Wrong Way Down - Part 9

In Episode 9 of Wrong Way Down, Splitsie (grey suit) is again joined by Capac (orange suit), W4stedspace (orange hexagon suit), and Texfire (white cow suit). W4sted's voice has mostly recovered since last week.

Splitsie recaps previous episodes using the map LCDs provided by Bravada Cadelanne while they joke about "hailing" Capac with ice chunks. They are in urgent need of ice for the hydrogen engine, and iron for repairs. Texfire jokes they could avoid tree damage by putting the wheel suspension outriggers on vertical pistons, and drive *over* the trees. The viewers keep their households awake laughing out loud. Splitsie is experimenting with background music while driving and crashes the Bird Eater's front wheel into a hillside... Capac's affiliated Twitch channel gains its first subscribers, and its first 50 gift subs by Makell, and Chat goes bananas. As it gets dark, W4sted and Splitsie are doing repairs and continue messing with wheel settings.

(0:30) They drive on uphill and power is running low again. It's too dark to see the ground and Splitsie would like to stop, but Texfire warns of Outposts and they need to evade drones once more. W4sted flies ahead to scout the path but Splitsie takes a different turn into a valley leading east. Capac burns their last fuel in the hydrogen engine, and while they wait for Texfire's return on foot due to a jetpack bug, Texfire and Capac both worry that Splitsie may have programmed a Grue mod to eat them in the dark. The drones struggle to pathfind and some are in stealth mode (that is they have lost their beacon), and Splitsie and Capac play decoy to deter attacks. Splitsie realises he forgot to lower the attack frequency in the mod settings and Lucas mentions in chat the next MES release will improve the drones' hill pathing. Everyone is aboard and they flee the next drone wave. Splitsie has built tilted searchlights but there may be a better mod. In the middle of a drone attack, Capac spots an ice lake and Splitsie bounces them downhill while they discuss fried chicken and donuts. -- Straight ahead on the lake, there's an Observer base...

(1:00) W4sted and Splitsie hurry to add a front armour shield and speed across the lake to ram the base with all gatlings blasting. When they reach the Observer, it's nothing but debris and Capac feels bad for blowing up someone's house. Capac asks how drones fit into the small building in the moment as a support drone arrives and attacks him from behind. Luckily, the Bird Eater has "gun buttons" so anyone on board can activate the turrets. W4sted notices strange new ships nearby and Splitsie reveals they are Assertive Cargo Ships from his new mod. They drive a quick circle to identify ores under the ice lake and Splitsie parks above an iron deposit and builds a new foldable drill. Texfire shares his plans for defensive remote gun emplacements. Capac scatters decoys all over the place and finds W4sted's Unknown Signal but is not allowed to steal it even though he's looking for the Crocodile suit. Chat makes astro-geology puns and Splitsie explains that the Thumbs who stole the Cockroach in Survival Unlikely is a character from another series: Light Echoes. A drone attack interrupts them and puts the defenses to their first test. They chat about survival mechanics in games in general.

(1:30) W4sted and Splitsie make plans for playing Rimworld together while Splitsie starts drilling ice and ores. Capac checks out a strange fire and finds a crashed space ship. Splitsie recognises it as the Panini Sidecar ("The naming made sense at that time.") from his new Assertive Cargo Ship mod. Capac immediately finds a second crashed Panini that shoots him and Splitsie suspects there might be a slight problem with his mod. W4sted has finished building the defenses and Splitsie explains the cost/benefit analysis of looting ships while travelling to them will spawn more enemies. A drone crashes on the Bird Eater's turrets and hits Capac with a dropping box of ammo in the face. Capac starts a rant about how the enemy ships are lying by requesting his assistance, and Splitsie explains patiently that the enemies are not lying but requesting assistance *from their own* faction, *against* Capac, and Capac just overheard the broadcast!! Capac thinks he is "the one in Orange", prophesised to lead the drones to victory, and other players wear orange just to increase the drama. Splitsie is wary of clanging and finds Capac *not technically dropping* ice on Splitsie's drills, but, "gravity is *pulling* it". Capac has built a temporary ramp and cargo access on ground level and W4sted and Splitsie attach a bulky temporary second Refinery to it to speed up processing. Another Assertive Cargo ship is stuck motionless in mid air -- clearly the mod is "borked".

(2:00) Texfire accidentally disconnects an engine and has to fix it. The others fight the stuck cargo ship "hydroman style" with rifles, accompanied by peppy background music. The music inspires Capac to simply board the ship with a grinder, which is surprisingly successful. Splitsie disallows Capac to *fly* the ship back to be salvaged, "That's the rules!" -- Capac: "Grrr." -- Textfire: "I just realized what I sound like on Shack's stream..." Out of spite, Capac rolls the ship down the hill, unsuccessfully.

