Part 190: NACDAR & Digitalis Alpha Mission
NACDAR & Digitalis Alpha Mission
We have here a 'Runner Racetrack', it would appear. As if the blasted creatures needed any help zipping about. As far as the acronymn goes ... Neverending Aggravation of Creeper & Digitalis Accumulation w/ Runners? Eh, lacks punch.
Visually this is definitely well-designed, and fits into the 'looks better than it plays' category IMO. They've even got a pit row.
There's a bit of pressure on the start, but not much. After surrounding myself with Collectors I'm definitely compelled to get weapons up soon. This is just inside of one minute. Shortly afterwards the festival of stunning begins. Using the elevated platforms is definitely a good idea, and after putting up a Forge and a few Reactors, I start in with ...
Overbuilding here, with a significant deficit - I've found myself slipping back into that bad habit unfortunately. But the general idea is throwing up the occasional Mortar to deal with increasing creeper levels, while using the Snipers to slow down the Stun-A-Thon coming at us from the raceway itself.
This is one of those where I recommend a good number of early reactors as well as a few energy-efficiency upgrades before investing in much of anything else.
Once the energy situation is handled, I expand the numbers and reach of our sniper emplacements. While the western side of the network isn't so happy, here in the south I've got a pretty secure zone now from wildlife interference.
Because I'm an idiot, I selected the single most difficult spot on the track to break through against the digitalis first.
Soon I figure out that an incursion to the west is a much better idea.
After grabbing the Ore Mine in the corner and building a pair of completely unnecessary SuperBerthas just because, I begin the slow process of working my way around the track.
There's lots of opportunities on this map to just cut off a section, watch everything downstream dry up, and then seize the new territory before it regrows.
This appropriately-named map would seem to have had the purpose of testing the digitalis feature. Namely, I imagine it being used to assess how quickly the webbing grows, how effective it is at conducting the creeper uphill, and so on.
From a practical point of view we have the high ground of a decent-sized plateau, and will be attacked from all sides. There's a good amount of time as none of the digitalis reaches the highest level and the creeper will take some while to fill in the surrounding flatlands. I use this time for the usual building of Reactors, then start in on Digitalis Cannons.
Adding some Mortars after a decent perimeter was in place, I formed an attack group without sufficient regard for the energy supplies it would require *slap self*.
Plenty of digitalis cannons and some upgrades to the weapons are recommended. Here I've got a couple range and one firing rate boost.
Several more minutes were required to repeat this process three times for the other emitters.