This topic is for discussion of map #73: Waterlogged (http://knucklecracker.com/creeperworld2/viewmaps.php?mapid=73)
(http://knucklecracker.com/creeperworld2/thumb.php?id=73) (http://knucklecracker.com/creeperworld2/viewmaps.php?mapid=73)
Author: Mike19283 (http://knucklecracker.com/creeperworld2/viewmaps.php?author=Mike19283)
Desc:
A rainstorm and a burst water pipe... Stop the storm and shut down the underground pipe before the earth is completely ruined!
There must be a simple catch to this. After I finished the drain pipe, it took forever to clear away the cloud. Some parts had over 200M in creeper at that location. Turned into a slug fest where I had to walk away from the computer and let it run.
Nope, that's it. Just another slugfest.
There IS a catch so to speak. An easier way to clear out the remaining creeper. When you're up in the northwestern section of the map, set up shields to protect that corner. If you have a microrift, then you have no more need for all the blasters that fought your way up the storm, so you can save energy there. Use a repulsor to force a huge chunk of creeper out of the cloud, then turn the repulsor off. Clean up the creeper, repeat. It's much faster than waiting for mortars to take care of things on their own, however on my playthrough I didn't discover this tactic until much later xD
I haven't been able to achieve better than a stalemate after clearing out the lower part of the map. Every time I try to push upwards the drop splashes kill my weapons.
You didn't attack the bottom creeper nearly fast enough, it's possible to save a lot of the decaying terrain for build space which will make that very slow to move forward from - personally, I opted for a very unconventional strategy (some of the buildings I have are hidden by the bar at the top):
Spoiler
(http://i.imgur.com/37xAp.png)
I cleared out the pipe from there, then attacked the cloud from above and worked my way down.
I tried going after the bottom creeper faster and got overrun in the middle every time.
It helps a lot to build a microrift down at the bottom and farther up, that way you only need 1 repulsor, and later on 1 launcher to support it to defend the bottom (like the way I have it in my screenshot) - it's a lot more energy efficient than trying to hold off the middle. For the other base you only need 2 launchers if positioned properly, and you can defend both sides virtually indefinitely off of about 4 energy per second - the rest can go towards attacking/building up.
Quote from: Kithros on August 29, 2011, 10:08:44 AM
You didn't attack the bottom creeper nearly fast enough, it's possible to save a lot of the decaying terrain for build space which will make that very slow to move forward from - personally, I opted for a very unconventional strategy (some of the buildings I have are hidden by the bar at the top):
I cleared out the pipe from there, then attacked the cloud from above and worked my way down.
You always amaze with your unconventional approaches. :)
I think your timing skills are unparalleled.
I don't fully understand what you were saying in your opening sentence. I save a lot more of the lower terrain, and have sufficient energy, but even so can't break through the "umbrella". The launchers simply can't target deep enough into the denser creeper to make a difference and the "raindrops' keep diverting their targeting to the surface of the "umbrella." So your alternate strategy seems a viable one, but I lack the timing to accomplish this.
I too can fight the creeper to a stalemate, but that's as far as I can get.
Going to give it another try by moving the LS, but I doubt I'm going to succeed. :(
Quote from: Grauniad on August 29, 2011, 10:52:06 AM
Quote from: Kithros on August 29, 2011, 10:08:44 AM
You didn't attack the bottom creeper nearly fast enough, it's possible to save a lot of the decaying terrain for build space which will make that very slow to move forward from - personally, I opted for a very unconventional strategy (some of the buildings I have are hidden by the bar at the top):
I cleared out the pipe from there, then attacked the cloud from above and worked my way down.
You always amaze with your unconventional approaches. :)
I think your timing skills are unparalleled.
I don't fully understand what you were saying in your opening sentence. I save a lot more of the lower terrain, and have sufficient energy, but even so can't break through the "umbrella". The launchers simply can't target deep enough into the denser creeper to make a difference and the "raindrops' keep diverting their targeting to the surface of the "umbrella." So your alternate strategy seems a viable one, but I lack the timing to accomplish this.
I too can fight the creeper to a stalemate, but that's as far as I can get.
Going to give it another try by moving the LS, but I doubt I'm going to succeed. :(
If you have enough energy production (in all honesty it probably would still be possible without saving any of the decayable terrain - but it would be extremely slow) I think the best strategy would be to slowly crawl forward building shields in front of you to defend from the drops - I think there might be enough time inbetween some of the drops to be able to build some shields (you'll want to use mostly blasters and repulsors with a few launchers to support - until you get up to the cloud where that pretty much reverses). If you ever run low on energy, make sure you have a full shield wall in front of you, and turn off all the blasters/repulsors to get back to max energy (keep thelaunchers firing though) and then begin pushing again once you have enough energy stored.
Another way
Rain on the left, a row will not be attacked.
build microrift in the walls on both sides.
(launcher can be attacked by microrift.)
From this road, Direct attack to the top.
close Emitter.
Then clean clouds, ignore the rain.
I've finally written off this map.
Perhaps there's something I just don't "get," but unless I use Kithros' method, which I'm not disciplined enough to do, then eventually when I get to the top and destroy the emitter, I'm stuck with this huge cloud of creeper and because of how that cloud is constructed, all weapons fire at it far below their maximum efficiency. So basically then one has to sit there and fight a war of attrition against the cloud for an insufferably long time.
