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Yeah, a map spot like THAT is a perfect setup for missiles through rifts. That 5x5 room could get filled with missiles and a rift, then rifts can be placed in the hall to make it so the rockets can get to the creeper that's several tiles away without taking the long way down the hall. Having 4x as many rockets in the range should rip into the creeper and take off the pressure much faster. Faylone fucked around with this message at 14:19 on Apr 15, 2018 |
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Apr 15, 2018 14:14
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This level is a nightmare and I hate it. Last time I tried I managed to get the capsule behind the breakable wall just as the creeper was about to get it, but that last one eluded me. I spent too long dealing with the big horrible ball of creeper and had no chance of stemming the flow into the last cavern.
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Apr 15, 2018 15:09
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That ended up being nowhere near as bad as I remembered it. I did try to ignore the capsule in the ring of creeper. I bypassed it, almost got the final capsule, but then the creeper overflowed, cut off my advance team (which ended up getting completely destroyed) and then I had to move forward again. Fortunately, the fact that I already cleared out the creeper at the bottom once meant that it was easy once I broke through the overflow.
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Apr 15, 2018 23:20
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General Revil posted:That ended up being nowhere near as bad as I remembered it. I did try to ignore the capsule in the ring of creeper. I bypassed it, almost got the final capsule, but then the creeper overflowed, cut off my advance team (which ended up getting completely destroyed) and then I had to move forward again. Fortunately, the fact that I already cleared out the creeper at the bottom once meant that it was easy once I broke through the overflow. You can't outright ignore the ring of creeper. However, a couple launchers will keep it under control, and that's all you need to be able to move on to the more imminent threat of the final pod. If you get to it fast enough, it won't even have started to overflow. Otherwise, use your blasters to clean up the overflow and then leave a couple launchers to manage it and it will never be an issue. Day 13 is really the first mission to actually provide credible threats to force you to accomplish objectives within a limited time frame. The last pod is particularly insidious, because it's not enough to just cut off the emitters - any creeper in the tunnel will continue to flow up towards the pod (because of gravity fuckery) so after a certain point, enough creeper has built up that you have to push all the way through or the mission will fail. Day 13 isn't really categorically different from the previous missions, but it's the first mission where you can be ten minutes in and end up losing because there are technically four "Doom Timers", and the last one finishes at around seventeen minutes. It's not even all that tight a time limit - the mission can be beaten in under ten minutes - but it's easy to get distracted and complacent with all of the other apparent threats in the mission. The only emitter that needs to be capped right away is the top right emitter; everything thing else can be delayed with relatively minimal effort while you focus on saving the last pod.
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Apr 16, 2018 00:58
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Yeah, I kept the Creeper in the pool below the ship in check with a Repulsor pointed into it. Once I cleared out the first emitter, I moved down into the chamber with the second, and I could have taken that one out but wasn't marshaling resources properly, so I just used some blasters and launchers to hold it at bay while I dug into the chamber with the last two emitters. I found that the key is once you get that initial wad of energy, spam reactors. Don't worry about weapons or tech domes, just puke reactors on every surface that can hold them until you have fifteen or so. Then plug up the bottom emitter with a repulsor, stick a blaster and launcher near the reservoir up top (you can probably make do with just one blaster, or maybe two; but with a blaster/launcher combo you can hold back what spills out while removing large chunks), and once the bulb is empty, you can send them to the front or use them to destroy the emitter below your ship. After that it's just a matter of spamming blasters and launchers, and using shields to force the anti-creeper where you need it, and if you have enough banked energy to build a reactor, do so. It's worth one technyte to boost energy reserves to sixty so you don't have a little more breathing room before you get into "my energy is full I AM BEING INEFFICIENT" sets in.
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Apr 16, 2018 01:27
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A lot of the gameplay aspects pass me by, but let me say that that level seemed brutal. Glad to see how you managed to puzzle out a solution though. So we have a survivor, huh? Wonder what wonderful things they'd have to say about their experience with humanity-hating aliens.
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Apr 16, 2018 01:52
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This mission is one where using shields to buy time really helps. A single shield can last about 40 seconds, which allows you a round of reactors before you need to build your weapons. Also moving your ship can be a great advantage. If you are quick to move your ship to the position below you can get a shield up in the u turn closest to the emitter. This means the launchers can be built so they can hit the emitter with a range upgrade. Three of them is enough to drop the creeper level below the capsule. 
