I was looking at the steam achievements and discovered a shocking fact.
You can beat the level 'early'. But I couldn't figure out how I could possibly do it 'earlier'.
It's only then that the shoe dropped. I've never seen how Farbor is supposed to turn out, because I've always completed it early! I blow up the ships to give me enough time to do this prior to the construction ever being finished, because I believed once they finished construction, you immediately lost! That means the map is vastly easier than my first impressions led me to believe!
Amazing.
I hate to shatter your dream but for me farbor is hell
I can't stop the construction or the ultra totem
By the time ive gotten off the starter islands I've lost
I know how to take out the ships(snipers) but after that I'm stumped
Help is apreceated
That doesn't shatter my dream at all, but if you give me a moment I'll give you some tips, since I have to go play it again anyway to get the achievements.
You should watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=au003_QiYSU
and this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-IQKL7Poq8
only 2nd is my game but if you have question about both I can reply.
It amazing what a couple of Bertha on powerzones can do. It also funny, first time I finally beat it, I could just barely beat it on time, now I have to really mess up to not beat it before they collect enough ore. Also when trying to take out the emitter on the start island, AC is your true friend, hehe.
You know, back when CW3 was in beta, I practically coined the idea that a Bertha on a PZ is like a main gun on a WWII Battleship and I once posted a link to one of the opening scenes for the movie "Windtalkers" where Battleships were firing on entrenched positions during the invasion of Saipan.
BTW, I found out last time I played Farbor that you don't even need to take the other islands to get the central area; you just need a sizable force of Pulse Cannons, Mortars, a Sprayer or two, and maybe clear the area with a Bertha or Two. (I still made use of Snipers at the time.)
In order to do that though, you may want to focus on making reactors on the Top Left start and a few Guppies while focusing on Weapons on the Bottom Right start. (The guppies will reinforce energy there and there will be a high enough demand for that.)
What happen if you 'destroy the ore processors before the prism ship launches'?
If the ship can't be built, then you finish it early.
AND It goes BOOOM
earth shattering kaboom
Ship shattering, actually... ;) ;D
I don't like Andere:Farbor.
I hate Farbor.
Quote from: kon on July 21, 2014, 08:59:47 AM
I don't like Andere:Farbor.
I hate Farbor.
THat would explain some of the maps you submitted to Colonial Space. :P
Quote from: Mefi on June 20, 2014, 03:52:23 AMhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=au003_QiYSU
Glad I got this game installed again, and glad I got a tip on bloody Farbor. I always have trouble with that planet.
I didn't really think this map was THAT hard, beat it second try (first try I forgot there were spores to look out for...). The campaign overall wasn't really that challenging for me, but it was nicely written and was a nice introduction to the gameplay.
Been working in Tormented Space recently... now those are what I call some decently challenging maps ^^ Check out those worlds if you think Farbor is difficult.
Recently I saw some videos on youtube about game and level design and I think I know where the problem with Farbor comes form.
While the level itself is rather easy for an advanced player, many new players struggle with it. The reason is that the "first-order optimal strategy"
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EitZRLt2G3w (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EitZRLt2G3w)) doesn't really work for Farbor. The best strategy for someone who learns the game is the "build a line of shields and dump a nullifier at the end", which is easy to use and can beat about 90% for CW3 levels. So when the player suddenly is forced to abandon it they don't have an alternate strategy, which most of the advanced players( and some of the new ones that don't have the problem with this level ) know and can use.
The other problem is the "iteration time" that is the time between a failure and a next attempt. Farbor(especially 2cond stage) is a long map. While that additional time makes it easier for a new player to win the level, it also makes the failure harder. If you don't beat Farbor by the second try, you will probably get frustrated. You pay through the first time, fail the first stage, and because your units are all over the place and you don't have the energy infrastructure in place there is a high chance you fail the second stage too. Then you restart and aim for the second stage victory which is far easier. But let's say you lost that too. You can't easily try again, because you have to replay about 20 min before you are at a point where you can try again.
