Wrong Way Down - Part 12

The very eventful episode 12 of Wrong Way Down starts with a short recap of the whole distance travelled up to now, and a post-mortem of the (newly renamed) Glitter Suppository's failed assault against the NPC Fortress last episode.

Splitsie proposes to first engage the drones, then destroy the Fortress' antenna, then ram the Fortress. Lucas in chat denies being serious about wanting them to jump using a ramp. They add gatling turrets to the roof of the Glitter Suppository and approach the upper cliff edge. The Suppository is hit by rockets, but they manage to shoot down the drones, and destroy the Fortress' antenna with rifles. After this partial success, Splitsie knocks himself out on the edge of his own solar panels... They drive the Bird Eater, the CowTexPillar, and the Suppository away from the Fortress and circle around the ice lake to find a smoother angle down to the lake.

(0:30) Splitsie stops on snow to refuel the hydrogen engine while Capac and Texfire catch up. Leaving the Bird Eater parked outside rocket range, they all change into the Suppository and drive down onto the ice lake. W4sted races the Suppository across the lake and is greeted by a wave of rockets. The Suppository crashes into the base of the Fortress where they respawn in a death loop. Splitsie takes out one turret while the decoys cry "ow!" The Fortress is hammering the vehicle's heavy armor until the survival kit breaks and they all respawn at the Bird Eater. W4sted is strangely quiet because he's drawing in MS Paint. They decide to build four fast small RC vehicles with warheads to rush the Fortress. Suddenly, IRL, they are interrupted by loud rock music -- it's just Splitsie and Capac's doorbell ringing, someone has reprogrammed the ring tone! Splitsie drives the Bird Eater down and across the lake to hand-drill magnesium to build warheads.

(1:00) W4stedspace changes his suit to a Cheddar orange Ghillie suit and claims it's ugly Christmas sweater camouflage, but Splitsie insists it's cheese. Just as they start building their RC drones, W4sted's PC crashes. Splitsie needs to restart the whole localhosted game anyway, because he forgot to switch off Progression, and they would need to build a reactor before they could build warheads... Meanwhile, Capac's chat is trying to corrupt him into hiding thrusters in his builds. While restarting, Splitsie blanks his screen and does something secret. Back in game, Splitsie almost misspeaks "large armor" as llama, which prompts Capac to reveal that he's currently storing a neon llama in his car as a Christmas gift. Timing large warheads is likely a "boondoggle" (waste of effort), on the other hand, Splitsie's experiment proves that a small warhead can take out only one large-grid heavy armour block... While Capac builds a decoy vehicle, Splitsie experiments with subgridding a large warhead onto his small attack vehicle. Texfire replaces some cargo containers by a passenger compartment and adds a turret to his CowTexPillar II. W4sted struggles to remember which of his own trike wheel designs he should use.

(1:30) W4sted intends to drive his ice-drifting shielded trike himself, not RC it, and the others drop the RC idea as well. Words fail W4sted when he sees Capac's vehicle. Splitsie comes over to find a large-grid shell, covered in a dozen decoy barnacles, on small-grid wheels, and words also fail him. Splitsie's warhead delivery vehicle is bright yellow and ugly, but he calls it done and helps others weld their vehicles. W4sted can *hear* that Splitsie is using a high-tier welder built from stolen disassembled thruster parts! W4sted's and Tex' attack vehicles are now ready. Splitsie forgot the gyroscope and refrains from greebling his moribund toycar. Capac's wheels are too weak for his decoy tank and he hasn't even built an RC camera or cockpit yet.

(2:00) Texfire's CowTexPillar II has one cargo container, a Survival Kit, roofed passenger compartment, and a turret. Splitsie painted his warhead a blue disco ball texture and it spins on a rotor "for extra damage". Splitsie's vehicle is named the Bomb (but Capac calls it Banana), and Capac's decoy vehicle is called Capac Personell Carrier. Splitsie wisely packs warhead components in his inventory.

