Descent II
==========

Boss strategies
===============

Level 4: Robby Station
Once you finally open up the big chamber in the middle, don't fly in
immediately,
as this makes the boss appear. Try and take down the bots flying at the side
first.
Then fly quickly through the room once, and hide behind a door.
The boss throws flash missiles and homing missiles at you, and is reasonably
fast
in gating in other bots. However, his chamber isn't all that large and you have
a
lot of doors to hide behind.
This is relatively easy with a quad super laser. Hide behind a door, then peek
out
to see if you can find him (or any other bot). Fire a bunch of laser shots, then
duck back when you hear a missile lock.

Level 8: Riverbed Mine
The boss itself isn't that much of a problem since his smart mines and mercury
missiles can all be dodged reasonably easy. The trick is first in clearing the
area
of other bots (since there's three generators around) and second in finding him
since the area is pretty big. Luckily there's quite a bunch of cloaks and
invulns
around this time, even if you don't really need them since they tend not to last
long enough to find the boss.
Don't enter immediately, first get rid of the first wave from the top
generators.
Now rush down to the corridor beneath the boss chamber. If you fly through it
fast,
you'll make it to a hidden door with a switch, which reveals some more
powerups. If
you don't fly in there, you won't trigger the third generator nearby. When you
head
back, you'll notice a second wave from the top two generators. Fire a smart
missile
straight up to get their attention, then blast them when they come to
investigate,
preferably with the fusion cannon.
Once the area is clear, start looking for the boss. You might as well use up the
cloaks and invulns while you're at it, but they probably won't last. Using an
invuln
to clear out the smart mines may be a good idea. Just equip your heaviest
weaponry,
keep circling, and when you see him blast off a couple of megas and fusion
bolts.
And be ready to dodge his mercury missiles.

Level 12: Magnacore Station
While this boss's Phoenix cannon won't be much of a problem, its Mega Missiles
will
hurt. A lot. So your best bet is to make sure he doesn't fire any in your
direction,
because they home in and do about 100 damage each, annihilating your ship within
seconds. And you only get one cloak to assist you, the invulnerability in the
guidebot's
room is too far away to be of much use.
First, you have to take out the various regular bots in the five chambers. Keep
in
mind that several of these spawn other bots upon death - omegas in one
instance. The
Gauss cannon is probably your best bet, and you may want to use the cloak on
the last
two guys since they fire homers at you. The boss doesn't gate in all that many
bots
so you should be okay when you clear them all.
I've found that if the boss knows where you are, it has a tendency to teleport
next
to you and fire off a mega missile or two. Really cheap. So the trick is not to
let
him know where you are, and snipe around. Use the Gauss cannon once more and
fly to
the top of the center chamber. Hover, and slowly peek into the other rooms at a
variety of angles. You should eventually see part of the boss. When you do,
start
pounding Gauss at it and keep it up.
I've found missiles to be not much of use here since you generally don't have a
very
good line of sight at him. He seems to dodge or teleport out when you try megas
at
him. You may be able to nail him with a couple of mercuries, and dropping some
smarts
(or smart mines) in the general area may also help.
Eventually he'll fade and teleport out. If all goes quiet now, return to the
top of
the room and start sniping once more. If you hear his noise, IMMEDIATELY hit the
afterburner and fly to wherever the boss was previously. Because that's just
about
the only place you know that he is not. Duck around a corner to avoid the
probable
mega missile on your tail.
Lather. Rinse. Repeat. I usually die once or twice when doing this, and it's
pretty
hard to recover your stuff without getting hit once more. The invulnerability
may
just let you pull this off in time if you fly fast.

Level 16: Terrafrost Catacombs
This guy plays cheap. He has an Omega Cannon that blinds you, and heavy homing
Flash Missiles that also blind you. In other words, when you're hit as much as
once,
you can no longer see where you're going, and he'll keep on blinding you until
you're dead. Invulnerability doesn't help, so your only resort is the single
cloak
near the boss room. And playing cheap yourself.
Wait outside the boss room for a bit and kill any small robots that come out.
Hover
in front a bit more and tease the robots until they come out as well. Kill them.
This should buy you enough room for safe passage through the boss. Grab the
cloak
above you, and rush through. Don't bother shooting at anything until you've
reached
the other door. Hover nearby and kill any small enemies with, once more, the
Gauss
cannon. If the boss appears, drop a Mega on him.
Hide behind this door as much as possible. Whenever the boss is visible at a
weird
angle, Gauss him until he disappears. When he is plainly visible, drop in a Mega
(or an Earthshaker if you have one) and duck back. If he refuses to appear, try
luring him out with Guided missiles. After about six, seven Megas and a Shaker,
he's the proverbial toast.


Secret level notes:
S5:  you can make several passes if you don't blow the reactor before exiting
S12: contains no robots but minelaying omegas and at least five thiefbots
S15: meltdown timer is 300 seconds; no robots, only techmines
S17: timer is 150 seconds; the full map from here works in the main level too
S21: each reactor you blow adds some seconds to the meltdown timer
Each system's fourth level has an additional entrance to the secret level.


Compiled by Radiant.
http://crystalshard.net