I've even experimented with sending up repulsors to disrupt the fields forming the cloud, but then one has to fight the entire uphill battle again, which is boring.
So at about 80 minutes into this map, I'm calling it quits.
Quote from: Grauniad on September 02, 2011, 08:09:57 PM
I've finally written off this map.
Perhaps there's something I just don't "get," but unless I use Kithros' method, which I'm not disciplined enough to do, then eventually when I get to the top and destroy the emitter, I'm stuck with this huge cloud of creeper and because of how that cloud is constructed, all weapons fire at it far below their maximum efficiency. So basically then one has to sit there and fight a war of attrition against the cloud for an insufferably long time.
I've even experimented with sending up repulsors to disrupt the fields forming the cloud, but then one has to fight the entire uphill battle again, which is boring.
So at about 80 minutes into this map, I'm calling it quits.
Yeah, this map should have used level 4 directional fields surrounding the cloud for one (so the creeper flows around the cloud instead of getting stuck in pin fields), and it could've done with using a 20M emitter instead of a 200M emitter without affecting the gameplay much up until the slog of killing the cloud (which is purely tedious).
Finally finished it. I managed a wall crawl up the left side using blasters, repulsors, micro rifts, and launchers mostly firing through the micro rifts. (I had to let the creeper close up behind me as I went.) Once I had the top left cleared out I was able to walk away and let my launchers work for quite a while. (about 20 minutes game time) ::) and only needed to redeploy once the inside of the cloud emptied out to stop the rain. (With the rain and resulting pool gone I was able to put reactors on top of the umbrella for a bit more power and beacons on the right wall to get the entire cloud in range. Then move weapons around to hit all remaining parts of the cloud rim.)
Quote from: Kithros on September 02, 2011, 08:52:46 PM
Quote from: Grauniad on September 02, 2011, 08:09:57 PM
I've finally written off this map.
Perhaps there's something I just don't "get," but unless I use Kithros' method, which I'm not disciplined enough to do, then eventually when I get to the top and destroy the emitter, I'm stuck with this huge cloud of creeper and because of how that cloud is constructed, all weapons fire at it far below their maximum efficiency. So basically then one has to sit there and fight a war of attrition against the cloud for an insufferably long time.
I've even experimented with sending up repulsors to disrupt the fields forming the cloud, but then one has to fight the entire uphill battle again, which is boring.
So at about 80 minutes into this map, I'm calling it quits.
Yeah, this map should have used level 4 directional fields surrounding the cloud for one (so the creeper flows around the cloud instead of getting stuck in pin fields), and it could've done with using a 20M emitter instead of a 200M emitter without affecting the gameplay much up until the slog of killing the cloud (which is purely tedious).
Well, level 4 directional fields would never have held the creeper in, it would have overflowed past the fields. I should have used weaker pins is what I should've done =/ sorry for the headache on that one, it didn't seem too bad when I played through originally. Twas my first map, and I'll take what I learned from this and make more efficient maps in the future! =)
Also, kudos to your for completely destroying my time! I never thought of doing it that way!
Quote from: mike19283 on September 05, 2011, 12:35:29 AM
Quote from: Kithros on September 02, 2011, 08:52:46 PM
Quote from: Grauniad on September 02, 2011, 08:09:57 PM
I've finally written off this map.
Perhaps there's something I just don't "get," but unless I use Kithros' method, which I'm not disciplined enough to do, then eventually when I get to the top and destroy the emitter, I'm stuck with this huge cloud of creeper and because of how that cloud is constructed, all weapons fire at it far below their maximum efficiency. So basically then one has to sit there and fight a war of attrition against the cloud for an insufferably long time.
I've even experimented with sending up repulsors to disrupt the fields forming the cloud, but then one has to fight the entire uphill battle again, which is boring.
So at about 80 minutes into this map, I'm calling it quits.
Yeah, this map should have used level 4 directional fields surrounding the cloud for one (so the creeper flows around the cloud instead of getting stuck in pin fields), and it could've done with using a 20M emitter instead of a 200M emitter without affecting the gameplay much up until the slog of killing the cloud (which is purely tedious).
Well, level 4 directional fields would never have held the creeper in, it would have overflowed past the fields. I should have used weaker pins is what I should've done =/ sorry for the headache on that one, it didn't seem too bad when I played through originally. Twas my first map, and I'll take what I learned from this and make more efficient maps in the future! =)
Also, kudos to your for completely destroying my time! I never thought of doing it that way!
Level 4 directional fields can hold any amount of creeper back - and the level of pin fields wouldn't matter either because pin fields always hold any amount of creeper except when moving - pin fields only carry a certain amount of creeper along with them, but they will stop any amount of creeper from moving.
That said, it's a decent concept for a map and except for the part where you have to kill the cloud off it was pretty fun.
how are you guys crawling up the left wall? there are bursts of creeper that occur along the path I'm creating that kill the microrifts.
It's a slog, but possible. Use repulsors and blasters. Blasters can survive one square away from the wall once you are 4 or 5 spaces up the wall and out of the deep pool of creeper, IIRC.
Got it done! Thanks for the tip, I was able to dump 7 blasters into the creeper a ways above my existing set and build a minirift in the middle of them. Then it is just a matter of working your way up, setting up some offense around the cloud at the top, and taking an extended lunch break.