Part 4: Orion

Chapter 4: Orion


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ox...GJCv1o6g8UIRi8F






If you're looking for the Guardian, Death Ray, or other advanced technology, this isn't the LP you're looking for. Wrong Orions.

OPS blathers on quite a bit here, but having something other than Blasters to hit the Creeper with would definitely be a welcome addition. Let's see about getting it.




We're definitely still in 'easy mode' here. Five emitters oppose us, but they have to fill in some lower terrain on the west side of the map. Until they get to that central north-south ridge, we've got nothing to worry about. And a half-dozen collectors already hooked up gives our economy a nice jump-start.




A little too slowly at first, I expand the network south. I'm in no hurry to grab the nano-schematic, but this is a good area that sets up well for an efficient grid. The creeper flows down the 'steps' to the west, collecting in the low-lying areas. We've got plenty of time.




Continuing to futz around a little too much, I get a couple of storage units going by the time we get the Mortar schematics.




The firing-over-walls thing is not useful in any world I've yet run into. That's not to say it won't be, but it's definitely the deep pools that we are looking to take advantage of. Taking out a large amount of creeper at once can really turn things in your favor, as will be demonstrated in time. They have a decent range, not that far, but better than the Blasters. Ammunition cost is also a lot higher, and the price tag of 50 Energy is the same as a pair of Blasters. So it's best to only build them and place them where they are really going to help you.




Still building a bit slowly, as you can see from the surplus, I've taken the ridge by about the 3-minute mark. Energy is really coming in well now. Time to get fighting. Really you only need one mortar here; putting it in that part that juts out to the west between the two pools is perfect, so long as you can build it in time. From there it can fire at either of the two 'pools'. Naturally this occurred to me while watching the replay, not while I was going through the level. So that's not what I did.




Once I get a couple mortars in place, to say nothing of the Blasters, the creeper in the pools is quickly knocked down and there's no way it's going to accumulate enough to threaten my position. Now I just need to push forward enough to snag the Totems.




After slapping down some more Blasters a while later, it's on to the 'leapfrog' method of waiting for collectors to finish, moving Blasters forward to clear more space, etc. I get a Blaster destroyed in the process because I'm not careful enough, and when fighting your way upwards this can get dicey.

If you look at the bottom of the screen, there's a couple blasters down there that can't attack the creeper above them because they aren't at a high enough elevation, and the southwest is exactly where I need to get for the last Totem. This kind of operation is pretty methodical and slow, but I've got more than enough energy to get the job done eventually.




Took longer than the previous worlds, but we got there. The most notable part of this graph is the spike right in the middle. That's the brief but very effective moment of glory for the Mortars. Put them in action in the right situation, and Creeper is killed by the truckload.




Only Cetus remains of our first set of planets, which makes one curious what awaits us there ...