Hahaha! That's great!
Edit, I'm keeping tabs on the scores given... It's dismal:
Vote 1: 1
Vote 2: 1
Vote 3: 1
Vote 4: 1
Vote 5: 1
There's a ship pickup under your defense canon (it's a combatant ship)
Just finished it, tough old fight. I took a long way round and:
Went up the leftt hand side with omnis to get the tanker tech top left, tales a few goes with all 12 omnis but not too hard.
For some reason then decided to attack from the left before noticng that the Progenoriebob can be taken with omnis. This was made easier as the enemy guns did not seem to hold much ammo and emptied very quickly
Overall good battle but your spoilers were very much needed!
An otherwise alright mission with some problems.
General thoughts:
I'm pretty sure this mission is mostly meant to be hard. That's fine if that's what you're into.
The ship designs are pretty ok overall. I didn't find the shark to be too particularly useful and the blast ships had little worth due to the layout of the map. As a big note, one of the blast ships has a different loadout than the others, but you can't know this until you build it. The combat ship and combat lathe are nice, but you don't need them to win the map. They do make the map easier though.
There's a hidden (redacted) under (redacted). I have no problem with hidden secrets, but a well executed hidden secret needs a clue. I would say that this is even more important for missions in a game genre that doesn't typically have hidden secrets. Even a subtle clue is good, but here there is just nothing.
Now those are issues, but here's the biggest issue on this map. Unless you have a certain graphical setting (particle coloring by health, defaults to off), you have no idea that there is a weak area you can clean out. There are no other clues to this fact, so it is not at all apparent that it's even an option. Unless you're just plain lucky, read the spoilers on this thread (I didn't), or just fail the mission repeatedly until you figure it out, it very much feels like the author of this level just throws sucker punch after sucker punch at you. Once you do figure it out, the rest of the level is tough, but relatively straight forward.
My Rating:
6/10
My times:
1 hour 40ish minutes first (successful) run
40ish minute second run
18:54.0 Third run (current record)
Difficulty:
Hard as nails.
Speed Run Hint:
You actually need very little to finish this level. On my last run, I did it with the fishnet, a trio of combatants, and 8 omnis. I'm pretty positive that it can be done even faster.
I gave up on the big gun, and just rammed the ship from behind when it came.
Also, the lifetimes on those tough-particle Emitters again make them easier to take with particle beams than actual guns.
I wonder what the end would be like if you actually attacked the top, rather than the Progenitor, but I can't be bothered replaying to find out. (Why is it there, by the way?)
I just tested, and the final base fell just as easily as the forefront Emitters.
Omnis to the sides (only for the cannons), then let the Doppels and the big ship sit in the middle being useless. Charge up, and have enough particle beams to hold the storm off an amped CombatLathe as it takes out the Emitters first, and the other structures later. Lifetimes mean that the perticles don't build up to fatal levels. Finally, retake the middle (ramming is quite satisfying), clean up the plasma, grab the other ship plans, mire everything, (completionism) and then lathe the Progenitor.
So I'm now interested in what ye who play for time did if not doing that to the Emitters?
The start was great.
I figured out I could relocate after losing once. But if you wouldn't realize you can escape to the bottom right I imagine it would be very frustrating. Still, it's a hard mode map... I'm not sure a hint would or wouln't be warranted.
After that,
I never bothered retaking the center as it wasn't needed. I would have liked to, bit of a victorious comeback after being chased off, but it would actually complicate things having to spend the energy to hold it, and having new doppels pop up at the top while fighting there. Better to just let the enemy sit on it and stay out of my way. Perhaps it would have been better if the doppels were built mid or top left? You couldn't get at them there at the start anyway but you could then wipe them before the final assault.
In the end,
progenitors almost always seem like an anticlimax to me. There's a heavily defended enemy base, a load of emitters spewing particles, patrols, etcetera... and I just rush the side a couple of times with omnis and all of it falls. On one hand it feels like I've skipped part of the map, on the other hand it would feel like I'm being inefficient if I would ignore it and try it another way, and I don't like that either.
I find the best and most satisfying use of progenitors is to blow everything to hell once you finish the final assault and would otherwise get in a mop up phase.
But even with the criticism it's still a pretty good map, 7/10.