Weekly 5-Map Tournament - Conic Sections - closing 14 Jul 2013

[deety42]

There are several strategies for dealing with drones.   I'm not sure if you're talking about the first set of drones or the big breakout.  For drones early on, some strategies are:
- evasion:  Wait till a bunch come after the mother ship, then start moving away.  Moving on diagonals in a diamond pattern can work indefinitely
- blasters:  grab gems quickly and build the minimal number of blasters to take care of the drones.  Often you need to do some evasion while the blasters are building
- anti-creep: in some situations, getting a large field of anti-creep between the drones and the mother ship will kill off the drones.

When there's a huge breakout as in this week's tournament and I haven't built enough blasters to deal with it, I often set things up so there are shields in their path to run into...like a block of four or five of them in a row. 

Hope that helps.

[Wheatmidge]

I used a different strategy. I grabbed all the gems on the left and then flew through the stream and capped the top emitter and gateway before building any weapons (except one repulsor).

Ok, dumb newbie question.  What did you do about all those drones?  If there's a "Run away" strategy I haven't figured it out yet.  And how do you keep them from taking out the nullifier?

for mine I was using the "drone evasion" technique. you don't build any buildings until all the drones have targeted the LS and then you move around to clump the drones together and then run away in a diamond pattern. once the drones have targetted the LS they won't target anything else so you can build freely without having to worry about the drones destroying any buildings. It is quite intensive to play this way though since the LS has to continue moving indifinitely until you kill the drones. There are a few other discussions about the drone evasion technique on the forum and someone (sorry I can't remember who) actually made a Custom map that is a tutorial to doing it.

[Marley]

- evasion:  Wait till a bunch come after the mother ship, then start moving away.  Moving on diagonals in a diamond pattern can work indefinitely

for mine I was using the "drone evasion" technique. you don't build any buildings until all the drones have targeted the LS and then you move around to clump the drones together and then run away in a diamond pattern. once the drones have targetted the LS they won't target anything else so you can build freely without having to worry about the drones destroying any buildings. It is quite intensive to play this way though since the LS has to continue moving indifinitely until you kill the drones. There are a few other discussions about the drone evasion technique on the forum and someone (sorry I can't remember who) actually made a Custom map that is a tutorial to doing it.

Yep, that's exactly what I was asking... sorry, should have been more clear.  (I was looking at Wheatmidge's photo with the clump of drones chasing the LS.)  I have played a few maps where evasion was necessary, and somehow got through them, but never got any good at it.  Probably never tried a diamond pattern.  Very cool, I'll have to practice.  Thanks!

[Kithros]

I used a different strategy. I grabbed all the gems on the left and then flew through the stream and capped the top emitter and gateway before building any weapons (except one repulsor).

Ok, dumb newbie question.  What did you do about all those drones?  If there's a "Run away" strategy I haven't figured it out yet.  And how do you keep them from taking out the nullifier?

He has all of the drones chasing the LS, and constantly moves the LS around in circles to prevent them from hitting the LS.

Gateways have a limit to how many drones they can send out, so if you build no buildings for enough time, you can get all of the drones to chase the LS and the gateway won't be spawning any more drones. The LS moves at the same speed as the drones so it is possible to evade them indefinitely.

EDIT: Oops, didn't see that it was already answered on the 2nd page of thread.

[Marley]

EDIT: Oops, didn't see that it was already answered on the 2nd page of thread.

There's no such thing as too many answers.    ;D  Thanks!

[ea3401]

... someone (sorry I can't remember who) actually made a Custom map that is a tutorial to doing it.

Map 2320  :)

[MizInIA]

Parabola I thought was hard to get started but went well after the second wave of Drones was defeated. I used the shield approach and they still got a couple of my blasters. It was Circle I had problems with. I just couldn't push the creeper back very fast. it took me forever to get that last emitter. if I rerun it I won't try to clean up the creeper inside the field but instead focus even my Launchers at the emitter.

[deety42]

Thanks!  I never realized that there were a finite number of drones from a gateway.  That's super helpful.  And thanks for the map number, ea.  I've searched for it but never managed to find it. 

[Wheatmidge]

... someone (sorry I can't remember who) actually made a Custom map that is a tutorial to doing it.

Map 2320  :)

So EA made the map.  :) Sorry I couldn't remember

[Marley]

Well, that was a learning experience.   ;)  Thanks for all the drone juggling pointers everyone, I think I'm starting to get the hang of it.

[asmussen]

Final standings. Dt42 is up for the next tourney.

Results Per Player


   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

Rank	Name	Line	Hyperbola	Elipse	Parabola	Circle	Total Score	Total Time
1	asmussen	12117	11583	12614	10712	8361	55387	64:43
2	dt42	12040	11700	12605	10531	8388	55264	63:58
3	Marley	12099	11288	12212	9783	8132	53514	82:41
4	DougB	11814	11309	12417	9938	7840	53318	82:59
5	MizInIA	11704	10450	11993	9439	4803	48389	221:41
6	mopa42	12085	11858	12684	10468		47095
7	Atomicfrog	12111	11766	12831		9343	46051
8	Wheatmidge		11835	13000	11294	9638	45767
9	inept_celt	11928	10772	12155		6375	41230
10	Anarchy Ape	11668	9875	12036		5859	39438
11	ctuna	12175	11780	12785			36740
12	sept1973	11941	10377	11871			34189
13	Martin	12016		12613			24629
14	ea3401		12014		11467		23481
15	RockyRaccoon	11874	10334				22208
16	Elipse			12055			12055
17	Line	11803					11803
18	Ultraexactzz	11503					11503
19	Hyperbola		10978				10978
20	theo	10701					10701

Scores recorded at 2013-07-15 00:34:53 forum time.

[deety42]

Yikes! Okay, I'll try to post by this afternoon.  Thanks.