Part 71: Bonus 8: Assault
Bonus 8: Assaulthttps://youtu.be/SCh8-mPNxPY
After everything else we've endured, I think we can handle a little mockery.
Shields whether I want them or not, and Phantoms in two minutes.
** Doom Timer: 2:04
Another mission where you either start well or perish. Do nothing, and you die before the phantoms even show up. That emitter sends out 100k three times a second. I've seen worse but that's not bad.
I grab the two energy crystals while waiting to see what's going on. I still don't know what that is, but there's obviously some wacky manipulation. Gravity is off again here.
"It's shooting Creeper projectiles! Isn't that special!!"
I try to throw up a few blasters and some more shields, but it's already too late. The defenses have failed. Exactly 70 seconds into the mission, and I'm doomed.
** Take 2: 1:43 video, misson start
Next idea is to add a second row of shields immediately upon grabbing the energy crystals.
I hoped that would buy me enough time to build a quartet of blasters behind them.
This was better. But definitely not good enough - right about the time the blasters came online, the creeper broke through the barrier.
** Take 3: 3:22 video, 0:26 mission timer
This time I grabbed the red crystal, and used that energy to start building up reactors while excavating for the second, green one.
Then as before, a second row of shields to buy time, and blasters behind it with a much better energy supply than before. I've still got a modest deficit here one minute in, and the creeper is wearing down the shields so it's not like everything's rosy.
A breakthrough at the bottom forced me to redeploy a blaster, but it didn't quite reach the reactors and all in all this was holding. Enough consistent firepower to keep from being overrun.
I was not even remotely ready for these, having forgotten about them. AGAIN.
** Take 4: 5:36 video, mission start
A few more reactors behind me, and they broke through at the bottom again. I've got some holes and weak spots but here as the Phantoms are released I'm ready for them. I have a real chance to defend and then shore up.
Oh look. These things again. More FBCCs, one clearly trying to look like a tank or turret there at the top. The general approach was to try to balance out blaster firepower and keeping a 2-wide shield wall.
Tech
Here's what I used the techytes for after excavating those. Didn't need the packet speed here, but range is a biggie trying to shoot past the shields and I like the other ones as well.
Ore Rigs, a TechDome, more reactors in the back tunnels and blasters at the ramparts, even as the Creeper presses it's attack harder. I'm keeping up with them and making gains, but it's slow.
I messed up and put some out behind the shield wall which eventually faded into nothing, but getting a maker out in front proved to be a turning point. With 4k in storage from the Remnants and the Rigs working on more, there's quite a bit of ore here. So if a little is good, more is better; I deployed four Makers.
Putting Beacons on these 'islands', facing away from the Creeper attacks, extended the operational range.
Then, with the anti-creeper flooding everything and disrupting any projectiles coming our way, I put some Launchers out in forward positions.
Once a gap was created in the creeper ring protecting the emitter and gateway, it was mop-up time.
The amount of ore on this map(I only used a fraction of it) makes this easier than the previous one IMO. Both are about mastering the early order of actions in order to get a stable foothold.