Time to attack the Fortress! Capac goes first, W4sted and Splitsie behind him, and Tex is supposed to stay out of enemy range. Capac's decoys expertly buy Splitsie the chance to drive straight up to the Fortress. W4sted's and Splitsie's warheads blow up -- but all that's destroyed is the Glitter Suppository that was stuck under the enemy Fortress. Splitsie, Capac, and W4sted all respawn at Tex' tank, accompanied by the Capac decoys repeating their "ow" choir. Splitsie jetpacks back to the Fortress and ducks into his crater, out of turret range. He trenches closer and sets off a second warhead with components from his dropped backpack, but it does not take out the bottom turret. Due to a misunderstanding, Tex drives his tank closer and gets blown up. (Chat votes that Tex should get a free vehicle when they travel on later.)

They jetpack to the Fortress and hide behind wrecks and in craters, but the turrets are strong and numerous. Following W4sted's advice, they make it onto to the roof and grind their way in, carrying parts to build warheads. They hunt down countless well-hidden turrets inside and outside. While Tex and Capac make another attempt at welding up warheads, Splitsie spots valuable loot.

(2:30) Capac runs straight into the "last" turret thinking the room was clear. They are torn between looting or annihilating the Fortress, but since they plan to continue by small grid anyway, they don't need all the end-game loot. Every time warheads are armed, Splitsie goes into spectator mode for photogenic views--but all they have accomplished is to create better holes for the turrets to shoot out of... Capac is lured into turret range by a rolling Unknown Signal and uses it for cover while at the same time trying to push the button--it does not go well. They weaken the Fortress' supports and Texfire ignites more warheads. The Fortress stands unimpressed, as if they just removed one row in Tetris. Both Capac (a.k.a. Eeyore) and W4sted need to rejoin because their PCs crashed. When the tower finally topples, Splitsie manually grinds down the last four turrets while the Capac decoy mod makes him laugh. Splitsie admin-cheats in more daylight, W4sted is lagging hard, Texfire is trying to drive a wreck, and Capac needs donations for a better streaming PC.

(3:00) With the Fortress disabled, they park the Bird Eater on the lake in peace and start building individual small-grid racing rovers for the last stretch of the journey. Texfire actually repairs his damaged CowTexPillar II instead of pasting it in from a blueprint. W4sted and Splitsie overcome wheel placement issues on W4sted's rover while Capac announces he needs to leave early today. They distract a grrrr-ing Capac from ranting about Star Wars of which he was a big fan as a teenager. W4sted is suspiciously sad that the toilet seat block is large-grid only. Capac quickly demos his new wheeled longship racer with solar sails.

(3:30) Chat identifies it as inspired by the Solaris from The Mysterious Cities of Gold. Capac says his good-bye and W4sted immediately banters "glad that guy's gone!!" and Capac teases back that he can still hear them. Splitsie has built an indescribable sleek roll-caged racing banana with a garish white & neongreen Xbox colour scheme. W4sted has built one of his classic rovers on twin columns of double wheels with a booster trailer on rotored hitches. Splitsie says he can hear a door IRL, so Capac must have forgotten something--followed by Capac's voice from afar "Never! Impossiiiblè!" Splitsie helps W4sted weld and Tex set up his repair projector. Inspired by Chat, Tex sings a song about "greebled green lightning" and Splitsie names his racer Lime Lightning.

Splitsie makes a backup (for the real race next week, when Capac can join) and the three remaining engineers line up for a test race. They pretend to be Top Gear: Tex calmly sermonises that *his* vehicle is *capable* of providing *more* than just raw power--While W4sted wooshes past shouting "POWER! Woooooo!" But when the race starts, W4sted's steering is very much hampered by lag. Texfire (who is leading the race) teases he will need to increase his beacon range so the others can even see him.

(4:00) Soon it's a head-to-head race for Splitsie and Texfire. W4sted gets to repaste his racer due to lag-induced flipping. Shortly after, both remaining test racers flip and they call it a day. They expect to reach the south pole next week when they continue the journey with Capac.

## Vehicle Gallery

Left: Splitsie's Lime Lightning. Right: W4stedspace' speederbike.Capac's LongboatTexfire's CowTexPillar II

## References

1. ↑ A pun somewhere between gold disco ball armour, ramming, and Bitter Pill.
2. ↑ Chat compares this idea to a Goliath.
3. ↑ Which would go against the self-imposed no-thruster rule of this series and is frowned upon by Splitsie.
4. ↑ Usually SE vehicles are either large grids or small grids, but Splitsie is seen exchanging a small rotor's head with a large head, a trick which allows him to attach large subgrids to small grids. Capac uses the same method to attach large decoys to his vehicle.