Custom Map: Nice Job 17: The Gamer

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This topic is for discussion of map: Nice Job 17: The Gamer


Author: UpperKEES

Desc:
Ever dreamt of making money by playing games? This is your chance! Don't worry if you're building with a slight deficit for a while; the few shots your blasters can fire should be enough to maintain your position. You might need a few restarts to get it all right. Recognize the map within this map?

[UpperKEES]

Title:	Nice Job 17: The Gamer
CW:US	(An easy version of) this map has been selected for CW:User Space! Are you able to finish the hard edition as well?
Difficulty:	Hard
Creeper type:	Land only
Remarks:	Ever dreamt of making money by playing games? This is your chance! Don't worry if you're building with a slight deficit for a while; the few shots your blasters can fire should be enough to maintain your position. You might need a few restarts to get it all right. Recognize the map within this map?
Description:	Why didn't you think of that before? Gaming is what you like, so why not earn your money playing games all day? So you paid $10 to subscribe for the OCWC (Open Creeper World Championships). You can earn $10,000 by winning this tournament. You went to bed early this time and you feel confident at the moment you take your seat between thousands of other gamers. You even recognize a few familiar faces from the photographs at the KnuckleCracker forums. "Hey Spiffen! Good luck man!" Then the CW screen appears and you can't believe your eyes.... "Oh no! Tucana once more!" Who said making money is easy?
Download page:	Nice Job 17: The Gamer
Full size screen shot:
More maps:	Apply here for another job ;)

[NNR_Alex]

fun man, terrible score, i'll have to try it again later.

[UpperKEES]

Heheh, I did expect some rather low scores for this one to be honest. When I tried to set my own score to submit for approval of this map, I completed it in about 20:30 minutes, but then I found out the score hadn't submitted correctly, so I had to try again. :( The good thing was that I improved myself by about 1:15. :)

I just noticed that JM also improved his (or her) score and obtained a score almost equal to mine, so I'm sure even faster times are possible.

Spoiler

I think I've overbuilt a bit during my attempt (I went up to 13 energy before I went for the totems :P).

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[NNR_Alex]

i'd have an easier time now for sure that i figured out a few things.  i went for the artifact first because i thought it might contain some hints or something, nope.  Also found out getting to the reactor tech went a little quicker than i thought it would.

[UpperKEES]

Spoiler

Yeah, getting that tech is crucial for completing the map, so this had to be possible with only 3-4 units of energy per second (about the maximum you can get by only building collectors on the available space). It's the first thing I do when I've secured my position and collectors.

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Wow, so you were able to get to the artifact without the aid of reactors? This means probably more different solutions are possible than I imagined.... Did you have enough energy to power your blasters? Apparently yes....

Spoiler

Next time you can also have a look in the Map Editor (here available for free) to check that artifact. This will save you a lot of time and prevent nasty surprises, unless you prefer to play a map without that knowledge of course. I often use it to check the intensity of emitters and to have a look at upcoming spore waves, so I know what to build and when. It reduces the element of exploring a bit though.

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[NNR_Alex]

Did you have enough energy to power your blasters? Apparently yes....

lol define 'power your blasters'  i don't know what my energy collection was off the top of my head, i'll discribe things as best as i remember, this'll give some people a few hints if they havn't gathered as much.

i just used collectors to rush the tech, after that and they started to go poof i was in a bit of a bind, i didn't have any weapons built yet and eventually my collectors on the ground got trashed.  i got a mortar up and running and a blaster, the mortar i had to batter power on the frame of the computer to keep the frame from being totally covered in creeper, was able to clear enough away that i could move the blaster so i could relay from the right mouse button to the frame and keep the connection stable, i also built another mortar on the mouse, this way the city would stay save and i could control the creeper on the screen as well.  from there it was slow expantion and a deficit almost the whole time, but as long as my mortars got off a shot every few seconds  the important areas didn't flood over, i got a few more blasters built that would do the 'no power shot' you know the one i'm talking about, like 3 shots, pause, another 3 shots, etc, and yeah that's exacally what they were doing when i got the artifact.  turns out a third mortar and a few battery powered fully charged blasters is what got me the reactor.