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Apr 16, 2018 02:43
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Olesh posted:It's not even all that tight a time limit - the mission can be beaten in under ten minutes For us mere mortals, it's pretty tight.  @ carbon dioxide: -- I left one blaster on the top even without the repulsor and it seemed to do fine. Carbon dioxide posted:, I'm rather surprised at your approach. My strategy here was to excavate as far in as I could WITHOUT releasing the creeper, put all my blasters and launchers in the corridor, make sure I got a couple blasters on backup, and then excavate the final block. When the creeper is released it might destroy one or two blasters (which you can replace with your backups) but it won't be able to flow into the tunnel at all. No need to fight your way into that tunnel first. I agree that this sounds like a better idea, but by the time you move up the backup blasters(and replace the energy to build them) I'm not sure it's all that much. As far as save-scumming goes, I didn't even know that was possible; that is, I wasn't aware of the game doing any kind of mid-mission save that I could even scum. But I don't think I personally would have done it even being aware of it. There's a moment later in the game when this kind of thing rears it's head again. Really Pants posted:where are the micro rifts Distances were small enough that I didn't use them much in this mission. If you look at one of the later screenshots though I have one in the passageway(upper-left corner, spinny white thing). Ignacius M Meen posted:Could you maybe have nullified the creeper rift closest to the last capsule and put down a lot of mortars to attack the fount of doom more directly? This could have been done. Question is whether it could have been done in time to make a difference, but I think it would have been better. MechaCrash posted:It's worth one technyte to boost energy reserves to sixty so you don't have a little more breathing room before you get into "my energy is full I AM BEING INEFFICIENT" sets in. I found that far more often than not I didn't concern myself with this. Just having enough energy was enough ... inefficiency to a degree is something I was never able to get a handle on nearly as much as the original game. Pace is just too frenetic for it to matter, and there's far more situations where just spamming a stupid-large reactor farm to oversupply is possible. That was a lot harder to do in the original due to the costs. Richard A posted:This mission is one where using shields to buy time really helps. Methinks you are much better at this than I am.
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Apr 16, 2018 05:00
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There's no autosave, but you can save a game mid-mission behind the Game button to the bottom left I think. It's behind one of those buttons at least.
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Apr 16, 2018 19:23
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Thotimx posted:For us mere mortals, it's pretty tight. I don't think ten minutes is possible without pausing, for sure, but fundamentally the faster you are able to move on objectives, the easier those objectives are because there's been less time for creeper to build up. The ring of doom, for example, doesn't overflow right away so it's possible to reach it, plop down a pair of launchers, and move on to the bottom tunnel instead of trying to fight through to the emitter. This saves a couple of minutes on the Doom Timer. Upgrade-wise, you seem to really overvalue packet speed. The only thing faster packets gets you is reducing the delay between when you start building something/start rearming and when the packets start arriving - overall throughput is the same after that delay. If upgrading packet speed is something that appeals to you, just build micro rifts instead - energy is a lot easier to come by than upgrade points. Speaking of upgrades... Early on, it's absolutely worth dropping a couple tech labs right away in your first set of reactors to start building up some research - one point in Energy/Ore (where there's ore on the map) gives you a buffer to overbuild a little without risking your defenses dropping at an inopportune time, and it makes it much more convenient to start peppering in more labs as you expand without slowing your rate of expansion so that you can actually afford the weapon upgrades.
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Apr 16, 2018 19:51
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carbon dioxide posted:you can save a game mid-mission behind the Game button to the bottom left I think. It's behind one of those buttons at least. Yep, it's under Game -- bottom right. There really aren't words for how stupid I feel right now. I hit that button So.Many.Times to restart levels when I failed. Never once did I notice the top two buttons. Save and Load. How does that happen?!?! I mean, I wouldn't even consider it save-scumming when the game provides a way for you to do it. And nope -- never noticed it. Oh, the pain I endured because I didn't. We'll get to that. olesh posted:you seem to really overvalue packet speed. Guilty as charged. I usually built them when the blasters particularly were running out of ammo even when there was energy in the reserve. This is partly because of how important speed was in the first game, and then I got into the habit of doing it early in this one as well. As far as Micro Rifts go, that was something I found myself forgetting about. I think it's partly just ingrained inertia -- I got used to 'blasters low on ammo, upgrade packet speed' which then turned into 'I'm probably going to need more packet speed later, might as well get it now it's fairly cheap' and the micro-rifts never really inserted themselves into that thought process. Olesh posted:Early on, it's absolutely worth dropping a couple tech labs right away in your first set of reactors to start building up some research I'm not as certain about this. I always thought that was a good idea to do as soon as defenses are secured and sufficiently supplied ... but not so much before that. The energy drain isn't huge but it is significant enough that it discouraged me from wanting to do it right away.
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Apr 17, 2018 04:07
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I hope you don't take my repeated criticism as me making GBS threads on you. Since there's a relative lack of actual strategy/mechanics chat for these games on the internet, I'm sharing what I found to work well after the fact. I'm really enjoying these games and I absolutely have you to thank for introducing me to them. I'm going back and replaying missions where you expressed difficulty and seeing how my own solutions stack up, and refining my strategies with experience has given me an appreciation for these (kind of janky) old games.
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Apr 17, 2018 05:50
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The only real kind of strategy advice I found for these games (outside what we're talking about here) is those youtube videos where people win a map four times faster than any sane person.
