Homeworld

2009-05-11 11:40:11 pm

Run, you pigeons. It's Robert Frost!

So this makes them much more powerful, then. Interesting. You kill enemies so fast with just scouts, it seemed like they were pumped up or something. I guess that's what you get from concentrated fire.

At what point is the battleball no longer useful? Around Mission 6?

Good luck on finals!

n00bie51

2009-06-24 11:53:56 am

It's really interesting to see how speed runs work in Homeworld due to unit persistence from previous missions; beating the game in the fastest time possible may not be synonymous with beating each mission in the fastest time possible, because you need to have a sufficient fleet and resources in order to tackle the next missions afterward.

Good stuff to watch.

qaylIS

2009-06-24 01:40:39 pm

There is no victory without combat

I really appreciate the difficulty you are going through to run this game, cause I know the last 5 or 6 missions are really hard...I completet the game twice, I know what I am talking about. I also like to see some HD videos of one of my favorite RTS of all time. Relic really excelled themselfes with this jewel of a game.
But I have some things to contribute: Build some of the salvage frigates, they come in pretty handy at the Garden/Kathedral of Kadesh to salvage the frigates with 4 Ion beams (the most powerful ship at this time, and for some missions on), and in Bridge of Sighs (though with the salvaging strategy you need much time, maybe it is better to lure some away and hope that the hole is big enough...or just get some cloak generators.
Another Tip is for the Junkyard level (The Karos Graveyard), in which the Junkyard/Graveyard Dog is designed to steal your capital ships. The first time I played it I lost too much in very short time, and I barely finished the level alive. The second time I read a FAQ, which provided the hint to catch the bastard with a gravity well and then punish it with all you got...this takes a bit more time than just swarm with all you got to the mission goal, but is worth the trouble I think.

About the other Homeworld games: Homeworld Cataclysm is unit tightened (the workers for example harvest, repair and salvage), and depends very much on researching and upgrading your mothership. You must have an eye on every mission relevant Unit all the time, which makes speedrunning really difficult. I finished the game twice, and I know that you need many nerves alone to PLAY it, speedrunning will make you grow gray hair
Homeworld 2: Only playable with patches. Has no "cooldown period" for your brain after mission objectives are completed, because it collects all ressources automatically and Hyperjumpos to the next mission...kinda ideal for speedrunning. I finished it once, it was difficult, but doable. Hard to speedrun too, I wouldn't have the patience for it (but I didn't really enjoy playing it either...).

So, good luck with Homeworld dude, kick some shiny metal ass!

I really appreciate the difficulty you are going through to run this game, cause I know the last 5 or 6 missions are really hard...I completet the game twice, I know what I am talking about. I also like to see some HD videos of one of my favorite RTS of all time. Relic really excelled themselfes with this jewel of a game.
But I have some things to contribute: Build some of the salvage frigates, they come in pretty handy at the Garden/Kathedral of Kadesh to salvage the frigates with 4 Ion beams (the most powerful ship at this time, and for some missions on), and in Bridge of Sighs (though with the salvaging strategy you need much time, maybe it is better to lure some away and hope that the hole is big enough...or just get some cloak generators.
Another Tip is for the Junkyard level (The Karos Graveyard), in which the Junkyard/Graveyard Dog is designed to steal your capital ships. The first time I played it I lost too much in very short time, and I barely finished the level alive. The second time I read a FAQ, which provided the hint to catch the bastard with a gravity well and then punish it with all you got...this takes a bit more time than just swarm with all you got to the mission goal, but is worth the trouble I think.

About the other Homeworld games: Homeworld Cataclysm is unit tightened (the workers for example harvest, repair and salvage), and depends very much on researching and upgrading your mothership. You must have an eye on every mission relevant Unit all the time, which makes speedrunning really difficult. I finished the game twice, and I know that you need many nerves alone to PLAY it, speedrunning will make you grow gray hair
Homeworld 2: Only playable with patches. Has no "cooldown period" for your brain after mission objectives are completed, because it collects all ressources automatically and Hyperjumpos to the next mission...kinda ideal for speedrunning. I finished it once, it was difficult, but doable. Hard to speedrun too, I wouldn't have the patience for it (but I didn't really enjoy playing it either...).

So, good luck with Homeworld dude, kick some shiny metal ass!

VorpalEdge

2009-08-19 08:03:37 pm

welcome to the machine

Yo, grndino.

