Cycle I: Production Technologies II | Trireme Ranged Weapons, Advanced Trireme Weapons, Siren Armor and Pursuer Sighting | Aeon Trespass: Odyssey (Patreon)

This is the second of what has worked out to be five articles covering every single technology based gear card option in Cycle I. In this part we'll be looking at what is roughly the second tier of gear options, a wide slice of different gear types that covers melee weapons, ranged weapons, armor and support gear. If you want a refresher on the nomenclature and abbreviations I've adopted in this series that is covered in the first article, though as always the first time I write something that's normally abbreviated I try to remember to include both of those together in order to keep it legible. So for example going ahead in this article on content from ATO's (Aeon Trespass: Odyssey) first cycle we'll be using the common shorthand of ATO to refer to this game and if I need it, I'll use CI for Cycle I, CII for Cycle II and so on.

For the most part in this section of the Production Technologies, I'm going to still assume that players only have access to at maximum four Dreamwalkers during this part of the campaign. However, if there's gear here that becomes useful for specific Argobreed titans I'll mention them as appropriate. I'm also including the Pursuer Sighting technology here because I think it is important to get that one unlocked as early due to its powerful options, there's pain involved in this one for sure, but it is worth it.

So let's get into this.

Trireme Ranged Weapons

There are only two gear cards here, while I personally like to see at least three gear cards per production technology I must admit that it is hard to cover what the third ranged gear card would have been. Perhaps some form of sling thematically, but mechanically making it unique from the other two while also keeping it effective in the battles is not easy

Ballista Gun

Cost: 5x Trireme, 1x Fleshy Mantle

The Ballista Gun is an early favourite of mine and something that I'll often put in the hands of a two weapon wielding flex titan. It is a very powerful and flexible weapon that has no downsides that would put me off from using it. The (1/+2/B/Ranged 4-6/Cumbersome/Commit) weapon profile with that +B at A7+ is a great weapon for hurting the Cycle I Primordials, being hard hitting and accurate matters a lot as it makes the weapon very reliable.

Cumbersome on a Ranged weapon is always a bit less of an issue than it can be on a melee weapon, with ranged if you are still in the right spot to attack you can skip your move to reset the weapon and maintain your attacks that way. Commit looks a lot scarier than it actually is, you've got up to 10 shots with this weapon, and the climbing fate value should not matter too much because a titan with the Ballista Gun isn't intending to take Primordial attacks in the first place. Generally however I've found that battles don't last long enough at this point for Fate to get close to running out, even with judicious useage of the Ipeatus Lifeguard.

I do still run a second weapon in tangent with this one, usually a hard hitting one hander (Such as the Boat Mace initially) because that gives us something we can use if the range limitations are not working because we're too close after the Primordial moved or if we need to move in order to reposition because of terrain requirements or other reasons.

This is the first weapon I'll use in concert with the Makesheath (Basic Support Equipment) as that gives us the ability to shoot, exhaust the Makesheath and then move, meaning we're even more mobile than we were before.

Petrified Javelin

Cost: 3x Trireme, 5x Raw Ambrosia

This is a more conservative version of the Ballista Gun, splitting its power and accuracy up into two Red dice at (2/+1/R/Ranged 2-4/Cumbersome). I can see the vision behind this weapon, it's viable closer ranges, it doesn't increase fate when you use it and it has a more predictable average power roll due to being two six-sided dice rather than one single one (Black dice also lean more into needing break tokens to unlock their full strength). But the fact is whenever I've tried to use this the Ballista Gun has felt better despite it having Commit. The 4-6 Range of that Gun tends to work out well against these early Primordials as it keeps you safer and also offers a greater chance to OOR (Out Of Reach evade) if you do get targeted for some reason.

For players who prefer to roll more dice, and therefore have a higher chance of some action each attack this is an option, one could even consider running Ballista Gun and Petrified Javelin in tandem, but I have definitely settled on Gun + One-hander for the period where these weapons are viable and only having a low amount of Fleshy Mantle resources would make me pick this one over its alternative.

I don't think there is a “correct” answer between these two ranged weapons, you want one of them in your arsenal, which one you choose is personal preference.

