Brass Tax Badge

[Coin]

Ok, how on earth do I get this damn badge! 😄

 

I've ran the arc twice and can't figure out what I'm missing.

 

I think I've done the prerequisite arcs already, unless there's another I've missed?

 

I can't see what I need to do to get the bonus stuff for this bloody badge!

 

Anyone know what to do yet? Some one must as several people have all the new badges yet (I'm looking at you, Voltor 😛 ) and it's the only one I have to get.

[twozerofoxtrot]

Hi Coin!

 

It's all mission context clues. I did this one last night and my brain is fried from doing Erin West over and over but I'll try to put it all together here.

Mission 1: After you drop Orbital Bone, it will complete the mission. But don't leave. Find the door beyond him and go through it. You'll get to Morana. Even with the mission completed, you'll still get the clue and credit. Once you get the clue, exit.

Mission 2: When you get to the first fork, turn left and look behind the junk piled up for a glowing plant thing. Click that. It will take you to an upside down area where you have to defeat carnies and talk to a captive Warrior. Do that, get the clue, then exit the door there to go through the rest of the mission and complete it.

Missions 3-5(?): Just complete them as normal.

Mission 6(?; Crey HQ mission: When Dap-Dap bolos the negotiations, just escort them to the door wiping the floor with the 5 named security chiefs along the way. Do NOT Mark & Recall or otherwise lead your escorts out before those five are defeated.

Next mission: Speed this; just free hostages, go to the warlord, find the dialog option to trade to orb to him (it felt pretty obvious to me, I forgot the lines though), and after that go free Medusa. She might have spawned somewhere in the tunnels, just zip around till you find her and get her out. Mark & Recall works great here.

Penultimate mission: Nothing special, just find the 3 and bring them back to the lab. Mark & Recall if you can again works great. Fight off waves, defeat Dreck, exit.

Dap-Dap then offers the final mission. I'm pretty sure it's only got one outcome, which is violence. But there's a lot of good plot building and writing before you enter the mission that sets the stage for the next chapter of the Pierce Chronicles.

[The Caretaker]

Hi! Need to clear up some misconceptions.

 

Morana fight is purely a bonus reward for content completionists. The glowie does not activate for people who haven't completed the KR Skulls arcs. The Morana fight does not have any bearing on the Brass Tax badge.

 

Similarly, the special Carnie room is only tied to having the Illusionist badge. It's a teaser of future plot points.

 

To get Brass Tax and the mission that gives it, all you need to do in the Dap-Dap finale is rescue Abby, Eida and Medusa, and bring them all back to the lab alive. Defeating the Dreck that ambushes the lab will grant the variable that unlocks the Brass Tax mission, that and only that. Dap-Dap hints that the rescuees are valuable, and that Piecemeal would be very grateful to have all those assets secured as well as the lab.

[Coin]

5 minutes ago, The Caretaker said:

H

 

To get Brass Tax and the mission that gives it, all you need to do in the Dap-Dap finale is rescue Abby, Eida and Medusa, and bring them all back to the lab alive. Defeating the Dreck that ambushes the lab will grant the variable that unlocks the Brass Tax mission, that and only that. Dap-Dap hints that the rescuees are valuable, and that Piecemeal would be very grateful to have all those assets secured as well as the lab.

 

Ok, not sure about the first time round but second time I definitely did all of the things mentioned here and didn't get the badge or mission.

 

However, I did die a couple of seconds before Dreck died and then rezzed myself, so is it possible that could have glitched it somehow?

[The Caretaker]

Dreck dying should always grant an Arc Var, stored in the storyarc.

 

Now, because of how 'credit' works, if you sat back and never hit Dreck, and didn't get credit, I imagine it might be possible that the variable doesn't award as a result, but I tested this mission for that, and was pretty sure that wasn't happening.

 

If you want to test before I can, trigger the ambushes and do not engage with Dreck at all, and see what happens if the base defenses kill him for you.

 

If this is actually the case, I will have to write a failsafe Lua watchdog.

[Coin]

41 minutes ago, The Caretaker said:

Dreck dying should always grant an Arc Var, stored in the storyarc.

 

Now, because of how 'credit' works, if you sat back and never hit Dreck, and didn't get credit, I imagine it might be possible that the variable doesn't award as a result, but I tested this mission for that, and was pretty sure that wasn't happening.

 

If you want to test before I can, trigger the ambushes and do not engage with Dreck at all, and see what happens if the base defenses kill him for you.

