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Yep, had another person point that out as well - good catch I knew something looked off but didn't examine closely enough to see what. Looks like I'll be doing a redesign of that as well.
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Feb 15, 2020 09:27
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CEO's Landing (35:27)  The layout is pretty clear here, and let me just say that's a lot of red plasma.  The new RegSmash with more protection on the sides and less severe of an angle so it won't get punished as much if it faces the wrong way. We're not going to use it, but I just made it for demonstration's sake.  And then the BiLathe, with more armor and a centralized cockpit. You can get almost two and a half regular Lathes for the same price, but as we'll see this definitely has its uses.  We have defensive struc and a bunch of energy pods, but very little actual energy sources. The economics of the start here would be interesting to optimize, but it's clear we want to grab land at the edges via Omnis. Also, there is this one emitter we can eventually flip which will help.  I ran out too early, having overbuilt. 2:30 in, income of 5, expenses of 258! Yeah, I don't advise this technique. Now we do have some occasional attacks coming our way, but suffice to say getting to the emitter and amp gems before you run out of storage is more advisable. I misjudged this.  The mire expansion gradually equalized income, but here we aren't quite there yet. The emitter has been flipped but there are more hostiles ... more importantly we were able to put the amp gems into energy tech. That helps give us the firepower to battle this Doppel.  Omni Reactors were an obvious early choice. Here along the top, we grab another energy mine - though they don't give us much we'll take it anyway - but there is worse resistance ahead. With income at 31, we're now definitely into the positive there.  The emitters yield amp gems underneath - I'm not a fan of this mechanic as there's no way to tell when they do or don't ahead of time. More importantly getting the rest of the fleet up with the biggest available ships being the Marauder, Wolf, and Big Nose, gives us more than enough to chase off the doppels and start to be more aggressive.  Here the Omni Cannons have now been deployed, and with a full complement I spread out around the enemy stronghold to have firepower from all directions and also grab more energy sources. Also, there's another Gem Harvester here worth my attention.  Here's what the back end looks like ... a loop of particulate with additional struc inside it. Layered defenses indicative of a reasonable intelligence.  Around the edges omnis are able to snipe a few emitters, but aside from that we breach the fortress more traditionally; straightforward firepower against some pretty substantive doppel variants with everything taking part.  After a suicidal trial run and some other experimenting, the newly reinforced BiLathe shows it can take some serious punishment - and pose a threat to fairly fortified enemy positions.  Elsewhere, things aren't so rosy. Being regularly attacked by a trio of doppels with limited firepower isn't a fun thing. It was tricky to keep them under control, and I wasn't always successful. Another issue was many emitters on the map, so that it took a lot of combat to take down enough of them to really make a dent.  This took them down to only one remaining Doppel-producer though, and I was making enough headway as it was that it felt like a decisive turn.  The main remaining problem was eating through the plasma to the back fortifications, where the BiLathe did it's best Hammer-wannabe impression in overtly taking the final assault.  The revised-and-improved Thor design will feature when we move on to Archipelago, which it can be seen is a fairly fitting title for our next mission.
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Feb 20, 2020 21:34
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I hope you liked the omni flanking maneuvers, because you'll be doing more of it on the custom maps that I plan on requesting you to play.
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Feb 20, 2020 23:00
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I do like them - that's one of the good suggestions from the thread that has really grown on me as a tactic/style.
