OK, not a help thread, more a request for discussion from those who beat it.
On the upper layer of Creeper (the one that sends the upward tentacles), I have tried a variety of weapons, with varying success. What bothers me is that none of my strategies seem adequately quick - more a slow job of attrition.
Blasters seem to do an adequate, but slow job of containing the tentacles, while a few launchers can deplete the pool a tad quicker. It seems that some of the tentacles can be pushed back with a repulsor, but others seem too strong and I've lost a few repulsors in that strategy.
I've also used anti-creeper to dilute some of the creeper, but again, this seems slow and laborious.
The source spots for feeding creeper upward seem to be fairly high in the creeper pool, so I'm guessing if I can get the creeper away from there faster, the tentacles will disappear quicker - that seems to call for repulsors, but their energy use is too much in the early stage.
What do others do?
I first used Anti-Creeper which can effectively block the tentacles and then used launchers and blasters to clear the pool.
Makers are very useful here as you have enough ore and you only need two or three to block all tentacles.
shields and launchers where my answer
When I've done it I always start by putting reactors everywhere I can (other than places that will get hit of course), and then i get 3 creeper makers (on 4x production, you'll want to get the ore rigs and the remnants pretty quickly), once they get into position (1 creeper maker for every 2 tentacles) they almost completely stop the tentacles from moving forward, and then I make launchers with whatever energy I have left after that. After 3 or 4 launchers I tend to get a few blasters to get rid of the tentacles a bit faster so I can build more reactors. The key thing about makers here is that they use no energy, and early on there is very little space to build reactors to support mass blasters. With the technytes I pick building cost and reactor efficiency, and I don't pick up the holocube until all the creeper makers are up.
The ore strategy seems to deplete my ore reserves rather quickly. And I'd like to reserve ore for later in that map.
What time do you achieve breakthrough on that first pool? Just using blasters, launchers and one ore maker gives me about 9 minutes, which is a tad on the slow side.
Well, I can't remember exactly when I get through that part, but I've finished the entire map in under 12 minutes - I just use shields instead of friendly creeper later on.
If you can get a nice pool of anti creeper built up, you should be able to disarm the makers for later use, then while the makers hold the creeper back, use blasters and launchers to clear the pool, so the tentacles will disappear.
While trying an approach with shields and Launcher I got 4:30 in my first try (at the end I also used two repulsors though, but I'm not sure if those were necessairy). Maybe I can improve that.
you put a shield on each of the openings (fissures)? How long did that last?
Quote from: Grauniad on May 18, 2011, 02:50:44 PM
you put a shield on each of the openings (fissures)? How long did that last?
Long, the terrain already needs some time to decay, and shields are quite strong.
Atleast it lasted long enough for me to build all reactors, three mortars and then 2 repulsors to keep the now almost decayed shields from collapsing so I could build one beneath it (only now I came to the idea that building a shield above is just as effective).
Two shields would certainly give you enough time, and for the hardest decayable terrain one shield will do.
Edit: The shield can survive about 2:15 and the easiest decayable terrain about 30 seconds.
Quote from: Sqaz on May 18, 2011, 02:57:05 PM
Quote from: Grauniad on May 18, 2011, 02:50:44 PM
you put a shield on each of the openings (fissures)? How long did that last?
Long, the terrain already needs some time to decay, and shields are quite strong.
Atleast it lasted long enough for me to build all reactors, three mortars and then 2 repulsors to keep the now almost decayed shields from collapsing so I could build one beneath it (only now I came to the idea that building a shield above is just as effective).
Two shields would certainly give you enough time, and for the hardest decayable terrain one shield will do.
Edit: The shield can survive about 2:15 and the easiest decayable terrain about 30 seconds.
That doesn't seem to work for me (I tested this also with medium repulsors)
Spoiler
(http://i52.tinypic.com/js25qf.jpg)
See the two leftmost openings? The repulsors are not strong enough to push back the creeper. So I don't see how your strategy pans out. Not saying it can't be done, just saying I don't see how to do it.
I built more shields in the way of the tentacles
Quote from: Grauniad on May 18, 2011, 03:26:57 PM
That doesn't seem to work for me (I tested this also with medium repulsors)
Could very well be, I only build repulsors after already thining the creeper out a bit with launcher, as you have plenty of time provided by those shields.
I just built 3 makers right away, then used blasters to keep the tentacles from getting too far, and used launchers to destroy the pit... you can pretty much just ignore the tentacles for a while, all they really do is look scary.
oh, those are tentacles? I always thought they were trees
anyway, the LS just flies through them
on-topic:
I always found the best place for a maker to be on top of a tree / nested in branches
Whatever they are, they just act as an intimidation factor... Like the hyper dots further down the level. Just ignore them and destroy them at the source with launchers, while some makers hold them down.
Quote from: Kithros on May 18, 2011, 10:44:53 AM
When I've done it I always start by putting reactors everywhere I can (other than places that will get hit of course), and then i get 3 creeper makers (on 4x production, you'll want to get the ore rigs and the remnants pretty quickly), once they get into position (1 creeper maker for every 2 tentacles) they almost completely stop the tentacles from moving forward, and then I make launchers with whatever energy I have left after that. After 3 or 4 launchers I tend to get a few blasters to get rid of the tentacles a bit faster so I can build more reactors. The key thing about makers here is that they use no energy, and early on there is very little space to build reactors to support mass blasters. With the technytes I pick building cost and reactor efficiency, and I don't pick up the holocube until all the creeper makers are up.
That is pretty much perfect. And by perfect, I mean how I do it. ;) But the makers do not deplete to much of the ore. I stopped mine with about a thousand in reserve when the chamber was taken over.
I just built reactors in every safe space (except the spots I needed to put a couple beacons) built a couple blasters to keep packet lanes open, and drained the pool with launchers. (I had to do some cleanup of tentacles with the blasters.)
I need some help on day 17. I've spent more than 45 minutes on the level, only to lose the capsule
This belongs in CW2 Gameplay Discussion.
But this thread has a video on how to beat day 17
http://knucklecracker.com/forums/index.php?topic=6923.0
And here is thread discussing Day 17 too.
http://knucklecracker.com/forums/index.php?topic=6937.0
I took my damn time with this one. I was really short on energy and took too long to build any defenses. I sealed off the left most tentacle/tree with a repulser, but by the time I built a blaster the other tentacles were already out. I simply built reactors where ever I could and chipped away the the tentacles with a couple of blasters. I would then fill up the holes with a constant steam of anti-creeper and move on to the next tentacle. It was only a matter of time before I had a couple of launchers out and had all of the creeper pushed back into that hole.
The main thing that you need to notice about the tentacles, is that they really never do *ANYTHING* other than block packets once they get extremely high (idling for 5+ minutes). There's really no need to use blasters to cut down the tentacles - makers are nice because they use no energy so they can reduce the time spent significantly (and the friendly creeper is nice for the drones in the chamber below anyway), but you don't really need to devote any resources to the tentacles - just go straight to launchers to start killing the pool below pretty much.
Remember to save before opening the last chamber - but beyond that you basically want to have just *lots* of upgraded launchers, and dig to the capsule before clearing out all the creeper (as soon as you have an opening), and don't worry about moving in at all.