Deep Strike: Sewers

[Phyrex]

Hey guys,

Bought the game a few days ago. Mostly for the level editor to be honest. Loving it so far!
I had several map idea's and after quite a bit of work I've incorperated most of them in a single map. I would like your opinion about it. Scores & screens as usual of course. :)

You can download the map here:
http://knucklecracker.com/creeperworld/mapcomments.php?id=230

There are several challenges in the map that I personally like. The flow of creeper for example is very consistant on the two main area's. You'll have to fight on both the lower and upper part and prevent them from flooding.
Also, the single upgrade in the middle has extra value because the side emitters can only be reached with the range upgrade. But a normal blaster on both sides works as well after you cross the main river in the middle.
You won't have the drone technology but there are two encapsulated drone factories that you can reach nearby. Use them well. They come fully armed once you connect to them and are save from the creeper.

All in all I think it's a balanced hard(ish) map with some unique roadblocks to overcome.
Comments are appreciated. How did you do? And what did you like about the map and what would you change?

[Phyrex]

Well, plenty of downloads so far. What scores did you guys get?  :)

[betadata]

7039 I had to restart a few times to get it down but once you had a good base it got a lot easier.

[Phyrex]

7039 I had to restart a few times to get it down but once you had a good base it got a lot easier.

Nice. Did you go for the mortar tech straight away or did you first go for a stable energy supply and/or the drone factories first?

I would like to know how fast the experts can beat this map. Any challengers? :)

[Karsten75]

Are there hidden artifacts on this map? I seem to start with blasters only and no other weapons capabilities.

[Phyrex]

Are there hidden artifacts on this map? I seem to start with blasters only and no other weapons capabilities.

Yes that's correct. I removed the SAM weapons because there aren't spores and you don't have drones because you can "capture" two drone factories. The mortar tech is available though.

You'll have to cross the river in the middle to get the mortar - giving you a small challenge. You can either rush it in the beginning or take your time and use the drones to do the heavy bombardments for you.

[rs]

Played "Deep Strike: Sewers" a couple of times yesterday, was very enjoyable, thanks!

I rushed to collect both upgrades at the start, and found it quite challenging. Didn't try to play time-competitively; got 7812 on first try, took much longer the second time round experimenting with eliminating all the creeper. The 4 emitters at the top are quite easy to cap, much easier than it may look. 11 blasters + a bit of bombardment in preparation; and the blasters end up having enough charge to last while I clear out one of the top "flats" and build some energy supply through it.

The left/right emitters are trickier to cap off, requiring blasters both below and above, and supplying the above blasters with power is usually impossible early on. No matter how much I tried, I couldn't supply blasters landed directly on these emitters - the relay starts building just fine, but eventually explodes before being completed. The small "potholes" around them are also nasty in how they cause mortar to target them with comparatively little damage. I bet this is all carefully adjusted to make them tricky :)

Overall I really liked it, the variety in emitter start times, concentration, and the pulsing nature of the central one were nice. 5 stars! :)

[Phyrex]

Thanks Rs,

The potholes around the side emitters are indeed to prevent easy capping.
I've tried several other idea's for this actually: like putting the emitter 1 height above the rest so blasters can't shoot it or making the walls next to the emitter 3 blocks wide so you can't drop blasters and have them get ammo instantly with a energy collecter nearby.

Both ways reduced the number of options though and the end goal was to make the map challenging where emitters would keep posing a threat. The top 4 emitters are basically there to give you a hard time in the beginning. You can cross the river and take them out with a couple of blasters but it will widen your defensive lines.

The side emitters will always first flow towards the totems, thus it never becomes a cakewalk. Only in the beginning with the use of the walls and a build in overflow height it will keep you busy at the platform below which is where you'll spend your first minutes at.
The moment you get up to the second platform, the creeper will automatically direct most of it's resources to fight you up there.

If you like, you can ignore the bottom platform alltogether though and build a Relay as your first building. This will instantly give you access to the drones and you can continue to the sides from there.

I'm not yet sure which strategy will give the best time. I'm hoping more people will try to improve your score and give their feedback as well :)

[Karsten75]

I didn't get a great time when I finally won this. But I finally kicked it this way. Built a relay to connect the drones. Took control of only the lower right quadrant. Built a buttload of reactors, then jumped over the wall behind it to secure some more area  around to where I could get some blasters to control the flow of the right-hand-emitter.

Then a full-frontal assault in the "river" between the lower and upper right quadrants, then the upper right quadrant up to where I could position mortars to fire on the top three emitters. Then I capped the central emitter with a blaster right on top of it. After that it was a cakewalk.

[SPIFFEN]

I waited with the mortar and used blasters in the start ,
and i ended up with this :
Time : 24:20 , score : 7,113

[rs]

8,152: http://www.freephotoserver.com/f03/u5631280.png

Started off by moving Odin City to the bottom right platform, with 1 collector to pick up the nanobots, and 2x relays + 1x collector to pick up the mortar upgrade. This approach leaves quite a large safety margin between picking up the mortar upgrade and the top platforms beginning to overflow. As an extra bonus, can now build collectors into Odin's original location to connect drones (instead of relays, which I try to avoid due to cost & not doing much).

I wanted to control both bottom left & right platforms to get more space, and because it takes time to claim a flooded one. A mortar on each platform can easily keep them both clear - in fact I kept turning them off to save energy because they weren't always needed.

After that it's all about balancing building reactors with building blasters carefully. I only used the drones for assaults, to prepare landing ground for the blasters.

[Karsten75]

Not sure I understand how you went about this. You moved Odin City to the upper or lower right platform? The upper right seems to get overrun very quickly from two sides, which makes it really hard to defend.

Also you said "pick up the mortar" and "pick up the mortar upgrade." Are these two things the same?

[rs]

Sorry, edited my post to clarify those. I have a bad habit of being ambiguous.

[Karsten75]

Great, that's more or less what I understood you to have meant, but I was having difficulty implementing that strategy without losing the top right quadrant before it floods.  Still are, in fact. But I can win easier than my first attempt if I occupy and hold the bottom right quadrant all by itself. I can then prepare enough energy and blasters to make an invasion of the top quadrant possible and sustainable if I prepare the invasion with the drones.

[Siccles]

time: 10:35     (9:00 should be doable, I used waaaaaaay too many blasters)
score: 8499