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Apr 17, 2018 07:00
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I usually get 3-4 labs up pretty quickly, then gradually build up to 10ish (specifically, to the point where they cost > 50 energy). They're initially dirt cheap and I've never ever actually noticed the energy cost that's needed to maintain them. Early on, +energy and +range upgrades are invaluable because I'm a traditionalist - blasters and mortar are my bread and butter. I never really used makers much in CW2, since I have this pathological desire to avoid ever using any sort of non-renewable consumable unless it's absolutely unavoidable. They probably would have made a few missions somewhat easier.
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Apr 17, 2018 08:00
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redleader posted:I usually get 3-4 labs up pretty quickly, then gradually build up to 10ish (specifically, to the point where they cost > 50 energy). They're initially dirt cheap and I've never ever actually noticed the energy cost that's needed to maintain them. Early on, +energy and +range upgrades are invaluable because I'm a traditionalist - blasters and mortar are my bread and butter. The energy cost needed to maintain them scales up along with their build cost. And yeah, my first time through I didn't really use makers, but they're frankly key to most efficient strategies, especially when there's actually ore on the map to harvest so that you can run them for more than short bursts.
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Apr 17, 2018 08:03
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WHAT THE gently caress DO YOU MEAN THIS IS THE END OF THE THREAD
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Apr 17, 2018 22:03
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Olesh posted:I hope you don't take my repeated criticism as me making GBS threads on you Not at all. I take it as a compliment -- if someone cares enough about what I'm doing to even(you're not doing this, but just to elaborate) say that it sucks horribly, then they still care enough to give feedback and that's a plus. Little of what you've said is what I'd call criticism anyway. It can be hard to gauge intention on the internet of course, esp. in a text format, but I've got no objection and I think it's all positive when someone wants to talk about the game/strategy for good or ill. I'm not always going to agree of course, but contrasting ways of playing are possible in most of the games I like -- that's why I like them(the thinking element). So by all means, keep on keeping on. Also, I think it would be pretty silly of me to do a blind playthrough and then expect to find all the best ways to do something. All this requires of me is being good enough to pass the level, and sometimes there are profoundly obvious things I miss the first time. Like the mid-mission save option.
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Apr 17, 2018 22:07
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coolguye posted:WHAT THE gently caress DO YOU MEAN THIS IS THE END OF THE THREAD ??
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Apr 17, 2018 22:08
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i've been binging this thread over the last day and a half. it's good. it's bad that i hit the end of the thread
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Apr 17, 2018 22:25
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Coolguye posted:i've been binging this thread over the last day and a half. Well then, buy the universal bundle to get all four games, strap in and play along while you enjoy the ride, and join us in waiting for CW4 to be released.
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Apr 17, 2018 22:44
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@ coolguye: Ahh, ok. I read it initially like you were saying the thread was over, so I thought maybe I'd written something dumb to imply that. One small panacea is that the next mission is coming today.
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Apr 17, 2018 22:48
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Day 14: Phoenix https://youtu.be/XFb-veCDXsc Me, after noticing it was the 14th consecutive Obliteration level: "I'm seriously wondering why they put that on there. 14 of them in a row, all the same."    At least the Styglek have an impressive grasp of vocabularly and eloquence.     Wisdom beyond his years. Perhaps Dax is growing into his job.     The unstoppable force of off-screen strikes once more.    That's a lot of things. Esp. reactors. And I didn't at first notice the Incoming Phantoms countdown at the top, much like the Spore one from the first game. ** Doom Timer: 12:28. Imminent danger to the Liberation Ship isn't really the thing here.  The Phantoms would soon draw my attention though. I'd just got done looking around at everything, and deciding what I definitely needed was some weapons up, and then ... "What on ... what on earth are those things!!" Then, as they exploded ... "Oh, you bastards!!" So a couple things learned here: these wispy, floaty, cloud-like things are Phantoms. Apparently they are bundles of creeper. And they explode all over the place when they hit something. And can go through terrain.  Not even a minute and a half in. I've put up a few blasters but haven't accomplished anything else, the reactor farms are going the way of the dodo ... and I decide to restart.  Didn't go much better this time. I built some Blasters further up, and observed as this on the left might as well have waved at the Phantom as it passed by. I'm not really sure why I expected it to fire at something that was within solid terrain, but I did. My hopes were not justified. "Blaster didn't shoot at it. I've got to find out what I can use against it." So at this point I was basically just wanting to do SCIENCE and figure out how to combat the phantoms.  I build some blasters down by the ship and start clearing out the creeper pool. The reactors are all gone by now so I'm really struggling on energy. Works a lot better if you just build a couple blasters down here right away and ignore the reactor farm at first, but that didn't occur to me since I didn't know what the heck I was doing. Once I harvested one of the energy crystals things started happening more quickly. Then the schematic was collected:  Light dawns on marble head. The schematic is necessary for fighting the Phantoms.   