Advanced Trireme Weapons

The Advanced Trieme Weapons offers us three upgraded two-handed options for the Set Up and Damage titans. There is a marked increase in power across these, which comes (most of the time) with a slight increase in complexity. This is all a welcome and necessary part of the game's progression and if you want simple, the Teeth Khopesh has your back. It is also worth noting that this is one of the first places where we see Primordial specific resources being used, and that may dictate your weapons of choice here, though remember that Trading is always an option to get you to where you want to be, it's not the most efficient in the early points of a cycle, but spending early can save more in the long run.

Teeth Khopesh

Cost: 2x Monument, 2x Muscle Cluster, 1x Infused Mechanism

This is almost the archetypal Damage Dealer's weapon, it's got nothing other than that (2/-1/RR) attack profile going on and it strongly states “I need opening tokens to help me” to the players. This is design I like because it helps players start to see that titans being specialised into roles rather than running four jack-of-all-trades is something that can be very beneficial. It signals that cooperation between player/titan turns is a key factor in the game's combat and that kind of early signpost matters for all types of games. It is just good design.

If you're hitting with both attack dice here this weapon hits like a truck and that's something which can be achieved fairly well with the assist from the Whale Knives in this very technology card. There is a lot of raw power here when supported.

Great Tree Club

Cost: 2x Trireme, 2x Fleshy Mantle

Without hesitation I adore the Great Tree Club, it is the weapon sculpted onto Solon's Dreamwalker miniature and there's something so wonderful about smacking giant monsters with a big old tree. This weapon requires Fleshy Mantles from the Labyrinthauros, making it a disguised member of that weapon family and it fits in really well with signalling that there's the potential for other big smacky hammer/mace/club like weapons from parts of that bull.

This weapon provides a bit of set up through those break tokens, and hit its hard with that (1/+0/RB) attack profile, even gaining an extra +B when you're at A8+. Again we have that Commit negative, but it is still manageable. I prefer this weapon over the Teeth Khopesh myself because I've always had a preference for lower numbers of attack dice due to my preference being on consistent damage/power numbers rather than the higher variance that more attack dice causes. I don't mind the miss when attacking with a single dice roll, I've never been frustrated by seeing it in game such as Pokemon, so I gravitate to weapons like this more.

Still, I think picking between the Khopesh and this Club is more a matter of what resources you got and your personal preferences. I've found both of these two weapons to perform well enough in battle to a similar level.

Whale Knives

Cost: 3x Monument, 2x Calcified Knuckle-Bone

These weapons are our upgrade to the Siren Teeth and they are offering the same potential damage, but with the ability to deploy up to 3 Opening Tokens. This is something that's not a major upgrade over the Siren Teeth, but if you are using the Teeth Khopesh then this higher level of Opening tokens can make a serious difference. If you have a fair amount of spare Calcified Knuckle Bones then the upgrade is nice, but I think these are more of a luxury weapon if resource drops have been unkind.

I've not really mentioned the A5+ Reposition 4 ability because in general I've not found it to be more useful than Reposition 2, most of the time a set up Titan is repositioning to provide space for the Lead DPS (Damage Per Swing or Damage Dealing) Titan to get to a given spot. There are a few Zone 2 attacks that you can get further away from, and the Labyrinthauros' general mobility can cause these to help, but I've played without these and still not missed them too much. It's a luxury addition to the weapon that is appreciated though.

Siren Armor

The most interesting aspect of this particular production card is not its mechanical designs, which are almost universally things which you'll use only because there are no better choices at this time. Instead it is the thematic and narrative appearance of something linked to the Sirens so early on in this story. The Sirens were present in Homer's Odyssey and they are important to the Aeon Trespass Odyssey also, but they play a less direct role in the stories of the cycles and a lot of their involvement is left buried away for players to find along the way.

This card has the function of being a teaser and its prominent early appearance is to aid in making players pay attention to the Sirens so they can ponder about the significance of their impact on the plot.

Siren Shield

Cost: 5x Trireme, 1x Calcified Knuckle Bone

The Siren Shield is a rather meh gear card that we will use because there's no good alternative for a shield at this point in the game. It doesn't provide any soak, but it can actually block hits unlike the Shipwrecker Shield which as mentioned previously only becomes viable when you've got a Mazerunner with Evasion Armor and Titles to boost her evasion. So for everyone else; including the Dreamwalkers which we currently lean on, this is the best.

