Part 146: ThunderBluff & Pothole

ThunderBluff & Pothole




This barrel of joy here has emitters and spore towers only scattered around on the lowlands, and we get to pick from several decent-sized islands on high ground. Well that should be a piece of cake ... right?




Beginning the center and southeast, I claim three of them and connect them up.




That southeast island was the first one to flood though, and eventually I abandoned it to focus on the other two. This might have worked. I knocked out one emitter and I was working on a second, but then I relocated a Beam at the wrong time and ... well, this happened.

Take 2 - 7:09




I took a different third island, this time in the northwest so that my Command Nodes form a diagonal line across the map. A pair of Mortars on each is a lot of energy this early, but I thought it necessary to keep them from flooding. It doesn't take as long as I initially thought it would on this map for that to happen.




I didn't allow for sufficient energy to get to the Beams before the first wave of spores, and it totally ruined my day here. I thought this was the right idea, but the energy needed to be managed better.

Take 3 - 9:12




Experimented with a new spacing for the weapons, allowing me to use 4 Mortars and 1 Pulse Cannon instead of six mortars. I was happy with how it was working, but once again I didn't get the beams ready in time.

Take 4 - 10:08




The last of the first salvo explodes here at 3:23 mission time. I made it! Obviously energy is still an issue but I had a chance to get over the hump now.




More reactors and a Forge, along with taking out a couple of nearby targets. That's about all we can reach from the hilltops though. Most importantly, we are still secure with a much healthier economy.




I began raiding a nearby hill - these are put in the middle so they'll mostly target what's actually on it. This part will doubtless annoy the crud out of those who aren't the biggest fans of the no-pause protocol, as misclicks and letting stuff almost die/actually die due to bad timing were the order of the day for a bit.




Then I started using the Power Zones instead. I wasn't actually successful in fully clearing the nearby hill during all this - but I did start clearing out a drier area around the eastern island. Which was just as good, really.




Focusing next on increasing that progress, I eliminated another Emitter to the north and then managed to push onto the nearby hilltop finally. The highly refined, classic tactic of cram as many weapons as you can in as small a space as you can wherever you can stick them was utilized. This was the end of an almost 15-minute period of accomplishing not really a whole lot.




Once the creeper was pushed off the hill, this entire corner was no longer infested, and the advance was on.




Progress bogged down a bit at the north end of the map as the creeper was piled up pretty good and it got a bit interesting trying to get enough weapons within range. I'm sure it would have been faster to expand to that remaining unoccupied hill, but I was stubborn and did it that hard way. I did it though, doggone it!




Anyone who lives in an area where there are cold, icy winters like I do will appreciate the job of clearing a Pothole. There was a joke on my social media feed just yesterday as I write this about there being a 5-bedroom, 2-bath pothole at a major intersection in a nearby city. Such is the nature of the climate, and that was our task to finish up this system.




The interior ring of emitters are actually AC, which makes this a breeze. That was clear by the time I got the Command Nodes in place.




It provided enough coverage for me to put weapons in place at my leisure.




The Mortars helped the AC win the battle, Cannons on the top level secured it, and then it was quickly over after that. It's not often you see a relaxing mission that's over in less than five minutes. The Aliana Abraxis award achievement was the latest to join my collection here. That signifies that I've played too much Creeper World 3, to the tune of 100 successful missions. Dax Joven remains outstanding, with a standard of 250. That's not happening though I don't think.