So the other ship invented this thing but couldn't use it in time, whereas Hale just did it on the fly because ... plot device??   I started building up a new energy supply in this lower cavern, and placed some of the new Phantom Coils. You can see the effectiveness on the right; decent range and ability to target multiple phantoms at the same time. Progress.  A defense system against an immaterial foe that materializes on contact with important structures but not anything else. Which means Phantom are an intelligent, non-existent(or at least non-existent in our reality) enemy. Sure. Whatever. I soon discover they can be placed anywhere and moved around.  With a few more Phantom Coils built, the base of operations seems secure so I take a look at the top. And rather wish I hadn't. Only the one emitter as mentioned, but that's a lot of gateways.  More reactors, a couple tech domes, and then we start moving upwards, gradually clearing out the passageways. And then the emitter breaks through another section of terrain on the far left. A waterfall, only it's not water, results.  A stupid-large reactor farm replaces the one that was destroyed earlier in the same location, and a few micro-rifts are added as we proceed upwards, gaining momentum.  That emitter is an obvious priority target. Here I use the same tactic as in the last mission; excavate to create an much larger field of fire for the growing force which now includes launchers as well.  The slowish push upwards proceeded in stages. Here you can see that I've done some excavating, but can't do any more because the leaking creeper cuts off any packet access to the terrain that needs to be removed. Once I've cleaned up the mess, we can proceed.  The design of this upper area makes this rather annoying once you take out the emitter. There's no real threat anymore -- even if a phantom does hit a blaster, it'll clean up the mess and repair reasonably quickly. Divided into multiple sections here, we need to dig our way through each, deal with the creeper at the bottom of it, then take out the gateways. Lather.Rinse.Repeat. I really like the way the first part of this level was designed. Most of it in fact. The top here though is just tedious. There are a few capsules to break it up though.  Cute.   That's about it -- I'll spare everyone the play-by-play of the grind to clear out all pockets of resistance. 
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Apr 18, 2018 02:43
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Coolguye posted:WHAT THE gently caress DO YOU MEAN THIS IS THE END OF THE THREAD welcome. i reached this point and wound up buying creeper world 1 and 2 myself. now i spend my days playing downloaded custom maps in cw2 when i should be moderating the forum.
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Apr 18, 2018 05:21
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I found this mission to be incredibly easy. Once you get a few coils set up, the Phantoms are completely harmless, and once you get the lone emitter under control, there are no real threats. But rather than digging out a whole mess of the floor and unleashing a torrent of Creeper, why not dig a single tile hole with the flood being held back by a Repulsor, and have a blaster and launcher there to thin stuff out? I did something similar to that for taking out the emitter, although I also used a Maker to counterflood the chamber with anti-creeper. Speaking of launchers, I couldn't help but notice you built a couple and then didn't actually use the things. Whoops!
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Apr 18, 2018 08:09
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MechaCrash posted:I found this mission to be incredibly easy. Once you get a few coils set up, the Phantoms are completely harmless, and once you get the lone emitter under control, there are no real threats. Definitely not a challenging mission, for sure. It mainly exists to demo the phantoms but, much like the spores in CW1, they don't really serve as a credible threat. They exist mainly as a "did you remember to build defenses before the first wave?" check and then you more or less ignore them for the rest of the mission unless you forget to move your coils up, in which case you get set back a minute. They're not even expensive - phantom coils only cost 5 - so I basically just double up on them everywhere and leapfrog them forward occasionally to avoid what happened to Thotimx in the video (where a phantom snuck past while he was moving up his coils). I'm beginning to feel like Thotimx is upgrading packet speed and ignoring weapon upgrades specifically to spite me, though.
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Apr 18, 2018 09:37
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This is the CW2 equivalent of painting the map green. It's also why obsessive people shouldn't be allowed to play this game.
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Apr 18, 2018 12:28
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General Revil posted:It's also why obsessive people shouldn't be allowed to play this game. Yeah that's a lot .... I'd have to work hard to come up with a reason to build half that many tech domes and ... just yeah. Olesh posted:I'm beginning to feel like Thotimx is upgrading packet speed and ignoring weapon upgrades specifically to spite me, though. What you're seeing was recorded well before that discussion. So you might want to buckle up and get ready for more dumb stuff to come.
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Apr 19, 2018 04:47
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Thotimx posted:Yeah that's a lot .... I'd have to work hard to come up with a reason to build half that many tech domes and ... just yeah. That was after I'd already capped the emitter. I was alternating reactors and tech domes to max out the upgrades as fast as possible. I ended up overshooting with the tech domes, but at that point it didn't matter at all.
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Apr 19, 2018 05:30
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It's kinda nice to see how powerful you get with all upgrades maxed out.
