Mission 12 Incursion

[Raucas]

Any hints for Mission 12? On normal I was able to finish it, however I would like to finish with all the cores left. From looking around it seems to be the most difficult mission for many.

[Cougarific]

Use more Lasers.

Usually you need a healthy mix of towers - and you can do that here, but later. First place almost nothing but Lasers.

Send them the long way 'round and keep them from accelerating down straight lanes.

They have so far to go that just keeping them burning with strategically-spaced Lasers should do the trick.

Use Zacara's tower frenzy as your panic button.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=317985117

[Marbur]

Originally posted by lego_crazy:

... From looking around it seems to be the most difficult mission for many.

I totally agree with you. After a few tries I skipped it and solved all other missions.
Than with better perks for the towers I tried it again.

I used for Laser and Canon towers perks with a slowing effect, because the most important thing is slowing down the enemies.
A normal temporal tower isn't enough to slow down the racers. (Bugged, or why not?!?)

Perhaps they made some balance update with the new patch.

[Link Kadeshi]

The way I finally did it got me something like 1.2 million+ points (Gold is 900k). I'd love to give an idea of how I did it, but am not sure how to explain it well. I finally figured out how to take down the speedy jerks. I have the left side funnel to the right, and the right side has a maze leading to the path to the cores littered with turns and leveled up guns. I made to path to the cores first, then the maze on the right, and then the left. The right maze had three temperal towers with overlapping fields of coverage when upgraded to yellow. It's a killing field, and most things did not survive it long. If they did, or if they bunched up and made a sweet target? Well, that's why I have the "Death From Above Device" I like to call my hand of god. Just make sure to have good weapons at the cores for the stupid portal jerks.

[Marbur]

My score was wiped (perhaps the patch), so I did it again and made some screen shots. It's a similar layout like Cougarific used. It's on normal and open difficulty with slowing perks for Laser and Canon:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=318005264

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=318005107

[Poop King]

I got 1.2 million points mostly with concussions at the cores, missiles in the middle, and a few lasers along the oval.

I tried it again with lasers in different places, still got 1.2 million, but lower than I had before:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=318009014

[Damage]

I'm glad it wasn't just me struggling with this one. Thanks for the tips.

Addendum: Tried that, didn't work. I even went as far as putting exactly the same towers in exactly the same places as in your screenshot, CDS, and it made precisely zero difference. Is it even possible to beat without upgrades earned on later levels?

[Poop King]

Use two temporals with disruptors at the core housing too for the overlapping pulse and removing shields, and mixed concussions for the swarms and lasers for racers. Racers also need more lasers spread out, in my screenshot I still needed to use Zacara's weapon once against the first racers because I didnt have enough credits to get my lasers spread out early enough.

[Gregor]

Won this mission on hard with both only Gun turrets and only Cannons for the achevements. Just make a big maze and its an easy win.

[Poop King]

Finally I found a laser tower upgrade, 15% more heat damage and slowdown applied, that allowed me to complete this mission without the missile towers:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=318047043

But I still didnt beat my high score because it took a bit longer due to not having enough damage to kill one of the last waves bosses in my core housing killzone (had to wait for it to go all arround and back to my corner red laser tower).

My highest score is 1.23 million, I guess you need to find the highest level laser upgrade to get the highest score on this map, simply due to how painful the first racer wave is. I still cant figure out how to beat it without perfect timing on Zakaras weapon.

[Poop King]

I actually just looked through the leaderboards, and on my very first playthrough of the campaign on hard, I got two top 5 and one top 10 scores :D

1.23 million on this map was on my first try and no.5 woot. I hope that this game wont end up with floods of hacked scores.

You really need to farm those tower upgrades before trying for high scores, unless you want to try competitive mode which is even harder.

[Operation40]

ended up with the exact same path as @consolederpssuck .. tower choices were slightly different, but the gist is, you aren't going to get a high score if you let that pod land on your cores and launch little baddies -- even if you can kill them they deduct from your score while the core is wandering about, so you really want to insta nuke em..

btw - I use a concussive on either side of the ramp to the cores.. they utterly decimate the first waves

[Damage]

I'm at a loss here. Doesn't matter what combination of towers I try, the first racer wave just wrecks my defense. A kill zone around the cores of boosted, orange concussion & laser towers with a couple of meteors (or missiles, makes no difference) in the center and the racers just run straight in and straight out. It's like I'm playing a different game to the rest of you.

I've tested it, two sets of two full-health racers against two red Laser towers isn't enough to kill them. Temporal towers don't slow them down one iota. One gets through, and that's that, there's no coming back.

Screw high scores, I'm just trying to beat the level with all my cores intact. I thought I was good at this game (got Gold on every level (and DLC) in DG1 and DG2 L1-11), but apparently not, since you guys are apparently breezing through this. Either I suck (despite using the same tactics as you have) or the balancing in this game is entirely based around randomly awarded upgrades. Lasers that slow enemies? First I've heard of it.

Addendum: And now I've beaten it. 1.17mil score. Only took me 20+ attempts (and at least three rage quits...) :-|

I didn't really do anything different, it all seemed to stem from the timing of one Orbital Laser shot. I guess I got lucky on killing some particular aliens and suddenly it was plain sailing from there. Go figure. This game seems a little too luck- rather than skill-based for my liking. Ah well. I'll stop bugging you guys now. :-)

P.S. One last thing I did learn - the simple act of putting towers on Boost platforms radically improved the outcome. Apparently that small height difference is enough to keep control where it failed without them. Plus you can buy the upgrades later, of course.

[Ember]

Originally posted by Marbur:

My score was wiped (perhaps the patch), so I did it again and made some screen shots. It's a similar layout like Cougarific used. It's on normal and open difficulty with slowing perks for Laser and Canon:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=318005264

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=318005107

I am an idiot, thx for these.

[CH_Wolfe]

Good Lord what a level. Seemed almost impossible on Competitive Normal, but was finally able to tame the early racers with cannons ... lots of cannons.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=318635713

Raised one of the platforms to create a U-bend-o-Death with yellow Concussions and a red Gun.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=318635749

Near the end had to create a mini-maze of laser towers right next to the ship to slow down the endless stream of Usain Bolt wannabes to allow the loose cores more time to float home.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=318635772

Got gold with over 1 million. Now maybe I'll play something nice and relaxing to calm my nerves, like Duke Nukem. Good Lord what a level.

- Chris

[Kalbatross]

I just made a big maze on one side of the ship that funneled all the aliens from both sides right up to the back of it and then back down through it before they got to the bottom core section. That was blocked off with red lazers and infernos. Got gold with no cores lost 1st try. Not a hard map at all.