If there was another level like Farbor (in it requiring a similar strategy to win) but took only 5 min to win/loose, it would teach most players the skiills thy need to beat Farbor, while allowing them to find out the strategy by themselves, as it would be fast to try out a diffrent strategy each time you try to beat it.
Metroid in Alpha - MadMag can be an example of rather short iteration time. If you manage to hold out for the first few spore waves(about 3-5 min) you will probably win the map unless you mess up something big. Later on even if you fail some assault, you can quickly rebuild your forces and try again.
Quote from: pawel345 on September 30, 2014, 01:05:22 PM
Recently I saw some videos on youtube about game and level design and I think I know where the problem with Farbor comes form.
While the level itself is rather easy for an advanced player, many new players struggle with it. The reason is that the "first-order optimal strategy"
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EitZRLt2G3w (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EitZRLt2G3w)) doesn't really work for Farbor. The best strategy for someone who learns the game is the "build a line of shields and dump a nullifier at the end", which is easy to use and can beat about 90% for CW3 levels. So when the player suddenly is forced to abandon it they don't have an alternate strategy, which most of the advanced players( and some of the new ones that don't have the problem with this level ) know and can use.
The other problem is the "iteration time" that is the time between a failure and a next attempt. Farbor(especially 2cond stage) is a long map. While that additional time makes it easier for a new player to win the level, it also makes the failure harder. If you don't beat Farbor by the second try, you will probably get frustrated. You pay through the first time, fail the first stage, and because your units are all over the place and you don't have the energy infrastructure in place there is a high chance you fail the second stage too. Then you restart and aim for the second stage victory which is far easier. But let's say you lost that too. You can't easily try again, because you have to replay about 20 min before you are at a point where you can try again.
If there was another level like Farbor (in it requiring a similar strategy to win) but took only 5 min to win/loose, it would teach most players the skiills thy need to beat Farbor, while allowing them to find out the strategy by themselves, as it would be fast to try out a diffrent strategy each time you try to beat it.
Metroid in Alpha - MadMag can be an example of rather short iteration time. If you manage to hold out for the first few spore waves(about 3-5 min) you will probably win the map unless you mess up something big. Later on even if you fail some assault, you can quickly rebuild your forces and try again.
This is quite true after my 6th attempt at this I have now rage quit this part of the game. I'll take one more stab at it and should I fail again I probably will not go back to it... maybe ever it took what I had found to be a thoroughly enjoyable game and turned it into pure hell, especially since there were no other levels that had a time requirement.
I've looked at the Youtube guides and I don't see how they accomplish what the do without a hacked game. 13 mins in the ship launches for me and I've just cleared the starting islands. 2 mins in and the main Island and lower left islands are completely drowning in creeper. I don't honestly see a way to beat this level. oh and it would of been nice had the ships computer told me snipers would shoot down the ore ships, because I had no clue that would happen until I found that time on this forum. I would still have failed probably but I might have gotten a little farther.
Bad design on Dev's part for not introducing the time critical element earlier in the game.
Also why is that sometimes right click lets you drag the map and other times it doesn't that inconsistency is very aggravating.
QuoteThis is quite true after my 6th attempt at this I have now rage quit this part of the game. I'll take one more stab at it and should I fail again I probably will not go back to it... maybe ever it took what I had found to be a thoroughly enjoyable game and turned it into pure hell, especially since there were no other levels that had a time requirement.
First, I do empathize: Farbor does introduce a sharp increase in difficulty, especially if you (like many people, including me) learned to play the "slow and steady" way. The inherent risk-takers in the population probably had a little less trouble. But certainly, if you were used to your levels taking 45 minutes or more to finish, Farbor feels far fetched for sure.
Before I got to Farbor, I had seen older threads bemoaning the difficulty. I didn't look at the strategies, though... I always like to give things a whorl on my own, and only read guides/watch videos if I really hit a wall and enjoyment really starts to suffer. My first two tries, I was like, what the hell! But I got a little farther each time, and on the fourth or fifth attempt (still no strategy help), I blew up the objective with 1% left. My sum total experience with the entire Creeper World franchise was the two days prior, so I was (and still am) no great shakes with CW3.