You've been doing a good job so far, but you've disappeared and someone has thoughtfully posted a bounty for this game. I don't want to step on your toes, but if you don't start working on this again soon I'm going to jump in and start my own run. Money's on the line now, you know?

If nothing else, I've always wanted to replay the campaign.

OnyxShadow

2009-08-19 09:28:15 pm

May the way of the Hero lead to the Triforce!

Yep, I put a modest $25 bounty on this game. I've always wanted to see this game done well, and I've got a little extra money to spare (there's another for Theme Hospital, too, by the way). There's more info in the Bounties thread. Good luck to whoever tries this.

grndino

Edit history:

grndino: 2009-08-19 11:07:58 pm

2009-08-19 10:04:23 pm

I didn't want to post until I'd made progress, and I really haven't. Everything is solid up until the supernova, and then anything remotely speedy just dies (or fails to kill the escaping carrier). Over the summer I simply dedicated more time to other projects.

I still want the rights to an audio commentary of the run, and so I will probably press on with the mission. Money would also be cool. 8)

edit: gave mission 10 a few more tries. it's just entirely devastating to see EVERYTHING die at once because you stepped past the invisible barrier, or your units decided to spread out (fucking morons!), or they chase after something and get hit with radiation on the way. everything dies every time god DAMN. and i like this setup, too. the frigates can kill the carrier handily but need attention to survive. the scouts distract a whole bunch but need attention to survive. the bombers can kill things really fast but they spread out easily and get targeted like it's nobody's business by those fighters that somehow know exactly where to go to not die in two seconds and they also need attention or else they'll get targeted by the ions and die.

where can i possibly get the patience to run this level?

I didn't want to post until I'd made progress, and I really haven't.  Everything is solid up until the supernova, and then anything remotely speedy just dies (or fails to kill the escaping carrier).  Over the summer I simply dedicated more time to other projects.

I still want the rights to an audio commentary of the run, and so I will probably press on with the mission.  Money would also be cool.  8)

edit: gave mission 10 a few more tries.  it's just entirely devastating to see EVERYTHING die at once because you stepped past the invisible barrier, or your units decided to spread out (fucking morons!), or they chase after something and get hit with radiation on the way. everything dies every time god DAMN.  and i like this setup, too.  the frigates can kill the carrier handily but need attention to survive.  the scouts distract a whole bunch but need attention to survive.  the bombers can kill things really fast but they spread out easily and get targeted like it's nobody's business by those fighters that somehow know exactly where to go to not die in two seconds and they also need attention or else they'll get targeted by the ions and die.

where can i possibly get the patience to run this level?

VorpalEdge

2009-08-20 01:24:04 pm

welcome to the machine

Guess I'll give it a shot, then! Smiley

grndino

2010-10-19 12:55:48 am

"Warning this is a very old thread. Make a new reply anyway?"

thanks nate

Yes, I have been working on a restarted run after more than a year of not touching the game.

I'm determined this time to get home. I've set a personal goal of under two hours.
I made significant improvements on all but the first level. The time saved is in the minutes, look to the first post for level times.

I don't have anything uploaded to youtube yet due to some unknown errors I have been getting over there.

Looking forward I have the asteroids, the garden, the cathedral and the ghost ship. The supernova is also occupying my mind.
The asteroid level is on set timer of 840 ticks. I'm using a repair corvette to keep the mothership alive and scouts to kill asteroids as they can. Repair corvettes heal about 20% faster than support frigates.
The garden requires you to scare the enemy mothership away four times. You don't need to hit hyperspace preemptively.
The cathedral requires you to destroy 3 motherships and view the old ship on screen. I'm sending a probe so I can see it. The last mothership runs away and is invincible until you see the khar tobah. About 3 or 4 Multibeam frigates will visit my mothership and hopefully be captured. Also by this time I should have one or two destroyers to defend the mothership by destroying fuel pods. These will be the first combat ship I build that aren't scouts.
The ghost ship does not suffer auto-aiming and so scouts may take a relatively long time to disable it. Capitol ships can't be part of this mission.

"Warning this is a very old thread.  Make a new reply anyway?"

thanks nate

Yes, I have been working on a restarted run after more than a year of not touching the game.

I'm determined this time to get home.  I've set a personal goal of under two hours.
I made significant improvements on all but the first level.  The time saved is in the minutes, look to the first post for level times.

I don't have anything uploaded to youtube yet due to some unknown errors I have been getting over there.

