Custom Map #2757: Tic tac frac PAC. By: ak

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This topic is for discussion of map #2757: Tic tac frac PAC


Author: ak
Size: 81x81

Desc:
Second quest! Somehow these humans took advantage of their reactor farms and reclaimed the area, but they seem to be out of nullifiers. You'll have to use the remaining spore towers very carefully if you want revenge! #PlayAsCreeper #PAC #Symmetric

[D0m0nik]

Two brilliant maps, great work.

[apocalipsus]

I'm kinda stuck, took me around 10 min to get the first power zone and build a new emiter. The spores on the middle are  instantly destroyed and I don't see how to use them.
After getting the first island I manage to get one more power zone to the right and thats it, i'm stuck.

[RealAndy]

Not quite sure exactly how I got out of the first island, but I'd say keep using spores and slowly reclaim more land, and as many PZ's as possible.  Maybe sync the spores to get past the beams.

Great map, love when the PAC map is just as fun as the regular one.

[mzimmer74]

I'm kinda stuck, took me around 10 min to get the first power zone and build a new emiter. The spores on the middle are  instantly destroyed and I don't see how to use them.
After getting the first island I manage to get one more power zone to the right and thats it, i'm stuck.

There are a couple of ways to use the center spores.  In general, if you select a spore tower and have it target itself it will not get destroyed before landing.  This can help on maps where you want to save a spore and there isn't a lot of AC.  Unfortunately, that's not too helpful on this map due to the AC.  However, you can have them target a short distance away from themselves and still survive.  I personally had them target to the square between them and the nearest PZ.  For the SW spore, I had it target the square to the NE, for the SE spore, I had it target the square to the NW, and so on.  While this didn't directly let me progress through the map it did force the PZ canons to focus on something other than the area I was working on.

Hope that helps.

[apocalipsus]

Hey. Thanks for the tips. I finally managed to complete the map. Was an ok map. Just took too long to get the hang of it, and taking so long to get the first PZ was a bit of letdown for me

[mzimmer74]

Hey. Thanks for the tips. I finally managed to complete the map. Was an ok map. Just took too long to get the hang of it, and taking so long to get the first PZ was a bit of letdown for me

Glad to help.  I also struggled with the first PZ.  It does help to set that first emitter to burst mode instead of steady stream.  It makes it a bit easier to take out the sprayer.

[D0m0nik]

To take the fist emitter set the field tool to 45 degrees from your emitter to the first PZ, switch to burst, turn creeper to digitalis as it spreads. Be patient. That's it, no trickery needed!

[Loren Pechtel]

How I did it:

Spoiler

As stated, the center towers are useless until you can clear out some beams.  Yes, they can be set to target themselves but they're under PZ shields, the spores still don't land.  Thus, ignore them for now.

You have one more spore tower but you can't aim it, it's also useless.  That leaves only your emitter.  Note the power situation on your island--it's coming in through collectors against the edge of the map.  In burst mode you can push the digitalis out to those collectors--once they're both out of the picture the remaining weapons in your base except the beam are depowered--run them out of ammo and you can take the base with the only threat being the central mortar.  Make sure to push digitalis onto the space where the beam is.

Now I switched three PZs to spores, perhaps 4 would have been a bit faster.  I aimed for the stuff in the open area to the east.  Two more spores, this was enough to get through the defenses of the east base.  More beams and a couple of emitters.  Repeat the same tactic to the south.

With two of the shields and three beams down the central base can be hit.  Pop the center and it falls apart.  That's a whole bunch more beams, I connected the digitalis to the final base and then put the spores on random as they were going to overwhelm the beams anyway and I wanted the fire spread.

When I managed to get a PZ I put an emitter there and forwarded the other emitters to it.  It was over very soon thereafter.

[close]

[Hubs]

In case anyone missed it, once you get digitalis to the center island, you can build another spore tower/emitter on top of the starting spore towers since there is still a PZ there.

Also, keep in mind the arc that a spore takes. When shooting horizontally (east to west or west to east) spores always travel in an arc that goes more upwards/north before landing. While a vertically shot spore (north to south or south to north) is going to travel in more of a straight line. You can take advantage of this when fighting at the top of the map because spores will can travel high (above the upper map boundary) and avoid beam fire for a little bit longer than if you were shooting straight in.

[chwooly]

This is a boring map, I didn't bother to finish it since after over an hour at 4x speed, I still was not able to get a foot hold on the center or get dig to stay powered at all.