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Apr 19, 2018 07:04
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Thotimx posted:What you're seeing was recorded well before that discussion. So you might want to buckle up and get ready for more dumb stuff to come. Hey, hey, I've been nagging about the relative pointlessness of packet speed upgrades since CW1  .I can't wait to see the upcoming levels, though. Especially since I absolutely completely misunderstood the gimmick behind one of tem.
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Apr 19, 2018 08:04
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carbon dioxide posted:It's kinda nice to see how powerful you get with all upgrades maxed out. Yeah, it's not a small difference. Olesh posted:can't wait to see the upcoming levels, though. Especially since I absolutely completely misunderstood the gimmick behind one of tem. If it's the one I'm think of, me too. On the subject of speed, I still maintain it was a lot more important in CW1. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. Having said that though, I'm currently working on the next update here and you sir, seriously need to grab yourself a sedative. Probably several of them, just to be on the safe side.
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Apr 21, 2018 02:40
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Day 15: Exterminate! https://youtu.be/KEedFjQ83-c What a lovely title. Clearly final victory is at hand, and today is the day we exterminate all vestiges of the Creeper and Loki threats.    That's not very nice ...         The Lt. doesn't share the thread's dismissal of the phantom threat. Of course this seems likely to be a device to just let that last question hang in our minds unanswered. It is the end of the third Act, after all ...  He's not kidding though. That's a pair of Phantoms just above the Liberation Ship, immediately -- this shot is taken with the mission timer at 00:00. Gateway above us, emitters in the passages below. ** Doom Timer: 42 seconds. Well, that's a new record. If you don't move, the creeper left over when the Phantoms explode will incinerate the Liberation Ship. I followed instructions well enough to avoid that, at least.  I move up and right, grab an energy crystal, throw down a few reactors ... and then spot that white thing moving about down there. Looks robotic ... and yep, it's a Drone.  Shortly afterwards I get to see what they can do. I put a Phantom Coil up, but that Gateway in the upper left spawns a Drone and here it is exploding. Turns out they don't actually shoot at you -- like the Phantoms, they are a kamikaze threat. This is the dual explosion of the Drone and a Reactor. Ok then.  More SCIENCE. I've expanded operations a bit, and you can see that the blaster just fired at this drone ... but one shot isn't enough. These things take multiple shots to kill, despite me imploring the weapon: "Fight it! Shoot it! Blow it up!!" Well, it did succeed in shooting it, but the drone still took out a reactor. Trading fully constructed buildings for a drone is not an optimal way to fight them. But since the blasters will shoot them, what I need is MOAR BLASTERS. Of course I don't have time to realize that, because seconds later ...  Upon seeing this, I calmly and professionally declare "HOLY CRAPOLA ON A STICK!!!" I didn't bother counting before, but that's a dozen of them. Six on each side. Super-great.  Here's what it looks like afterwards. Basically they eliminated a blaster, the phantom coil, and like half the reactors. "So .... we might need a few more blasters. Just .... spitballing here." Gee, ya think?!? By the way, we're not yet three minutes into the level. Now the good news is, you can see the Liberation Ship damage; it takes several drone-kamikaze blasts to take that thing out.  Two groups here. One going up the tunnel to the left, one to the right, heading to the surface. And there's 11 in the left group. This is not getting better with time. Meanwhile our fearless leader: "Look at all those freaking things coming ... DRONES. SUCK. !!" I, uh, definitely had to sort of learn on the fly in this mission.  I did have enough blasters up though. The inability of drones to do anything until they actually make physical contact allowed us to wipe them out without casualties this time. That's a major bit of progress. All of a sudden I was feeling pretty good about things. Reactors rebuilt, and let's go after that upper Gateway.  That accomplished, I starting moving downwards. A Maker on the left, more reactors and tech domes above, blasters in the tunnel on the right -- now they had no way to get through our defenses. It was time to take the fight to them. By the way, I chuckled on the replay at about 10:40, just after this: "Once we get some tech in, I definitely want some more packet speed and beacon range." Eat your heart out, Olesh!!  Now I'm pretty much out of anti-creeper here, but also worth noting: the anti-creeper itself damages the drones. Not enough to kill them other than quite slowly, but still helpful.  The basic deal here is that it's tons easier to advance on the offensive during the gaps between drones. Then a bunch more will be released, and the blasters will need to shoot at the drones and the creeper, forcing a more defensive mode. Of course, this would all go a LOT, LOT faster if some nitwit would upgrade his weapons already. That should really be a big priority here. But ... nope.  I actually use the 'vacuum' ability for the first time, having not been aware of it's existence for very long at this point. Yellow tint shows it's in Vacuum mode. Now there isn't much to gather, but I get what I can.  As it became clear just how long this was going to take, I put down a bunch more Tech Domes. I formed the habit at this point of building 10 of them total(up to 50 cost) starting here. I have of course gotten those vitally nigh-irrelevant packet and beacon upgrades, but that's it here.  Sometimes the brain just really doesn't work all that well. Here's an example. I'm moving these two launchers over to the right side: "Really? You're not going to be able to get around that way guys." *Pause* "There's no way to get around! Oh ... they're going through the rift" Yeah, you know -- the intelligent, much-faster way. Best part is I had just built the micro-rifts. Then ...  