Looking forward I have the asteroids, the garden, the cathedral and the ghost ship.  The supernova is also occupying my mind.
The asteroid level is on set timer of 840 ticks.  I'm using a repair corvette to keep the mothership alive and scouts to kill asteroids as they can.  Repair corvettes heal about 20% faster than support frigates.
The garden requires you to scare the enemy mothership away four times.  You don't need to hit hyperspace preemptively.
The cathedral requires you to destroy 3 motherships and view the old ship on screen.  I'm sending a probe so I can see it.  The last mothership runs away and is invincible until you see the khar tobah.  About 3 or 4 Multibeam frigates will visit my mothership and hopefully be captured.  Also by this time I should have one or two destroyers to defend the mothership by destroying fuel pods.  These will be the first combat ship I build that aren't scouts.
The ghost ship does not suffer auto-aiming and so scouts may take a relatively long time to disable it.  Capitol ships can't be part of this mission.

OnyxShadow

2010-10-19 09:38:35 am

May the way of the Hero lead to the Triforce!

Looks like my old bounty might finally get claimed!

grndino

2010-10-20 07:19:59 pm

I'll show you what's fucking me at the moment (mission 8):

WATCH
IF (TeamHealthLowest() < MO_ESCAPE_LOW_HEALTH)
TeamHealthSet(MO_ESCAPE_PROPUP_HEALTH);
ENDIF

IF (Nearby(POINT_FuckOffToHere, 5000))
JUMP Standoff;
ENDIF
ENDWATCH

This means that at least one mothership must get all the way to the other side of the map, but only after I kill the other two. On the plus side, the mothership gets the speed of a corvette (450) whilst escaping. The cutscene with the Khar toba can be skipped but it doesn't pause the game in any case.

Got a pretty good time on m7, and ran the asteroids a few times until I got an improvement of one frame off my best. It must be optimal for my strat.

grndino

Edit history:

grndino: 2010-10-25 10:02:40 pm

2010-10-25 10:01:32 pm

SO

i got mission 8 done, it's pretty good. i did lose a few salvettes. but, i captured 3 multi beams, and didn't lose any major ships. only the aftermentionsed and like a dozen scouts. this is ok.

i was able to use the fastest possible mothership kiling route, which i called 134, better than any other route for time, and just optimised enough for fuel on the scouts. i kill the back two, and the one closest to the green point is the one who gets invincibilty. for some reason i thought it plausible to kill some fuel pods before i started damaging the last MS, and i didn't run out of fuel (!). i'm under the impression that scouts regenerate fuel a little whilst not moving. at any rate, they get the last mother ship burning before it's truly vulnerable which was my goal. you'll see that i am a little surprised at getting the go ahead to leave so i waste about a second i think there. but the result is fantastic, better than i had hoped.

looking ahead i have to salvage the ghost ship. you don't strictly need to disable it.

oh yeah the time on m8 was 9:49. my per level goal is casually under 10 minutes each, although sub-2hours requires much lower than that. i'm thinking it'll be under 3 hours tho.

SO

i got mission 8 done, it's pretty good.  i did lose a few salvettes.  but, i captured 3 multi beams, and didn't lose any major ships.  only the aftermentionsed and like a dozen scouts.  this is ok.

i was able to use the fastest possible mothership kiling route, which i called 134, better than any other route for time, and just optimised enough for fuel on the scouts.  i kill the back two, and the one closest to the green point is the one who gets invincibilty.  for some reason i thought it plausible to kill some fuel pods before i started damaging the last MS, and i didn't run out of fuel (!).  i'm under the impression that scouts regenerate fuel a little whilst not moving.  at any rate, they get the last mother ship burning before it's truly vulnerable which was my goal.  you'll see that i am a little surprised at getting the go ahead to leave so i waste about a second i think there.  but the result is fantastic, better than i had hoped.

looking ahead i have to salvage the ghost ship.  you don't strictly need to disable it.

oh yeah the time on m8 was 9:49.  my per level goal is casually under 10 minutes each, although sub-2hours requires much lower than that.  i'm thinking it'll be under 3 hours tho.

