongoing videos!

Thanks for watching! I'm glad it's been helpful!

Hey! Thanks for watching! Glad you like what I'm doing and my voice! EP is definitely more difficult as a new player especially if you try to max out protocol level all the time, but when your roster gets stronger it'll eventually get easier! I recommend sticking to Special early on so that you have access to your main dolls via the Reinforcement area in layer 2 since that one lets you take any doll from your own roster with their algos and their level isn't scaled down. Don't worry about maxing out all the negative protocols unless you're confident in your carry, instead it's better to focus on the base points so getting gold functions and taking purple fights is your main goal. If you need more help you could always ask the people in the Neural Cloud discord. That or you could just leave a comment on my next EP run vid 😂I upload my weekly run on wed/thu (depending on your timezone).

@@xbiohazardx02 Yep I got DSH! She'll be in next season's pool for sure so I could try her then since I'm not sure if I can get all her frags for 5* by next week for Special. Glad you're enjoying these, thanks for watching!

@@VarconScrubGaming Yea I think DSH Arma 2 is needed to see her full potential too! Expensive but think it would be worth it to see how she does.

But...that's me tho 😅I'll move it to the top right next time. It used to be on the bottom right but people wanted to see the turns too.

@@VarconScrubGamingtrue haha, I think you’d go nicely under the menu in the top left or maybe to the right of it

I'll try it on the next faction run!

I wouldn't say playing them is effortless, but if it looks like that then I'm probably doing it right 😅 I'm not so sure what most people have problems with when playing them, but from my experience there are 2 things you have to pay more attention to on top of regular/generic gameplay that the cravers add for the player; managing pops and managing system approval For 10 out of the 12 factions in the game, managing pops gives pretty nice bonuses, but it isn't really mandatory to play that faction, and you can get away with not doing it. For the Horatio, managing pops is highly recommended because you want to grow multiple pops to splice them and make your Horatio pops produce more FIDSI than a system improvement. For the Cravers, micromanaging pops for every planet you control is mandatory because you are severely penalized for not doing so. Craver pops deplete planets as a tradeoff for their higher FIDS output. 1 Craver pop on an undepleted planet generates 250% the FIDS any other pop on the same planet would. That means for all of your planets that have at least 1 depletion point left, you want them filled with only Cravers to maximize the FIDS output of that planet. When the planet is depleted though, you get a massive swing in FIDS output and your Craver pops produce the same 50% FIDS that every other pop would produce on that depleted planet. That's where the Cravers affinity comes in; Slave Drivers. When a planet has AT LEAST 1 Craver with any number of non-Craver pops, all of the non-Craver pops are enslaved boosting their FIDSI output to 200% what they would normally produce. The catch is the depleted planet penalty and the Slave Driver bonus are additive; an enslaved pop produces 150% FIDS + 200% Influence on a depleted planet vs a free pop's 50% FIDS and 100% Influence. So the logic of how you distribute pops goes: Fresh planet=only Cravers, Depleted planet=1 Craver+fill with non-Cravers. That means you want to get a lot of non-Craver pops over the course of the game and send them towards your core systems to fill out your depleted planets while you transfer majority of your Craver pops to your newly controlled systems to begin depleting them. You want to have a wide variety of non-Craver pops to enslave since it's much faster to take new pops than to grow what you start with, and the variety of collection bonuses you get are also more powerful with Cravers than with other factions. Most of the 20 pop bonuses give % of one of the FIDSI on every system that has at least 1 of that pop, and because Craver system have more FIDSI overall because of those mechanics mentioned earlier, those % bonuses give you much more than what other factions get. On top of that Cravers' unique Autocracy government gives you an additional law slot, which you can use with any of the 50 pop bonus laws that the minor faction pops give. Most other factions usually don't have the space to use them at all. Speaking of government, the choice of party is also what influences how system approval is going to be managed. The Slave Driver mechanic has one downside; every enslaved pop gives the system -10 approval. It's pretty normal to see Craver systems having around -200 or more approval. Thankfully the Autocracy government makes the Cravers immune to mutinies and system rebellion, but it doesn't remove the -75% food and influence on that system, and if enough systems are low enough you're also looking at -75% dust and science. Outside of jank and meme runs, there are only 2 parties (and therefore 2 playstyles) you can go for as Cravers while still maximizing all of their bonuses: Militarist and Pacifist. If you're just playing against AI, I recommend sticking to Militarists since it's straightforward and thematic. The Militarist power law allows free war declarations, extra system manpower per turn, and gives +15 approval per minor faction you're at war with and +25 approval per major faction you're at war with. Since you want a lot of non-Craver pops anyway, declaring war on every minor faction you come across is pretty normal giving you a significant boost to approval in the early game, and as you take over them one by one you get all of their pops to enslave alongside a bunch of assimilation traits. If your spawn is close enough, it's totally doable to never expand with colonization ships and instead just take systems from all the minor factions around you and then move on to taking systems from the major factions as the game progresses. Taking techs that give system improvements boosting approval become optional with the Militarist route since a full lobby of 12 factions would mean the power law gives you a max of +275 approval. Later on you can supplement that with senator bob (+approval and -dust per pop), safe skies (+25 approval for at least 1 ship in orbit on system), and us or them (+20 approval per owned home system). The only real requirement for the Militarist route is you want to finish the entire Craver faction questline AFAP to get Insatiable Maw, one of the most powerful faction quest rewards in the game. Insatiable Maw lets you keep every major faction at war with you permanently by letting you refuse enforced truce for 0 influence. If you don't want to do a full warmonger conquest/supremacy run, or you're playing in a challenging multiplayer lobby then Pacifists is the way to go. Going Pacifists is the only way for Cravers to form peace or alliances with other factions, which may be especially important in multiplayer lobbies depending on your playgroup. Going Pacifists will require you to take the approval improvement techs, especially nano aquaculture for high serenity program (+5 per peace, +10 per alliance), to supplement their make love not war law (+10 approval per peace, + 20 approval per alliance) alongside senator bob and safe skies to keep your approval afloat. Prioritizing pops that give approval also becomes a priority since they can kind of offset the slave penalty at least. Going Pacifists means that you don't have to finish the Cravers faction questline AFAP anymore though so that's one less thing to think about. TL;DR: Fresh planet=only Cravers, Depleted planet=1 Craver+fill with non-Cravers, get multiple pops and spread them on all systems; Militarists is easy mode, expand and get new pops by taking from everyone else, empire happy, finish faction questline AFAP before anything else, Pacifists is non conquest/supremacy and multiplayer mode, take approval techs, prioritize approval pops, chill faction questline, can ally with other players. Hope that helps! Sorry it's really long, there's a lot of details to get into 😅but trust me when I say they're not as difficult as they seem. They are *VERY* tedious though with the amount of pop management you need to do every turn, hence the VOD title.

