Space Station Zero Mission Three: Fabrication Bay

Mission 3 was a blinding success for the Muppets, with only one slight problem marring their victory.

The crew enters the next room, the huge rusty door creaking closed behind them. The area is almost empty, with only three ancient grey towers in evidence. Two are silent, but the one furthest from the Muppets is making a buzzing noise. There's an acrid taint to the air and ominous noises can be heard from the ceiling.

"Are those fabricators?" asks Globnik.

"Knfbviewr dhfiewfw yes," replies Misloi. "Qurtbdmqw two are not working but one is. We could use it to make weapons."

"What's that smell?" asks DeeDee.

"Xnnbfh wurh mf a toxic leak," says Misloi. "Sensors uwn cvht indicate it's a byproduct of the fabrication process. There is a vent we can use to cnvneri wjwur remove the gas from the room."

"I see," says Betty. "When exactly were you planning on telling us that? Never mind. Everyone check your weapons and stay sharp."

"What are those shiny things up there?" says Axon, pointing to the other end of the room. "They're huge but why do they sparkle like that?"

"Hkabrutn nxf oshr swarm drones," answers Misloi. "Ndnfrbewe they're made of thousands of nanobots that can shift shape at will."

"Why did I ask?" says Axon to no one in particular.

"Dfcgj ewjiegrtjo xnvit I should also point out," adds Misloi, "that the ceiling of this room is in danger of imminent collapse."

"Can we go home now?" asks Packman.

The Muppets kick off the mission to the lower left. One swarm drone is at the centre-right, with two more at the top end of the room. The vent they have to open is to the right just above one of the fabricators. Thanks to the poisonous air, each crew member has to make a Life Check 2 as they activate; in other words, they roll four dice and have to succeed with at least two to not lose a wound. Here we go!

After passing his life check, Vashtar decides to not bugger about and raises his energy rifle. Misloi ups his weapon's power by one dice, and he fires at the drone on the left of the board. Nine dice roll across the box, and two —TWO — succeed in hitting the gigantic enemy. But two of the others are ones, meaning it's a critical failure! We're off to a great start but at least the team keeps initiative.

Betty orders Misloi to head for one of the fabricators at the other end of the room. Misloi fails her check and drops to two wounds, and the Muppets' excellent track record of rolling D12s continues. This made me just leave Misloi where she was and try to retain initiative, which I did with a roll of 10. 

Axon passes his check and chooses to follow suit. Globnik increases his weapon by one dice and he takes aim and fires. His shot isn't great, with only five out of nine hitting their target, but the energy boost of 2 gives him a total of 7. The drone rolls and FAILS ALL FIVE! With his first shot of the game Axon destroys a swarm drone and it collapses into thousands of tiny deactivated nanowotsits. Awesome!

Packman stares at Axon in disbelief. 

"How did you do that?" he asks.

"I... I don't know," Axon replies. "I don't know what got into me."

"Well could it get into you more often?"

DeeDee's up next, passes her test, and legs it 8" towards the nearest fabricator. 

Now it's the drones' turn. As they're not armed and can only fight in close combat, both elect to double-move 14" towards our heroes. They manage to keep initiative and are now well within range of the Muppets. One moves 7" to tower over DeeDee and the other moves 7" right into the team, who are all standing around in the corner of the room like a... well, like a bunch of Muppets.

The team has to defend itself, so Betty passes her check, takes a swing at the drone directly in front of her... and fails with all four dice, her fist lazily parting the air in front of the drone. The huge drone takes a swing back and hits her three times, and Betty manages to block all of them!

Things don't go so well for DeeDee. The other drone smacks her a right whopper, causing a wound to bring her down to three. Packman takes a wound on his life check, and decides to shoot at the drone attacking Betty. Four successes is pretty good, but as he isn't armed with an energy weapon the damage is reduced to 3. Shockingly, the robot passes its save roll easily and is unharmed. 

Globnik passes his check and shoots at the drone, upping his weapon by one dice to give him seven. He gets a double-12, a critical success, meaning the other three successes are doubled to give him a total of eight! The drone rolls its five combat dice and suffers six wounds, bringing it down to one! Nice going Globbers!

Turn 2 starts with Betty passing her check, punching the robot and failing to inflict any damage! Looks like our esteemed leader needs to get down the gym. DeeDee fails her check and loses another wound, and then breaks from the close combat and heads to the fabricator. If she can roll at least an 8+ with four dice she can use the machine to make a weapon that'll jam the swarm capabilities of the drones. It should go without saying that she fails, rolling a 10 and some crap.

(Note: I thought the chances of any of these idiots rolling four dice and getting 8+ on all of them was insignificant, so I decided that each fabricator has five power switches and any roll of 8+ would succeed in flipping them on. So DeeDee's fabricator has four switches left).

The drone moves up to DeeDee and slams its fist into her, causing two wounds. She needs to save both these to survive, and rolls 1, 9, 5 and 11. DEEDEE IS DOWN! She collapses in front of the huge drone, out for the count. 