 

If this is actually the case, I will have to write a failsafe Lua watchdog.

 

I definitely hit Dreck, several times, but something hit me back harder, so I died. 😄

 

I'll try it again on my badger to try and get the badge this time, and I'll use one of my other 50's to try and see if it doesn't work by avoiding Dreck.

[Emerald Fusion]

I ran it late last night (Emerald Fusion on Torch) took Abby, Eida, and Medusa back to the lab one by one.  Fought the ambushes and Dreck with no deaths, and I know I blasted him myself many times.  No bonus mission.  I'll try it again via Ouro.

[Zhym]

In the bonus mission itself, is there more than one outcome possible?  Specifically:

 

Spoiler

There doesn't seem to be a dialog option to avoid the fight—unless you do something first to open other options?

 

And if you can somehow pound Nemesis in 30 seconds, does anything change? 

 

[Voltor]

Given that this arc's bonus mission is a followup to Piecemeal and the Vahzilok Lab arc,  I'm surprised those arcs aren't prerequisites to Brass Tax. 

[The Caretaker]

2 hours ago, Emerald Fusion said:

I ran it late last night (Emerald Fusion on Torch) took Abby, Eida, and Medusa back to the lab one by one.  Fought the ambushes and Dreck with no deaths, and I know I blasted him myself many times.  No bonus mission.  I'll try it again via Ouro.

 

Sorry this isn't working as intended, so I guess I will be coding a more definitive option to shore up the reliability.

[Voltor]

Just went to beta server, used instant mission complete to skip to last mission, took them to the lab one at a time and blasted Dreck and got the bonus mission.   For grins I used the beta QA powers to wipe out Nemesis and his guards no extra bonus, just XP.  Gained Brass Tax badge.

 

The character I used has not yet completed the Vahzilok lab arc or Face Turn badge mission

Edited Thursday at 08:58 PM by Voltor

[Emerald Fusion]

3 hours ago, The Caretaker said:

 

Sorry this isn't working as intended, so I guess I will be coding a more definitive option to shore up the reliability.

I ran it again through Ouro and got the bonus mission and badge!  After bringing Abby, Eida, and Medusa back to the lab, I stood on the little sewer platform to the right of the lab entrance and made sure I did most of the damage to Dreck.  That bonus mission is awesome! 

[Coin]

8 hours ago, Emerald Fusion said:

I ran it again through Ouro and got the bonus mission and badge!  After bringing Abby, Eida, and Medusa back to the lab, I stood on the little sewer platform to the right of the lab entrance and made sure I did most of the damage to Dreck.  That bonus mission is awesome! 

 

Same. I did it again through Ouro, made sure to bring all three of the hostages back at the same time, did the ambushes and made sure to do a lot of the damage to Dreck to finish the mission.

Nothing different flagged up at all, no extra clues, but I got the extra mission from Dap-Dap. Weirdly, I was doing the mission, started the fight with Nemesis and was halfway through the fight when it told me I had the badge, so not sure how that's supposed to work. Is it defeating Nemesis? Just fighting him? Or just accepting and starting the mission?

Either way, Nemesis was kicking my ass, so I bailed and left with the badge 😄

 

Either way, I got the final badge and I'm back up to the full amount of badges again, so that's nice 🙂

[Voltor]

2 hours ago, Coin said:

 

Same. I did it again through Ouro, made sure to bring all three of the hostages back at the same time, did the ambushes and made sure to do a lot of the damage to Dreck to finish the mission.

Nothing different flagged up at all, no extra clues, but I got the extra mission from Dap-Dap. Weirdly, I was doing the mission, started the fight with Nemesis and was halfway through the fight when it told me I had the badge, so not sure how that's supposed to work. Is it defeating Nemesis? Just fighting him? Or just accepting and starting the mission?

Either way, Nemesis was kicking my ass, so I bailed and left with the badge 😄

 

Either way, I got the final badge and I'm back up to the full amount of badges again, so that's nice 🙂

 

As I understand it your encounter with him is a distraction run while the Freaklok's get what they need from him.

[oxpl2]

Hi i ran this various ways. i didnt rescue the 9 hostages or go to hidden areas. I did the other things needed . the thing that i believe helped with the bonus mission is hitting Dreck many times killing him away from the defences.

 

[Jane Reaction]

Second run, this time via Ouro.  Got all 3 "assets" on the final mission, Dreck spawned at the end of the map - killed him and his mob (did lots of damage) and mission ended.  Still no bonus mission.  I did not go back to the lab once the mission ended.

