Custom Map #2740: Death by Spore. By: Jason Stevens

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This topic is for discussion of map #2740: Death by Spore


Author: Jason Stevens
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While you're trying to stay alive from the spores, keep an eye on the creep to the east. Good luck!

[Jerdog]

Wow I don't know if I can do this one.

[Jerdog]

Wow I did it.

Spoiler

Trust your little bit of anti-creeper while you build beams and energy.

[close]

[ThomBat]

First 10 minutes was one long rolling crisis, then another ten minutes of building out of energy deficit until finally the base changed to the healthy "surplus power" colour - great fun! But now I'm curious how such maps get designed with such a fine balance of power demand and supply - do designers use formulae or is it just some good guesswork followed by a lot of partial playthroughs while tweaking the spore and emitter rates?

Spoiler

I only left the anticreeps in place while getting the first two beams up, then successively nullified the anticreeps and used their PZs for beams (east) and mortars (west), otherwise the 25 wave of spores got through.

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[Jerdog]

nullified the anticreeps and used their PZs for beams (east) and mortars (west), otherwise the 25 wave of spores got through.

I used the lower two to siphon a/c and didn't use the uppers at all.  In retrospect I should have used some as you did.

[damalakas]

Awesome map, i like hard starts. Left all 4 anticreeper emitters, but perhaps might have tried nullified them one by one and add reactor on top of them? Could have been much faster, IMO. Once you get energy surplus and can defend 25 spores, it's just usual stuff. Good map.

[stdout]

Excellent battle! Just completing this map felt like an accomplishment and that's rare in CW3 missions. Probably the hardest start of any map in CS.

[jasons2645]

Yea, definitely a hard start kind of map.  I tried to make it so that once the initial struggle was overcome, the map didn't drag on and on unnecessarily.  And speaking of challenges, if you're looking for a hard CW3 map, "Death by Spore or Emitter?" is by far the hardest map I've created.  Took me quite a few fine tunes to get it to be winnable!

[D0m0nik]

Crikey, that was a challenging start, had to restart about 5 times!

Spoiler

I used 2 PZ for beam and 2 PZ for reactors. Used guppies to charge the totems and get the forge going. The wall actually holds for quite a while with just 4 mortars on the corners so you can build the base very quickly.

[close]

Really great map, a good challenge.

[pastor.healer]

Jason, I gave your map a 10.  Well done!  Hard to get going and hard to keep going.  Thanks for the work on the map.   :D

[Loren Pechtel]

Stumped.  I'm just barely holding out against the spores (multiple spores killed while they're already over my base) and the anti-emitters weren't enough.

[D0m0nik]

Stumped.  I'm just barely holding out against the spores (multiple spores killed while they're already over my base) and the anti-emitters weren't enough.

Hey Loren

Take out the four anti-emitters and you are provided with 4 PZs, I used two for beams and 2 for reactors and it was not too bad. take the anti- emitters two at a time, one reactor, one beam and you can grow your base with the increased energy.

[Johnny Haywire]

Great map, especially considering how old it is!

You might not think to nullify a friendly emitter right away, but keep in mind that a PZ reactor is the equivalent of TEN reactors. And once you get that kind of power going, you can build much faster since you have more energy.

After doing the newer maps, this one won't seem quite as difficult as back-in-the-day, but it's still a great challenge! Two big toes up!  ;D ;D

[marvinitfox]

...but keep in mind that a PZ reactor is the equivalent of TEN reactors. ...

^this.

All the power of 10 reactors, but only spend once, and actually more important in this scenario, only takes up 1/10th the floorspace.

In the early game floorspace is veryVeryVery limited!

P.S.
Remember to build your forge and upgrade.
Yes, you can do that before clearing to the totems.
You just need to build two guppies, and power the totems. Guppies can survive even in deep creep for a few seconds, so just feed your totems and evac the guppy before it dies. Rinse & repeat until your territory reaches the totems.

[Johnny Haywire]

Good point about the floor space  ;)

You can also throw a few mortars & beams off to the AC emitter near the totems, which makes grabbing the totems a lot easier if you don't like the micro-managing approach.