The other drone again smacks Betty across the chops and thanks to terrible rolling on her part she's down to one wound! Oh shit it's the first mission all over again!

Vashtar passes his check. Globnik upgrades his weapon and he fires at the drone closest to him, inflicting a frankly pathetic three hits out of nine dice. But with the energy weapon modifier it goes up to five. The drone, with one wound left, rolls double-one! Critical failure! The drone falls apart, its nanobots spilling out over the floor. Two down, one to go!

Misloi passes her check and legs it 8" up the board towards one of the fabricators. Globnik does the same, passing his test and heading further into the room.

Axon takes aim, fires eight shots and rolls six even numbers! And two ones. The ball of energy from his weapon splats to the floor like a turd from a diseased pigeon. I somehow roll a 12 and activate Packman, who for the first time is actually going to act like a medic. He heads over to Betty and attempts to render aid, needing rolls of 6+ with three dice. Nope, not happening. Unbelievable.

The last drone heads back towards Globnik, raises its fist and misses! Unfortunately so does Globbers. And we're into Turn 3!

"Everyone scatter!" shouts Betty. "It's no good us all standing in this corner like a bunch of stuffed toys!"

"Sounds like a plan to me!" yells Globnik.

The crew takes initiative and attempts to split up and, you know, get away from the 15-foot tall killer swarm drone. Betty thankfully passes her life check and heads 8" up the table, followed by Packman who, despite failing his check and taking a wound, this time succeeds in healing Betty and bringing her back to three. 

Globnik passes his check, scarpers around the drone and legs it 8" towards the vent as, let's face it, it might be a good idea for someone to try opening it. The drone wins initiative and heads straight for Milsoi, inflicting three hits. She fails one, dropping to one wound, and also fails to hit the drone. 

Axon passes his check. Misloi increases his weapon's strength by one dice, he fires and scores three hits, rising to five with the +2 modifier. The drone saves three, dropping to five wounds remaining. Vashtar passes his check and also takes aim. He hits four times, plus two for a total of six! The drone FAILS ALL FIVE save rolls and dissolves into a pile of dead nanobots. All three drones are down and we're into Turn 4!

Globbers passes his check and makes it to the vent! He has to make a Reaction Challenge Test 4 to switch it on and drain the poisonous gas from the room. In other words, from six dice he has to get four successes. Oh God...

He rolls 8, 1, 2, 10, 3 and 6. Success! The valve opens and the poison gas is vented out of the room. The Muppets have succeeded at another mission!

But wait, there's more! At the end of the mission I get to roll one D12, and on a roll of 4+ I can use the working fabricator to make a piece of advanced technology oh dear I rolled a 3.

And what about DeeDee? I have to roll against a table to see what her fate will be. Will she die and be out of the game for good? Will she survive but drop points from her stats? With a deep breath I roll two D12s and get a total of 14. DeeDee makes a full recovery and can rejoin the Muppets!

DeeDee sits up as Betty and Vashtar run over to her.

"My head is bloody killing me," she moans. "Did we win?"

"We're good," says Betty. "Those drone things are gone and the vent's been opened. We need to get out of here and keep moving."

Packman calls out from the other end of the room.

"There's two doors here, do we go left or right?"

"You decide," replies Betty, helping DeeDee to her feet and they and the rest of the crew head towards Packman, who's opened the door on the left. They all pile through, with Vashtar coming last.

"Where are we?" asks Axon.

"I dunno," says Packman, "it looks like some kind of darkened hall."

Vashtar slams the door closed behind him and a deafening sound of collapsing metal can be heard from the vacated room.

"I guess the ceiling just collapsed," he grins.

"Oh yeah," says Globnik. "I forgot all about that."

AND I DID! I totally forgot the whole collapsing ceiling thing, what with the gas and the drones and all. Oops. I guess I'm also a Muppet.

This mission was a lot of fun, although I have to admit to being surprised at how easily the swarm drones were defeated. Surprised but also happy, as I thought they'd be absolute bastards to defeat. My tactics in this game were awful; keeping almost the entire crew in one corner was totally dumb, but I was so intent on taking out the drones that moving crew members around didn't really occur to me until they had a drone right up in their collective grille.

Having DeeDee KO'd worried me a lot as I wondered if this was it for her. The game's creators have explained that team members will die, and as far as I know you can't recruit new ones. I thought she might be the Muppets' first casualty but happily I didn't screw up the roll and she'll be back.

And yet again I forgot that both Axon and Vashtar can reroll failures when shooting. I really have to keep that in mind as it would have been a great help.

Brian asked in the comments to Mission 2 whether the team can gain experience after completing missions, and the answer is yes. The commander gains 2XP if they survive the mission, and all other crew members gain 1XP. You can save the experience points to grant yourself better stats or abilities. So far, Betty has six points and the others have three.

Next up: The Darkened Hall!