Part 89: Tiplex

Tiplex

Video


Time to take out the inhibitor for this system. I think we've been here long enough.




That ... does not look like a naturally occuring formation.










The 'Ticon Empire' must be a name worth remembering, if Lia is bothering to mention it at all.










Ever the inspirer of hope, isn't it/she?







Obvious answer is obvious to this question.





Brief, eloquent, succinct. And as we'll see, very much true. For all the brilliance of the Ticon, Skars may well have been much better off if they never arose.































That was a lot of words. This must be an important mission.




I land the Command Node on the right side as instructed. This here I didn't notice while playing out the mission. We're on maximum zoom and it's still pretty hard to see ... but on each side of the digitalis webbing(that's what the white stuff is, the 'plan' for where it's going to grow), there is a blue something and 'Build: 16%'. The Digitalis is actually building stuff here! That truly sucks.




This is the first time I tried the suggested click-and-drag method for placing collectors. I did it badly on some occasions, but I did it doggone it!! Here you can see that some of them won't build due to obstacles. It appears best to use on open areas.




Now we've got the second Command Node available as we noticed earlier. Only one locked option in the Orbital tab left. I fear we'll eventually have to manage a third of these things. But all in good time.




Destroy the inhibitor. Nothing else matters. Also, notice that silver disc thing? Looks rather out of place over here on the left with the second node. Also, we have a second energy and ore bar at the top now. Later in the mission I would get confused over which was which. I didn't realize the '2' emblazoned on the bottom of this node(hard to see here due to the image resizing), which sort of reminds you if you forget which one was placed first.

Also, see how the webbing is all bluish now ... except for at the bottom of this shot where it's still white and harder to see? Blue digitalis has creeper; white is damaged/withered. I like the word withered, so I'll be using that. We can already see how it couldn't care less about obstacles, just climbing over, around, and through as needed. Ay caramba.




It takes about two minutes from mission start for the digitalis to fully regenerate. So I deploy cannons where it reaches the top levels, because if it finishes up there bad things will happen. Digitalis turns red briefly when damaged.




Just about the time I finish getting cannons and collectors up on the top level of both sides, along with ore mines on the deposits, I'm notified of what was being built. Spore Towers. I need Beams before attempting any kind of attack it seems. The basin down there is flooding with creeper as well; that's a fairly decent-strength emitter.




That strikes me as a particularly bad idea in general.




I messed around a bit with a couple not-the-best ideas, then decided I wanted to put mortars on the platforms like so, with cannons on the surface. The left and right sides of the map aren't totally symmetrical, but they're close to it, so I can more or less use the same approach on each side.




When I get to that disc, I'm told it's basically the CW3 version of the CW2 Holocube. The way Lia phrases this begs a rather massive question; why would the Creeper leave stuff like this around for us to find?






Oh goody, a cliffhanger ...




This is the best -- no, that's not the right word. More like the 'least bad' way I find of taking down the digitalis formations. The Sprayer can't actually attack the stuff directly, but it does hold the ground against the creeper itself and, as Lia mentioned, slow regeneration of the digitalis. The cannons and mortars can then be less ineffective against it. But it's still not a quick process.

It's about here that I began an extended period of doing stupid things. Those of you who like to swear at and throw things at your screen as I make mistakes, this is probably your best time to do it so far in this game. Not moving the beams forward to protect the relays? Check. Moving forward too far to get your cannons destroyed by the digitalis? Double-check, triple-check, and then some. Running out of energy and procrastinating far longer than I should have in just building a bunch more reactors? Yep, got that covered as well.




Here I lose some stuff but just barely protect a nullifier long enough to take out this emitter on the left side. That means less creeper feeding into the digitalis.




I try several times to securely get something on that power zone, and fail. I do eventually take out the emitter on the right side, leading to this. Which is a beautiful sight. Apparently the emitter that the warp inhibitor is on doesn't feed the digitalis because reasons. Appears to be connected, but it isn't. So now the webbing is withering, shriveling, and dying as Skars cheers with glee. There are actually three emitters in that lowest trench, but neither of the others matter. I'm pushing onward to take out this one and get out of here.




I put a Mortar on the power zone here to pound the depths, and it's a much, much easier thing to push the creeper back now that the digitalis is dead. I'm already getting a nullifier in place to knock out that spore tower.




Then I manage to do this for the first time; it's a Super Nullifier! This is about the limit of the range, but that emitter puts out 250 every 3 seconds. It's awful nice to not have to clear out a bunch more space just to get closer to it. The inhibitor dies, and we're done here.

Navox is history. At this point, after 10 missions, we'd be half done with either of the first two games' Story Mode. Here we've finished three of nine currently-visible systems. The easiest/smallest three, presumably. There might be a little more meat on this bone, comparatively speaking.