Splitsie checks the entity list to delete debris and finds a dozen crashed Panini Sidecars around them... Lucas in chat finds out from the mod files that this particular ship is missing a Remote Control block. After finishing repairs and starting work on a pathfinder vehicle, W4sted is hampered by the dropping simspeed, so Splitsie admin-deletes all wrecks. Capac fools Splitsie into thinking a decoy is him. Splitsie volunteers to bring battery cells to W4sted's construction site, but not tea. Texfire recommends tea in a fake British grandma accent and W4sted begs him to stop. Splitsie's third Refinery doesn't work because it's upside down and the ports don't connect. Splitsie racks his brain how to solve this conundrum but Texfire suggests to simply connect the two top ports with curved conveyor tubes. Capac quotes Robot Chicken. Splitsie kills himself by flying straight into his own pistons and W4sted is flabbergasted that Chat calls death-by-faceplant "to pull a W4sted".

W4sted is building a speederbike and Texfire claims the council is complaining about littering the pristine lake. The word "bypass" prompts a slew of Hitchhiker's Guide quotes, scifi puns, and calls for Vogon poetry. W4sted volunteers Texfire (who is a "Vogon at heart") to read poetry to us. A random stranger suddenly says "Hallo?" and gets banned from voice chat: Splitsie forgot to set Teamspeak to private.

(2:30) Capac clarifies the difference between Vogon (HHGG), Vorlon (B5), Vorgon (STTNG), forgone (conclusion), and Hipsters. Capac fools Splitsie into thinking he is a decoy. Capac quotes "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra!" and Tex responds "Tex and Capac at the lake." Capac likes diegetic cocktails such as the Pangalactic Gargleblaster. Splitsie moves the truck a few metres to drill fresh ice and Texfire laughs at Splitsie's brilliant turbine-rotor construction to charge W4sted's speederbike while it's being build. Splitsie's rotor angle settings make W4sted's speederbike look like a frog. The vehicle is aesthetically brilliant but has weak spots in battle situations. While Splitsie and W4sted build, Capac talks with his chat about Star Trek Beyond instead of playing, and Splitsie regrets "enabling" Capac to become a streamer.

(3:00) Splitsie thanks Makell for making Capac smile with his donations and gift subs. Texfire lists the top 5 "famous last words" and Capac adds his: "Last words? What do I need those for?" Splitsie encourages Texfire and Capac to paint the Bird Eater's new large cargo containers "any colour they like" and Tex chooses bright orange. W4sted's speederbike is taking shape and they dismantle the drill rig. Texfire and Capac compete in who can come up with the most obscure references and Splitsie misses them all. Splitsie wants to dismantle the Capac decoys but "the hills are alive with Capacs" and he will never catch them all. W4sted dies by crashing into a tree and Tex teases him by asking him if he "pulled a W4sted"? Capac cries ouch-ouch-ouch in the background because he ran out of hydrogen and is bouncing down a hill.

It's time for W4sted's speederbike's first drive! They drive on south even though they have not looted everything here. W4sted can be the pathfinder, Splitsie drives the Bird Eater and follows with Texfire, and Capac hitches a sidesaddle ride on the speederbike. They leave the ice lake (which has a weird straight, cut-off side) and drive through a valley around a big mountain. W4sted almost gets hit by drone debris shot down by the Bird Eater. The Bird Eater is now too heavy and gets stuck on small bumps in the terrain.

(3:30) Dusk comes quickly. W4sted and Splitsie agree about using the arrow keys to adjust the driving angle using Gyroscopes. The Bird Eater ejects gravel and stone to lighten the load. Capac casually teaches science about diamonds in the exhaust and Chat is impressed. W4sted shows off by speeding past Splitsie. The path out of the valley is however a steep deadend and they need to backtrack, because tunneling through the mountain would be a boring "8 weeks long" stream. Chat demands a road paving projector in front of the Bird Eater, but to do that the Bird Eater would need to become stationary for each welding step, which would be quite impractical. Capac's game crashes while W4sted explores a new path. Splitsie can't reverse here and they must build a bridge manually, even though building a bridge right before the end of the stream feels cliffhangerish.

(4:00) Capac quickly adds the demanded missing Capacodiles under the bridge and Splitsie promises his streams won't have cliffhangers, they will have action in the end. Capac watches the bridge crossing from the safety of "straight ahead, where Splitsie will never make it!" ... Splitsie makes it across! Just barely. On the other side, they are greeted by an Unknown Signal. They avoided the deadend but are now back at the lake again.

W4sted announces their charity stream for next week.