Custom Map #675: Buried Alive

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This topic is for discussion of map #675: Buried Alive


Author: Kithros

Desc:
You were in the middle of a routine mission, when an earthquake wipes out your infrastructure. To make matters worse, your ship has been damaged and will not be able to build any more beacons. Includes multiple difficulties through use of negative score gems.

[Kithros]

First off, before saying anything else I don't want my time to intimidate people too much from this map - as I've tried to say in lots of places, this map uses lots of negative score crystals with varying effects, and if you play with none of them (like I did) then the map will be absurdly difficult. Hopefully the map should be fairly easy (I'm a terrible judge of difficulty mind you) if you take all the gems, and the idea is to try to win using as few crystals as possible - every red crystal gives -10000 score, so regardless of how much slower you beat the map, your score will always be better if you play with fewer crystals.

I'm also kind of curious how people try to go about this map since I tried to keep it very open ended - the only things that I really see as being necessary is.. obviously moving the LS further up as soon as you can, and going through some path to the bottom to reach the dark beam, everything between and after should have a lot of room for variation. I'm also not sure which gems people will find the most/least useful - since the way I play the map probably won't be like the way most people play it.

[SmileyCoder]

Managed to complete it in my first try, with only 1 reload. Very impressive use of negative crystals. It adds a whole new level of replayability to the same map, since I could try the map again, and go for different or 0 crystals in my next run.

Spoiler

I only went for the crystals needed to get to the beacons that could be powered, as well as 1 crystal to get a mirror. Without too much difficulty I could have done it without the mirror, in hindsight.

[close]

Nice map, its obvious that alot of time went into the placement of each diggable/undiggable terrain, each piece of decayable terrain and so on and so forth.

[Shimizu]

RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWRRRRR  die foul evilspawn map!

After fiddling with this for...I don't know...too long, I declare it Irritating.
I love the concept and clearly this was painstakingly created, it makes you rethink gameplay and things you take for granted (like beacons).   One thing I struggle with on this map, which is presumably by design, is that I'm hesitant to even turn on the 'unreachable' beacons for fear that I will burn them out and then byebye happylight that I might need later.  Meanwhile I'm floundering about figuring what I'm going to do and the crap at the top of the map breaks through the blue Xs and splat I go.   My second try I attempted to move my ship back down closer to the starting position but was foiled I believe by bad timing (simply because in that position I'd have a roof over my head, so to speak).  I never could figure out how I was supposed to get down to the laser, ship is too fat, and the beacons you'd need to get down there are 'locked' in solid blocks (well, most of them).  In theory if I could blast my way to the available beacon bottom center and get it turned on I could microrift back to my powerbase but I haven't been able to actually execute this successfully as yet.

So after moving my ship up and right, which you more or less have to do, I see two main options - try to get 'down' or try to get your ship somewhere safe where the roof wont come crashing in, because the 'above' creeper is so dense that even with very impressive shieldspam, grabbing all crystals and building reactors in every conceivable space I wasn't able to stop it from drowning me in blue yuck.   Can't get down fast enough (this is possibly because I just failz) and I think next go I will try again to get ship to 'safe haven' and try to solidify a power base.

I used crystal techs for beacon range but still struggling with it.  Evil, evil map. 

I like it tho!  It is good, and different than the usual 'hole up, build tech, blaster spam' tactic that works almost everywhere, I think it just maybe is a bit too 'intense' for me having absolutely nowhere to go!

[Kithros]

Yeah, I had to make sure there wasn't any easy path to the bottom with the LS, and also had to make sure the dark beam couldn't beat the map on it's own (unless you took lots of dark mirrors anyway). I'm not quite sure how well balanced the crystals and such are though - but I guess I'll leave it up to other people to decide which ones they should/shouldn't pick up.

I think I might have gotten a bit carried away and made the map a bit bigger than I should have, since it's quite a long map no matter how you play through it, but I'm hoping it has enough to keep it interesting rather than seeming like a slog.



As far as reaching the bottom, the most obvious path will be just heading straight down - but you'll need to kill off some of the emitters along the way to be able to dig enough room for the LS to get there (very intentional) - there's a gem that has 2 conversion bombs that should be able to more or less kill 2 of those rooms on it's own if you're having trouble there. If you're hesitant to turn on beacons, I would recommend using the beacons that will be destroyed by dig packets first, since having them killed with full energy is terribly wasteful.