Thinkshooter

2010-10-26 06:07:36 am

Runs: FCP, FC3, XWA, HD1-2, KotOR1-2

Can't wait for the run Grndino! I'm glad you picked up the old thread.

grndino

2010-10-30 02:44:11 am

m9 notes

send out salv, above and to the right of GS
harvest
build stuff, repair corvs for next mission
launch scouts

scouts are F3 and are F11, briefly F10 to repoint guns
salvage asap

m10 notes

retire assault, ion array
send out capitols
have harvesters and repaircorvs follow
launch scouts, kill as much as possible to make way for capitols
-minelayers
-some mines perhaps
-3 capitol ships
-travel to rear of station
harvest at least one load each
capitols being repaired but leave repaircorvs in dust
scouts to distract ions, back off from multigun corvs
-hopefully get them to die from being out of dust
carrier runs fast, kill
capitols to kill frigates, hopefully destroyer gets targeted
-no losses?
-missile dest to kill defenders, possibly corvettes
station is last to die
resend scouts down to help
possibly build 3 salvettes for next mission

VorpalEdge

2010-11-01 06:25:15 pm

welcome to the machine

Quote from grndino:

m10 notes

retire assault, ion array

Do you need to do this at all? I would at least wait until after the bentusi defense mission, wherever that is (I think 11 or 12). Also, have you considered building support frigates and just plowing straight through the void to the station?

grndino

Edit history:

grndino: 2010-11-02 01:42:50 am

2010-11-01 08:20:07 pm

(edited a little)

m10:
The ion array I would certainly retire because it's slower. Support frigates also lag behind from retargeting. Really the most optimal route is with repair corvettes through to a certain point but not quite so far as to aggro the 2 destroyers and cruiser. But, this means that the scouts have to kill all of those eventually, this might take up too much fuel. Scouts are a good distraction later on, and some damage. It's possible to capture the cruiser as its mostly a straight shot back, but it might take too much time. The only things that need to be killed are the ions, the one assault, the station and all the defenders (i'm fairly certain, maybe you need to kill the 2destroyers and cruiser). I guess I can keep the assault, but I don't like em and I'd only take it as a last resort damage sponge, which it's not good for since it starts on the opposite side of the mothership.

m9 got done in like 8:33 which is about optimal. The salvette had like no health left lol. Not too many scouts died. It's possible to tell the salvette to kami after it gets its info but while it's still in the Ghost Ship's 'box', and it will float around inside of it. Possibly you can get it to shoot out of the ghost ship twoards the mothership. But, more scouts would die from lack of Z-ing them. I mash Z constantly on the scouts, luckily it makes no noise or the run would be unlistenable.

On m11 I'd like to have five or more salvettes to nab a cruiser. The cruiser is much better to capture than kill here because it can kill multibeams like ice in coffee. Would be nice to have ten salvettes, maybe I can get that many if the harvesters get their loads all the way back in the previous mission...
I wish I could get the music from the cutscene here to play during the whole level; it's wonderful.

Mission 12... is the gravity wells. The carriers have odd triggers attached to them and they won't start their grav wells under certain weird circumstances: before you attack the carrier specifically with a force that's valued at more than a thousand RUs. I think. That puts the mission into Act 2. Killing all the big ships puts it into act 3, where the Benedict Arnold will need his friends removed.

m13 is the graveyard, that should be easy, just scoots. Send battleball up, over and down. Big ball defends office, one goes in and out. I haven't tested a simply direct route with 'Z'ooming.

m14 is the hardest mission in the game. Does this one scale at all? I dunno. The only things that need to die here are rotating inhibitor thingies. But they're surrounded by hundreds of capitol ships, some cloaked. Usually this level takes two hours or so. One FAQ I read: "This is a long level get some coffee."

m15 is just a rock.

m16 is dashing out my scouts and rushing to the enemy mothership. From what I read the only thing attacked in the first part is your mothership, so I'll have to have built enough repairvettes to survive. Otherwise I'm dependent on my scouts. Kami to finish would be fun, and faster.

(edited a little)

m10:
The ion array I would certainly retire because it's slower.  Support frigates also lag behind from retargeting.  Really the most optimal route is with repair corvettes through to a certain point but not quite so far as to aggro the 2 destroyers and cruiser.  But, this means that the scouts have to kill all of those eventually, this might take up too much fuel.  Scouts are a good distraction later on, and some damage.  It's possible to capture the cruiser as its mostly a straight shot back, but it might take too much time.  The only things that need to be killed are the ions, the one assault, the station and all the defenders (i'm fairly certain, maybe you need to kill the 2destroyers and cruiser).  I guess I can keep the assault, but I don't like em and I'd only take it as a last resort damage sponge, which it's not good for since it starts on the opposite side of the mothership.

m9 got done in like 8:33 which is about optimal.  The salvette had like no health left lol.  Not too many scouts died.  It's possible to tell the salvette to kami after it gets its info but while it's still in the Ghost Ship's 'box', and it will float around inside of it.  Possibly you can get it to shoot out of the ghost ship twoards the mothership.  But, more scouts would die from lack of Z-ing them.  I mash Z constantly on the scouts, luckily it makes no noise or the run would be unlistenable.