So, don't give up. It's probably not as bad as it looks. If you don't get any bright ideas your first 3-4 attempts, though, and the fun factor fizzles for you, yeah, no shame in a guide or a video, in my opinion. A very talented friend of mine reads walkthroughs during or before his first playthrough of almost any game (not my preference), and he has plenty of fun, so, to each their own!
With a lot of pausing and micro-management, you can (like I have) finish with as much as 10% or more left.
You would need to snipe the Harvesters a lot (have the PZs occupied by them), harvest your own AC while you do so, support a base with guppies, and focus your armed forces on that one base.
In fact, the youtube ad for the game gives away what I found to be the quickest possible way to win with no cheats.
Slow & steady is what I liked about Creeper World.
Ya'll are going to love Tormented Space.
After you tool around in that mess for a while, Farbor seems refreshingly easy.
I like it that the game has challenging maps that force you to improve your strategy.
First inhibited world:
Not hard. Annoying yes. Time consuming Yes. Hard no.
Well actually the first inhibitor has been changed during the beta testing as it was too hard :P To was so that you could try and play some maps without a huge skill wall. If you want to see what really was the first world in tormented space go to G's alpha sector and play Waternaris. :P
Forgive me if i sound pertinent but i haven't beaten farbor yet and cannot reach said alpha sector
Quote from: tornado on March 31, 2015, 05:24:23 AM
Forgive me if i sound pertinent but i haven't beaten farbor yet and cannot reach said alpha sector
How to bypass Farbor (http://steamcommunity.com/app/280220/discussions/0/540737414824656805/)
I am a cheat but I'm not That big of a cheat. Also been there and seen it.
Quote from: tornado on March 31, 2015, 09:17:59 AM
I am a cheat but I'm not That big of a cheat. Also been there and seen it.
Do you think something proposed by a moderator and posted on the official site is a cheat? Oh well.... have it your way.
I think V wrote somewhere a way to make your campaign think a world is complete, not sure what that was, CTRL+shift+u? something like that. Or you can just edit a file in your folder with saves to get access.
It is Ctrl-Alt+U and it gives you a score of 1 with an incredibly long time of map completion. It does not destroy the inhibitor, though.
Is the CTRL-ALT-u intentional. And is the non inhibitor destruction deliberate
Quote from: Karsten75 on March 31, 2015, 09:31:50 AM
Quote from: tornado on March 31, 2015, 09:17:59 AM
I am a cheat but I'm not That big of a cheat. Also been there and seen it.
Do you think something proposed by a moderator and posted on the official site is a cheat? Oh well.... have it your way.
Well that and the last time I tried it it failed. However, point is proved. Ill try it again.
It worked. I thank you greatly.
This mission is insanely difficult. I never had much time to play creeper world 3 though, so I always analyzed what was possibly the fastest way to complete each map so I could have fun with another one. I have finished creeper world 1 and 2. I did find a sneaky way to get an early completion of the map though. It is possible to land a command node near a spore tower, build one energy collector and then build a nullifier. This allows me to get a powerzone I can use later on to blitz the map and stop the construction of the prism ship. There may be a no flyzone but I can still move modules onto the powerzone. I can constantly cycle mortars onto the powerzone and make it easy for me to assault the island.
Wow, really? Great idea. :)
Bit late to the party here, but I find it funny as I actually thought the same thing when I first played CW3 before it was on steam. I thought the ship being completed was instant loss, so I kept restarting if I hadn't gotten it at 99%. I eventually beat it, and didn't realize until a later playthrough that I could shoot down the supply ships either. I have no idea how I did it that first time, because going back later, I had trouble winning even with knowing I could kill the supply ships with snipers. Might be that I invested so much in snipers that it slowed down my advance too much, no idea.
All in all, this is one of my favorite missions, because it is one of the few that is truly loseable. I mean, you can lose others, sure, but as a general rule, if you get past the first few minutes of a map, you're going to win, just a mater of time. I usually go somewhat slow on the various maps, so the time limit is a great challenge for me.