Here's where things really started to go awry. Just before 20 minutes on the video. Now in fairness I'd already laid the groundwork for a screwup by not having any extra weapons built, esp. with a large energy surplus. On top of that, here I had planned to move forward during the(rapidly shrinking) gap between sets of drones. I made one of those split-second bad choices that I didn't want to wait after having been distracted during that period. This part with the extra obstacle in the path to go around makes that particularly dangerous.  Drones took out both blasters before they could reach their new locations. Now I didn't have enough firepower to hold them back.  Another blaster soon goes, and the blockade breaks. Using the micro-rift, some of the drones go over to the right set of tunnels. Now they're behind my defenses on both sides.  One of them on the right heads for a beacon, cutting off the four blasters and two launchers that are further down that passageway. They are now as useful as a paperweight.  By the time I get enough blasters built to re-establish order, half of my reactors and tech domes are gone. In unrelated news, you can also see that I never built a micro-rift by the ship. Which means the two that I did build were virtually useless. Except for facilitating the drones circumventing half my defenses. I've done some dumb things in my time, but this was up there.  Now I build one -- but before I secure the lower rifts. Giving them access to my base. Because that's a great idea, of course, as you can see by the tech domes that are about to go up in the upper-left. "Conniving little bastards!" Yes they are. But they are getting an awful lot of help. Rolling out the red carpet wasn't strictly necessary. Then, as I get back down to the tunnel entrances on both sides ... "I think range would really help here because then I could shoot them from farther away." Oh. You want to try doing it the intelligent way. Might as well, now that you've THOROUGHLY explored the alternative ... I add a weapon range and move speed upgrade, one of each for now.  Gradually I push my way back downwards over previously-conquered terrain, rebuilding infrastructure as I go. One important difference: six blasters on each side instead of four. I'm still not doing this for the purpose of having backups -- backups that don't fire would really be a good idea for replacement purposes. Military commanders the world over have demonstrated the value of a mobile reserve. But not me. I'm just doing it to take advantage of the range increase(also useful). Almost at 25 minutes already and I really haven't accomplished a whole lot. Just before 30, if you like, you can see me get past that obstacle in the tunnel in the left that caused the trouble before, and easily -- even with oncoming drones. Because of one range increase basically.  I focus on the left side, which is the easier of the two because you don't have to contend with gravity, going either sideways or down always. This cubby-hole of Artifact goodness greets us after taking out another emitter.  Here's where we are with tech after grabbing those TechNyte bundles. I'm up to 2 of 3 on all the weapon stuff, and the idea of self-replicating tech(upgrading tech dome efficiency to increase tech income) is something that I try here for the first time. It's a really good and obvious idea.  And one side is completely handled.  Here's a look at how far away the blasters can shoot with maxed-out range. This is the right, bottom corner, starting to make the upwards climb against gravity.  Having climbed up to this emitter, I now have all weapons upgrades in place, a micro-rift to secure quick re-arming, and it's all over but the shouting. And a mere 45 minutes on the mission clock :P. I add a few launchers, and reactors to support them given how much energy the increased firing rate costs, and another 7-8 minutes later the final stronghold, a Gateway/Nullifier combo, is eliminated. It's over.  Much of the time was self-inflicted, but this mission would take a while regardless I think. Too bad it doesn't track a discrete number of drones killed, because that would be amusing to check.
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Apr 21, 2018 03:28
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Ah Drones. For reference, if you hover over your mouse over a Drone, it will show how many blaster shots it will take to destroy the Drone. I believe in this level, its 4 shots. There are some jerks in custom maps who set this hp as high as 5000, which is just WAY TOO HIGH Higher HP Drones are capable of kamakazing multiple buildings, and doing more damage to the Liberation Ship. As you also found out, Drones are capable of utilizing your own micro-rift network. However, they can only use the rift if it is active and within a powered section of the map (in range of an active beacon). If you are fast enough, you manually disable the rift by clicking it and pressing "Q". This will prevent the Drones from entering the rift. One final tip is that unlike creeper, Drones do not intercept packets. Its rarely useful, but you can build weapons and buildings behind a conga line of Drones if necessary, and they will be built.
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Apr 21, 2018 03:52
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Thotimx posted:More SCIENCE. I've expanded operations a bit, and you can see that the blaster just fired at this drone ... but one shot isn't enough. These things take multiple shots to kill, despite me imploring the weapon: "Fight it! Shoot it! Blow it up!!" Well, it did succeed in shooting it, but the drone still took out a reactor. quote:https://youtu.be/KEedFjQ83-c InwardChaos posted:If you are fast enough, you manually disable the rift by clicking it and pressing "Q". This will prevent the Drones from entering the rift. Also, I can't be the only one who thinks that from afar, the drones look a bit like a skull with crossbones behind it.
