Part 106: Prospector Zone: A Taste of Odin

Prospector Zone: A Taste of Odin

Many worlds ... many Artifacts of Odin. Play missions and collect as many Artifacts of Odin as you can.

That's what the game tool-tip says about the Prospector Zone. A recording error nixed the first few levels I did, but that's not anyone's loss I don't think given how many there are.

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Four systems here, visited in an hour and a half, to show the different artifacts. This will be our only dip into the Prospector Zone.




Here's where I left off to start this. I've got a couple of planets yet to finish here in S100_69, and have yet to get one of the artifact types.




Grasome is our first adventure. Five emitters in the north, Totems and Ore Deposits ... and that yellow F in the east. That's our lone artifact on this world.




This one is actually, by happenstance, a bit more annoying than most of these worlds. That's simply because the emitters start on the high ground. The general pattern here though of a quick collector network and then some cannons to hold out the creeper is what I'll be following.




A bit small to try and see, but this reads 36 creeper every 0.97 seconds. The script for these seems to produce pretty much five emitters on each map, with strengths as high as 50 every 0.1 seconds but most of them fairly close to this. They aren't particularly strong, but they do offer some resistance.




Once the defensive perimeter is more or less secure, I want a Forge and enough Reactors to get up to at least 20 energy. That seems to be a decent amount for these levels, then it's a matter of pushing forward, upgrading weapons, etc.




In this case I want to push along the left, where there are more Totems and Ore.




Here's what happens when you get the Artifacts - along with them being added to your counter for achievements or bragging rights purposes, each of them can be fired from the Orbital tab. F for Freeze, M for Mass, C for Convert. We have a Freeze here:




Which does as you might expect. All creeper within the yellow circle is frozen in place for 43 seconds. I find this most useful in this kind of situation when I'm making the final approach to an emitter, making it easier to get a nullifier in place.




That was just enough to get a nullifier in place and protected, after which I put a SuperMortar in place and got the nearby one soon afterwards. As it ended up, I was starting to run short on energy so the reactor farm was expanded, and then it was time to crush the remaining emitters on the high ground in the northeast. Eventually I put reactors on the two western PowerZones just to be safe.




Soon it was just a matter of closing in, step by step up the hillside. All told this was a pretty long Prospector Zone mission, taking me just over half an hour.




On to Astnis, the inhibitor planet in this system. And this one is a little more interesting. I almost wonder if it was actually designed. For those who like speed-running, this planet is I think tailor-made for it. The inhibitor itself is a little stronger than the others, 100 creeper every 2 seconds. But only a little stronger.

I start in the northeast, with the idea of taking out the one emitter in this area and then going after the inhibitor. The rest of the map can just sort of do whatever it wants. There's only one Artifact here, another Freeze which we've already seen.




I'm a bit constrained here and have no totems, so there's no point in building a forge. Takes a bit to get enough energy.




Once the emitter goes down, I put a sprayer and a mortar line on the bank and pound the inhibitor platform, then cross with the aid of the Freeze Artifact - or not, as the inhibitor actually has an exclusion zone that keeps me from using that. Dorks, but this is still a piece of cake. 8 and a half minutes, and it definitely could be done much faster. *Yawn*




I move on to the S100_41 system, and check the previews of this plethora of planets for the two other Artifacts of Odin. As it turns out, we do have the option for those two which is really good because I didn't want to plow through all of this just to get somewhere else. Also, that star is really, really pink. Just saying.




Here is Dincor, which has a Freeze and a Mass. Only four emitters here, and we have a rather obvious western starting location, elevated, with multiple ore deposits and a Totem. This is a very friendly planet.




The usual initial setup, including one of my newest friends, the always-on Sprayer. Still working energy at this point.




In retrospect this really wasn't the best idea in the world, but here's how the Mass Artifact works. Basically it fires an orbital bomb of sorts, creating a crater. This emitter was at an elevated position ... now it's in a bowl, sort of. Doesn't harm the emitter at all. This can be used to create places for the creeper to pool up. After bumbling about a bit with that crater I'd made, I wrapped up this planet in routine fashion.




Wattmag here will conclude our journey through the Prospector Zone. Another 'divided' map and this one was kind of interesting to play as well. In the west we have the coveted C for Convert, the first and only one I've found. I'm sure there are a lot more of them, and I'm also sure I won't be going looking for them . I'll start on that side which has a lot more space to build.




Does what again you'd probably expect; an orbital conversion bomb, basically. Had I been a bit more prepared I could have used this to quickly nullify those two emitters. As it was it still helped speed the process along nicely.




Here I discovered something I didn't know before; terraforming at a power zone doesn't affect it. I thought it might remove it, but that didn't happen. Wanted to put a Bertha here, but it's too close to the edge.




So instead I put a SuperStrafer there just because I could, and eventually a guppy-enhanced mass invasion of the eastern landmass began. Then it was just a matter of time.

That wraps it up for the Prospector Zone. Due to the increased resistance of the Tormented Space worlds, I'll only be doing one of those per update. So we'll spend a bit more time there before moving on to the Alpha Sector.