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Feb 22, 2020 10:02
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I am so very sad that I missed... really, probably most of this LP. Been a fan of the CW series since I played CW2: Academy on Kongregate oh so many years ago. Particle Fleet is actually one of my favorites, because I love pretty much any game where you can customize your ships. Some favorites:  The Acheron is designed to blow stuff up hard and fast. Plenty of energy storage since (as you learned a few missions ago) those Mk7 cannons are hungry. Also, a couple of shields for longevity under fire. These were a godsend for one custom map I played where you were fighting enemy ships that also had Mk7 cannons.  The Titan was my own answer to the hammer. Not quite as massive as RegSmash, but the shields (once again) give it longevity. The only issue is that the single energy tank means it needs direct support or those shields mean precisely dick - it spends too much energy to prevent damage. The wide head makes it that much more useful for clearing a path, but an unintended consequence is that a pair of them side by side have enough room to hide/cover many ships - for example...  ... the Rapier. I doubled down on your BiLathe design and gave it four. Adding a shield and an energy tank gives it JUST enough power to go forth and take out a single emitter and bring up a mine in its place most of the time. Keeping it inside an energy field and covering it with Titans makes it one hell of an emitter-buster. The missiles attack nearby particulate and (IIRC) nudge it away while it does its thing. I have quite a few more ships, but these are probably the best designed out of the bunch. I have designed for everything from the opening:  ... to the midgame:  ... to the gently caress-you-and-everything-that-looks-like-you:  One thing to note: reactors aren't really all that valuable from what I've read - they supposedly generate 1.5 energy a second, which isn't really enough to run a whole lot. I've found MUCH better results replacing reactors with energy tanks. I'm pulling these designs from the last time I played, so some of them need an update.  to everything you've done so far, and I look forward to playing CW4 aside y'all.Edit: Been playing some PF and was messing with my designs - some of the descriptions got edited based on refreshing my memory. Epsilon Moonshade fucked around with this message at 04:19 on Mar 5, 2020 |
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Mar 4, 2020 06:52
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Thanks for all the cool ships! I've actually found adding more reactors to be quite effective with the Thor, which is interesting since it differs from what you're saying here. Energy tanks didn't seem to be the solution because the problem was the ship couldn't accept as much energy as it needed - it was a transmission not a supply issue. *shrug*.
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Mar 4, 2020 21:49
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Strategic Sage posted:Thanks for all the cool ships! I've actually found adding more reactors to be quite effective with the Thor, which is interesting since it differs from what you're saying here. Energy tanks didn't seem to be the solution because the problem was the ship couldn't accept as much energy as it needed - it was a transmission not a supply issue. *shrug*. And now you've got me wondering and wanting to check again. I was apparently right about the 1.5 energy/second/reactor figure. This link implies that it'd take 4 reactors to sustain continual firing of a single Mk7, 4 per stunner (obviously not needed since it's bursty,) 1 per 3 missiles, 1 per 4 cannons, 2 per particle beam, and 2 per 3 lasers. Of course, that link is from 2016 - it's entirely possible that something got tweaked since then. By my count, you'd need at least 20 reactors to support those 5 Mk7s unattended. Possibly less to keep up with resupply, which someone else said was your problem. And wow, from a link in that post, shields are 15 energy per second.
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Mar 5, 2020 04:14
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Had to catch up to this game and the ship creator looks like a great feature. Going with a thin Hammer, this "snow plow" that relies on shields to push itself through and having it ram enough particulates that it leaves a hole big enough for your other ships to advance. The ram itself as wide as you can get at one square deep, the main body having the shield, two or three engines, energy storage, and nothing else. Going for a minimalist design that plows through like a killdozer on speed, but is expendable the second the shield expires. It rushes everything without needing to resupply, with your lathes behind it and shutting down the spawners with relative ease.
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Mar 6, 2020 02:59
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EpsilonMoonshade posted:By my count, you'd need at least 20 reactors to support those 5 Mk7s unattended. I think that's probably dated info based on the last go-round with the Thor. Reactors seem to be somewhat better than that. @ScaldingCoffee- A hammer with shields … that sounds interesting.
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Mar 15, 2020 04:39
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My latest sideline is now completed and we'll be proceeding next week. So, a couple announcements. First, bonus map suggestions are now officially open. I'll be doing a handful of PF fan maps, then doing a grab-bag of mostly fan content, maybe some procedurally generated stuff here and there, between when that finishes up and Creeper World 4. No limit on the number of suggestions, and you can make them for any game in the series at this point. Secondly, and I know this will disappoint some people which is why I've waited this long to do it: when we've wrapped up the Inception mission series, I will no longer be doing image-based writeups of this thread. It'll be video only the rest of the way after that and into CW4. The reason I'm doing that is it simply takes more time than I can justify spending on it as I'm increasingly focused on video content. Effort on screenshots is effort not spent improving my skills on that end and getting more videos done. I totally understand with no objections or hard feelings if that means some of you won't want to follow my Creeper World misadventures any further at that point, but it's necessary for me to pursue my goals on the video end. And everyone stay healthy and safe!
