Serious and silly: Shattered, and Porters as batteries.

[keybounce]

So for Shattered, getting porters and long wanting my guppy replacement, I decided to learn how they actually work

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3280029946

First thing to note was learning how mesh works. It looks like mesh acts as a pipe, sending huge amount of creep at you, coming up into your height in a giant wave.

What I learned is that if you can kill the mesh -- cannons set to attack mesh -- then all the creep in the mesh fades out into the background layer. So, with the creep and the AC isolated, what's happening?

First, let's talk batteries. All those pods in the air? That's an average of 75 energy each -- 50 in the air, 25 on the ground. I have hundreds of energy for a massive amount of ammo fire. This is what Porters can do -- massive batteries. It helps that I am required to use two disconnected tower networks -- this is what makes the batteries work.

Next: Pools. Massive, massive pools of *AC STORAGE*. AC batteries. Sprayers that can act as "Collect as Ore", so that the AC can be pulled out of the pool, and into the front line.

This, of course, meant having to move the factory into the front line. Which means porters moving blueite from my miners (2 of them, to make sure no blueite is lost), as well as sending redon and greenar, and arg and liftic back. Which isn't even an issue -- both are oversupplied.

The AC pools work because I can keep the mesh collapsed. I don't care about working on the creep in the enemy pool. Note that I am building height 20 mortar platforms. Ern-filled mortars from height 20 will decimate that creep pile -- literally, I should bring it to 1/10th the height. At that point, I let the creep establish the mesh, then my AC is let loose and spreads into the enemy camp.

Any flaws? Yeah. I didn't really understand the eggs and snipers early enough. There are 8 eggs hidden away in the back corner by the unactivated tower. New eggs get snipered as soon as they show. Even with a weapon ERN *and* a portal range ERN, the eggs are still out of range (... like it was designed that way :-).

The serious: Learning how to set up massive energy batteries, so frankly not as worried about running out of energy backlog.

The silly: Massive AC attack, over enemy mesh pipe, for the win / to take out the emitter.

The "he did what?": Building all those height 20 mortar platforms. And steps for the towers to feed them.

EDIT: Oh yes. The part of the ground where the mesh comes into your land? Lower it to height 1. The mesh keeps the height of the creep unchanged, so if a height 7 creep wave comes in and the mesh is ground 4? That creep wave is height 11. Lower it to ground 1, and the creep wave is only height 8. Not only does it let your AC flow out, it weakens the incoming creep.