[UpperKEES]

Ow, that's really the hard way! I never thought of leaving the desk itself empty and use relays to connect the hardware. Maybe I should give it another go to find out if that saves me precious energy. Well done (regardless of your completion time)!

As you may have noticed in the comments for The Collector, I hardly use mortars at all.

Spoiler

Same for this map; I used blasters only. When I was playing around last night and just trying to stay alive on the mouse, I had only one collector and a mortar (after saving the pod of course). To my surprise this didn't only work fine, but it also showed me that a mortar doesn't use more than 1 unit of energy per second, while I always had the impression that it used at least 2. :o Probably I often watched my depletion levels during the initial charge, which costs a lot of energy. Nice to find out after 5-6 months of playing CW.... :P I guess I should reconsider using them more often.

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Spoiler

By the way: in my final attempt I got the reactor tech after about 6:15 minutes of gameplay. From that moment I've been building reactors one by one with a deficit (between 20 and 40 most of the time) for over 5 minutes before all weapons got fully charged!

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[SPIFFEN]

LOL im getting worse in this game , cant event save the pod  ???
Might need some more fluid first , carusell water  :P

Im honoured that you used my name =)
To bad i payed 10$ , dont think i'll win the tournament  ;)
But it is'nt over yet =)

[snowmaker (JM)]

You can hold down the right side of the screen with one mortar and a blaster. After the mortar is up, you don't even need the blaster to protect the mouse  ;)

[SPIFFEN]

You can hold down the right side of the screen with one mortar and a blaster. After the mortar is up, you don't even need the blaster to protect the mouse  ;)

Am i the only one that play this map with the POD in it ?
Right now i cant manage to save the POD , so i need some hints to how to do that first =P

[UpperKEES]

You even recognize a few familiar faces from the photographs at the KnuckleCracker forums.

"Hey Spiffen! Good luck man!"

Im honoured that you used my name =)

For people who don't understand, see here. ;D

LOL im getting worse in this game , cant event save the pod  ???

Am i the only one that play this map with the POD in it ?
Right now i cant manage to save the POD , so i need some hints to how to do that first =P

Heheh!  :D

Spoiler

Have you tried just building a string of collectors to it? (Don't build anything else but 1 or 2 more collectors when you have the spare energy.)

[close]

To bad i payed 10$ , dont think i'll win the tournament  ;)
But it is'nt over yet =)

Neither do I at the moment, as max has beaten my score by almost 2 minutes. Luckily the tournament allows multiple tries, so it's indeed not over yet. :P Time to try some new strategies; love that!

You can hold down the right side of the screen with one mortar and a blaster. After the mortar is up, you don't even need the blaster to protect the mouse  ;)

Yeah, I guess I should try to use a mortar as well, although I'm not too worried about OC and the mouse, but more about the network connections....

Welcome to the forums by the way! :)

[SPIFFEN]

Heheh! Have you tried just building a string of collectors to it? (Don't build anything else but 1 or 2 more collectors when you have the spare energy.)

LOL that worked , i was sure i needed an blasters to make the pod stay safe =P

[UpperKEES]

What also worked is my new strategy! 8) I was able to shave 7 minutes off my previous score.... (I played it from a different computer, so unfortunately the number of missions still displays 1.) I made some mistakes, so probably 1 minute faster should be possible.

Normally I'm giving the tips here, but this time I have to thank both Alex and JM for their useful comments. Glad I'm still learning something about this game. :) Also glad that those 10,000 bucks are coming my way again. ;)

[Sqaz]

Yay, 18min on my first try, I could've topped of a minute if I'd have seen that artifact (I was already thinking the totems didn't work).

I liked this map, very nice and a bit hectic start.
But why can't you move that city, I always like a movable city as that gives me a feeling of freedom.