On m11 I'd like to have five or more salvettes to nab a cruiser.  The cruiser is much better to capture than kill here because it can kill multibeams like ice in coffee.  Would be nice to have ten salvettes, maybe I can get that many if the harvesters get their loads all the way back in the previous mission...
I wish I could get the music from the cutscene here to play during the whole level; it's wonderful.

Mission 12... is the gravity wells.  The carriers have odd triggers attached to them and they won't start their grav wells under certain weird circumstances: before you attack the carrier specifically with a force that's valued at more than a thousand RUs.  I think.  That puts the mission into Act 2.  Killing all the big ships puts it into act 3, where the Benedict Arnold will need his friends removed.

m13 is the graveyard, that should be easy, just scoots.  Send battleball up, over and down.  Big ball defends office, one goes in and out.  I haven't tested a simply direct route with 'Z'ooming.

m14 is the hardest mission in the game.  Does this one scale at all?  I dunno.  The only things that need to die here are rotating inhibitor thingies.  But they're surrounded by hundreds of capitol ships, some cloaked.  Usually this level takes two hours or so.  One FAQ I read:  "This is a long level get some coffee."

m15 is just a rock.

m16 is dashing out my scouts and rushing to the enemy mothership.  From what I read the only thing attacked in the first part is your mothership, so I'll have to have built enough repairvettes to survive.  Otherwise I'm dependent on my scouts.  Kami to finish would be fun, and faster.

Fragmaster01

2010-11-02 02:16:58 am

Wiggle wiggle

If I remember right, the Ion Frigate sphere on M14 doesn't scale, but the fleet at the inhibitors does. Either way, your best bet is probably to slip in ships cloaked, then quick dock/hyperspace as soon as the last inhibitor goes down, to avoid heavy damage from leaving the sphere alive.

grndino

Edit history:

grndino: 2010-11-06 11:41:14 pm

2010-11-06 11:37:40 pm

Recorded a 13:34 m10, with next to no losses, incredible. May end up getting a smaller time if the elusive "go straight there" route ends up being usable.

Found out some things.

11, 12 and 13 are all pushovers. In fact I've recorded a tentative 11 already. I didn't capture a cruiser because it would delay the end of the mission. The time on this one is just a couple seconds more than the first level's time (!).

m12 you just need to go down to where the cruiser is hidden by a trigger and wait until he decloaks. I suppose I might end up killing some of his Ion and Interceptor friends but the Ions warp out when you kill the cruiser. Then Elson will be un-hid and I have to kill a handful of frigates. And also at the beginning I need to kill 3 gravwells and a couple capitol ships. So, fighters come out as my beams kill stuff, travel down to the cruiser and kill it while my capitol ships hang out where Elson appears. Easy.

m13 I take my bball straight to the office. They can kill the guns with great ease. Only difficulty will be in transitioning from bball mode to get one guy both alive and docked. I don't need to do anything but hyperspace after the office dialog.

Also, I found out that J does hyperspace. Who knew?

m14 will be a bitch. By the time I warp in I'll still be teching cloak generator so I won't even have one to send out right away. So my options are to wait around or drive right through with everything. And even once I get there, there are plenty of cloaked ships to fuck me. Hmmm...

Recorded a 13:34 m10, with next to no losses, incredible.  May end up getting a smaller time if the elusive "go straight there" route ends up being usable.

Found out some things.

11, 12 and 13 are all pushovers.  In fact I've recorded a tentative 11 already.  I didn't capture a cruiser because it would delay the end of the mission.  The time on this one is just a couple seconds more than the first level's time (!).

m12 you just need to go down to where the cruiser is hidden by a trigger and wait until he decloaks.  I suppose I might end up killing some of his Ion and Interceptor friends but the Ions warp out when you kill the cruiser.  Then Elson will be un-hid and I have to kill a handful of frigates.  And also at the beginning I need to kill 3 gravwells and a couple capitol ships.  So, fighters come out as my beams kill stuff, travel down to the cruiser and kill it while my capitol ships hang out where Elson appears.  Easy.

m13 I take my bball straight to the office.  They can kill the guns with great ease.  Only difficulty will be in transitioning from bball mode to get one guy both alive and docked.  I don't need to do anything but hyperspace after the office dialog.