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Mar 15, 2020 04:45
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Particle Fleet recommendations: There are four broad things that I want to recommend (I'll pick specific ones later). 1. GMM (Good Morning Mode) maps. These are the PF equivalents of CSM maps from CW3. 2. Pretty much anything by Foxx. That man is a mad genius of mapmaking. Start off with a few of his early ones for really fun maps, combined with an even worse story than PF. Then, move onto his later maps for less story, and lots of custom programming. 3. Omni Testing grounds maps. 4. Mysterious Maze maps (It's a series of 6 maps, so you want to play the first one, and then any of the others that catch your fancy. Specific Maps: Castle Wars: 1142 A Small Problem (Hard): 1361 This map is evil, but I loved it. I'm an odd exception, the ratings do not agree with me. Omni Overload: 1179 The anti-map of the above. Low rating, I loved it, but it's super easy. Omnificient: 822 License 1: 383 The MVP is a tech that rarely gets to be used. Main Menu: 816 This is a map by Foxx. Try beating it normally, then try beating it a second time without triggering the trap. And in case it isn't obvious, omnis are the very best part of Particle Fleet.
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Mar 16, 2020 03:26
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Archipelago (43:02)  To begin with, the improved Thor design. What's changed here is the guppies have been removed, restricting it to operating within our energy range, and a couple of weapons taken off. Replacing them are four more reactors so we now have a total of six, which will hopefully aid it in maintaining firepower.  Your basic island-hopping scenario appears to be on offer here.   A lower-left start, and we spot enemy ships early on. On the other hand we have a plethora of energy pods, a benign emitter to get us a head start on some miring, and the Discharger gets started early as well as some Omnis.  Soon we use the grabber to snag a few more islands, forming a bit of a defensive line behind them. The enemy ships like to patrol just on the other side of these positions from time to time, so advancing any further is more risky.  Focusing here, I forgot for a time about the other direction towards the upper left. There's quite a sizable amount of land there and grabbing this really helped the energy situation. That big central island is quite lucrative and inviting ... to both us and the Particulate threat. Instead of going straight for it though as perhaps I should have done, I sent particulate towards the big central emitter to control it while striking out along the bottom to get the Gem Harvester. One of their cruisers likes to path through that area however, so I had to station both the marauder and Big Nose in the area to provide adequate protection. We did start grabbing the gems though, so it worked.  Next we knocked out the central emitter, then made our landing successful here with the support of the benign emergent stream, and also started expanding a bit with Omnis elsewhere. Our miring attack seemed unstoppable at this stage.  Here's what the top-middle of the map looks like as we focus the fleet in that direction. Eating through the nearly omni-present enemy plasma is a big deal, as well as the continued ship spam, doppels, still over 2k hostile particulate ... and oh look, there's an enemy space station awaiting us. Yay. I gradually worked my way through all the opposition out of its range, and soon began building the Thor again.  Shifting around to the bottom and then right side of the map, we continued plowing through outlying structures, reducing the enemy infrastructure. And then it was time for the big dog to bark.  Once I got it in position, the Thor turned the space station into cosmic dust within seconds, and not very many of them. It tanked the final attack with just a BiLathe as an escort, and still ran out of energy ... but it was close to having enough and was able to keep up a steady fire most of the way. Nothing can stand against it. I still need to make a couple more minor adjustments, but it's close to where I want it to be.  The Nest is our next target, with only one more Inception mission to follow it.
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Mar 18, 2020 02:22
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The Thor Mk2 lasted longer than a minute and defeated the big bad. It was like a double-barrel shotgun that did its job, but still has a slooow reload, and getting into place was still troublesome. The shields didn't even stop the missile barrage taking out the left side. It was bad to leave the sides unarmored. I figure having two energy tanks replacing the two rear generators, take out the MK7 in front of the bridge, replace it with a generator, widen the wings a square, shift the weapons inside a spot, and put armor on the outer sides. See if it lasts for two minutes with shields on.
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Mar 18, 2020 04:14
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I think there are multiple things going on here. Thanks for the ideas, but I'm going try building a Supertanker to supply it first and then see how that works out - though I will think about adding the armor on the wings. The tanker option is an idea that somebody suggested on one the videos, and I do a bit of tanker testing in the next mission with the default ones - they work better out of energy range than I thought (minor spoiler there but meh). Also, I think part of the shield thing is that apparently after reading up on them they work a lot better with them set to On instead of Auto - Auto meaning sometimes they are off and it's possible to take big hits at that time. Dunno if that was happening with the missiles, but it'll suck even more energy with the shield on all the time I'm sure … but perhaps the tanker option can pick up the slack. We'll see. More adjustments may well be needed.
