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A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Skelebot Research Facilities: Am I missing something?

« on: January 31, 2013, 08:01:08 PM »

I have yet to be able to complete a Skelebot Research Facility escape segment. As it stands right now it's a serious obstacle for me in making any progress in the game. I'm playing the game on the default difficulty settings. I have no problems reaching the mainframe terminal. I usually get there with full health and a bar or two of Concentration. The escape sequence just completely undoes me. I've figured out the vent system recently, so at least I don't have to slog my way to the terminal every time now. I'm wondering if I'm missing something else that's giving me a hard time.

So far I've tried various combinations of trying to avoid enemies, fight enemies when necessary, save all ammo for the escape, etc. I generally die to clusters of the C4 Drones and the Airplane looking drones, especially with any perimeter guards around. It doesn't matter what perks I choose, what class I take I just haven't been able to succeed. Getting knocked around by the airplane drones while a perimeter guard pulls my attacks and the C4 Drones are invulnerable except under certain conditions just mass spawning seems to be an unbeatable situation for me, and it feels terribly cheap to be honest. It's the kind of difficulty that I consider artificial difficulty and it's diametrically opposed to my other experiences in this game which rewards the thoughtful and well considered approach. No one else seems to talk about this so I guess I'm in the minority. Perhaps I'm missing the obvious, I'm perfectly capable of hammering at something the wrong way until the cows come home.

I'm attaching a few screenshots that show the typical nature of my demise. So, how do you deal with these absolutely necessary missions without sticking your head in the microwave?

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Off Topic / Play with chemicals. In space.

« on: March 04, 2011, 10:53:45 PM »

So I'd seen this game called SpaceChem talked about on various blogs like Rock, Paper, Shotgun and Penny-Arcade. I always said, hey I should check that out because I like a good puzzle. Laziness, procrastination and general brain damage interfered as per usual though. So I hadn't actually checked it out until it hit Steam this week with a nice meaty demo.

And holy molely this thing is some kind of great puzzle game. I've never played another one like it before so that makes the mechanics pretty tricky to explain here. Suffice to say that this is one great puzzle game, it's nothing like any of the match three games out there (and if you are on this forum, you probably already own the best puzzle game of that type anyway ), and the demo is a great taste of the gameplay and the games features, which includes the ability to upload your solution to your Youtube account through an automated, in game process. I'll post this one from a puzzle I completed last night.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXd0WxMVaZs

What in Bob Dobbs name is going on there, you ask? Beats me, but I like it!

So yeah, if you don't have an aversion to Steam you can grab the demo off the store page as usual. If you are Steamophobic, then you can download the demo and purchase the game here. And I suggest purchasing the game from Zachtronics if you like it regardless, because similar to our favorite developer, you can register the keys from the Zachtronics store in Steam if you wish to do so. This is good because then you get all of the benefits of Steam (if you are so disposed) and Zachtronics gets all the monies for his awesome game. That's a win win in my book.

PS; No actual chemistry, engineering or space travel experience necessary to play this game. I'm barely intelligent as it is, kind of like a really active fungus.

PPS fake edit: One more time. You can get the game here.

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AI War Strategy Discussion / [LotS] How many planets?

« on: February 02, 2011, 01:34:02 AM »

What's a good amount of planets for a Fallen Spire campaign map? Also, any other settings of interest like seeds or general map types would be appreciated.

I tried out Fallen Spire on a thirty world map, and things started to feel cramped around twelve hours in to the game. I don't want to get into too much detail about where I was in the event chain, since LotS is so new right now. I will say that I had just gotten to the point where I could build a Spire Cruiser though. I was also holding a network of around twelve worlds. Is that a bit too expansionist for Fallen Spire?

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AI War Strategy Discussion / The finer points of scouting?

« on: September 10, 2010, 11:06:53 AM »

My main question is this; Are there any drawbacks to maximizing your scout coverage in the early game? I'm an information junky in strategy games. Information is a potent weapon, especially when facing down an AI opponent as flexible and ruthless as this one. So going into the midgame, I want to have as much information as possible. That means a scout on every planet I can get one into position.

I've already (I'm still really new to this game) triggered some early game insanity by having a scout 'sploded upon detection by a Guard Post in the same system a Dyson Sphere was occupying. The system was three or four jumps out from my starting world, and I'd only captured another two or three planets around it. My defenses at that stage were meager and the Dyson Sphere's forces quickly found my little cluster of planets. Queue a desperate three sided battle right next to my homeworld, complete with masses (relatively speaking for early game) of Z Bombers responding to the Dyson Sphere's aggression. My game went from probing and bootstrapping my forces to a knock down, drag out battle for survival. Totally awesome, and it got me thinking about other possible repercussions to my early game scouting strategy.

Also, any tips on scouting in general are welcome and appreciated.