Knuckle Cracker

Creeper World 4 => Farsite Colonies => Topic started by: AutoPost on March 28, 2021, 05:19:17 PM

Title: Custom Map #1188: Autopilot PAC 2. By: qople
Post by: AutoPost on March 28, 2021, 05:19:17 PM
This topic is for discussion of map #1188: Autopilot PAC 2
(https://knucklecracker.com/creeperworld4/queryMaps.php?query=thumbnailid&id=1188)

Author: qople
Size: 200x128
Title: Re: Custom Map #1188: Autopilot PAC 2. By: qople
Post by: ikkonoishi on March 28, 2021, 07:17:35 PM
First PAC where I truly felt like the underdog. If you lose momentum the AI will surround you and pound you into a stalemate.
Title: Re: Custom Map #1188: Autopilot PAC 2. By: qople
Post by: superbrias on March 28, 2021, 09:35:08 PM
I think the big problem with autopilot PAC levels is that besides "Prison Break (#1180)"'s version that includes a creeper form of cursor the lack of "push" the player has really bites, and while that doesn't matter as much with a static defense the AI having mobility while you don't is really hard to work with in my experience

creeper flows REALLY slowly up hills and starting with just a single emitter and a relatively small amount of creeper doesn't really make up for your lack of push
Title: Re: Custom Map #1188: Autopilot PAC 2. By: qople
Post by: dklk on March 29, 2021, 09:12:36 AM
This is yet another great and fun map this is really well designed! I love FPS and PAC maps!

I see a lot of tags and things for these maps saying "Difficult" or "Impossible" when they are very easy, if you know a few things, really! -My best time for this map is 5min 30.7 sec, and I made a couple of mistakes. I also only used emitters the whole way through. I'll post a few general tips and a walkthrough for how to muller this map easily, no matter what the AI does, so you can decide how much help you want.

General Tips
Spoiler


  • Getting more ERNS is critical, and all your efforts should be focused on this.
  • Sometimes maps have 'weak points' you can exploit (e.g. see my post on autopilot pac 1)
  • Other times you just need to brute force your way through by concentrating creeper at a point.
  • You dont need to be everywhere at once. Feel free to lose terrain your creeper has spread to if its not between you and your next objective. You win by nuking the base, not covering the entire map in creeper, though it can be fun to do that too!
  • The AI concentrates in areas that are taking damage and will move units to compensate. Flying units are units that are not shooting. You are far more mobile than the AI and can move every single emitter from one side of the map to the other in three seconds if you have enough creeper coverage.
  • If the AI is holding you off in an area, don't throw good creeper after bad. Let them have it, destroy all your emitters and go somewhere else.
  • Not as useful on this map, but on pac maps note that launchers tick down at the same rate. There's no point in having several launchers fire with seconds delay between each, you're just giving the AI time to resupply its anti air or snipers. Instead, pause the game and whop down several together so they fire at the same time and are much more likely to get through.
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Specific Tips & Walkthrough
Spoiler

I couldnt find any specific weakness.. Qople outdid themselves in making sure I couldnt cheese this one with enough launchers and snipers this time. So instead,  we're going to have to nuke that ern with good old fashioned blue.

It's half a map away and has a mountain and a couple of walloping great holes between you and it? Thats no problem, i'll let you in on a secret: creeper flows uphill really easily.

Huh? Uphill? How?
Emitter worms.

Emitter worms are when you chain emitters in a line. Constantly deleting the end emitter and replacing it at the front as soon as a big enough area at the front is covered by at least 1 creeper. This creates a strong directional push and a high peaked 'wave' that can easily cover a couple layers up. You won't be climbing sheer mountains, but stepped terrain where you've got space to place an emitter at least every 2 or 3 levels is no problem.
If you make a mistake and the emitter hasn't got enough push to spawn, just delete it and place it as close as you can, keep that creep flowing!