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Mar 18, 2020 23:10
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The Nest (24:37)  So apparently we're going all retro in this one; connect-the-Totems is back. That was tried but failed in CW3, but I'm assuming this one works properly.  I actually forgot that I'd made a few more adjustments here already, since I recorded this mission some while ago. The changes basically are moving a missile launcher from each wing towards the rear of the ship, removing a cannon from each side, and adding a couple more reactors.  The yellowish thing the cursor is aimed at is one of the various Totems. Otherwhise, looks like we're going left-to-right here.  Well before the two-minute mark, a hostile Cruiser wades in. I would eventually realize though that they do a raid-and-retreat pattern through the middle of the map instead of an all-out sustained attack. Because reasons. With a Wolf soon joining it though, they did significant damage to our HQ before I could get up the ships to repel them.  The combat fleet mostly barricaded that middle, gradually pushing out against the plasma, while Omni Reactors were used to allow expansion on the various bits of land. Also visible here is the Gem Harvester towards the bottom, which will be of good use. With 2k+ particulate, emitters that we can't shut down, and a limited fleet, there is ... work to do.  After spending some quality time clearing out more struc, it was time for the omnis to take more land ... against significant resistance. But eventually we got a small hold and gradually expanded it. With a totem on this particular island, it's a must-capture.  Then I started this experiment with the tanker while clearing out more territory at the top of the map. The guppy drones are able to keep it and a couple of ships supplied outside energy range much more effectively than I had previously thought. I needed to try this to see how useful the Thor-supplying Supertanker idea was ... and as it turns out, I think if designed properly it'll work well.  After that, it was on to the lower-right of the map where another large island with a Totem greeted us. It was getting more difficult gradually to fight off the particulate, because there's just as much of it but now concentrated into a smaller area. Here, only a single Omni survived the initial landing but a few more follow-up additions soon gave me a growing patch of mire. By this stage we held a 66-33 edge overall in that department, and it was still increasing.  Here's a good section of that fun particulate mob.  Not fully realizing I'd hit all of the Totems, I kept pushing ... until the last one activated. Quite the laser light show ensued, followed within a few seconds by the victory screen. This was the shortest mission I've had in quite a while.  The 'guest author' is back for the Inception finale. A curious title here intrigues me. I'm half-expecting to endure plot at some point. We'll see what that has in store next week.
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Mar 20, 2020 20:50
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Why not move the particle beams around the bridge further back in case the Thor ends up taking it in the back? You still have open space, but the rear gets more protection range.
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Mar 20, 2020 23:28
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Uh,, because I'm lazy?? In all seriousness, I only put them there because symmetry. That's a small change that couldn't hurt IMO.
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Mar 21, 2020 23:05
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Warp Never Changes (1:13:13) Inception finishes with the Particle Fleet mission that, so far, has taken me the longest to complete. This is largely due to the fact that it took me a while to figure out what exactly is going on. There are instructions ... but I learn a lot better visually than I do descriptively. So this one will probably make more than a few of you cringe. Grab that sedative.  Ummm what? We've been disturbing the universe for a long time now. It's literally what we do. And I'm seeing a lot of land in this map, which is generally good news.  Made the suggested tweak to the Thor, and here is the Supertanker that I intend to supply it with. Spoiler: I built it, but never actually used it because reasons.         I think mocking Ticon is the central point of this briefing. But the secondary one I only partially understood, and I do objectively think it's lacking a bit.  We have a pretty sizable square here, zoomed out. Only the lower-left is lacking opposition at first.  From a bit closer you can make out that we've got some amp gems and quite a few pods about - but there's also some stuff that isn't friendly.  This is the first big threat, at just under two minutes in. An enemy ship similar to our cruiser shows up, and we don't have enough to take it down quickly. The reason that's a problem is the green energy it's sending out to the three 'particulate bombs' nearby.  I sent in what we had and built up a Marauder, but it wasn't nearly enough fast enough. All three blew, and this was the result. Ruination. A second attempt ended fairly similarly. I got a couple of omnis up and expanded energy more quickly, but still didn't have the firepower to stop the same basic scenario.  Third time was the charm. I was a little more efficient in getting things built quickly, but the biggest difference was making the Marauder the first combat ship. It has the firepower to lead an effective attack on our unwanted visitor, and we were able to knock it out in plenty of time. Other explosions happened anyway, elsewhere on the map, but those could be defended gradually as they approached.  