First run, got 2 "assets" on the first trip through the map, brought them back, went back out, got the 3rd asset, brought them back, ambushes spawned, Dreck killed at top of ramp, mission ended, no bonus mission.  So, zero-for-two on Brass Tax.  

I've read through all of the content here and everywhere else I've found tips, nothing is working.  Is this a known bug?

 

[FrauleinMental]

I've also tried this twice without triggering the bonus mission:

1. Mostly as @twozerofoxtrot mentioned above.  Dreck and most of his spawns congregated in the first major room beyond the lab and didn't come down until I went up to get him.  Even then, most of his ambush spawns didn't come to the lab, so I hunted them down (they're the ones who see through stealth because they're ambush).  I think I got them all, but it's possible I missed one hung up in geometry or something.
2. Ouro speed run, quickly stealthing everything until the Crey meeting.  In the lab mission, I freed each of the "assets" but left them to solo Dreck at his spawn point.

One thing:  I did them in Rogue alignment.  I'll redo in Villain and see if that makes a difference.  EDIT:  Third run in Villain alignment, still no bonus mission.

Edited Friday at 05:58 PM by FrauleinMental

[Jane Reaction]

Yes, my Ouro run was as a full Vill.

[FrauleinMental]

Fourth run, Ouro speed run in Villain alignment.  The only difference is clearing all mobs from the lab mission except those guarding the "assets", then freeing the "assets" and escorting them to the lab.

 

Even then, after waiting 15 minutes, Dreck and most of his goons still refused to come to the lab.  Some of the mobs refused even to be pulled away from the next room, but I finally pulled Dreck down the corridor towards the lab and killed him.  I then made another sweep to make sure all mobs were cleared from the map.  (So "Defeat Dreck" also includes all the ambush mobs?)

 

Achievement Unlocked:  Brass Tax.

[Burnt Umber]

I've had a similar experience as above:

• when I cleared the mission before bringing all of the hostages/assets back to the lab at once and defeated Dreck, I got the optional mission
• when I brought the hostages one at a time back to the lab and defeated Dreck, no optional mission rewarded.

Also, I found that the interval between the ambushes spawning was wildly longer in the former than in the latter; the ambushes took very long to spawn when I took them all at once.

[JKCarrier]

3 hours ago, Burnt Umber said:

when I brought the hostages one at a time back to the lab and defeated Dreck, no optional mission rewarded.

This was my experience as well.

[The Caretaker]

On 6/20/2025 at 10:57 AM, Jane Reaction said:

Second run, this time via Ouro.  Got all 3 "assets" on the final mission, Dreck spawned at the end of the map - killed him and his mob (did lots of damage) and mission ended.  Still no bonus mission.  I did not go back to the lab once the mission ended.

First run, got 2 "assets" on the first trip through the map, brought them back, went back out, got the 3rd asset, brought them back, ambushes spawned, Dreck killed at top of ramp, mission ended, no bonus mission.  So, zero-for-two on Brass Tax.  

I've read through all of the content here and everywhere else I've found tips, nothing is working.  Is this a known bug?

 

 

There are two options you should be aware of - Dreck WILL spawn at the back of the map for the people who don't want to bother with the ambush ending. This is the quick out option for people who don't want to spend time on the ambush ending. It does NOT grant the bonus mission.

 

As soon as all three hostages are back at the lab, that Dreck is no longer available, and the ambush Dreck (which is a different Dreck) grants the bonus mission on defeat.

 

Edit: I spent months testing, and can't predict how the players will interact with the missions sometimes.

 

Edit edit: I also added a redundancy to the granting of the reward, so it should award it 'sooner' i.e. just before Ambush Dreck shows up. In a future patch, I think I may missed the window on the next patch.

[Starforge]

48 minutes ago, The Caretaker said:

 

There are two options you should be aware of - Dreck WILL spawn at the back of the map for the people who don't want to bother with the ambush ending. This is the quick out option for impatient people. It does NOT grant the bonus mission.

 

As soon as all three hostages are back at the lab, that Dreck is no longer available, and the ambush Dreck (which is a different Dreck) grants the bonus mission on defeat.

Just ran through the arc, did everything to spawn the ambush Dreck, saved all three hostages but no bonus mission. Seems like this is bugged.

[The Caretaker]

Fixes are coming along for this, when I can reproduce locally.