FROM: Javamancy, the Weblog
Has anybody noticed that, while The Secret Armory of General Knoxx has introduced quite a few tweaks for the main game, including replacing several of the more-fun red weapons chests with the less-fun white weapons chests, it has provided faster movement when one of the newer Eridian weapon types is equipped, but it has not updated the older Eridian weapon types with better movement.
Things that make you go, “Hmm…” 
At this point, many of you have tasted a bit more of Borderlands‘ third DLC, The Secret Armory of General Knoxx.
As you’ve been sampling the new vehicle types, you may have been wondering: What is the deal with the Racer?
Sure, it’s fast (in general), but its turbo boost is too short-lived, its armor is abysmal, and its rocket launcher doesn’t track.
So why is Mad(ame) Moxxi so hot-to-trot about it, for the mission to rescue Athena?
Yep, you guessed it!
It’s a plot device that involves driving a Racer, and timing the use of its booster at an opportune moment, to get into the prison where Athena is being held. And the challenge is actually a two-parter! So don’t use the Racer just once, and then discard it in favor of a Monster or a Lancer vehicle…
And, when you’re dealing with the first challenge, note how it really does resemble threading a needle. 
Wow! You’re not dead yet?
With all of the fascination with the Eridian glob gun and the Eridian flaregun, in The Secret Armory of General Knoxx, you’d think that the fun would’ve been done ‘n over with, on the lightning-type weapon side…
And you’d be wrong.
There’s yet another new Eridian weapon type available, and it’s a lightning weapon. Called the Eridian rifle, it fires bouncing electrical balls, giving you the ability to do those trick angle shots, similar (but not identical) to the Eridian blaster, that fun lightning wave weapon that gives you those nice flashbacks of One-Eyed Jack’s revolver.
For the Soldier, you can really rack up the extended magazine clip for the Eridian rifle; for the Siren, you can have fun with accelerating the electrical balls for that fantastic light show that confounds and amazes your targets… just before they drop dead from the shocks.
You can just imagine it:
“Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha–”
<Zzzzzzap!> <Plunk!>
I recently encountered a few Eridian flareguns with variations on their modifications. An interesting one was a scoped version. Does it make sense, even with the limited magnification (essentially none to 1.0X) on the Eridian scopes, to bother using the scope on a weapon that doesn’t sustain direct fire at long ranges?
Perhaps it’s nice to offer that little comfortable feeling to characters that typically use ranged or scoped weapons, like the Hunter… 
This is one of those deceptively simple achievements… but there’s a cost. Literally.
This is the secret achievement introduced in The Secret Armory of General Knoxx, where you are, say, going on a day trip through the desolate wastelands. And, let’s just say, you wanted to squeeze in a tour of the World’s Largest/Greatest/Whatever Bullet/Slug/Whatever.
Lo and behold! There ’tis! Such a sightseeing opportunity!
All you have to do is hit the X button to start the tour.
Ka-pow! There’s your sign. And you’ve just snagged yourself the secret achievement: Sucker Born Every Minute.
There seems to be a lot of confusion about the two new Eridian weapons that were mentioned here earlier (the Eridian glob gun and the Eridian flaregun). Contrary to some comments floating around, these two guns are not a pistol and shotgun types, respectively, per se. They are arc trajectory firing weapons, similar to grenade launchers seen in other games.
A fun stunt is to stand on a ledge or a bridge or other overhang and lob the acid bursts or fire bursts onto hapless targets beneath. Since there’s no elevation gauge to assist in your shots, you’ll have to experiment with your range to hit long range targets. But since you can take advantage of a decent indirect arc hit, you can strike enemies hiding behind some forms of cover; this makes these weapons a nice substitute for the Hunter’s bloodwing.
A concern: you may have to more carefully watch your targets to see which are resistant to acid and/or incendiary attacks. These weapons appear to be strictly elemental weapons, so you may not do any damage on impervious targets.
Unlike the main game, for The Secret Armory of General Knoxx, you’ll have to search the different locations for not-so-obvious missions from various NPCs. Like the “thirsty” midget, for instance…
Bwa-ha-ha-ha! 
Continuing in our new series on Eridian weapons technology in The Secret Armory of General Knoxx… This is the second new Eridian weapon encountered: the Eridian glob gun.
The first thing that came to mind when seeing “glob gun” on the hover description is, “Oh, like the spiderant spittle?”
Nope: something more fun and exciting… corrosion damage! And, not-as-much-fun, like the flaregun, this is an arc trajectory weapon. 
Will the wonders never cease?
This next Borderlands revelation is, of course, a weapon drop. Now, a lot of you Borderlands fans on Xbox LIVE have pooh-poohed building out the Eridian weapon proficiencies because, based upon the comments from your mod-errific PC counterparts, the Eridian weapons have been “dumbed down” for the Xbox 360 version.
Well, while that may (or may not be) true, there’s still some fun to be gotten in The Secret Armory of General Knoxx, with the new Eridian flaregun type!
Yep: it’s what it sounds like… an incendiary Eridian weapon, just like the old PC specifications have pointed toward.
Good times, folks, good times.
A few missions into the third Borderlands DLC, you will encounter a new mission issued by Scooter for you to grab the digital blueprints for the “Lancer” vehicle.
Up until this point in the expansion, you may have noticed that the Crimson Lancers have been rolling around on the highways with an interesting vehicle that fires lightning bolts (mostly at you), and while your homing MIRV weapon on your Monster vehicle can usually take out one of the Lancer vehicles after several hits, you may have thought that you’d either have to hound those Lancers to death or try to outrun them with a Racer…
Not any longer. Once you complete Scooter’s mission, you’ll be able to spawn a Lancer at his vehicle teleporters.
And in addition to the cutesy way that you teleport into and out of the Lancer vehicle, as well as the Eridian-style electrical weapon, you also get better armor/shields than the Monster and the machine gun is mounted on a rotating turret that is yoked to the electrical gun– so now you can fire two weapons at the same direction even when stationary!
callan are discussing.
callan 4:35 PM on February 25, 2010 Permalink |
i have done this mission and i dont know how to get the lancer what do you do?
Steve 7:41 PM on February 25, 2010 Permalink |
What’s the mission name you’re thinking about? It’s possible you haven’t gotten the Lancer spawn mission. If you have, just go to one of Scooter’s teleport machines and select the Lancer from the vehicle toggle.
Steve 10:41 PM on February 25, 2010 Permalink |
@callan,
Check to make sure that the mission you finished wasn’t “Boost the Monster”.
The mission that nets you the Lancer is the “OMG APC”.
Steve 7:45 PM on February 25, 2010 Permalink |
Folks, here’s something additional and fun for you with the new Lancer vehicle: there are a total of FOUR seats, which obviously can accommodate four players… and they all have different functions! The driver seat is self-explanatory; it can also fire the main and secondary guns if you’re solo. There’s the separate gunner seat, ‘natch. But there’s the blast seat, which allows you to fire a blast radius around the vehicle, which is great for damaging enemies that get too close. And finally, there’s the mine seat, which allows you to toss out flat-disc land mines… great for tossing in the path of pursuers.
Unfortunately, when I tried hitting the Y button, I couldn’t jump between the different seats. Definitely seems like a vehicle (and feature set) best suited for a team!