They kept sending more ships at us, but we held them off. Got the DischargerXL up and gradually seized control of our local islands, started using the Emitter Control technique recommended in the briefing ... but I couldn't keep my HQ alive. Shortly before this, it was taken down by the doppel that was finished by the BiLathe's armor in the image here. Even in more secluded locations though, it was taken down. With default fleet, the doppels would have been a lot more trouble. The BiLathe really held off that upper-left side admirably.  So about those 'spatial distortions'. Look at the white swirly thing at the bottom middle. It's a 'blue' or friendly one. So is this nearest one on the lower-right of the island to the left. These two are connected; which is to say that the one on the island feeds the one out in space; if it has enough mire to spare. It was sporadic here until recently because the island got attacked and needed to be re-mired. That took me a LONG time to figure out. It's not difficult to discern that a red pairing, which we'll get to, also conducts it. But then there's that maroon-colored one. Near as I can figure, I think they can conduct both ... whereas as the briefing mentioned, blue particulate will attack a red 'spatial distortion' and vice-versa. Got all that? Don't worry, I didn't either. You can see here as well that our defense of the bombs finally failed here. This would eventually take out most of our fleet ... but since I wasn't facing explosions from all over the map at the same time, we were able to survive it. And at least the bombs are fire-and-forget weapons that destroy themselves in the process of blowing up.  After a rebuilding that involved losing the HQ yet again, I was ready to expand. There's lots of hostility elsewhere. Remember that big ball of particulate. At this moment, we're 15+ minutes in to this third try, and there are 3744 hostile particulate on the map. I do believe that's a record for me by a solid thousand.  Lower-right of the map. This was a considerably bad decision. I still made it work, but it wasn't the right move. I was wrong on multiple fronts. One, I didn't understand how the distortions worked. There's four of them here. Two, I thought those connecting lines were struc initially. They are not - they are simply narrow parts of elevated terrain. That means this Omni Invasion takes on extra sources of particulate from elsewhere in the map. And last but not least, remember that big ball from a bit ago? Yeah that one is connected to the central distortion here. *facepalm*. Now the rather amazing part is ... it still worked. It just took a lot longer than it should have, and there was a period where my omnis started losing the battle and I couldn't figure out why.  That Big Nose and the islands surrounding it are center-right on this map. We'll get to that, but what's interesting to me is all the little bits of land around it. It's almost a minefield, only the kind that is totally impassable. They prevent any ship from moving into that area, without forming enough land to be exploited with omnis. I thought that was a nice piece of design.  I sign up Benign Emergent to handle their stupid ship attacks because I'm sick of it occupying so much of my fleet, and start to push upwards along the left side. By the way, notice the maroonish distortion now conducting our particulate, and that spidery bit of land on the right. That's the one that had the mass of particulate around it before we drained it on our previous offensive. There is now 'only' 2500 hostile particulate on the map. It's a slow process with lots of plasma in the way, but swaths of territory are steadily cleared and the addition of a Hammer and Omni schematic most definitely help.  I probably should have just destroyed most of the omnis here to deal with the upper-left a little better, but I felt I couldn't move further after a certain point with the ones I had in place and so I did a bit of omni-hopping here. It took a fair while, but did have the advantage of knocking out more emitters such as this one.  After hemming and hawing, jumping back and forth and generally wasting time divided between two fronts, I went back to the upper-left. Everything was fine up till this last distortion ... which has massive incoming coming in from the particulate stronghold in the upper right. Even a Amped Hammer couldn't hold it off. I eventually had to leave that and a Marauder just to keep it under control, limiting my firepower on the other side of the map.  With less than 600 particulate left on the map, I thought I could handle a frontal assault with the BiLathe on their fortress. They proved me wrong. A second try with somewhat increased fire support again failed to crack their defenses.  The center island with the Big Nose is a bit interesting here. What I ended up having to do is surround it with enough Omni Cannons to lower down the mire. I can't actually land on it, because the spawner and schematic don't permit any room for that. Jerks. You can also see that benign particulate is having an increasing effect. There's almost as much of it as the hostile stuff.  Getting the Big Nose (not yet in use here) and having the spare particulate to throw at it was the decisive blow. Built the Thor & Supertanker but never got to using them by the time they were ready. Once this emitter went down, I was able to eliminate the cannons, eventually make an Omni landing and ... you know the rest. Watch the video if you want details.  That's a lot of particles. A worthy finale to the Inception series, if I do say so myself. From a gameplay POV, I consider it definitely superior overall to the original campaign/Story. Next ... custom maps! I want to try and find a way to deploy the Thor/Supertanker in one of them, but I don't know how feasible that will be. Either way, I'm sure more huge embarassing fails will be on the docket.
