Part 144: Islands

Islands


The third and final outsized planet of this system.




If you like island-hopping, this is the planet for you. If you don't, grab a sedative and your beverage of choice, because we're in for a lot of it. This completes the sequence from one big land square (SuperFlat) to a mix (Chunk) and now it's the standard archipelago idea, only on steroids just as the others were.




This is the SW corner. I opted against a multi-tasking start this time. This configuration proves sufficient for holding back the creeper - 49 secs. in here. I've got a significant shortfall, with 6.7 income and trying to use about 10 for a deficit of three to four.




Several standard 1-spore, 50-payload Towers are about, so I soon need Beams and cut back to a single Reactor at a time.

A Forge and initial Nullifier followed, even as I continued to expand the reactor farm. That shot the deficit up as high as 8 regularly, but it was a sustainable situation - I had enough weapons up to handle the shortfalls.




Took about 15 minutes to clear the initial island completely. One SuperBertha in place, a couple more on the way, and it's time to begin the long expansion phase.




The big southeast island rebuffed my first attempt. Getting a sprayer on high ground over there made a second landing more secure.




Moving a Command Node over to the new digs, I also added more weaponry. Here began something I would do a LOT of on this level - resighting artillery to have one each hitting a number of different islands, so that none of them had too much Creeper buildup.




This was next - some of these have emitters positioned annoyingly so that it's difficult to get a nullifier in proper range of them. Shields to the rescue.




After another small island fell, here's the status of the attack - you can see all of the different bertha targets. Over a half-hour played and still a lot of territory to cover, and more above this screen.




This central island with an AE Tower was a little more interesting than the others, though nothing a little brute force couldn't solve. Not without a couple of casualties however. Six spore towers, the majority of the planet's complement, were eliminated there.




SuperRelays were used a lot as I progressed to make connections between islands easier. I also realized at this point that I was running low on Cannons, so I'm building a bunch more at the moment.




With only a couple of islands left, I had a stupid amount of trouble with this one due to how far the packets now had to travel to build a connecting relay. This is the favored gimmick on this level - two emitters on high ground, opposite sides of a valley.

I ultimately failed this landing three times, and the fourth, successful one wasn't particularly stellar, before conquering this stupid island. I was not amused, but all that remained was the easy big one in the northwest and this tale ended at the north side of an hour once again.