Part 192: Sacrifice & Chimera

Sacrifice & Chimera





Sacrifice is a rectangular map with only one emitter. I was stunned when I saw how strong it is ... until I saw the interval. 1100 creeper, but it only pulses once every 66.67 seconds. That actually works out to being less than half the strength of a standard emitter overall, but ... you don't want to be near it when it emits. Then we've got the nests and all the strands of digitalis.




The right or east side of the map is clealy donated to us for this map, and we've got some ore to work with as well. Being limited to a single Node slows down the start a bit, but there's plenty of room to spread the network with Collectors, and an old favorite in the always-on Sprayer will ensure the enemy can't sneak into our camp.




No Totems round these here parts, so after spamming down a few dozen reactors and moving the front line forwards, it was time for some Cannons. And Terps, because I wanted to carve a clear, unencumbered attack vector directly in the direction of the enemy.




Reaching Sacrifice Mount, or at least the base of it, was pretty simple. Then a couple of Sniper platforms were put up to help clear the way of the critter menace, while Mortars were also built to diversify the attack group.




Then Shields to aid the ascent. It got a little more complicated as we made our way up the hillside, but nothing that sufficiently increased amounts of firepower couldn't resolve.




The latest flow from the top came pretty close to destroying the Nullifier before it could fire, but I'd put it up just in time.




Strangely, only about half of the Digitalis died. Not what I'd expect when the emitter was gone. Took me a bit to figure out why.




I ended up having to spam snipers next to the nests to get them under control ... and oh. There's an emitter underneath each of them as well. That's one of my least favorite CW3 tricks - I'm generally not a fan of hiding stuff from the player. Regardless, one more such combo in the other corner, and it was ensured that the Creeper, not humanity, would be sacrificed here.




This could be called 'Pointless Thors' instead of Chimera. You're allowed to build three of them here, but have no good reason to IMO. Having said that, this is a bit more involved and has an interesting, if relatively simple, twist to it. We have a SuperEmitter type thingy in the west with defensive digitalis that doesn't list a strength, and a series of emplacements clearly defending it in front. For our part, we're given Ore Deposits, Totems, and an Aether Resource Pack.




Much like the previous planet, I go with a grid of Collectors and Sprayers defending said grid.




Then I start experimenting. It wasn't obvious exactly what was happening right away, but the second you have anything active within a moderate range of one of these Turrets (for lack of a better name), they shoot creeper at it. In this case, insta-killing the sacrificial Relay.




For that reason, the 'just go nullify it' approach doesn't work. Also worth noting - we have no digitalis growth yet, and only a small amount of creeper.




After getting Ye Olde Reactor Farm online, I built some weapons to protect the nullifier. That worked better, and one of the Turrets went down.




After taking out a few of them, the SuperEmitter begins to act ... strangely. I thought initially that I was making it stronger by killing the Turrets first, but after watching the playback I don't think that's the case. It appears to have something to do with how much creeper I've eliminated or how close I was getting to it or something ... not exactly sure what the trigger is, but it starts glowing with a red dot, forming digitalis, and generally splurting out considerably more creeper than it was before.

Armed thusly with my reasonable but incorrect assessment of the situation, I went straight for it to slay the head of the beast, so to speak.




A Shield, a couple of SuperMortars, and several Cannons were required to make the kill.

I then experimented with whether or not the Turrets still were powered up without it - they were. So a few more of those still remained to be slain before victory was achieved. It would require a script-type personage to reveal for sure what the triggers and effects are here though.

You might say we could be done with the Alpha Sector by now ... if I only had a Brain.