Custom Map #7507: FB3 - Planet of Crystals. By: JoaoPistori

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This topic is for discussion of map #7507: FB3 - Planet of Crystals


Author: JoaoPistori
Size: 256x256

Desc:
Fortress Building 3 + Planet of Crystals! #CRPL #SURVIVAL #"TERPING" Protect the resource and the tech extrators to get units and resource crystals. Big and colored deposits hield more resources (ore, energy or aether). Rescue pods to increase the limit of upgrades for your forge and some additional score. Run, defend the extrators and build your fortress with terps! Survive 20 minutes and you'll get te tech you need to clear the map.

[JoaoPistori]

Just to make things clear:

- Pods and Extrators are instantly destroyed by the creeper and once destroyed, you'll never be able to get their "prize".

- Each Pod increase the limit of forge upgrades by 1 level for weapon upgrades and by 2 levels for the rest.
Note: The forge starts with no upgrades available. You need to rescue pods to unlock them.

- Tech Extrators (called "tech researchers" in-game) give units, just like a tech artifact, but they require time to work and you have to defend them if you want the unit they'll give you (unit that will be given is shown on each extrator).

- Resource Extrators will bring a resource crystal to the surface once they finish working. They act just like a Tech Extrator, but gray-yellow instead of gray-red and give you a resource crystal. The resource type is shown on each extrator.

- The Big Colored Crystals act just like a normal resource crystal. Creeper won't affect it and you can build a siphon on them. Those giant crystals give you much more resources than the smaller ones.

- The Big Extrators will give you a Big Colored Crystal once they finish working. Unfortunately, you won't know what kind of resource it is (ore, energy or aether) until the Crystal spawns. You'll just know the color of the Crystal.

This is a very long map, but it is active from the beginning to the end.

[lividbishop]

is this possible?  I mean wow i get a bunch of the prizes and its just freaking impossible.  Hints?

[JoaoPistori]

Where exactly is the problem? Surviving until you get the berthas or destroying the whole map after you got the berthas?

While surviving before the berthas,

Spoiler

terraforming a closed wall around your base is crucial. Also, the earlier you build a forge, the more aether the totems can give you before the creeper floods them. Also, make a good use of the energy crystals by not building so many things at once.

You have to destroy the 4 spore towers located on the corners of the map. You can't survive if they launch that heavy spore wave at you. Also, DO NOT GET WEAPON FIRE RATE UPGRADE. This upgrade kills your energy grid.

[close]

After you get the berthas at 20:00,

Spoiler

you should build all of them in a powerzone, feed by a pair of guppies, considering you have already nullified the 4 spore towers that are located on the corners of the map. Also, at this point I'm considering you've already sent a guppy do destroy them.

Then, use your berthas and strafers to weaken deep places around your targetted emitter (opaque creeper off helps) and then, use the singularity + an "attack team" directly on your targetted emitter. You have to destroy the map remotely as you can't advance.

Having all the 4 totems connected is also crucial. It's possible, but don't forget the creeper will flood your base sonner or later, depending on the size of your base.

[close]

EDIT:
I hadn't tested whether its possible or not to finish the map if you lose some extrators or pods. By the way, be sure you can get all the units and all the forge upgrades unlocked (by rescuing all the 5 pods) before you get locked behind your "terped-walls".

[lividbishop]

Finally got it.  Really important to keep your base small and easily defensible.  Great map!

[Lightforger]

well, that took a while

how many weapons to use to cap all the tech was some trial-&-error, but in the end i managed to get it all with only 7 cannons.
After that i terped a base that could reach all 4 totems -- https://imgur.com/a/4kxnq5T

Once the terp wall finished the map is pretty much won, stable and ready to attack emitters around the 10 minute mark.
Unfortunately with limited weapons and energy this means a slow crawl for every single emitter, terping high spots for relays+ guard cannon, which got quite boring halfway trough the map, having 1 of the corner emitters be a (double strength?) inhibitor would have been nice.

doing guppy-drops instead of making a path is probably faster, but more tedious since you also need the guppies for the PZ bertha's. It was able to reach the corners of the map with leaving only 3-4 cannons along the relay line.

[JoaoPistori]

Very nice job you two, and thanks for playing (for so long)!
And good job finishing it the old fashioned way. I really didn't even imagine it would be possible to destroy a single emitter by advancing.

Next time I'll certainly put an inhibitor, so the map can be finished much faster, focusing more on the "running" part of protecting extrators and on the "survival" part.

My idea for this map was a map where 3 things were "merged", and each one acting during each "stage":
Stage 1 - Run!! Quickly expand and protect important locations! Everything is very confunsing, 5 locations have to be protected and 5 pods have to be rescued!
Stage 2 - Survive! Build a wall, manage your energy and act against the worst threats (the spore towers).
Stage 3 - "Defusing the bomb". Guppies, singularity, berthas. Destroy the emitters remotely, one by one. That's the reason I didn't put a Thor or an Inhibitor in this map. Unfortunately, while I was making the map, I had the vision of putting all those ideas, and merging so much different gameplays in a single map. Even balancing things, I get blinded by those ideas and the map gets bored.

However, not only for this map, but for all recent ones I've made, I'll create new ones with the same ideas, but without the bored parts. When creating the maps I didn't realize the bored parts were really super bored, and I want to launch cooler maps. So, if you liked the non-bored parts of my recent maps, please wait for more. I have 4 map ideas in mind and probably I'll create and upload them all together soon, as I am on vacations.

[Syn-b]

only with help I managed to create a defense around CN. but with such a limit of weapons and development is simply not interesting after. when defense is built in principle, everything is clear. beginning 10. continuation 5. Thank you

[Lightforger]

I did enjoy the map though

Some idea's that might be fun (of course not all of them at once :p);

- more rewards for killing an emitter, currently half of them don't even give powerzones
- killing a corner is the toughest part of the map, but even if you take one down the game just says "ok, do that 3 more times" - maybe something like a bunch of reactors/weapons in the corners?
- more unlockables after the 20 min bertha's?
- unlimited weapons, since both collectors and reactors are limited, i see no point in also limiting weapons by type. This isn't a puzzle map :p (would be no problem if it's only after 15min+)
- unlimited collectors, collectors aren't that strong since they need a lot of space, offers a bunch of benefits like "do i make my base bigger" and defending captured area's
- smaller map, eg, removing the 4 strong corner emitters, maybe 1-4 other emitters - it didn't feel like the corners really affected my base until late in the game

looking forward to some more hard maps

[marvinitfox]

Ok, maybe I'm stupid.
But a map with *all sorts* on new unit-type thingys, and fuckall instructions/help manual?
No thank you.