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Apr 21, 2018 08:12
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Thotimx posted:Much of the time was self-inflicted, but this mission would take a while regardless I think. Too bad it doesn't track a discrete number of drones killed, because that would be amusing to check. 18:28, for reference, although previous attempts were at approximately the 45m mark. I'm certain it can be done still quicker yet. Aside from the aforementioned self-inflicted problem, the length of time this mission takes is otherwise based on your individual ability to micro quickly - there is, functionally, an upper limit to the rate of drone spawning (in that they eventually don't stop). I'll give it another crack to see if my theories about how to shave time will bear fruit. Edit: 16:26. More micro! I bet I could bring it under 15m, but it's 4 AM. Edit Edit: By the way, I've started on CW3, and I am much worse at that game. Olesh fucked around with this message at 09:01 on Apr 21, 2018 |
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Apr 21, 2018 08:37
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One thing to note is that shields have a lot more HP than most units. Drones with any significant amount of HP (>4 or so) can basically instakill any actual units, but will just splat for 10% or so damage on a shield. Sometimes, when you're being swarmed by drones it might just pay to have some shields up to prevent the drones from actually hitting something important.
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Apr 21, 2018 10:10
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carbon dioxide posted:I'm gonna assume you did this not just by shouting at your screen, but by carefully, thoughtfully and thoroughly checking out your options, including the blaster settings to prioritize Drones or Creeper. That's a negative, ghostrider. I did notice those settings but I've never seen a situation where I thought it would be better not to kill the drones first. They just seem to always be a bigger threat. quote:Wait, when did you start recording commentary? My vocal stylings joined this LP at the start of CW2. I didn't make a huge deal of it but I did post this in the brief CW2 intro post: me posted:LP Style Changes Aesculus posted:Drones with any significant amount of HP (>4 or so) can basically instakill any actual units, but will just splat for 10% or so damage on a shield. Yet another use for shields that I was totally oblivious to. Interesting.
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Apr 21, 2018 21:54
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Thotimx posted:That's a negative, ghostrider. I did notice those settings but I've never seen a situation where I thought it would be better not to kill the drones first. They just seem to always be a bigger threat.
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Apr 22, 2018 02:40
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RichardA posted:Just keep it in mind for CW3 if nothing else; there are parts in the next game which are incredibly annoying without target prioritization. Make that literally impossible without proper target prioritization.
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Apr 22, 2018 14:50
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Day 16: Purpose https://youtu.be/CILmnG0NNt0 The Final Act begins ... with yet more Obliteration.  Friendly as ever.     Gotta love Dax being comfortable enough with the Styglek threat to just totally disrespect and ignore them now.      Here's the initial problem. That terrain will decay soon, and when it does a Creeper explosion will occur. ** Doom Timer: 1:12 Once again, pretty darn fast. It'll take only half this long before we are inundated. This is a situation really custom-made for shields to temporarily protect us while we fight off the Creeper. But that didn't occur to me, since I wasn't in the habit of using shields.  I moved up to the top of the screen and laid down a few weapons. This is not far or fast enough, and seconds after this the creeper is basically everywhere. I didn't even manage to add a single second to the Doom Timer here. Once more the Liberation Ship perishes. The second attempt, I didn't lose until 1:18. So I guess those six seconds are progress, of a sort.  Fourth attempt. The idea here is to get as far away from the creeper explosion as possible, and then I'm opening the far side of it early so much of the 'blast' will be directed away from the ship.  It worked partially, although I would have been better off opening them a bit earlier.  This was just good enough. I am taking damage here, but not being overwhelmed. The blaster helps keep a bit of the creeper away.  The Liberation Ship takes only minor damage before the Creeper begins to settle and recede. Now I have a new problem; I've got to somehow fight my way to dry land without being able to build up any reasonable energy supply.  Under the ground, we've got drones, gateways, emitter, all manner of gravity distortions ... fun stuff. First things first though of course.  I totally forgot about the Phantoms, which are originally on a 3-minute timer. Three of them hit well before I can belatedly get phantom coils up. The blasters have enough HP to survive this until the creeper falls back down, but of course this just adds to what I have to cut through, energy has to be diverted to repairing blasters and the ship, etc.  I'm ready when they return with a pair of phantom coils. Four this time, but only one reaches its destination. Good for that, but it takes a significant amount of very-limited energy to re-arm the coils in between attacks. This further delays the blaster efforts to gradually wear out the existing creeper. This is going to take a long time -- during which the subterranean foe will not just sit idly by. Next time three phantom coils take out five of the wispy jerks.  