Part 99: Meso

Meso

Video





We head back through Frykt and on to Apex, where it seems likely we'll have another one-planet system leading to Tormented Space. But you don't know until you try ...




Yeppirs, that's what we're looking at here.




The further we are from danger, the closer we are to harm?

























Once again these aren't the droids you're looking for. The stop sign is put up. We don't know why, and in fact Skars has absolutely no good reason, just a nebulous(pun intended) 'feeling'. How does he know going this way isn't the path to defeating the Loki/Creeper, or that any such path even exists for that matter??

Yes, he knows his purpose, but still there's no reason for this. Whatever. We will do what we're told.




The shrunk-down distortion is regrettable, but necessary. We've got some structures of various sizes here as the distinguishing feature, along with the usual compendium of emitters, inhibitor, shield key, totems -- blah blah we know that drill already. But what are those other things? Pyramids? Ziggurats?? Somebody's third-grade art project???




Takes one to know one, Skars. Ok fine, I'll be nice. For now.




Obviously it met with the usual success rate. Tangling with the Creeper is about as good an idea as starting a land war in Asia or picking a fight with Alexander the Great, as propositions go.






















So ... you don't know what they will do, but you know they are defensive in nature? Seems an awfully big risk to keep taking without more information. I mean, all it takes is for one of these to 'malfunction' or be a booby-trap(since the Creeper likes corrupting any and all technology, why would these still function as originally intended) - that supercharges the emitters and makes their output multiply exponentially. So long Skars and Lia!

But that won't happen. Probably. We hope. But don't really know. But we're dumb enough to try it anyway. Go team!!







The starting location isn't as obvious on this map, but I still managed to get the 'right' one. It's as far as anything from the initial creeper surge which is wasting no time, and close to two of the three pyramids.




This is a mistake, but a natural one. Get the cannons up to protect against the encroaching tide. All the emitters are the same: 50 creeper every 0.17s. All together 1.8k per second, on a flat map. The Creeper is coming, and it's not being particularly patient about it.




After getting a nice flow of energy to the closest, smallest pyramid, with a few reactors up, this happens. Well that's pretty cool. Clearly the secrets of Anti-Creeper were handed down through the civilizations, because even these guys have it. This thing generates AC, and has a shield. It's not obvious yet, but it puts out a LOT of AC. As in, enough to match a few of those emitters combined. I'd estimate it about 1k/second at full power.




I throw up a mortar, a forge, more reactors, and push to the second, largest, pyramid. I didn't really have the energy for it yet and I'm in the red here, but I wanted to get there before the creeper swamped it. It has a bigger shield ... but only occasionally pulses a much smaller amount of anti-creeper. Took me quite a while through this map before I realized that, at first I thought with more energy it would give a more consistent flow. At this point both pyramid shields are flickering on and off like strobe lights.




It's takes a bit to get up more reactors, collectors under the area covered by the bigger shield, and connect up to another totem. But you know what's coming here. It's time to Bertha-Smash this map.




With four berthas each sighted in on emitters to try to lower the overall amount of creeper, I start out with some Mortars to push south.




I had some energy issues, compounded somewhat by overbuilding, for a bit. It didn't take long though to gradually push south, aided by the AC. A SuperBertha, then a SuperMortar on the second one here, soon started turning a gradual advance into a quicker one in grand CW style.




Next up was the medium-sized pyramid in the southwest, if for no other reason than curiosity about what it does. It has a shield as well, cool -- but what on earth is that yellow ... thing. I mean it looks like a man if it wasn't about a million times bigger than one. Where is it going? At first I thought this was the booby-trap part. Is it headed to unleash an atomic explosion on a Totem and cause some sort of space-time cataclysm?

And it's making more. They come out regularly. We can't fire on them either. HELP!!




I'm about to try placing snipers when this happens. They are basically AC 'bombs'. They pick what appears to be a random area on the map that has creeper, and go blow up there with AC. That's actually quite useful! Definitely don't want to shoot them. Between these exploding yellowish AC statue-men or whatever they are(I'm actually curious what they are called, if anything, if anyone knows) and the continued removal of emitters, things quickly wrap up at this point. I move a command node closer and relay a few weapons in to purge the emitter.

And the shield key is another one for Farbor. More foreboding.