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Mar 27, 2020 14:14
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Considering how much trouble emitters give you, maybe you should make a little ship designed to fire so many lasers at once that it locks them down.
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Mar 27, 2020 19:28
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Congrats on wrapping up the rest of the official stuff.
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Mar 27, 2020 19:37
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Scalding Coffee posted:maybe you should make a little ship designed to fire so many lasers at once that it locks them down. I don't think that's a thing in Particle Fleet. I've had a metric crapton of firepower bearing down on emitters, didn't stop them from pumping our more particulate. Definitely willing to be proven wrong though. General Revil posted:Congrats on wrapping up the rest of the official stuff. Thanks - some of your suggestions are next. First one is a GMM - prepare yourself for me not understanding the differences with CSM at first.
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Mar 29, 2020 03:01
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Strategic Sage posted:Thanks - some of your suggestions are next. First one is a GMM - prepare yourself for me not understanding the differences with CSM at first. Not looking forward to it being video only, but definitely looking forward to it.
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Mar 30, 2020 04:33
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 GMM-12 (39:47) Introduction to GMM maps comes with me failing the first time, and taking 50% longer than the median time to finish the second. This is not supposed to be particularly difficult as GMM's go, so I'm glad I didn't take on a harder one for the first round. They are definitely different from CSMs in a couple ways, and it took me a bit to get my head around it. Up Next I'll probably do a more 'conventional' custom map and then possibly come back to another GMM eventually.
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Mar 31, 2020 14:13
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Ugh. So many mistakes. To start off, you usually need Omni reactors and Omni cannons. When you thought the mire was pushing back because you read out of energy, that was because your mire made its way around a corner and started filling up nearer bits of land that it couldn't access earlier. Also, land production increase doesn't make sense when you have 3 energy coming from mines, but only .5 from land. And the gem mine requires energy range increase to reach it. You have to temporarily sacrifice Omni cannons to me able to start mining those gems. There actually is no depth, just production pressure (except for those tightly contained particles after a derelict gets activated, which admittedly is what messed you up on your first attempt). Rule of thumb, an Omni is just barely stronger than a 4 power emitter. Call it equal when doing mental calculations. An Omni with cannons is strong enough to beat a single 4 power emitter, clearing out enough mire quickly enough to survive if it starts from full health. Nooooo. At 22:09. Just open the three gate. GMM maps are all about gate management. Open one, close another. Take a few steps forward, sometimes accept having to sacrifice a little land to make progress elsewhere. It's not really about suicidal Omni charges. Especially for GMM maps, remember that O is the hotkey for building an Omni. Also, you can double click an Omni to select all in a small radius, and you can also drag select to get a group at once. 24:29 Gah. You're being charitable and only launching your Omni at the enemy cannon when it has plenty of ammo, then politely waiting for it to reload before trying another attempt. While you do want to move your Omnis forward, it's almost always better to build them forward. It hurts watching you build Omnis safely back in your rear and try to advance then against cannons that can easily blow them up, when you can just build an Omni in range of the cannon and convert it without having to fly anywhere. As you saw, the endgame in most GMM maps is to just open all the gates and win. Not always though. In the later ones, the authors start putting in end game challenges. Man, that was a long wall of text. I did enjoy it despite being frustrated at you. You'll get better with more of these maps under your belt I'm sure.
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Mar 31, 2020 18:38
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GeneralRevil posted:it's almost always better to build them forward. It hurts watching you build Omnis safely back in your rear and try to advance then against cannons that can easily blow them up, when you can just build an Omni in range of the cannon and convert it without having to fly anywhere. The cannons won't just shoot it while it's building? Because that's how it works with literally everything else I can think of in the game. Re 22:09 - There was some reason why I thought that would backfire, but I can't remember exactly what it was at the moment. General Revil posted:Rule of thumb, an Omni is just barely stronger than a 4 power emitter. Call it equal when doing mental calculations. That's definitely useful, I didn't know what that balance was.
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Mar 31, 2020 19:50
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I prefer the puzzles that involve ship battles.
