Part 21: Pyxis

Chapter 19: Pyxis


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SP-...eature=youtu.be






We now have more information about the Commander's history, and the mysterious Platius as well though this raises at least as many questions as it answers.




Lots of stuff here. That triple-emitter in the middle being closed in buys us some time as OPS mentioned. Better have our ducks in a row when it breaks loose though. An uphill fight is clearly on the menu, and while we have all six upgrades available we'll have to expand quite a bit to get them.

Doom Timer: 5:39


Almost exactly a minute longer than it will take for the creeper to eat through the retaining walls. Once it does so, it's coming downhill and it's coming fast. Of course at the time I played this, I had no such sense of the timeline. Let's see how I did.




Make for the upgrades, then use drones. I think the goal here was the extend the life of the barricade. Getting the nanobot upgrades quickly is definitely a good idea. Might be better though to keep building out the network at this point. I soon added blasters and more collectors, pushing the deficit into the mid-30s. Trying to do too much at once.




The drone did indeed do a number on the central emitters. Meanwhile a good line of blasters was established and the lowest tier filled in with collectors. Feeling pretty good about the overall here.




Clearly there is more to Platius than we have seen. Who are these others? And how does the Commander 'know what he must do'?? But once again we get ahead of ourselves, as we are far from being able to open the Rift here.




So far as I can tell, the drone bomber gained us exactly one second of time in terms of the walls breaking. However, there was a bit less creeper built up than there would have otherwhise been. Still, going for the drone that early was clearly not optimal. Which isn't to say that things are looking bad. We've got a foothold on the second tier now and the bomber can pound the small craters on each side to help us out here.




New collectors and blasters orders went a little bit overboard ... and the middle of our position collapsed under the strain. Don't Overbuild ... and yet I find myself doing it, even as I preach not to.




A few blasters and a number of collectors bought it, as the creeper attack nearly reached the outskirts of Odin City itself. It was partly self-correcting in a way, as less blasters meant less ammunition requests, but I definitely could have done with the energy losses.

The deficit reached 70, then spiked over 100 as I took the ultimately unnecessary step of building a couple of reactors. What was really need was a careful blaster advance, and eventually that's what happened.




Now we're back on the right track here, gradually gaining momentum.




Soon we were able to claim territory on the third tier, but still a troublesome energy shortfall. Those emitters are really pumping out the creeper, making things somewhat difficult.




After pausing long enough to get three more reactors up, we pushed further by sheer brute force. By this point I could sustain the required depletion rate of about 8.5 energy/second required to sustain a comfortable, slow-but-steady advance. 11 Blasters. Got to hand it to the creeper on Pyxis, they didn't just mail it in.

Capping the northwest emitter allowed us to attack sideways while most of the creeper moved downhill because gravity. Then knocking out that middle trio sealed the victory, and we escape once again ...







And now ... the mysteries of Loki beckon.