So far I haven't been able to do better than partially contain those dang creeper 'monsters'. (By attacking the center creeper pool) for a while. On my best run I held on long enough for the left side drones to escape before the combination of those and escaped bits of creeper monster wiped out too much of my network.
I believe the most important thing is: lots of energy, weapons and both fire range & rate upgraded to the max.
You'll be surprised how quick you can take out those heavy bad guys. :)
You can place two layers of shield on top of where the creeper monster comes out of
Quote from: Joshman2934 on May 16, 2011, 04:11:09 PM
You can place two layers of shield on top of where the creeper monster comes out of
I never thought of that.
I ran and hid.
Dig into the mountain right beside you to get some space to safely plant some reactors (just don't breach the pool on the far right). After that 4 blasters (set up vertically at the pool lip) should let you contain the creeper pool even when a Space Invader drops into it. Get some blasters on the left to hold off the drones and that's taken care of (I used three, two might do it).
Space Invaders that go left flow back into the pool anyway, so set up some blasters and a launcher to pelt their spawning pit and keep it under control. Eventually you'll empty it out. Which lets you safely expand left. Biggest trick is balancing the need to expand your reactor collection, digging out the mountain so you have a place to put them, and building more weapons to hold off drones, phantoms and large collections of creeper.
Took me a few tries before I felt out a build order that didn't leave me starved. Launchers are a big help, but they also cost 50 energy. Try to squeeze one out a the wrong time and it can backfire hard. 2 launchers and a hand full (3-4) of blasters can completely stop the space invader spawns, and that's wicked, but squeezing out the 100 energy for 2 launchers in between everything else is a challenge.
I'm like you on this one. Shields are definitely the clean way to go about it, but I still like taking out the invaders the old fashioned way.
Hmmm, I just used a few shields and a single launcher... You always have plenty of time to prepare (With possible exception for a couple of the bonus missions ;)), you just have to use it properly...
Yeah, shields works fine against the 'space invader' (that I really like by the way; can you imagine all possibilities for custom maps in the future?) The real trouble comes later on.
Bear in mind that day 18 is an acquisition mission: you don't have to kill all creeper or destroy all emitters & gateways. Why make it harder on yourself than necessary? Unless you like hard of course.... 8)
Time the creeper-monster's attack. After it attacks, if the shield block(s) is/are low on health, destroy/replace them before the next attack.
When I did the top/left pool with the drones, i attacked it from the top. Tried it from the bottom, and it didn't work out so well for me. Also, i found it helpful to attack from 2 points on the top; to thin out the drones. good luck.
I never thought of shields. Tried combined blasters and launchers (with some success until the invader remains took out too many of my reactors) good creeper (less effective) and repulsors. (Epic fail.) *Crosses fingers and goes to try again.*
Edit: Victory after an epic battle. ;D Shoulda invested more in tech earlier, but I'm not gonna try for a better time now.
BTW I did attack the top left pool with drones from the bottom - then finished the job from the top once the creep was thinned out.
no one ever seems to remember shields. I discovered they interrupt fields by accident when an invader clipped the shield and creeper came flying off it. at which point I realized shields are a lot more useful that I had originally thought they would be.
Quote from: Krell on May 17, 2011, 03:01:50 PM
no one ever seems to remember shields. I discovered they interrupt fields by accident when an invader clipped the shield and creeper came flying off it. at which point I realized shields are a lot more useful that I had originally thought they would be.
hmm, sounds like you got lucky (it only clipped the side)
you're not the one who fired repulsors into the middle chamber on day 13
I have a completely different solution. Take out the source from behind, and then clean up the mess.....
First grab the crystals (duh)
Move the ship over the left chamber (place it 2 squares above)
Line all available spots with reactors
Use 4 blasters and 1 launcher to get the first pool
Nullify the the emitter
Don't worry about the creeper in pool 2, just place a nullifer between the second emitter and the gate above....
You have time to do all this before the first monster appears.... after that you you just have to clean up all remaining creeper and start preparing for the lower levels....
If this was the only way, good luck for the newbies! :)
This mission took me a while actually, counting the awesome lag that made the game go 4x slower :P
And I think I used more than 90% possible space for reactors.
I have problems with this level as well i tried to follow the pictures, but i can seem to get it done before the creeper monster is released. ???
Quote from: carderw on May 17, 2011, 07:06:54 PM
i can seem to get it done before the creeper monster is released. ???
Can or can't? That superdrone is supposed to give you trouble. Many upgraded blasters are the answer. Give it to him! ;D
Quote from: UpperKEES on May 17, 2011, 07:10:53 PM
Quote from: carderw on May 17, 2011, 07:06:54 PM
i can seem to get it done before the creeper monster is released. ???
Can or can't? That superdrone is supposed to give you trouble. Many upgraded blasters are the answer. Give it to him! ;D
I think he means the space invader - but as said before, the best way to deal with it are using shields to keep it from getting out - the picture above probably can work if you know what you're doing, but I suspect it would still be much faster to play the level using shields because you would be able to get reactors and such up a lot faster.
When you get to the bottom place, you basically want just enough blasters to keep the really fast drones away while a shield keeps the creeper out and the rest fully upgraded launchers (be sure to have lots of reactors to support them though) - usually the shield will get hit by a drone at some point, but by then the launchers have hopefully done enough damage that the blasters can deal with the creeper. For the superdrone I would recommend destroying all your microrifts but the one by your ship and the one at the bottom, and have 20+ upgraded blasters near your ship. It will go through at some point, and then your blasters can kill it off. Once you get to the small squares it's pretty easy with just shields and launchers.
GRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 80 mins of tough battle only to lose by not paying attention to where the creeper was going to go when I went for the capsule.
Ctrl-C = Quick Save :)
Ctrl-V = Quick Load :) :) :)
Quote from: UpperKEES on May 17, 2011, 11:29:16 PM
Ctrl-C = Quick Save :)
Ctrl-V = Quick Load :) :) :)
Thanks :) alittle late now but in the future I will use that.
BTW shields are very good friends.
Quote from: betadata on May 17, 2011, 11:26:48 PM
GRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 80 mins of tough battle only to lose by not paying attention to where the creeper was going to go when I went for the capsule.
I picked up on the possibility of that happening right away. Go at it wrong and you'll flood the capsule.
Spoiler
what I do is put up a large amount of blasters outside the really dense terrain, three layers thick
the best way to get this without fancy playing is just to build shields where the hole is.
it sucked i was working on taking the gate and emitter in the left pool, the invader was held back by shields... and the pool at the right just randomly overflowed! it took out the reactors in teh mountain but what killed me was a small hole in the shields that the invader passes through!... that pool just randomly jumped up like 5 inches
probably fields activated in so and so time. i just put a launcher there about 3 mins in and it was dead in a minute.
The space invader things on this level are awesome!
You could build 3 shields to stop the space invaders, 3/4 launchers could clean it.
For the space invaders I pretty much just put a layer of shields there and 1 launcher. Occasionally I replace the layer of shields, but I never need to build anything more for it. If you want to kill the emitter there, then you want to take the back door to the gateway + emitter next to it (through the 25 dig cost rock) with about 4 blasters and a launcher, then nullify the emitter through there, but if you're going for a good time you don't really need to kill all that stuff off.