Part 133: A Trio of New Planets
A Trio of New PlanetsThat's not much of a title, but I figured it was better than just listing them all. Surprisingly, the final pair of planets in the Hunter Seeker system went much quicker than the first two did - so much so that I moved on to another system as well.
Video
Here's what was first - there's some more above this but it's a vertical map with spores, digitalis, and emitters at the bottom. That sort of messes with my head a bit at first, as it's rare to not start from the bottom or sides. The brain is just wired that way, whether it's a board game like chess/checkers or missions in this game, many are right-to-left or vice-versa but I can't think of one that had you start at the top. And of course we're going uphill here.
Also, DmitriX, this is definitely the one of the few that I think is most worth looking at from a script standpoint. There's some in the next one also but at least from a playing POV not nearly as interesting.
The very top is definitely strange. In the middle there's what looks like, and it turns out actually is, a windmill. The red things on either side are 'snipers' ... but not exactly standard ones. Then there are those AC Emitters on the mainland, each of which puts out i think 40 AC in 1-second intervals. Except they've done nothing yet, almost a minute into the level. I'm assuming they are on some sort of delayed activation but I don't really know.
As the creeper makes its way down the hill - surprisingly slowly - I find that putting Relays up here creates connections to the 'snipers' and to the Windmill. I've got some ore mines and a forge going, but this seems clearly to be important, though I'm not sure what it does ...
The windmill is 'spinning' here, starts at about three minutes into the video, and it appears to be tied to those ac emitters - though possibly it's a coincidence that they activated at the same time. In any case, I found that it's basically impossible to fill up those pseudo-snipers with ammo - they just send it on to the windmill and 'power' it, as it were. So yeah, this is a very nice help.
Once again the basic, cardinal error of forgetting about the Spore Towers raised it's head. I tried to recover from it for a bit, then decided against it.
Next time I was ready to put Beams up when the first warning sounded, and also built up the hill more aggressively after getting a connection to the Windmill in place. This should be sufficient for keeping most of the map under my network's control.
After starting a gradual reactor buildup and putting Ore Mines in place, I started progressing up the hill. With at least 10 deposits available, I would eventually add a fifth Sprayer just to use at all. Combined with the wind and the AC coming out of our two emitters, the Cannons and Mortars didn't have to do much other than help clear space at each successive tier. The Creeper virtually melted away until we got close to the summit.
More Mortars were needed there, and the digitalis cannons did a little more work. Partly because of the wind it was stacked up a fair but up here. Still wasn't much trouble though, and this ended up being a pretty simple 20-minute romp with plenty of resources including Aether for upgrades.
This small planet wraps up the system, and believe it or not it's even easier than the last one. Those two small hills have hidden emitters, but they only pump out a very small amount at first.
Then there's these three red 'buttons' at the bottom. Took me a bit to realize that only one can be 'active' at a time, and they appear to activate when you finish building something on top of them. So you've got to delete the previous one first ...
Guess that's why it says 'Don't Push'. Then a restart to do this properly now that I understand the situation.
Ignoring the ore to keep its output minimal, I put up a handful of Collectors which is enough for these cannons to get in Nullifier range. This is a basic divide-and-conquer scenario.
Then on to using those plentiful Ore Deposits to fuel the attack on the other one. This keeps energy down to limit resistance there as well.
The quickest level yet in the alpha sector - I'm sure this could be done in a couple minutes or so by someone with a proclivity for speedrunning.
From the upper-right to the last remaining system in the lower-left of the Alpha Sector, Lich98. The names of the planets are simplicity itself. I begin here with the last of today's frivolity at The Name.
A narrow strip island above this is also here. Seems, at least based on this, that Lich98 likes Digitalis.
Since when is the Loki Hive a PR personality?
Which in no way answers the question ... but that's Lia for you.
I think I'm supposed to know what CAIN is, but I don't.
The bottom island is not the only starting place - there was definitely a big missed opportunity here. It's a good one though, esp. since these two emitters - there's another one on the eastern end - have a delayed start thing. It's definitely possible to at least knock out the closest one before it even does anything.
After getting the middle Emitter out of the way, I started pushing off in both directions.
Here's that missed opportunity I mentioned. The runners all come from the 'H', and by this point - 6:41 misson time - there are a fair number of them. But at the start the digitalis over here hasn't been regenerated and there is a window of opportunity. Best would probably be landing one of the Command Nodes here initially and multi-tasking. I didn't notice that at first, and now we've got a sizable number of the little twerps to deal with.
I did Guppy-Nullify a couple of these while still clearing out our starting strip island, to reduce their numbers as a couple of the Nests are close enough to the edge of the digitalis.
Then I moved over to take control of the H, but I underestimated the situation.
Partly due to runners stunning things - at times I had 4 or 5 things not working - energy was an issue for a lot longer than I expected. Definitely should have gotten more guppies going here.
Overwhelming firepower crammed in was the solution as it so often is, but this took a while.
Continuing the trend of underestimating things a bit, I had a couple of SuperBerthas preparing a landing zone here on the C, working my way through the name in backwards order frome ast to west. Still took me a couple tries to get it despite weak emitters here. This part is sneaky because of the digitalis surrounding on all sides. The required 'garrison' effort needed is more than I anticipated, and a period of two steps forward, one step back ensued. On the positive side, I had figured out that MOAR GUPPIES was needed here.
Regularly spaced anti-Digitalis Cannons were required in order to eventually safeguard territory and safely move forward. After spending too much time on the H and C - over 50 minutes in by the time they were pacified - progress did accelerate from then on.
Several decent-strength emitters awaited on the L, but it was nothing a massed assault couldn't cure. The bottom of the I was quite simple to deal with.
I rather like this SuperRelay, which connects up a bunch of stuff and is, I think, necessary to reach the dot of the I. Five nullified at one blow, but given the AE Tower I don't know that there's another way to make this happen.
Two more emitters to wrap up on the upper strip island, which extends further east even narrower but nothing interesting that way. I found the artifacts of Odin to be totally superflous here. Still an interesting map that is perhaps average difficulty and some alternate ways to do things if you're quick and smart.