Titan Hunting

This essay was written by Maniak and Jakell here and later adapted to wiki format to be reproduced here.

Titans are big monsters with a lot of hit points. They're slow moving targets, generally not very strong. They will always move to an outpost, with the intent of destroying that outpost's walls. Multiple people can fight Titans simultaneously, and they'll get a req reward for doing so.

For one, to keep the Island's Outposts safe. Secondly, for bragging rights. But mostly because Titans are worth a good deal of money. Defeating a Titan can be quite rewarding, both personally and in cash. Titans are worth 100,000 requisition. Depending on the fraction of the Titan's overall health you take out, you will get a similar fraction of the reward. If you encounter a Titan with 1,000,000 health (1Mhp), and deal 300,000 damage, you will get 30,000 requisition. A pretty sweet deal. Additionally, if you happen to strike the killing blow, you get an extra 1,000 req, and the bragging rights. Theoretically then, you can get 101,000 requisition from each Titan. Currently, though, there is a bug which does not count the damage dealt in the final blow towards your fraction of the reward, so if your killing blow to that 1Mhp Titan did 15,000 damage, then you will miss out on 1500 requisition. This can be a small nuisance because if you take out a small Titan in one shot, you only get the 1,000 req killing bonus. Perhaps the bug is designed to keep people from wanting to get too strong, but against the largest Titans ridiculously large amounts of damage are a must.

Very well. But before that, you need to know a few things about Titan behaviour. Now, Titans spawn at the edges of the map, and work their way towards an outpost of their choosing. Should a Titan get killed right as it appears, the next Titan will spawn with a little more health. While their default health is 1Mhp, if people are too quick to kill them, their health can quickly balloon to well over 10Mhp; a formidable opponent for any Titan hunter! Ideally, people would wait for the Titan to walk a few clicks inshore, then kill them, but you run the risk of having someone else take the beast out from under you while you wait. A good guideline is that you can probably take out the titans that are less the 2Mhp, but ones larger then this should probably be let onto the island at least 2 or 3 clicks. (Excepting those spawning near and heading towards New Pittsburgh and Cyber City 404. For the outpost's sake, take those beasts down!)

Glad you asked. You'll need to make some choices about how you're going to do it. Occasional or full time¹⁾ Titan fighting? We'll focus on occasional fighting first, advanced Titan fighting has its own section.

Any class can fight Titans. The most popular are Jokers because they can have days with tremendous attack bonuses, dirt cheap travel²⁾ and in-combat healing. An obvious choice, though you risk a bad day with twice the stamina³⁾ cost, and only 10% of your normal attack and defense; those days are not Titan fighting days.
Squats are decent, with their offense bonus and they have their Squat Rage (be warned, you need to lose 100% of your hitpoints to invoke Squat Rage. Slowly charge it in other battles or heal during combat) A good second choice.
Kittymorphs have a fantastic nudity⁴⁾ buff, which decreases the Titan's defense and offense by 30%. Low travel costs as well. This can be a very powerful tool for early Titan fighters, since they easily accumulate favor.
Robots with their overclocking and stabbity claws are good too, though their weak defense lets them down. They also get shafted in the pubs, only the drinks in the PSK are available.
Mutants and Zombies are pretty much equal in Titan fighting. Both have their 10% offensive bonuses, neither is a bad choice.
Humans are at a slight disadvantage for not having racial bonuses useful in combat.

The Chemical Pack is the best by far if you expect to fight Titans often. The Adrenaline Rush increases your attack by 10% at level one, and 20% at level 2. The Total Chemical Release increases your attack by 40%, which when coupled with the Adrenaline Rush, makes you a fairly formidable foe.
The Spatial Awareness is not too useful for Titan fighting. The pressure points skill can increase your attack by 20% for ten rounds, which pales before the bonuses given by the Chemical Pack.
The Servo arms add 25% attack or defense for at least 100 rounds. After that you need to level up for a new battery. Good if you want to level up fast, not so good for extended Titan fights.
The Head-mounted Laser isn't the best of choices⁵⁾ either, the damage done is quite low.
The Tesla Frame can be a good companion, but you need to be able to predict when you'll get hit. If you can reflect a riposte, good job.