EDIT: Oh, and if you're still hesitant to turn on beacons - if you can just reach the bottom, and keep the beacons alive from the dig packets (anti-creeper blocks enemy dig packets), then the beacons you can power from taking gems are more than enough energy to make your way through the map with beacon range upgraded - especially if you take some dark mirrors (or the 100000 energy crystal that takes 10 minutes to pick up)

[TrickyDragon]

Lol every time i turn on a becon i keep saying to myself "happylight on" and "happylight off"  this map is wicked c{:<  if i thought i was good b4 it is completely destoryed now.  i keep trying to play through without using crystals just because it CAN be done,  so why not go for gold?  very nicely done, and very obvious that you much, much lovetime into this map <3 very nicely done, it shall entertain me for hours.......

[Kithros]

I'm not entirely surprised, but I'm curious - are the people down-rating the map just because they don't like really aggressive maps as a whole (if that is then just don't play my maps because I'm not changing that part of my maps ever), or did they just find it too hard? Should the gems give more energy and such? If the map seems too hard to people I'd like to know where they get stuck, since I'm not really sure how most people will play through the map - a lot of the things that might seem obvious to me might not be to other people like how to use repulsors/shields etc. to save energy (since this map has a pretty big shortage of energy making it pretty crucial to use it efficiently). Maybe the map is just too long.


This map can pretty much be split up into 3 parts, the first being getting down to the bottom (I will be impressed if anyone can beat this map without that), then you have to defend the bottom long enough to prepare everything you'll need, and then finally killing everything off. If you're really stuck you should try just doing one step at a time and not worry about planning ahead too much - the beacons at the top of the map can be used purely for making your way down and there should hopefully be enough down there that you can reasonably win without using any of the beacons further up (using some of the gems mind you) - as long as you use a bit of anti-creeper to defend the bottom-left beacon you should have quite a lot of build space for reactors if you take the gem that 'unlocks' that beacon.

[Ebon Heart]

I'm not entirely surprised, but I'm curious - are the people down-rating the map just because they don't like really aggressive maps as a whole (if that is then just don't play my maps because I'm not changing that part of my maps ever), or did they just find it too hard? Should the gems give more energy and such? If the map seems too hard to people I'd like to know where they get stuck, since I'm not really sure how most people will play through the map - a lot of the things that might seem obvious to me might not be to other people like how to use repulsors/shields etc. to save energy (since this map has a pretty big shortage of energy making it pretty crucial to use it efficiently). Maybe the map is just too long.


This map can pretty much be split up into 3 parts, the first being getting down to the bottom (I will be impressed if anyone can beat this map without that), then you have to defend the bottom long enough to prepare everything you'll need, and then finally killing everything off. If you're really stuck you should try just doing one step at a time and not worry about planning ahead too much - the beacons at the top of the map can be used purely for making your way down and there should hopefully be enough down there that you can reasonably win without using any of the beacons further up (using some of the gems mind you) - as long as you use a bit of anti-creeper to defend the bottom-left beacon you should have quite a lot of build space for reactors if you take the gem that 'unlocks' that beacon.

I think people downrated this map because they don't get that day 20 is not a good judge of difficulty. They don't get that most maps ARE going to be harder than that. :P
EDIT: And also, it's a very evil map.

[Shimizu]

Dunno, I think downrating because you can't be arsed to beat something is kinda petty.  I still haven't beat it but I've 'uprated' it since I think it is a very good map.  There haven't been many maps I haven't been able to beat -at all- ....I *will* keep trying this but am going to go tear through some less challenging levels to get my 'blasting things to bit' fix for a while before I attempt it again ;))

[Kithros]

Dunno, I think downrating because you can't be arsed to beat something is kinda petty.  I still haven't beat it but I've 'uprated' it since I think it is a very good map.  There haven't been many maps I haven't been able to beat -at all- ....I *will* keep trying this but am going to go tear through some less challenging levels to get my 'blasting things to bit' fix for a while before I attempt it again ;))

Thanks, one thing to note however is that it is quite beneficial for aggressive levels like this to have tried to speed run less challenging maps first (ie. just bashing on less challenging maps spamming blasters every time won't get you anywhere) - if you can speed run maps you will usually get a better grasp of how to use each weapon the most efficiently, which is very helpful on levels with shortages of energy. Also being able to beat maps faster will typically let you set up a lot faster in general (in this particular case it will help in being able to reach the bottom faster).