Also, I found out that J does hyperspace.  Who knew?

m14 will be a bitch.  By the time I warp in I'll still be teching cloak generator so I won't even have one to send out right away.  So my options are to wait around or drive right through with everything.  And even once I get there, there are plenty of cloaked ships to fuck me.  Hmmm...

grndino

2010-11-09 01:55:55 am

So, I have only 3 more missions to record. Easy, right?

The Bridge of Sighs is going down. Actually, it really does. For some reason, the orb of ions decides to migrate southeast after a certain point. But the objective stays put. I'm not sure what does this. Best guess is activating the mining facility/inhibitor cutscene. This means that ions will be harder to avoid fighting with. However, since the sphere formation ions are so easily manipulated, only attacking the first thing they see until it's dead, I could possibly send in a scout to trigger the migration, and then let it die. If fights with the ions are unavoidable, they need not induce losses. The scouts take few to no hits from them, and so my frigates can blast away at them freely. Fuel becomes an issue here, however, so I may split up my fighters to have some fueled up for the next part.

Before I even approach the orb, it's a good idea to kill the hyperspace gate near me to prevent things from warping in there and attacking me. The best way to kill a gate is by attacking it a little until the fighter group warps in, killing most of the fighter group, but leaving at least one alive (support frigates don't affect triggers here), and then finally destroying the gate before the 3 big ships warp in. Then the last of the fighters can die. However, this whole process may be entirely optional if whether or not they attack is decided by proximity. I think this might be the case since only the gate I was closest to during testing sent ships to me.

Killing the inhibitor itself I know the least about. Having a proximity detector at this point is mandatory since I don't have a cloak generator (couldn't afford one easily anyways). Unfortunately these ships aren't as dumb as the ions, and they're bigger. About four or five big ships I think. From what I gather the inhibitor structure takes an awful long time to kill. I'm thinking this mission may extend to 20 minutes or more. My best hope would be that it ends up being shorter than the on-rails asteroid mission, m6. That's just bad coding.

I have been thinking about whether to call this run a test run. There have been some mistakes such as buying things unnecessarily or late, and taking somewhat unoptimized killing routes. And there must be some way to get salvage corvettes to move more efficiently. But, I do owe you guys a video asap when I get an acceptable m16.

So, I have only 3 more missions to record.  Easy, right?

The Bridge of Sighs is going down.  Actually, it really does.  For some reason, the orb of ions decides to migrate southeast after a certain point.  But the objective stays put.  I'm not sure what does this.  Best guess is activating the mining facility/inhibitor cutscene.  This means that ions will be harder to avoid fighting with.  However, since the sphere formation ions are so easily manipulated, only attacking the first thing they see until it's dead, I could possibly send in a scout to trigger the migration, and then let it die.  If fights with the ions are unavoidable, they need not induce losses.  The scouts take few to no hits from them, and so my frigates can blast away at them freely.  Fuel becomes an issue here, however, so I may split up my fighters to have some fueled up for the next part.

Before I even approach the orb, it's a good idea to kill the hyperspace gate near me to prevent things from warping in there and attacking me.  The best way to kill a gate is by attacking it a little until the fighter group warps in, killing most of the fighter group, but leaving at least one alive (support frigates don't affect triggers here), and then finally destroying the gate before the 3 big ships warp in.  Then the last of the fighters can die.  However, this whole process may be entirely optional if whether or not they attack is decided by proximity.  I think this might be the case since only the gate I was closest to during testing sent ships to me.

Killing the inhibitor itself I know the least about.  Having a proximity detector at this point is mandatory since I don't have a cloak generator (couldn't afford one easily anyways).  Unfortunately these ships aren't as dumb as the ions, and they're bigger.  About four or five big ships I think.  From what I gather the inhibitor structure takes an awful long time to kill.  I'm thinking this mission may extend to 20 minutes or more.  My best hope would be that it ends up being shorter than the on-rails asteroid mission, m6.  That's just bad coding.