The main reason I'm not huge into this shield is the fate cost on that Block, fate increases have the effect of making Primordial attacks more dangerous and you have to weigh that cost up each time you're getting hit. So generally it is getting to become squeaky bum time if you have to activate this more than a couple of times. Being able to throw it away for a Block is a nice extra boost here, giving you a “free” block if you're in the final period of the battle because that doesn't increase your fate. But overall, I'm relieved to stop using this one and if I get a lucky Shieldblade from a Hekaton crit before I've made one of these I'll skip over it entirely.

The art design of this one is quite important though, but that's something I may touch on some time far in the future.

Siren Panoply Armor

Cost: 2x Monument, 2x Armament, 3x Raw Ambrosia

Unlike the shield, this armor is decent for its cost. We get a bit of static soak with that red dice and we can even get a potential second point of soak with the Reinforce 1. It's a solid armor option that's not too expensive, it also has an alternative version in the Ancient, and if I have the right resource drops I'll take that one instead for sure. Overall there's not too much more to say here, this is our early armor, it's not great, but it'll do the job for the front line and it doesn't cost too much.

Cheap, disposable, a stopgap to help propel towards stronger options.

Ancient Siren Panoply Armor

Cost: 5x Monument, 5x Raw Ambrosia, 1x Ancient Shell

If you do get the Ancient Shells, this is a better gear to produce than the non-Ancient version and I would always do that because there are few other places (if any) where the Ancient Shells are worth using. In fact I've not found places where to use the Ancient Shells which is not here, so please do let me know if there are any I might have missed or a spoiler free comment if they have some spot in Cycles IV or V that they are used. I suspect not, because I've been dragging 2 of them around with me in my current run and they're just chilling, taking up space.

This alternative version of Siren Panoply Armor improves by giving a massively better Reinforce 2 and for fights against the Hermesian Pursuer we have that incredible boost to a 5 Ambrosia Limit. This armor set has a longer lifespan than its little sibling, but as mentioned above we're looking at getting lucky with some of those Ancient Shells. If you get them, it's worth building this gear instead of its junior.

Pursuer Sighting

This is unlocked by winning your first battle against the Pursuer, you only need to inflict 5 Wounds the first time you face it (Increasing by 1 for each further battle), so if you stall a little until you're sure you can lock in that victory this is a very achievable technology and it is absolutely worth the squeeze. Getting the resources you need will take a bit longer, but this gives us one of our first overarching gear goals for CI.

Purser Imperative

Cost: 9x Grotesque Beak

This gear card is easily the first thing I want to get from the Pursuer Sighting Production line if I can reach that resource cost. It's a superior version of the Ipetus Imperative that is Ascended and also can be further upgraded once the Pursuer has been fully defeated. The difference between Reflex and Advance Reflex is really big and knowing that you can depend on this gear for two Cycles makes it an incredible value proposition.

About the only thing that holds this back is that crafting cost, getting 9 Beaks usually takes a few fights and of course the Pursuer takes longer and longer to beat which is not an inconsequential due to how fast Titans get into the “Oh no we're going to start dying” turn during these Battles.

Mothlame

Cost: 2x Grotesque Beak, 2x Powdered Matter

This cheap piece of Support gear becomes more relevant once you have got the staples from the Pursuer Sighting Production because it is something that you can throw away to the Pursuer's Killjoy trait and replace cheaply. On board it's a fine piece of support gear, but there are often way more important options that provide direct synergy to builds rather than a little bit of extra movement to keep pace with the Primordial.

Really that's sort of the issue, it's cheap for sure, but it's the fourth most important piece of gear on a production card that has two essential purchases and a staple piece of Cycle I armor. By the time I reach Cycle II this card starts to get used as replaceable Killjoy fodder and a slot filler but that's as much as I want to use it for.

Trireme Breastplace

Cost: 6x Grotesque Beak, 3x Powdered Matter

The Trireme is a fantastic front line piece of Cycle I armor gear, RR for soak is incredible and on top of that we get an additional support slot that will do a lot of work for a Tanking Titan. Usually resource pressures mean that getting more than one copy of this isn't realistic, I want the Imperative and the Tatters before I go anywhere near a second one of these and to be honest if I can I'd rather not get the first one before either of those other two options. It's good, but this is a Production card with better options.

