A Thought About Mid-Star Chart Difficulty

It occurred to me the other day, while I was messing around trying to scan an Amalgram on a Gas City capture mission, that things are going to be a tad different for any newer players passing through Jupiter. When I say a ‘tad’ different, I mean completely different.

Before the Jovian Concord*, Jupiter was never a hard planet but it was never easy either. Ceres and Jupiter are where the difficulty spikes for a new player. While the Grineer just seem to need more hits before dying and introduce Guardsmen who will try and block things, Jupiter’s Corpus just seem more deadly and more numerous. There’s more Ospreys and more Nullifiers. Both maps are also new and unfamiliar to newbies, meaning they don’t know the best way to navigate them either.

Now though, Jupiter is a genuinely tricky place. The enemies are mostly the same, although almost all of them have the word Vapos in their names and little wings attached to them. But there are additional units that are quite scary and all the colours are messed up. For example, Coprus Techs, probably one of the more dangerous Corpus with their high damage Supras, are big and tall and red. Vapos Corpus techs are big and blue. There’s also flying enemies, some of which have Nullifier bubbles

There are also Amalgams though. Sentient/Corpus crossbreeds. I originally thought these were restricted to the Disruption mission, but no, they can spawn anywhere. Alad V will also announce them. I’m not sure though if they only spawn if you have done the Natah quest or not, but it wouldn’t surprise me if you could get ambushed by Amalgams. Then again, Alad V announces them in advance, but one might be busy fighting something else. Like the new Corpus Machinist unit which has a flame thrower.

I think the only things that are easier are, strangely, the Nullifiers. Because the Gas City Nullifiers are melee based, dual-wielding Prova rather than shooting you inaccurately with a Lanka from inside a bubble of protection. But those Nullifiers actually just got nerfed because they originally ran at you INSANELY fast and had bubbles the same size as normal Nullifiers. Sure, a veteran might be able to react in time to the original Vapos Nullifiers but damn they were fast and honestly not very fun to fight against. Then again, it’s one thing to have a Nullifier hiding in a corner shielding some buddies, it’s another to have one charge at you.

What makes it weirder though is that Saturn, the main planet after Jupiter, is actually less difficult than Jupiter and Europa now. The Grineer are tough but they’re more like bullet sponges than anything else. There are some dangerous enemies like the Nox and the Heavy Gunner, but most enemies will die eventually with enough firepower. Corpus on the other hand will throw more complicated things at you, and the Gas City tileset is basically their biggest and most powerful home.

Really, the whole mid-game, star-chart-exploring experience is a bit of a mess, and the new Jupiter facelift just makes it even more of a mess.

*I have to apologise here. I keep on calling it the Jovian Accord. Which just sounds better in my head and I don’t know why.