After a bit I deactivate the blasters, putting up a launcher instead to take out deeper, denser volumes of creeper. This proves to be better use of resources.  I feel like shouting 'Land ahoy!' like a 17th-century sailor or something. Over 11 minutes on the mission timer and I'm just now building up reactors. Three on this ledge increases energy by almost half(1 to 1.45, 0.15 for each), but I struggle to build them and hold back the creeper at the same time.  Eventually though progress does start to snowball. I keep a blaster and a launcher activated, crawling them to the right as they push back the tide and slowly our energy pool grows. Here it's at 2.35. Shortly afterwards I was able to power both blasters constantly, and that pushed me over the edge in terms of being able to cut through the creeper more quickly.  I've added a tech dome here, cleared out the surface creeper, put more reactors on 'shelving' below, eliminated some of them on the left where I'll eventually want to breach the lower cavern. But I also didn't get phantom coils over to the right in time, and now I'm going to pay for it. Eight of the clouds here, and they are mostly headed that way.  Seconds later. Guhhhhh.  I concentrate on clearing out the creeper instead of making sure I have coils up, compounding the error into this. Entry-level course here in How Not to Fight Phantoms. I then proceed to spam too many reactors in the rebuilding, further slowing things down. And then on the next wave, a single phantom gets through and destroys most of them AGAIN.  So, 29 minutes on the mission counter as I finally get everything set up again and breach the lower cavern. The drones have long-before broken through, so they are the first thing to deal with. After pushing downwards further, my first two tech picks are a pair of packet speed upgrades and one reactor efficiency.  Gradually making progress here, and aiming for this HoloCube as the next target.      It must be said here that it is some serious hogwash that we have been accomplishing anything useful without being able to do this for as long as it's been going on.  We just 'met'(not really) this Thrade dude and now he's telling us what to do?  The penny drops. Aliana is(allegedly) still alive. I think Dax is going explode if Thrade is lying to us ...   The Commander seems not the slightest bit perturbed by the possibility(likelihood?) of this being a Styglek trap ...  After a couple more errors causing more damage to our units, I move down on the left. I want to take out those gateways so that we don't have this constant drone annoyance. Here, a second HoloCube awaits.   I really don't like the sound of an enemy that possesses a million galaxies.   Frozen Creeper?!?  Apparently so. It stays in place even when the creeper around it is destroyed. That actually doesn't seem to really help it here, if anything it should help us.  Building more launchers and excavating more room for reactors in the process, we move in and get rid of these gateways. However we can't excavate anywhere from here, including downwards ... another avenue of attack is needed.  It's time to deal with this setup on the right.  I go with the method of simply excavating more territory to increase this battle's 'frontage'. This area is soon cleared, but despite being over 50 minutes in at this point I'm really just nicely getting started.  One thing I've really not done well here is that I only have two TechDomes, and I chastise myself for that a bit at this point. I boost reactors again and grab the first range increase here.  From there I push down into the next section. A long, narrow tunnel to get to that emitter eventually ... and the only way further down is through a third HoloCube on the lower right. I've got enough critical mass than I boost up to the standard 10 Tech Domes, and excavate my way around to the right while I wear down the creeper resistance here.  Really? That's it? You warn us to be careful and then give us no concrete advice otherwhise. Thrade, you're a bastard. A royal bastard.  Now we are at the very bottom. It's rough going to get through that narrow tunnel at the top, and at the bottom these lines/columns of creeper aren't static; they 'blink' and then reappear seconds later, fully restored. ME: "You wanna play? Let's play!" as I move another half-dozen launchers into the bottom chamber. There are few problems that can't be solved by an over-abundance of firepower.  Density by the top emitter here is 125-150k; more like 1.5M below but that is actually progress as it's decreasing. It was closer to 2M initially. This shot is during one of the 'blinks' but if we keep hammering it, eventually we'll be able to cut things down to size. Cramming weapons in and carefully leap-frogging seems to be the only answer in that upper section.  Once we gain entry to the upper emitter's chamber, I start working on the bottom more. After clearing out a column of creeper, or part of one, I start moving a few weapons past it. This is a gradual process but it allows us to start firing at more and more of the columns at once when they re-appear. Just now I'm paying for how long things took earlier on, because the less density builks up the faster this would go. We're over an hour here, so it's had quite a while to accumulate.  Once all the weapons are down in the bottom area, we can see the creeper supply visibly being drained when the columns re-appear. This is working, it's just a matter of time now as I continue to move gradually to the left.  It's only a few minutes later when, with massed firepower at the ready, we breach the final emitter's chamber and easily subdue it. I'm not sure I've ever wanted an emitter to die so earnestly.  The final ten minutes or so of this slog, on the right-hand side? That's a LOT of energy being expended there. Sometimes as much as 25 at a time, and there were points it would have been more if we had a larger supply.
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Apr 22, 2018 17:21
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