About Farbor

[invaderhive]

This mission is insanely difficult. I never had much time to play creeper world 3 though, so I always analyzed what was possibly the fastest way to complete each map so I could have fun with another one. I have finished creeper world 1 and 2. I did find a sneaky way to get an early completion of the map though. It is possible to land a command node near a spore tower, build one energy collector and then build a nullifier. This allows me to get a powerzone I can use later on to blitz the map and stop the construction of the prism ship. There may be a no flyzone but I can still move modules onto the powerzone. I can constantly cycle mortars onto the powerzone and make it easy for me to assault the island.

[Karsten75]

Wow, really? Great idea. :)

[Taikei no Yuurei]

Bit late to the party here, but I find it funny as I actually thought the same thing when I first played CW3 before it was on steam.  I thought the ship being completed was instant loss, so I kept restarting if I hadn't gotten it at 99%.  I eventually beat it, and didn't realize until a later playthrough that I could shoot down the supply ships either.  I have no idea how I did it that first time, because going back later, I had trouble winning even with knowing I could kill the supply ships with snipers.  Might be that I invested so much in snipers that it slowed down my advance too much, no idea.

All in all, this is one of my favorite missions, because it is one of the few that is truly loseable.  I mean, you can lose others, sure, but as a general rule, if you get past the first few minutes of a map, you're going to win, just a mater of time.  I usually go somewhat slow on the various maps, so the time limit is a great challenge for me.

It'd be great if emitters could gain strength over time, could make beating the creeper into more than a simple battle of attrition.

[pawel345]

Well that's there on custom maps. I'm sure edurans map had one that gained over time and there are others for sure as that's one of the easiest things to do with CRPL. You can always make your own map that has such a feature.

[dudecon]

...I thought the ship being completed was instant loss, so I kept restarting if I hadn't gotten it at 99%.  I eventually beat it, and didn't realize until a later playthrough that I could shoot down the supply ships either.  I have no idea how I did it that first time, because going back later, I had trouble winning even with knowing I could kill the supply ships with snipers.  Might be that I invested so much in snipers that it slowed down my advance too much, no idea.

All in all, this is one of my favorite missions, because it is one of the few that is truly loseable.  I mean, you can lose others, sure, but as a general rule, if you get past the first few minutes of a map, you're going to win, just a mater of time.  I usually go somewhat slow on the various maps, so the time limit is a great challenge for me.

I thought the same thing my first playthrough, but I let it play out just to see what would happen. Then it was all "Well, the ship is complete... but stop it before it gets to the tower" and then "Okay, you still suck, but now you have twenty minutes to stop it from firing."
After that I restarted and beat it just as the pillar was beginning to open. Probably could do even better now.

Yes, I love this map too, for the same reasons. It was what pushed me into attempting things I had never tried before, because there wasn't any pressure previously.

[Altwing]

Thanks for this thread!  It wasn't hard, once I read this thread.  Or perhaps it was 'hard,' but it wasn't outrageous or insane.  I admit it took 3 tries, but I beat it with at least 5 of the 20 minutes left.  And I was able to use my usual tactic of slamming forward with Shields and Nullifiers.  I was sad that my scads of snipers did little to stall the initial ship-build, which still finished after 20 or 25 minutes, but on the plus side I got the "Ore Lover!" achievement along with "Better late than never."

This is what I did: I dropped one orbital onto the middle land to kill one of the spore towers, then I put the other two in the northwest island.  It took about 9 minutes to clear that island and to start creating pulse cannons.  After my 3rd orbital was ready, I dropped it on the south-east island and fought a pitched battle for that, then I built a forge there.  I built snipers on the... whatever you call the power-up circles in both islands, and snipers on the north islands.  In the south-east I moved mortars to the west edge in preparation for sliding over to the south island.

I saved the game once I had done all that, then I lost a dozen cannons and a shield trying to use the power-up from the spore tower I had already killed.  I think another guppy would have salvaged that situation, but I don't know. 

In my second try, I tried to land a dozen or so pulse cannons using a relay from the north.  Everyone died.  I googled what others did, and saw that the trick was to build Berthas.  ( I fully credit theDrexxus's video with giving me the idea.)

in my 3rd try, I replaced the snipers with Berthas, focused them on the area where I wanted to relay in.  My timing was off and I lost 8 guys, but I had 4 guys and the relay left and was able to send in a shield and a pair of mortars.  I was able to destroy the other spore tower before the Prism ship was built.  From there was it just 15 minutes of sliding east along with shields and nullifiers. 

I admit I got scared at this point, having read all these threads about how hard Farbor is to finish in 20 minutes, but the pair of Berthas really did all the work.  And it's not really 20 minutes total mission time, it was more like 40 or 45, if you add in the time before the Prism ship was built, so at least I had a beach-head on the main center island before the 20 minute countdown started. 

I admit that stopping the Prism ship from being built is a much greater challenge, and getting "Patton would be proud" is currently beyond me, but I'm happy that I finished the map and I did it in my usual turtle style. 

[Grayzzur]

I was sad that my scads of snipers did little to stall the initial ship-build, which still finished after 20 or 25 minutes, ...

The prism ship builds in less than 14 minutes if you don't use any snipers on the harvesters at all, so you gained a considerable amount of time there. When you take that first spore tower at the start, also line up the nullifier to take out one of the 4 cores to the prism ship, and you have 2 fewer harvesters to deal with.