Also it's worth noting that despite having Ascended, this gear card isn't something you can rely on in the second Cycle for mechanical reasons that I am not going to cover here. As such my recommendation is to pick up the Tatters and Imperative first and get a maximum of one of these unless you find yourself incredibly resource wealthy.

Hermes Tatters

Cost: 3x Grotesque Beak, 8x Powdered Matter

The Hermes Tatters is the second of my picks for 'craft as soon as possible' this is the heart of the first Cycle's evasion build and it remains a staple that can even be upgraded. So like the Imperative this offers incredible value for resources spent. This is one of the important tools that surround making the Mazerunner viable and it can get that titan to incredible evasion numbers. The goal here is to combine this with a Bull Apis or Smelted Apis Shield (Shipwrecker Shield is fine for starting out), the Pursuer Imperative, an Ares Aulos, a one handed weapon of your choice and some form of standing up (Spring Harness for example) and suddenly you can hang out on various tiles (especially Cities) and avoid damage entirely. Of course, you don't want to do that against Killjoy Primordials, but for the other Primordials this set up can really hold off attacks really well.

Ambrosia Trocar

Cost: 2x Grotesque Beak, 1x Powdered Matter

Our first Attachment, and as such it's time to briefly explain the benefits of these cards. They may have something that looks similar to the Support gear icon. However attachments do not count towards your normal limit and instead they have their own separate limit of 3 along with limits to what cards they can attach to. The Ambrosia Trocar here has to attach to a spear weapon, giving that weapon Carving 1 when you discard it. Carving 1 represents some immediate extra resources, which is not bad, however it does cost three resources and you really want to spend those resources on the Imperative, Trireme Brestplate and Hermes Tatters, so there's a bit of friction on top of only being able to use this with spears. Overall I just didn't feel I could justify this one in the first Cycle where Pursuer Resources have higher priority options.

It is worth remembering this one though, it's not massively impacted by Ascendency rules due to having no Fate cost. Which means when you've got your staples down, crafting one of these with spare resources is an investment that can last a long time and it doesn't have much opportunity cost until you have a lot of attachment options available.

Final Thoughts

Except for the Pursuer gear cards there are a lot of stopgap gear cards in this selection; the Teeth Kopesh or Great Tree Club are solid damage dealing options and the Whale Knives while being not much of a step up from the Siren Daggers they are still an improvement worth considering. The Siren Armor section is mostly fine, but you're picking it because you don't have better options. I'd always go for the Ancient Siren Panoply Armor if I have to pick, but I'd rather skip this production card entirely if I can manage it. I do certainly want one of either the Ballista Gun or Petrified Javelin for my flex Titan, but I don't really want two of those cards because I'd rather get my weapons elsewhere if possible.

The Pursuer Sighting gear options on the other hand are clearly way stronger than the other three production technologies seen here, that's understandable, the Pursuer is a strong opponent even if you're not trying to kill it outright and it can cost you unlocking this card, but it is worth it.

To finish out, here's the short shopping lists of what I keep in mind as potential gear options to produce from this selection. These purchases are not in any particular order and if you get Unique gear from various secret decks you may be able to skip these entirely, apart from the mentioned Pursuer gear which are gear cards that you want every time because they're important mechanically and will last through multiple cycles.

Cycle I Resources Shipping List

1+ Ancient Siren Panoply Armor. If I only have Siren Panoply Armor as an option I'll stick to 1 maximum if I can avoid getting more.

1 Great Tree Club or Teeth Khopesh

1 Ballista Gun or Petrified Javelin

1 Whale Knives

1 Siren Shield (hopefully one gets a better shield before this)

Pursuer Shopping List

1 Pursuer Imperative

1 Hermes Tatters

1 Trireme Armor

1 Ambrosia Trocar (when I've already purchased the three other options above usually late in Cycle I or early in Cycle II. Needs a spear to use it, but there are some good ones ahead and this gear card will pay for itself over time)

Next time we return to ATO I'll go through the remaining Cycle I “Generic” options with Trireme Reach Weapons, Specialised Trireme Reach Weapons, Smelted Gear and Advanced Support Equipment before covering the Hekaton, Labyrinthauros and Temenos production options. After that I'll go through the Pursuer's normal fight and the Alpha Temenos before covering the cycle as a whole and also reviewing it.