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Mar 31, 2020 20:38
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Strategic Sage posted:The cannons won't just shoot it while it's building? Because that's how it works with literally everything else I can think of in the game. Nope. Incomplete omnis are invisible to enemy fire. They can only be destroyed manually, or by accidentally being hit by a red particle or red mire. They maintain that immunity to enemy fire while on land. In fact, you can notice an omni "launches" if you build it in space. It starts "landed" (despite there being no land), and then lifts up a little to show it's not on land. If it's built on land, it stays on land and maintains bullet immunity the entire time.
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Mar 31, 2020 21:26
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General Revil posted:Incomplete omnis are invisible to enemy fire. They can only be destroyed manually, or by accidentally being hit by a red particle or red mire. They maintain that immunity to enemy fire while on land. I've seen them get destroyed on land by enemy emergent as well, but aside from that … I really, really dislike that it works this way. But I do suppose I should abuse it in the future. Scalding Coffee posted:I prefer the puzzles that involve ship battles. We'll have more of those also.
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Apr 2, 2020 17:58
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Strategic Sage posted:I've seen them get destroyed on land by enemy emergent as well, but aside from that … I really, really dislike that it works this way. But I do suppose I should abuse it in the future. Yes. They're vulnerable to emergent as well. You will hate that if you ever play GMM-4 (I think).
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Apr 2, 2020 18:41
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My Life For Mire (44:00) planetfall, who gave us some Inception maps, was also apparently an early prolific map-maker. Going back to the early days, I selected this the 19th map in the database. I couldn't resist the title. Emergent play a prominent role here as well. Up Next I'll return to General Revil's list of suggestions, and see if I can't fit in something there. Maybe one of FOXX's maps.
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Apr 9, 2020 14:10
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They seem to be following the same rules for directing Emergent, which could allow you to ambush with Lathes. They were so focused on your fleet that they left the rear exposed. You could have dropped a Lathe to take out the rear emitters and fight that island.
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Apr 9, 2020 17:43
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It bugs me that you decide to go with land production increase when you have more mine production. Those two techs just double the amount of energy from mired land or mines respectively. So, if you have more land production, get land production increase. If you have more mine production, go with mine production increase. There was also the amp gem in the top left corner that you never picked up. Man, you're losing a ton of ships to enemy cannons. I'm back here yelling at you to be more aggressive with the omnis. This level is annoying because of how much emergent is there to destroy your omnis (and the incomplete ones as well, emergent is one of the things that can destroy incomplete omnis). General Revil fucked around with this message at 16:58 on Apr 10, 2020 |
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Apr 9, 2020 20:20
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I am starting to think that shields either work for just half the weapons that the enemy uses or it reduces damage you take.
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Apr 9, 2020 20:26
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Scalding Coffee posted:They were so focused on your fleet that they left the rear exposed. You could have dropped a Lathe to take out the rear emitters and fight that island. Possibly, but it would have taken at least 2-3 of them and I'm not sure it would have been worth the effort since I needed to eventually surround the big block of land to make much progress anyway. On the shields … I keep forgetting to try to put them set to On instead of Auto. Auto apparently has … issues with activating right after it takes a hit or something like that so some impacts still get through. General Revil posted:It bugs me that you decide to go with land production increase when you have more mine production. Seemed clear to me I was going to have more land production in the long-run though, and that way I don't have to remember to switch them later, and then wait for it to ramp up to maximum at that stage. Point taken on the Amp Gem, but as many Omnis as I'm getting killed it seems counterproductive to me to be more aggressive with them. If anything, I was definitely too aggressive in some spots.
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Apr 10, 2020 18:33
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Strategic Sage posted:Seemed clear to me I was going to have more land production in the long-run though, and that way I don't have to remember to switch them later, and then wait for it to ramp up to maximum at that stage. Even at the end of the mission, you had 24 base mine production and 21 base land production. Unless the map says something about boosted energy from mired land, mines can easily outproduce mired land.
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Apr 12, 2020 00:24
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Struc Needed (56:42) This is a rather uniquely scripted map by FOXX, first one of his I've done. The goal is essentially to expand a small starting grid of struc across the map and conquer in that way. I also managed to screw up by recording audio with the wrong, lower-quality microphone. This is also a mission that has convinced me to change something about my approach due to the way I learn things. Even after reading it fairly carefully, I really didn't absorb the briefing on this one - I recommend starting in just before the six-minute mark for that reason. I'm a lot better when I see something in action or write it down; hearing/reading it once just doesn't penetrate my cranium. This isn't a new observation, but the start of this map was painful enough to convince me that I need to start taking physical notes during briefings like this so I don't waste a bunch of time 'figuring out' stuff that has already been explained to me. So we'll see if that works better going forward. Up Next I think I'll throw in another GMM map next week.
