Custom Map #495: For Shadeofdead. By: Noa

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This topic is for discussion of map #495: For Shadeofdead


Author: Noa
Size: 300x100

Desc:
Hope you can play my map ShadeOfDead

[ColonelSandersLite]

General thoughts:
Fun map.  Good ships.  I like the fields.  I think the suicide ships are just a touch overdone though.  I look forward to seeing ShadeOfDead run it.

My Rating:
10/10

My time:
30ish minutes first run (I forget exactly)
17:57

Difficulty:
Difficult, until you figure out the trick to it, then I would say moderate.

[Stickman]

Difficulty:
Difficult, until you figure out the trick to it, then I would say moderate.

Would you mind sharing the trick? I'm quite stuck

[ColonelSandersLite]

Sure man.

Rough walk through:

Spoiler

These where my opening moves:




Taking out this turret now will make life easier later.


Once that's done, just scrap any surviving omnis as they won't be able to hold that island just now.  Build up. (Also, spot the mistake)


Amp Gem Picks.



The next segment is pretty straightforward.  Knock out a couple of spawners, take the mine, omni landings in the north to take out anything you can reach, ditto for the south.  The place you're likely to get stuck is here:



The goal is to land omnis on the SE island to take out the ship and dopple spawners.  Move the x-class and deltas in some to provide covering fire.  Be careful not to overextend or you will probably lose them.  Once they're established, charge your destroyers in to clear any struc and clumped up particles.  Move your omnis along the southern edge of the map.  You don't have to worry about those ramming  ships smashing your omnis.  Also, note the omni settings in the screenshot.


Even if only one omni makes it...


You've won.


Just remember to claim the energy mines first as there's dopples down there that like to take swipes at things.  Once you've got a full set of omnis and mines down there, the rest is just cleanup.  Some ramming actions of your own, with destroyers, can help take out all those clustered dopples.

[close]

[Stickman]

Sure man.

Rough walk through:

Spoiler

These where my opening moves:




Taking out this turret now will make life easier later.


Once that's done, just scrap any surviving omnis as they won't be able to hold that island just now.  Build up. (Also, spot the mistake)


Amp Gem Picks.



The next segment is pretty straightforward.  Knock out a couple of spawners, take the mine, omni landings in the north to take out anything you can reach, ditto for the south.  The place you're likely to get stuck is here:



The goal is to land omnis on the SE island to take out the ship and dopple spawners.  Move the x-class and deltas in some to provide covering fire.  Be careful not to overextend or you will probably lose them.  Once they're established, charge your destroyers in to clear any struc and clumped up particles.  Move your omnis along the southern edge of the map.  You don't have to worry about those ramming  ships smashing your omnis.  Also, note the omni settings in the screenshot.


Even if only one omni makes it...


You've won.

[close]

Just remember to claim the energy mines first as there's dopples down there that like to take swipes at things.  Once you've got a full set of omnis and mines down there, the rest is just cleanup.  Some ramming actions of your own, with destroyers, can help take out all those clustered dopples.

First. Wow, that walkthrough is an overkill. Seriously, great job, you might want to tone it down a bit in future :o

Second. Honestly, I've expected cleaner "trick" after seeing your 10/10 score. I did some things differently

Spoiler

I've managed to destroy lathe ship spawner with HQ (it requires some particle baiting with your other ships)
I couldn't sneak in my omins properly. That's probably due to my inability to figure out good spot to park my ships outside of energy range closer to enemy emitters. I either stayed in range of energy mine or got wiped out. I've tried some destroyer sacrifices like on your screenshots, but couldn't clear enough of particles for omnis to get through. And that's probably due to particles being drawn more to closer energy mines than to my far away ships.

So, instead I've built omnis right on enemy base by sneaking one of relay ship close to it and guarding it with some meat shields. That was immensely frustrating because doppels kept casually swinging by and clearing out my mines and omnis. Again, that's probably due to my ships being far away and not distracting all this doppels. After 15-20 attempts I've managed to clear out enemy base.

I should have definitely used lathe settings. That would probably shave at least 5 unsuccessful attempts off enemy base assault. Also, "defense struc" tech is very useful at this stage - leftmost energy mine can reach hardest enemy emitter and overall mass lathe potential helps with snowballing the base or keeping your assault going if some damned doppel decides to plow through your progress.

[close]

[ColonelSandersLite]

Eh I think it's pretty clean and what's intended.

Spoiler

The carefully arranged gap between the spawners and the map edge, combined with the area being unmireable land seems to me to be a great big "flank this position" sign.

[close]

It's possible that I'm reading more into it than I should.  The only way to know for sure is for Noa to show up and tell us what he intended us to do.

[ColonelSandersLite]

Spoiler

Missed the part about the defensive struc tech.  IMHO, it's a good idea on paper, but I suspect the opportunity cost is too high.  I think you're going to need the omni upgrades, and until you claim those mines, you really do need the power the mine upgrade provides.  As can be seen in the screenshots above, I was definitely shooting with way more energy than I was pulling in, and not taking the mine upgrade would reduce total firepower significantly.  Maybe you can sacrifice the gem on the x-class, but that's the strongest warship you have and he's largely responsible for covering the final push.  Still, it might be pretty viable to take the gem off the x-class, take defensive struc, sneak that supship down and build an omni down there like you're saying.  The thing is that you have to be careful to not overextend with the x-class and doing it without the gem is going to make that aspect of the map more unforgiving.

[close]

[Stickman]

Spoiler

Missed the part about the defensive struc tech.  IMHO, it's a good idea on paper, but I suspect the opportunity cost is too high.  I think you're going to need the omni upgrades, and until you claim those mines, you really do need the power the mine upgrade provides.  As can be seen in the screenshots above, I was definitely shooting with way more energy than I was pulling in, and not taking the mine upgrade would reduce total firepower significantly.  Maybe you can sacrifice the gem on the x-class, but that's the strongest warship you have and he's largely responsible for covering the final push.  Still, it might be pretty viable to take the gem off the x-class, take defensive struc, sneak that supship down and build an omni down there like you're saying.  The thing is that you have to be careful to not overextend with the x-class and doing it without the gem is going to make that aspect of the map more unforgiving.

[close]

Spoiler

You can swap amp gem from "mine energy" to "defense struc" after you captured a couple of energy mines on enemy base. Mine lathe would work immediately and added energy from captured mines would help to balance out losing tech upgrade.

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