@@VarconScrubGaming Nose bleeding im somewhat 3 days playing haha. but yeah I kinda get the point since Horatio is my very 1st faction picked but lost like wtf they have gigantour ships so fast

@@negativezero9179 Yeah, it is a lot to take in all at once, especially if you're new. If you already have a faction you're really interested in playing, just keep playing them and really get comfy with the mechanics, especially the universal or non-unique stuff! Otherwise, I would recommend sticking to the 5 basic factions since they're really built to teach and focus on 1 mechanic in the game that you can apply to all the other factions later on.

I don't have enough neural kits to 5* Kurisu and Mayuri 🤣They're definitely an interesting team to play around with though. I'm not sure they'll be in EP rotation after this week, we'll have to see.

Yeah, they're pretty good in most modes, and it's pretty funny watching nascita go especially with her arma upgrade.

Thanks and welcome back to the game! Glad you're enjoying and learning from these runs.

Complete DLC's but no mods

honestly, I couldn't tell you 🤣but at least the Academy is actually useful and doesn't block you from systems anymore

you're welcome!

It's about distance and timing If I wait until my squads have taken casualties before I queue up the ambulance, that's one squad out of the frontline that has to take the long march back if I retreated them all the way to the base. If I have the ambulance ready and in position just behind the front then I don't have to retreat, I can just walk the short distance and replenish quickly and get them back on the line. I'm also queuing it up right as I get 10 fuel and enough manpower for it at that exact moment because my barracks is idle while my command post is training the captain. That way I'm not sitting on fuel that's not doing anything for me at all. At that point in time, I don't need to save fuel for any other tanks or vehicles because the buildings that produce them aren't even available yet so it's better to spend it then than later. The only tradeoff I'm making is between the ambulance or researching grenades, which I didn't need since I don't have to push a position just yet. If I waited until the captain was already out before queuing up the ambulance, it would then become a tradeoff between delaying the company command post upgrade for the ambulance or taking the upgrade and delaying the ambulance (which would mean I have no healing if my side gets pushed). Looking back though, I definitely could fit a 2nd echelon before or after the company command post upgrade instead of taking racks since I ended up floating extra manpower anyway and I didn't go back to pick BAR's up until later🤣