I thought it might be a good idea to start compiling hints and tips that Virgil can incorporate into a Strategy Guide for new CW2 players.
Post your hints and tips here and I'll compile them into the top post with attribution to the original poster.
Here goes:
Getting started
1. Energy is critical. Don't overbuild in the early stages. At the same time, don't waste energy by having a full green bar.
2. A gem early on can give you a critical boost in energy to help you rush a few weapons or a reactor farm.
3. Delay Research domes until you have stabilized your position and can safely advance against the Creeper.
4. Don't build weapons that do not need to be anchored on top of terrain that can be used to build an anchored unit such as a reactor. One exception is Phantom Coils. You want these at the lowest level of your tunnels, where they can protect and shield higher levels of your tunnels.
5. Think ahead. Unlike most of the time in CW1, you often decide when to first attack, and the different weapons take different lengths to build. Makers take more than twice as long to make than blasters, and since you often want to start with a "supply" of good creeper before you attack, building makers should be your first weapon to be built to insure its unique usefulness. [Fisherck (http://knucklecracker.com/forums/index.php?topic=6264.msg35003#msg35003)]
6. The Ore rig efficiency upgrades are effective, not only for the extraction of ore, but also for the conversion of ore into anti-creeper. So a double-dip improvement. Don't start extracting ore until you have as many as possible Ore rig efficiency upgrades in place - unless, of course, you need ore earlier. But don't stockpile large quantities of extracted ore.
tbc...
Reserved for expansion.
Reserved for expansion.
i'd say putting a phantom above the line of anchored units is ok too, i havent had any trouble doing that so far
Think ahead. Unlike most of the time in CW1, you often decide when to first attack, and the different weapons take different lengths to build. Makers take more than twice as long to make than blasters, and since you often want to start with a "supply" of good creeper before you attack, building makers should be your first weapon to be built to insure its unique usefullness.
I consider tech domes, micro rifts, repulsers, and to a lesser extent launchers "accessories". If I could choose only 4 techs for a map (not including nullifiers), I would pick blasters, makers, reactors, and beacons. The reactors and beacons are a neccesity, while makers and blasters are a backbone of any assult. These should always (in my opinion) be the first things built.
i would consider makers and launchers interchangeable, the launcher is better in some cases than the maker and vice versa
True, in uphill battles I would not use makers nearly as much. But otherwise, I see it as an invaluable cushion, especially in dense creeper. If you need to move a blaster up you do not need to worry that much, because the good creeper will keep the bad creeper at bay long enough to do so.
on the other hand if you're attacking a narrow corridor there's little surface area for creeper to work against each other but a launcher could wreck havoc further in
ok, most important techs for a map (in my opinion)
1.Reactor
2.Beacon
3.Blaster
4.Nullifier
5.Repulsor
6.Shield
7.Micro-rift
8.Maker
9.Ore Rig
10.Launcher
11.Phantom Coil
12.Tech dome
lol phantom coil cant be graded, its useless when there's no phantoms and necessary when there is
Just moved this over from Beta in case it can help people. Feel free to add additional hints/tips
Quote from: thepenguin on February 26, 2011, 07:09:39 AM
ok, most important techs for a map (in my opinion)
Like in CW1 this entirely depends on the type of map you're playing.
A repulsor at #5 and a launcher at #10? :o
A microrift at #7 and a tech dome at #12? That just doesn't make sense at all....
Which units are most useful/necessary depends on the map. OK; blasters and reactors are necessary for all - but I can see cases where everything else could be essential or useless. (No ore = makers useless; and they aren't much good fighting uphill.)
I don't think this should devolve into a discussion of the relative importance of each unit or build order per se. As someone once remarked: "If you only have a hammer, everything looks like a nail."
Instead focus on general tips or strategies such as the fact that repulsors on short beams can keep some densities of creeper at bay with less energy consumption than a continuously firing blaster, etc.
It may be hard to update the first post in this topic due to the OP's absence, so if someone starts a new topic I may replace that topic with this one.
I'll add some stuff if people post helpful hints/tips.
When you block a certain passage with repulsors -which is most of the time more useful and a lot more energy efficient than using blasters so if you won't need to advance in that passage (passage can be everything from 1 to ...) and there aren't any drones use repulsors- you can quasi always (up to creeper intensities of about 285.000 when the creeper comes from above and 300.000 when otherwise) put their stances on short which will save quite some energy (0.15/sec in comparison with Medium stance, that's 9 energy/minute/repulsor).
Also not that when creeper can enter the beam from the sides the beam will never be that effective as when all side creeper is pushed away by other repulsors.
For luring drones: see mthw2vc's useful description here (http://knucklecracker.com/forums/index.php?topic=6909.msg41705#msg41705). Credits: MR-juggling was invented by Sqaz. :)
Quote from: Karsten75 on February 25, 2011, 06:01:06 PM
I thought it might be a good idea to start compiling hints and tips that Virgil can incorporate into a Strategy Guide for new CW2 players.