I have been thinking about whether to call this run a test run.  There have been some mistakes such as buying things unnecessarily or late, and taking somewhat unoptimized killing routes.  And there must be some way to get salvage corvettes to move more efficiently.  But, I do owe you guys a video asap when I get an acceptable m16.

grndino

2010-11-16 01:06:24 pm

Patient running continues...
My hope is that the capitol ships can make a straight line to the objective. One prox sensor goes with them and joins the scouts later, who take care of the nearest gate on their own. Before anyone important can piss off the ions, one scout escapes from the herd and runs around as much as possible, and then escapes to the far end of the map (simply docking may not be far away enough). There are many packs of roaming ships whose entire purpose is to kill single scouts trying to spoil their grand formation. By the time the capitol ships are ready to fire on the inhibitor, the ion formation will already be reforming away from me, possibly causing several ions to find me. I believe it's possible to have scouts be the only target of any ions. The trouble is that the scouts will also be busy taking the proximity sensor around killing cloaked things, so too many scouts peeled off is a small waste. The cloak generators aren't smart and don't move around after their original escorts die, so time spent killing cloak gens can be considered wasted time. Missles can't target cloaked ships for whatever reason. The big thing, it takes less than two minutes to kill with concentrated fire. It takes management to keep ships from chasing things rotating away from them, or just slamming into it.

Patient running continues...
My hope is that the capitol ships can make a straight line to the objective.  One prox sensor goes with them and joins the scouts later, who take care of the nearest gate on their own.  Before anyone important can piss off the ions, one scout escapes from the herd and runs around as much as possible, and then escapes to the far end of the map (simply docking may not be far away enough).  There are many packs of roaming ships whose entire purpose is to kill single scouts trying to spoil their grand formation.  By the time the capitol ships are ready to fire on the inhibitor, the ion formation will already be reforming away from me, possibly causing several ions to find me.  I believe it's possible to have scouts be the only target of any ions.  The trouble is that the scouts will also be busy taking the proximity sensor around killing cloaked things, so too many scouts peeled off is a small waste.  The cloak generators aren't smart and don't move around after their original escorts die, so time spent killing cloak gens can be considered wasted time.  Missles can't target cloaked ships for whatever reason.  The big thing, it takes less than two minutes to kill with concentrated fire.  It takes management to keep ships from chasing things rotating away from them, or just slamming into it.

Fragmaster01

2010-11-16 04:14:19 pm

Wiggle wiggle

Also, I note a problem with your idea for m16: The scouts don't have enough fuel to reach the enemy mothership. Sorry, you need capships to attack it(or something to refuel them, but that only comes in capital ship flavor).

grndino

2010-11-16 06:02:55 pm

My scouts make it. When attacking the mothership you can't boost while dodging around or you'll run out of fuel. But, you can boost on the way there. If you're conservative and only stop to attack the first wave of fighters, you'll have enough fuel to get it burning a whole lot. And then you keep attacking for just a bit until the first scout runs out of fuel, and kami. I got to the credits just the other day.

Fragmaster01

2010-11-16 08:37:21 pm

Wiggle wiggle

Huh. I seemed to recall the enemy mothership being some ungodly distance away that prevented me from sending fighters with my fleet. Guess you learn something new everyday(even if it's about a decade old game that I haven't played in a long time).

grndino

2010-11-23 07:17:54 pm

m14 in 12:09.

This a merely acceptable time, the more I think about it the more I consider going for sub 12. However, several things went well here: only one cloaked ship and a couple ions chased my capitol group. Delegating targets could have been quicker, and better choices. The initial distractor scout survived as did most all of the bball. And the finish is neat. And I didn't end up segmenting this one like I thought I'd have to.

The rest of the game is easy I think, so I'll push for 11:XX this week, and then think about moving on.

grndino

2010-11-28 07:59:47 pm

Alright, got good, clean segments for m15 and 16. Split the last mission in half because I'm sick of doing this! lol

See first post for level times. Final time is somewhere around 2:07. So, a little over my goal, but I have doubt that under two hours is possible. The concept is proven, so that's a big step.

I appreciate everyone who posted here pushing me along, this game requires a lot of inertia. Now to get encoding Smiley

grndino

Edit history:

grndino: 2010-12-05 04:10:15 pm

2010-12-05 03:38:05 pm

Here's a torrent file with LQ,MQ,HQ and XQ.

no tracker so update the DHT on the torrent, or wait for it to update itself

Attachment:

hw_finished.torrent