It'd be great if emitters could gain strength over time, could make beating the creeper into more than a simple battle of attrition.
Well that's there on custom maps. I'm sure edurans map had one that gained over time and there are others for sure as that's one of the easiest things to do with CRPL. You can always make your own map that has such a feature.
Quote from: Taikei no Yuurei on May 31, 2015, 11:35:45 PM...I thought the ship being completed was instant loss, so I kept restarting if I hadn't gotten it at 99%. I eventually beat it, and didn't realize until a later playthrough that I could shoot down the supply ships either. I have no idea how I did it that first time, because going back later, I had trouble winning even with knowing I could kill the supply ships with snipers. Might be that I invested so much in snipers that it slowed down my advance too much, no idea.
All in all, this is one of my favorite missions, because it is one of the few that is truly loseable. I mean, you can lose others, sure, but as a general rule, if you get past the first few minutes of a map, you're going to win, just a mater of time. I usually go somewhat slow on the various maps, so the time limit is a great challenge for me.
I thought the same thing my first playthrough, but I let it play out just to see what would happen. Then it was all "Well, the ship is complete... but stop it before it gets to the tower" and then "Okay, you still suck, but now you have twenty minutes to stop it from firing."
After that I restarted and beat it just as the pillar was beginning to open. Probably could do even better now.
Yes, I love this map too, for the same reasons. It was what pushed me into attempting things I had never tried before, because there wasn't any pressure previously.
Thanks for this thread! It wasn't hard, once I read this thread. Or perhaps it was 'hard,' but it wasn't outrageous or insane. I admit it took 3 tries, but I beat it with at least 5 of the 20 minutes left. And I was able to use my usual tactic of slamming forward with Shields and Nullifiers. I was sad that my scads of snipers did little to stall the initial ship-build, which still finished after 20 or 25 minutes, but on the plus side I got the "Ore Lover!" achievement along with "Better late than never."
This is what I did: I dropped one orbital onto the middle land to kill one of the spore towers, then I put the other two in the northwest island. It took about 9 minutes to clear that island and to start creating pulse cannons. After my 3rd orbital was ready, I dropped it on the south-east island and fought a pitched battle for that, then I built a forge there. I built snipers on the... whatever you call the power-up circles in both islands, and snipers on the north islands. In the south-east I moved mortars to the west edge in preparation for sliding over to the south island.
I saved the game once I had done all that, then I lost a dozen cannons and a shield trying to use the power-up from the spore tower I had already killed. I think another guppy would have salvaged that situation, but I don't know.
In my second try, I tried to land a dozen or so pulse cannons using a relay from the north. Everyone died. I googled what others did, and saw that the trick was to build Berthas. ( I fully credit theDrexxus's video with giving me the idea.)
in my 3rd try, I replaced the snipers with Berthas, focused them on the area where I wanted to relay in. My timing was off and I lost 8 guys, but I had 4 guys and the relay left and was able to send in a shield and a pair of mortars. I was able to destroy the other spore tower before the Prism ship was built. From there was it just 15 minutes of sliding east along with shields and nullifiers.
I admit I got scared at this point, having read all these threads about how hard Farbor is to finish in 20 minutes, but the pair of Berthas really did all the work. And it's not really 20 minutes total mission time, it was more like 40 or 45, if you add in the time before the Prism ship was built, so at least I had a beach-head on the main center island before the 20 minute countdown started.
I admit that stopping the Prism ship from being built is a much greater challenge, and getting "Patton would be proud" is currently beyond me, but I'm happy that I finished the map and I did it in my usual turtle style.
Quote from: Altwing on September 14, 2015, 12:03:06 AM
I was sad that my scads of snipers did little to stall the initial ship-build, which still finished after 20 or 25 minutes, ...
The prism ship builds in less than 14 minutes if you don't use any snipers on the harvesters at all, so you gained a considerable amount of time there. When you take that first spore tower at the start, also line up the nullifier to take out one of the 4 cores to the prism ship, and you have 2 fewer harvesters to deal with.