3. Delay Research domes until you have stabilized your position and can safely advance against the Creeper.
I'd disagree. In a lot of tight maps you'll quickly run into sharp increases in difficulty and a shortage of reactor space. You can't actually fund a serious assault so you need upgrades to boost your assault. If you wait the creeper will build up and defeat your unupgraded turrets.
use blasters when you have lots of energy,use makers when you have lots of ore
try to make a choke point and hold the creeper there
also remember:blasters fire fast and has lots of damage,i recommand blasters when you have lots of space to fight
use makers if creeper is flowing through 1 small tunnel and when blasters use too much energy ;) :o ;D :D
Quote from: Ytaker on May 18, 2011, 09:33:01 PM
I'd disagree. In a lot of tight maps you'll quickly run into sharp increases in difficulty and a shortage of reactor space. You can't actually fund a serious assault so you need upgrades to boost your assault. If you wait the creeper will build up and defeat your unupgraded turrets.
In the case of a stalemate, where you have limited space and only have enough energy to hold back the creeper, yes, this technique is the only way to go. But otherwise, you want to focus on energy, which will be in most maps. In fact, I do not think any of the story or bonus maps will have a stalemate scenario...
EDIT: But you might get stalemates a lot more often pretty soon... ;)
Quote from: thepenguin on February 26, 2011, 07:09:39 AM
ok, most important techs for a map (in my opinion)
1.Reactor
2.Beacon
3.Blaster
4.Nullifier
5.Repulsor
6.Shield
7.Micro-rift
8.Maker
9.Ore Rig
10.Launcher
11.Phantom Coil
12.Tech dome
Maker comes before Ore Rig? and a repulor's before a maker?.... and phantom coil and tech dome are last?!?! come on... I think micro rifts are probly number 12... that or shields. And launchers should be up higher!
Quote from: Ebon_Heart on May 19, 2011, 06:59:21 PM
Maker comes before Ore Rig? and a repulor's before a maker?.... and phantom coil and tech dome are last?!?! come on... I think micro rifts are probly number 12... that or shields. And launchers should be up higher!
.Maker before ore rig because you can get remnants
.phantom coils and tech domes are completely optional, so should be at the back. But I agree microrifts should be in the back too, because they are also optional.
Me...
1.Nullifier
2.Blaster
3.Reactor
4.Beacon
5.Maker
6.Shields
7.Launcher
8.Repulser
9.Ore Rig
10.Tech dome
11.Micro rift
12.Phantom coil
Please, I beg of you. It is totally useless to debate the relative merit and build order of the various units. I'm going to ask that this topic be unpinned or locked if you guys persist in debating that in this thread. Choose your own thread to do that in.
Quote from: Karsten75 on May 19, 2011, 11:02:07 PM
Please, I beg of you. It is totally useless to debate the relative merit and build order of the various units. I'm going to ask that this topic be unpinned or locked if you guys persist in debating that in this thread. Choose your own thread to do that in.
okay
This may seem obvious, but don't forget to arm your dark beam before you need it.
(e)
Conversion bombs are most effective when used in a confined space. Thus it is usually best to use a shield as a stopper when first opening a chamber full of creeper. The shield keeps the creeper in, allows the bomb in, and then keeps the anti creeper in as well. (note that this usually won't work if there are drones in the chamber. You may be able to kill the drones with blasters, but I generally lean towards using a dark beam when attacking a chamber with drones.)
Converting most of the creeper in a chamber at once can effectively cap an emitter long enough to build a nullifier. This may require several conversion bombs for larger chambers, and you need to have most of the chamber within beacon range. (Beacon range tech upgrades really help; as does weapon speed to get the bomb farther into the creeper.) If some of your bombs die before reaching the point you want to detonate them, see if you can make two entry points. Or you can detonate in sequence so the bombs going farther into the chamber are covered by the anti-creeper made by the first bombs for part of their trip. This tends to make for a less effective cap on the emitter because the creeper and newly created anti-creeper destroy each other. This leaves less creeper for the following bombs to convert, which means the emitter has much less anti-creeper to overcome. An extra conversion bomb or three to park beside the emitter can aid a failing cap; but your timing with the detonate button has to be good.
Just before you open the chamber is a good time to save. ;D
I Usually have enough bombs to takeover the entire pool if its relativly small, and have a bunch of max range blasters set to kill drones only if it has some drones in it to clear it out for the bombs.
Great guide.
***only if you have a huge stockpile of energy and ore ***
you can use "maker bombs" on huge pools of creeper...
you charge 3+ makers until they are full then send them in. They will burst and will be like a huge nuke.
Quote from: cool49 on January 16, 2012, 09:21:33 PM
***only if you have a huge stockpile of energy and ore ***
you can use "maker bombs" on huge pools of creeper...
you charge 3+ makers until they are full then send them in. They will burst and will be like a huge nuke.
Ineffective vs extremely dense pools of creeper.
One thing I find useful, is to always charge makers, so that all of my ore is constantly being used up for charging. Then, any time I plan to nullify an emmiter, I clear most of it, shield that area, and burst one or more of the makers. Then I build shields around the emmiter, and drop nullifiers. This is quite useful with extremely powerful emmiters, where blasters and launchers are not enough, since the anti-creeper is constant, and ofc on top the of the other two weapons. Just make sure you are able to build the shields rapidly, because otherwise a large amount of anti-creeper (meaning non-renewable ore) will be used up, as well as quite a bit of time.