Since Titans are big you need to be able to deal a fairly large amount of damage. There are two techniques to accomplish this; deal some fairly heavy attacks, or stick it out and grind the Titan down with hundreds (if not thousands) of attacks. We'll focus on heavy attacks now, the second method is described under “Fulltime Titan Fighting”. The main method involves increasing your attack to the maximum it can be, and this can be done with a different class of weapons⁶⁾. The Penetron 12000, Penetron 14850, 9mm Pistol, Shotgun, and Lightning Gun each add 100% to your attack for 20 and 25 round respectively (if your base attack was 50, these would double it to 100!). These type of weapons are best for those who spend their DK⁷⁾ points on attack, adding percentage increases over and over are a huge boon to heavy hitters.
The next level of weapons includes the 44 Magnum, EZ Bludgeon 6000, EZ Bludgeon 7500, Double-Barreled Shotgun, and the Plasma Gun all increase your attack by 200%, a very nice bonus. These are beat only by the Sun Gun which, for 35 rounds, will add 300% to your attack. Should you be able to build up a good deal of buffs (discussed later), this is usually the weapon of choice. For the larger Titans, I usually go for the all-out damage of the Sun Gun, but the 100 rounds of the Plasma Gun is sorely tempting at times.

Finding a good set of armor⁸⁾ can make or break a Titan hunter. Overall armor value, while helpful, is less significant than the bonuses you can get from them. The Force Generator is a fine start; increasing your defense by 1100% can help you deal a good amount of damage over many rounds. This or the MK II Force Generator (1700% defense) are both a must if you intend to grind a Titan's health down over many turns. Alternately, you can try to increase the damage you deal by wearing armor which has the effect of decreasing your enemy's defense; the Bacon Suit or the Smokey Bacon Suit are excellent for this, decreasing the enemy's defense by 20% and 40%, while unfortunately increasing their attacking strength by the same. Since Titans do not seem to do much damage on their own, this is usually a very nice trade-off.
Additionally, the Improbable Adaptive Armor can help out by healing you for many rounds, but this is a similar effect to the Watcher's blessed weapon, which is usually handy to have, if not often needed. The Lacy Lingerie drops the Titans defense, without the drawbacks of the Bacon suit.

These usually play a smaller role in Titan killing. Generally, aim for those which increase your attack the most. The SABS-LAC-SPS 'Ripper' Combat Boots, AMP-SPS Combat Gauntlets, and HUD-AI-SPS Combat Helmet are wonderful. The Mr. NoseyBonk Mask can be quite helpful, since it decreases your opponent's defense by 25%, but you need a good deal of charm to actually wear it.

Buffs play a critical part in turning your run-of-the-mill player into a Titan hacking berserker. These can be obtained through not just your equipment, but from various shops in the outposts.

• Improbable Central: The best beverage by far is the Gargleblaster⁹⁾ found in the Prancing Spiderkitty in IC; this increases your attack by a factor of 10! Most folks absolutely need to make use of this beverage to make dents in the Titans. You can get up to three drinks per day from Dan, provided you can lowers your drunkenness. A trip to the failboat sobers you up completely, hunting for trouble removes one level of drunkenness and raising your stamina can lower your drunkenness as well. Additionally, you can get Capelthwaite's Blessing (20% attack, 10% defense) in the old church at the cost of 106 req per level or a slice of your health. The Old Church has currently been disabled, though it may return some day.
  
• Kittania: The Sunny Spot's hostess Miu has a fine Tiger Balm Shake (40% attack, -20% defense), and the Warm Cider Fuzzies ups your defense (10% defense)
  
• Squat Hole's Booz: Buying some booz does you quite well here, The Mudweiser (5% attack) is ok, but the real prize is the Wanker (30% attack)
  
• New Pittsburgh: The Brain Hemorrhage Fuzzies (12% defense) is ok, but the real goal here is the Monster Mash Grumps (20% attack) and the Special Sauce Warmth (25% attack, 33% defense).
  