[Zaggy]

I'm not entirely surprised, but I'm curious - are the people down-rating the map just because they don't like really aggressive maps as a whole (if that is then just don't play my maps because I'm not changing that part of my maps ever), or did they just find it too hard? ... Maybe the map is just too long.

I downvoted.  Here's my story.

I played through once, picking up crystals where I could (I just wanted to see if I could beat it at all).  I was feeling anxious and boxed in the whole time, feeling on the edge of 'this just isnt fair'.  I built a ton of shields near the top (with a row of anti-creeper underneath it) to prevent the titan emitter from exploding too quickly.  Eventually I made it to the bottom, pushed to the right side, spent 10 minutes getting the 100k crystal (and dying many times in the process from being completely overwhelmed), and slowly made my way back to the top.  I ignored creeper during my ascent (I destroyed emitters on the way, though), figuring the first step is to destroy the out-of-control titan emitter, and knowing that I had to keep my LS near all of my units since I couldn't use beacons.

It took another 20+ gametime minutes to reach the top (destroying / rebuilding the dark beam, I let my mirrors get destroyed accidentally), then I worked my way down again using blasters and launchers.

At the beginning I was anxious and panicked and nervous; later on I was a little more confident, but frustrated because I didn't have access to beacons at all, then panicked again as the creeper slowly enveloped me as I was putting 1200 packets into the big crystal, then it just felt like work to go all the way up again through the creeper to destroy the titan, then more work again to come back down.  I felt invested at that point, and wanted to just finish the thing so I could say that I beat it.

There's no way I'm playing this map again.  I just felt defeated while playing it, and even after I beat it I didn't feel that great.  I think part of it was watching everything that I built up just slowly get destroyed, and I was helpless to stop it.

I don't downvote very many maps.  In fact, I've noticed the quality of maps have been greatly improved lately, and I've been upvoting appropriately.  But I just can't do it for this map.  It wasn't fun for me.  Succeeding at the map wasn't rewarding to me.

[Kithros]

Well, I suppose playing without beacons could be rather frustrating to some people - I was trying to make people use different strategies than they normally do. I'm kind of surprised that you would have needed both the 100000 crystal and all the dark mirrors though, I would have thought that if you could get a stable dark beam running that 4 mirrors should have been enough to clear out the map fairly reasonably - were you not able to get to +12 energy fast enough? Did the beacon on the left side get killed by the dig packets? Losing that one would make it rather harsh for most people - maybe I should have made it more explicit that anti-creeper can be used to block dig packets, or just remove the aspect of dig packets killing the beacons altogether.

I think the main thing that might have made the map hard for you is that I think you tried to fight your way to the bottom from the left path (since I'm assuming you wouldn't have picked those gems up after the 100000 energy gem) - I didn't actually try fighting it through there, so I guess it must have made things quite a lot harder on you, maybe I should have given a bit more help along that path to make it a more reasonable strategy (I was hoping that both the left and the right path would be pretty reasonable to use). I could see this being especially nasty if the titan started digging up all the emitters before you got all the way to the emitter, when I played through it there was quite a bit of time to prepare since the titan wouldn't dig to the other side for a few minutes.

Oh, the last thing, how much did you use repulsors? They make defending the bottom much easier.

[Grauniad]

A discussion on what makes players downrate a map might be usefully conducted in a discussion forum not pertaining to a particular map. :) Not that I mind this discussion, but I think it goes above and beyond any single map.

Perhaps in the parent Custom Map discussion forum?

[Dalas]

I found that setting the repulsors by the 2000K emmiter to long buys you enough time for the nullifier to go off.  Just a tip for people struggling to beat this map (including me) and something to keep in mind for future maps.  Great map though!

[Kithros]

I found that setting the repulsors by the 2000K emmiter to long buys you enough time for the nullifier to go off.  Just a tip for people struggling to beat this map (including me) and something to keep in mind for future maps.  Great map though!

Hm, I actually didn't realize that, I should have (completely unintentional) - but oh well, since the map ended up being a lot harder than intended apparently it's not too bad.

EDIT: Incidentally, I did actually test this at one point - but the emitters intensity used to be higher and I tinkered around with it a bit and the initial creeper densities there, and I forgot to check again later, oh well.