Custom Map #10973: Childish attempt at PAC 10 - now really final PAC map. By: Martin Gronsdal

Started by AutoPost, December 03, 2023, 10:30:52 AM

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This topic is for discussion of map #10973: Childish attempt at PAC 10 - now really final PAC map


Author: Martin Gronsdal
Size: 200x150

Desc:
this is my tenth and last PAC map. This is a remake of my ninth map, with less lag... Many thanks to Rennervate / AlexX for the PAC files, and for information on how to use them. Thanks to Mr. builder17 for useful tips. I'd appreciate your feedback in the forums... #PAC #Play As Creeper


Loren Pechtel

Once again, you have me totally stumped.  Tricky to start but then trying to go along the south there's way too much opposition.





toolforger

I see absolutely no way to cracking this.

I can get the initial breakout from the island.
It's pretty difficult, mostly due to the insane rebuild rate compared to the spores' reload rates, but it's doable. Just avoid any tiny mistake, but yeah.

But then?

A spore on the forge outpost would kill the entire defense almost immediately - no more energy, the forge would fall and remove the insane upgrades.

But I'm not getting anywhere.

The first bunch of island is hard, really hard. You can't afford a single mistake, keeping two nullifiers with an insane build rate from firing and destroying your only emitter is hard. It's not a lot of fun, but it's doable.

Cleaning up the  bottom-left quarter of the map is straightforward.

The rest should be straightforward, but the beam in the bottom-left corner of the top-right fortress kills any spore I send in. Even if I try and use the bottom-most PZ position available.

Killing relays is useless as they rebuild faster than the next spore cycle gets ready.
Damaging cannons is useless as the repairy faster than the next spore cycle gets ready.
Sending a second spore is useless as there is no good second PZ available, the spore will either get shot down or land in a place that gives the cannons far too much time to kill the creep before it goes anywhere useful.

A slow push with void digitalis is useless as the cannons will just clean it up.
You can get pretty close to the two-cannon position, but you can't quite reach it, even with tricks like distracting it with digitalis around it and pushing creeper around with the field.
And even if it worked, the five-cannon position isn't even close to being attackable that way.

And to add insult to injury: The AC will overflow after half an hour, killing all hope of ever amassing enough creeper to achieve anything anywhere; you'll have spent half and hour of your lifetime trying out approaches, and if you don't find the magic trick in that time, it's back to square one.
It's almost as if it's intentionally designed to frustrate the players.

I seriously doubt that any of the three successful scores are legit.
Your own score may be, but I suspect this is one of the cases where the game save was not 100% faithful and your playtest (and the score) were done with a much easier level. Maybe the forge is giving the beams a bit more range or firepower than what could be seen in playtesting.

Of course, there could also be some trick I didn't see.
I have no idea what that trick could be. I tried everything.

Karsten75

Quote from: toolforger on April 27, 2024, 02:11:24 PMAnd to add insult to injury: The AC will overflow after half an hour, killing all hope of ever amassing enough creeper to achieve anything anywhere; you'll have spent half and hour of your lifetime trying out approaches, and if you don't find the magic trick in that time, it's back to square one.
It's almost as if it's intentionally designed to frustrate the players.

I seriously doubt that any of the three successful scores are legit.
Your own score may be, but I suspect this is one of the cases where the game save was not 100% faithful and your playtest (and the score) were done with a much easier level. Maybe the forge is giving the beams a bit more range or firepower than what could be seen in playtesting.

Of course, there could also be some trick I didn't see.
I have no idea what that trick could be. I tried everything.
You have obviously studied the map in great detail. You may have noticed that all the scores submitted are substantially longer than 2 hours - closer to 3, in fact.

At least two of those players are well-known here, and it is, IMNSHO, infra dig to throw even the slightest accusation of cheating towards their effort. As for the 3rd score - if one has to cheat, I doubt one would cheat to obtain the lowest  rank on the totem pole.

Saving does not alter the status quo, it has been tested exhaustively over many years now and there are not, to my recollection, even the slightest attribution of advantaged outcomes due to altered circumstances when restoring from a save file.

So one may safely draw the conclusion that this is indeed a map not for the many, but for the few. So there may well be something that you are overlooking, as are the majority of plyers.

But please, constrain yourself from suggesting scores by well-known players are obtained by cheating - unless, of course, you have incontrovertible proof of such. Unfounded accusations ruffle feathers