• AceHigh: This town takes the cake. Or rather, you can get a slice of tasty cake (10% attack, 25% defense, 1% chance of death) which is 99 times out of 100 a very nice buff to have.
• Cigarettes are very useful (20% attack, 20% defense), if a little precious. Unless you really need the money, it might not be worth the cig. Chain smoking has some other downsides, like nicotine addiction.
• Insulting your foe, a taught skill from Cuthbert in Pleasantville, can be a deafening weapon. A well placed coarse insult can drop your enemies attack and defense by 40%, Confusing or classy insults can drop their attack and defense by 50%. Words have power.
• Monster Repellent Spray applied to yourself lowers the Titan's defense and offense by 20%, unlimited rounds. Applied to the Titan, it's 60%.
• Clan membership can be very helpful here. Your clan can increase your attack and defense by 20%, let you steal health, reflect damage, and have some natural regenerative capabilities. These can be a very strong asset, though they are fairly costly to build up. There are several clans which have full buffs, and joining them will help you a good deal. You might, instead, put some effort to help out your current clan by feeding the buffs ciggies, to increase the clan strength. *Advertisement* Jakell's Clan, The Improbably Normal Clan, is on their way to a good set of buffs, and would likely accept folks into it should they be willing to chip in a ciggie or two to let others join as well.
• The Watcher's Blessing. For 500 favor, you can get either your armour or weapon blessed. A blessed weapon or armour has a 25% attack or defense increase, but degrades over time. The Watcher's Blessing has currently been disabled, and potentially may be replaced soon.
• Last, and perhaps easiest to manage, is timing your combat. A well timed blow can double your attack for a round, which is a priceless boon. Practice, practice, practice; you do not want to miss a blow. If you can't time your attacks (you have no clue what I am talking about here) ask another player who's been around a while to teach you. Jakell would have no problem showing you this skill.

These buffs can all be applied as many times as you want, with the exception of Capelthwaite's Blessing, which can only be applied once per new day, and The Gargleblaster, which can only be used three times per new day. (To get refills of the Gargleblaster, you need to sober up first: getting fail-boated sobers you up instantly, while fighting in the jungle does so gradually.) The Watchers Blessing can be applied only once per DK.

Stacking these buffs together can increase your attack significantly. These bonuses are multiplicative, so if you were to stop by Squat Hole, and initially had 50 attack points, the Mudweiser would increase your attack by 5% to 52.5, and the Wanker would increase it an additional 30% to 68.25. Adding more bonuses on top of this can increase your attack further, by more than a factor of 50 (or 100 if you time your attacks right!). Including effects which decrease your opponents defense only makes the attack sweeter; Now you are becoming a force to be reckoned with. In total, you can get about 10 buffs or more (8 drinks, clan aura, cig, cake, weapon, Capelthwaite's Blessing. Be creative!).

So, you are preparing to take on a Titan. One of the first things you need to do is find them. Luckily, because they are so tall, you can see them coming five clicks away, so that should be no problem. You might cruise around the island and scout out one or two before choosing which to take down. Next, you will want to gather your buffs. Having a Rail Pass makes this task very simple, since you can jump from outpost to outpost, without risking monster encounters or using up stamina. First Class Rail passes are better still, since once you are pumped up, you can get dropped off right on top of the Titan.(The train¹⁰⁾ system has been discontinued, pending further consideration) Get what beverages you can, and then proceed to the attack! You might, should you run into a random encounter, activate your Chemical Implant as well, so that your first hit is a big one. If your Chemical pack points are not very high, though, keep them saved for the actual battle.
You might also make use of Monster Repellent; weakening the Titan's attack is helpful all the time. Be sure to time your attacks, use all the buffs you can, and hammer away at the Titan! If you choose to go the long route, and wear the Titan down through many attacks, it can also be worthwhile to lob a Whoomph Grenade at the beast, since it will add a few dozen damage to each attack. Similarly, if you are willing to risk using Improbability Bombs, the Purple Monster can be quite a companion. Other Companions, like Insane Jane and The GRUNT Mobile Weapons Platform can be useful, but be warned that there is no easy way to heal them; you will likely need to use a teleporter to get back to town safely enough to heal them. Good luck!

So, you killed a few Titans and want to kill Titans for a living? Very well. You'll likely want to choose a different attack strategy though. Actually getting all the buffs can be quite time consuming. Consider doing less damage, but more hits. It requires you to have a good deal of stamina, and fairly cheap attack costs. Shape your character over multiple DKs.
The Joker class seems to be best for this, since on a good day your attack stamina can be less then 0.01%, which can let you fight practically all newday. They can also heal during combat, which comes in handy. Of course, this is a technique best applied if you can do a considerable amount of damage as well, so let's take a look at how to accomplish that first. The best thing you can do is get yourself a good weapon. There are a good number of choices, depending on your level. The Elephant Gun could, theoretically, do 500,000 damage over it's useful lifetime, but the initial cost can be quite prohibitive and takes a lot of DKs to unlock. If you can afford this, it is the easiest way to start doing a good amount of direct damage to Titans right off the bat.