You can climb that mountain just west of the start and get an emitter on top, but its actually faster to go north, down into the hole and then west up the side.
As soon as any space in front where you can place an emitter is covered fully by at least 1 creep, just delete your furthest one and replace in front.
Even playing casually, you can make it to an emitter on the blue platform north-east of the ERN in about 1:40, which will catch the blue terrain at the edge and give you an extra side push.
Once you reach the mountain peak north of the ern theres no more room for emitters, but you dont need any, the wave will very quickly overwhelm the ERN and you'll have all the emitters you could ever want.

Have fun!
[close]
Title: Re: Custom Map #1188: Autopilot PAC 2. By: qople
Post by: SteveCarlo on April 01, 2021, 08:11:49 AM
this one has kicked my butt a couple of times.   
Title: Re: Custom Map #1188: Autopilot PAC 2. By: qople
Post by: SteveCarlo on April 02, 2021, 09:57:11 AM
Quote from: dklk on March 29, 2021, 09:12:36 AM
This is yet another great and fun map this is really well designed! I love FPS and PAC maps!

I see a lot of tags and things for these maps saying "Difficult" or "Impossible" when they are very easy, if you know a few things, really! -My best time for this map is 5min 30.7 sec, and I made a couple of mistakes. I also only used emitters the whole way through. I'll post a few general tips and a walkthrough for how to muller this map easily, no matter what the AI does, so you can decide how much help you want.
I guess you're quicker than me or have a better eye for finding places to site the emitters.
I've gone south to take the ERNs and the factory and gotten trapped, I've gone north and west....   I've even taken the ERN portal but by time I do, there is no place to deploy. 
Title: Re: Custom Map #1188: Autopilot PAC 2. By: qople
Post by: SteveCarlo on April 02, 2021, 10:32:34 AM
got it.  that was satisfying
Title: Re: Custom Map #1188: Autopilot PAC 2. By: qople
Post by: jtalisman on April 04, 2021, 10:54:42 PM
Quote from: dklk on March 29, 2021, 09:12:36 AM
As soon as any space in front where you can place an emitter is covered fully by at least 1 creep, just delete your furthest one and replace in front.
Even playing casually, you can make it to an emitter on the blue platform north-east of the ERN in about 1:40, which will catch the blue terrain at the edge and give you an extra side push.
Once you reach the mountain peak north of the ern theres no more room for emitters, but you dont need any, the wave will very quickly overwhelm the ERN and you'll have all the emitters you could ever want.

Tried this multiple times and every time the "wave" never got anywhere near overwhelming anything, I got very easily held back by a couple of cannons, then eventually pushed and surrounded, so either there's something major missing from your strat or you got super lucky.

Does anyone have a video, or a strat that actually works?
Title: Re: Custom Map #1188: Autopilot PAC 2. By: qople
Post by: Omniconda on April 07, 2021, 11:04:21 AM
Beat this first try with just 2 emiters till the very end. willingness to give up ground and push was key, tho i could see how givibg the Ai just a bit more time would have stalled it out to a loss.
Title: Re: Custom Map #1188: Autopilot PAC 2. By: qople
Post by: Deadl0ck on April 13, 2021, 11:37:40 AM
Quote from: dklk on March 29, 2021, 09:12:36 AM
This is yet another great and fun map this is really well designed! I love FPS and PAC maps!

I see a lot of tags and things for these maps saying "Difficult" or "Impossible" when they are very easy, if you know a few things, really! -My best time for this map is 5min 30.7 sec, and I made a couple of mistakes. I also only used emitters the whole way through. I'll post a few general tips and a walkthrough for how to muller this map easily, no matter what the AI does, so you can decide how much help you want.


Have fun!

So basically... the way you find these maps fun, well designed and easy is because you cheese them. Yeah, the cheesing technique you describe works. I imagine it works on most maps. It's also completely uninteresting and devoid of any actual strategy or fun to me, and the people like me that actually play this game as a strategy /  puzzle game.