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Apr 16, 2020 14:21
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Ugh. So much energy struggles. Seeing how energy starved you were, mine production increase would have been a good option at the start, at least until you got a bunch more mines captured. Also, you were really lacking in energy range, both to reach the next mines, and to power the Amp Gem factory. The Amp Gem Factory started powering up once it was inside energy range, first when you added the relay, and then once you got the second energy mine. You have two Foxx 17s. If you're advancing on two fronts (or at least leaving a threatening outpost on one front while advancing on a second), it makes sense to guard both fronts with the Foxx 17s to protect against stunners. Omnis can be built by click and drag to make it faster. Also, I know other people have been ragging on you for this, but if you've got a nice buffer of energy production, and your energy storage is full, it's time to build more ships. Your lathe really needs some warship support. It needs those Cannons nearby to destroy enemy ships and draw fire. Those Cannons can also prepare the ground for omni landing, but you need to build the Cannons before you can do that! You made the classic Emergent + Mk7 blunder. If you set your emergent to go towards and enemy with a mk7, they will start shooting heavy cannon all over the map. Also, if you're fighting a bunch of mk7s with a single mk7, you need it to have an amp gem for the greater range so you can snipe instead of exchanging broadsides.
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Apr 16, 2020 17:45
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Strategic Sage posted:This isn't a new observation, but the start of this map was painful enough to convince me that I need to start taking physical notes during briefings like this so I don't waste a bunch of time 'figuring out' stuff that has already been explained to me. So we'll see if that works better going forward. It's always great when an LP also becomes a journey of self-exploration.
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Apr 16, 2020 20:15
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General Revil posted:I know other people have been ragging on you for this, but if you've got a nice buffer of energy production, and your energy storage is full, it's time to build more ships. I'm going to repeat myself here as well. The issue isn't not knowing this; it's that I don't have the high-AMP skillset required to keep a reasonable commentary going, track Amp Gems, ship movement, several aspects of energy management, everything going on with particulate spread on the map, other threats like ships, doppels, mire, who-the-heck-knows-what-else, decide what and where to do next, and so on in real time. I also don't think CW is interesting as a maximizing, speed-run-ish, regularly-pausing type of game; there are just so many others far better suited to that. And I know I'm in a minority on that point probably, but you do not want me to play the game that way. It would become drudgery which is a great way to turn someone into not liking the game anymore. I do appreciate the suggestions you make, esp. since fairly often they are new to me. But the regular mistakes aspects - it's just a casualty of the game requiring about 3x the brain bandwidth that I have to play well in realtime. I think it's fair to say that I think well in small doses, if you know what I mean. Some people are great at competitive RTS, blitz chess, ORB, etc. I'm not one of them. I don't see any useful alternative there, and I have been considering from time to time whether or not it's even still a good idea for me to keep playing this given how different it is from the direction my other content is going. Perhaps I should take that more seriously … *shrug* GeneralRevil posted:The Amp Gem Factory started powering up once it was inside energy range, first when you added the relay, and then once you got the second energy mine. Yep, I noticed this at the usual time - too late to do anything about it  GeneralRevil posted:You made the classic Emergent + Mk7 blunder. So classic that I was completely unaware of it. Steam says I've played PF for about 30 hours. Carbon dioxide posted:It's always great when an LP also becomes a journey of self-exploration. Thanks! That's one of those suprises-that-shouldn't-be for me, the number of things I've learned by hook or by crook over the last couple of years.
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Apr 17, 2020 04:25
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Strategic Sage posted:<Common mistakes> I do really want to see you continue because I love this series, and I have enjoyed seeing you experience it. Strategic Sage posted:Yep, I noticed this at the usual time - too late to do anything about it You can blame Murphy for that. I'm a little surprised by that. You've been far more aggressive in using Benign Emergent compared to me, so I would have figured you would have encountered it by now. On the other hand, there isn't really a high density of enemy Mk7s in the regular campaign, and it's only custom maps that that really takes off. Some custom maps actually have friendly emitters near enemy Mk7 heavy ships, and they just randomly send Mk7 shots flying across the map.
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Apr 17, 2020 21:10
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