Are you in good enough shape to take on a Titan? Probably, you are not too bad. One of the best things you can do to get in shape for this task is to DK. The more DKs you have, the stronger you will be. I usually put my points all into attack, but defense can be useful too. The +5 health option is nice at the early DKs, but not nearly as good as attack or defense points. Trading charm for more health points is more economical anyway. The Gauntlet in Improbable Central is the most dependable way to increase your max hp, trading a few charm for a few hp. It may be pricey, but it can pay off in the end. It does help to have a good number of hp under your belt, either from being at a high level (up to 15), or by random encounters with some Tasty Broth, StoneHenge, or by running through The Gauntlet. However you earn this health, training it into muscle can be a very beneficial exercises; in Squat hole, you can visit Tynan's Gym and work out, converting one stat to another; 1 attack point to one defense point or 10 max hp, or any trade back. This will cost you stamina, though, so beware. The worst thing you can do is spend a newday in the gym, only to realize you don't have stamina left to fight Titans!

What, you expected this to be a risk-free? If done carefully, you can actually do fairly well, but there are some surprising sources of frustration. First off, is the danger of being too strong. The larger your defense is, generally the better you will be, but if you riposte a Titan's attack, and it ripostes it back, you can be in danger. Depending on your health, you might want to limit your defense to less than a few thousand; I (Jakell) have gotten failboated by this route too many times to count, and now usually ignore defense entirely. Similarly, if your attack is ridiculously huge, it can be riposted and in turn take you out. When I fight, my health is about out at roughly 2,000 hp, and if my attack is greater than 25,000 I am pretty much guaranteed a trip or two to the failboat. The trade off is that though it takes fewer hits to kill a Titan, your risk of dying or missing out on a good deal of requisition (the killing blow bug) increases as well. Note that having extra health also means having higher healing costs, having to deal with bigger ripostes and generally bigger hits. Kiss Bastard Ranks and Robots goodbye.
I would note also, that you can fight a Titan before a DK, and reap the rewards once you have started a new run. You must, however, let someone else deal the final blows to the Titan. If you try to attack the Titan again after DKing, your damage counter will reset, and you will lose any of your hard-earned req!

Titans first appeared when I was about at my 30th DK. At the time, a Gargleblaster and other buffs got my attack up to a few thousand, and in a few newdays I could handle a Titan by myself. Likely, folks with fewer DKs could do the same, and take out Titans over a few days. Teamwork would, of course, make the process go much faster. Currently, I am past my 100th DK, and with a base attack of 500ish (joker randomness allowing), I could get my attack up to a few hundred thousand; just about guaranteeing that I deal millions of damage per hit, and that I visit the failboat every few attacks. If you can get your attack up to roughly 1,000 with a Gargleblaster, you should be able to take down a Titan in one or two newdays, relatively safely. Fewer attack points will make it take longer, more will quicken the pace. At this point in my career, unless CyberCity404 or New Pittsburgh are in danger, I wait until the Titans get a few clicks from the edge of the map before engaging them.

Titans were made to act as a signal when outposts would come into trouble. In theory, a Titan would smash the walls, then monsters would pour in and breach the outpost. In practice, it doesn't work quite like that. The threat levels and Titans are two separate things, one doesn't influence the other. Titans will smash the outpost walls, but if the threat level is low then the outpost still isn't in any danger. Only if the threat level is maxed out, will there be a breach when the Titans reach their destination. The walls will, however, need to be rebuilt regardless of the threat level.

“Each Titan wants to live for six hours. If Titans are living for less time than that on average, then the game makes them tougher and increases the spawn rate, and the inverse is true too.”- CMJ

“The stats are only updated when the Titans are killed, which is why we see this wave effect.” - CMJ

By default, there is a 1 in 1000 chance every minute for a Titan to spawn. The spawn rate adjusts automatically, depending on how quick we kill them. They always spawn on the map edges. Titans move 1 square every two hours. If, on average, a Titan's lifespan is shorter than 6 hours, the next Titan that spawns will be stronger. Kill 'em fast for stronger and more Titans, take your time to get rid of them if you want weaker ones.