I expect there to be logical solutions to maps, like there were in CW3 with the PAC / AC only maps.  If you try and play this map strategically, there's no winning it, as far as I can tell. I tried like 8 different approaches, got swarmed every time, and only beat it by playing cheese leapfrog. It's a shame that we need to resort to cheesing it to be able to beat maps. Sadly it seems that's the way the meta evolved though.
Title: Re: Custom Map #1188: Autopilot PAC 2. By: qople
Post by: Deadl0ck on April 13, 2021, 11:43:19 AM
Quote from: jtalisman on April 04, 2021, 10:54:42 PM
Quote from: dklk on March 29, 2021, 09:12:36 AM
As soon as any space in front where you can place an emitter is covered fully by at least 1 creep, just delete your furthest one and replace in front.
Even playing casually, you can make it to an emitter on the blue platform north-east of the ERN in about 1:40, which will catch the blue terrain at the edge and give you an extra side push.
Once you reach the mountain peak north of the ern theres no more room for emitters, but you dont need any, the wave will very quickly overwhelm the ERN and you'll have all the emitters you could ever want.

Tried this multiple times and every time the "wave" never got anywhere near overwhelming anything, I got very easily held back by a couple of cannons, then eventually pushed and surrounded, so either there's something major missing from your strat or you got super lucky.

Does anyone have a video, or a strat that actually works?

The strat does work,

Spoiler
just pick a path that means you never have to go up more than 2 levels before placing the emitter. Also delete the back emitter only a second or two after the front one starts spewing. Be fast. Don't give the AI time to build up weapons, go for the creep generation zones to give you an extra boost. Best bet is to head for the ern platform and creep generation on the back wall from where you start, get yourself more erns, then keep looping around to approach the rift jumper from behind.
[close]
Title: Re: Custom Map #1188: Autopilot PAC 2. By: qople
Post by: Mr$Hyper$ on May 04, 2021, 12:09:43 PM
Nothing works. I push like crazy across the top then left sides nothing works, I spore the top blue veins that does little. The ai has 3 free expansion locations WHY WOULD YOU EVER GIVE THEM THAT ADVANTAGE. I thought you would be playing as creeper? Not just rush as creeper 0/10 not playing ever again the ai has so much free reign every expansion has ERN powered units that eradicate all that stands in their way so I get... Basic creep units? Not even a 100/.5 second emitter or something?


like i said not playing again
Title: Re: Custom Map #1188: Autopilot PAC 2. By: qople
Post by: flamewolf393 on May 14, 2021, 11:36:57 PM
This is impossible to beat with straight forward strategy, you have to be cheesy with it. Fought with this for way too long before I found a kind of cheesy strategy that took advantage of the AI priorities. I did the above guys plan of trying to rush the ERN portal, got the two ERN'd units before getting fought to a stale mate, but since all his efforts were now focused on defending that area I was able to sneak creeper around the west edge of the map down to the spawner area in the chasm, then flooded his main base area with only ONE emmiter. This is the key, as long as you keep most of your emmiters up at the ERN portal the AI will see that as the bigger threat until its too late to protect the base area, then spawn all your emmiters down there to climb the hill to the headquarters. Doing this I beat the level in 8 minutes.

https://prnt.sc/12y492c
Title: Re: Custom Map #1188: Autopilot PAC 2. By: qople
Post by: Fluffologica on June 04, 2021, 09:44:24 PM
This is a fantastic map with incredible replay value. Any time you push too aggressively in one area the AI will move just as aggressively to defend it. You absolutely must not play like a static creeper because the AI is way better than I could ever be at dealing with static creeper. When the AI's attention is one place, you have to decide whether to attempt to power through with Crimson or give up and attack some other place.

There's a difficulty plateau where I needed to restart several times to understand a winning strategy, but this is a truly unique and fun PAC experience.
Title: Re: Custom Map #1188: Autopilot PAC 2. By: qople
Post by: Fixer on July 15, 2023, 07:10:05 AM
Finally did this! Thanks to 12#.

Attachment is recorder exported mp4 file. Hope will help someone else.