Part 221: Daisy Chain

Daisy Chain (53:33)





So even the custom ships have customized parts in this adventure.




This thing is Regallion's fault. I wanted an armor ship worth about 1k, and this is what I came up with - essentially a backwards-wedge shape. Spoiler: this has flaws but it won't be making an appearance in this mission.




They ... they're back. Why are they back? I thought it was just a bad dream. Guh.

Today's question to not be answered in any way whatosever; why advanced weapons would be more susceptible to this interference than less advanced ones.







That was at least mercifully brief, if still typically nonsensical.




Upper-right is the required starting point pretty much, and there's a see-saw path we must follow. Various ships are available to acquire, and the mire spawners have a yellowish ring to distinguish them from the standard ones. Let's get to it.




The spacing on the initial ring of energy pods is unfortunate. It's easy to do what I did here, and actually park myself too close to the energy source to build a mine. Move outside the ring as I did a bit later, and the lathe can't reach it. So it's pretty much just annoying to maneuver the HQ into just the right spot.




We've got multiple threats early. Plentiful emergent from the left, particulate from below. I got a couple of Omnis up but they didn't last long against the emergent.




Getting both of our Jovens up - we have very limited fleet assets available, those are literally the only starting combat ships you get by default - helped absorb enough of the emergent to allow the lathe ships to turn this emitter our way. Now we're getting somewhere.




Our first ship schematic. I found the Sprayer module to not be useful at all really. This ship itself is only because we have limited firepower and it has missiles.




Here it is in action. Naturally I'm getting CW3 deja vu here. A concentrated attack on the emitters and energy source below here was clearly the next order of business.

Next, I wanted to acquire both 'fingers' of land with the aid of our, as they were so eloquently termed in the official level description, 'blue particles'. And of course Omnis. This took some doing.




With more territory under our control, the emergent spread out more - and we also gave them a regular diet of blue particles to the face.

Oh look, a hostile Cruiser. That's fun.




Another Grabber, our third, was available in this area. Also, one of those wonderful buildings storing Gems. So we'll get more of those .. in time.




Jumping over the 'divide', I was able to grab this a bit earlier than possibly intended.




I never did figure this out. I'm trying to use the new Booster to help in attacking the next emitter, but the flow of particles curves over to the left instead. There are some other circumstances where it does so, and I don't know why.

After succeeding in this goal, I tried directing a stream directly at the next finger of land ... which is larger than I thought. I eventually gave up on the idea and tried to go around it.




Here's a better indication of the scale - I tried to attack by redirecting particulate down and then across at the bottom (below this image). I'm going to spare you the concentrated fail that resulted. There are a couple of microtankers down there to encourage that path. It's fools gold IMO.

After having done it, I recommend an extended period of particulate barrage such as I'm doing now, aided by Omnis, then hopping across once things are thinned out a bit to flip more emitters.




25 minutes later. I didn't need to do it at this point, but I eventually noticed that you can just 'lathe across' the strip of land and gain more assistance earlier this way. I uh, definitely didn't do this level the right way, but I think this is pretty darn cool.




Omnis move along, spreading our influence by converting more emitters. Even at this point, there is still 2k hostile particulate on the map. We aren't done.










We're done ripping off CW3 concepts; we reach back to CW2 for this one.




This emitter in the extreme lower-left had been responsible for the ruination of many ships today. And even with a newly minted Maker leading the charge, it still put up a stern resistance.




The stage was now set for a particulate battle royale to finish it. 1.5k of the enemy still remains, and also that MK7-bearing enemy ship isn't much fun either.

I should note at this point that while I didn't have the gems to spare at the start, well before I figured it out going with the Emitter Control tech is pretty darned important. Really relieves the pressure on the Boosters & Grabbers.




Merely flooding the zone with tons of particulate only got us so far, reducing the flow to about 500. Aiming for the remaining land was necessary to overwhelm the impressive resistance and finally claim victory.




A bit of a foreboding title. What are the Particulate building now?