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GL with all-in, I messed around and did most of the missions marine only with upgrades but never cared enough to really try all-in.
You can load the campaign maps in the editor and check out everything about them FYI. Get exact Nydus timings and good knowledge of their likely placement (they spawn in preset far/mid/short/in base/deep in base distances, at which point it randomly chooses one of the possible spawn locations) , wave compositions, everything.
An amusing note: never attempt to go anywhere near the enemy bases. They instantly get 6 Ultras, 30 Hydras, 20 Roaches, and 5 Banelings in addition to their already decent defense if you do so. And if I'm reading the triggers right, their defenders will come back within 16 seconds of dieing  .
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Brutal has more nydus spawning per wave, so generally you have to deal with 3 outside your base(pre 50%).
Nydus worms inside the very short range of the artifact can be 1-shot by it, but there are a LOT of positions just slightly outside the range.
Ultras come at around 35%
It is possible to have a nova up for every kerrigan wave, and with a bit of micro, you can use it just after she arrives to catch the nydus waves that come right after her each time
There is a randomizer in where the nydus worms spawn, but it is based on your troop position in some way. This means if you don't move anything since a save, they will be in the same spots 100% of the time, if you start moving units you have a chance some will spawn in different locations. I originally though they simply were not spawning where lots of units were sitting, but this is incorrect, as they have spawned in the middle of a pile of units I moved there numerous times. This leads to a lot of sending troops all over the map to the possible spawn locations for that wave, and getting lucky.
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On October 15 2010 23:57 Shiladie wrote:
Nydus worms inside the very short range of the artifact can be 1-shot by it, but there are a LOT of positions just slightly outside the range.
Put supply depots up on top there then?
Put them on the spot that just slightly outside the range, and work your way in.
You have to build them anyway, so why not where they can defend from the Nyduses (Nydii?)
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On October 16 2010 01:24 JHancho wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2010 23:57 Shiladie wrote:
Nydus worms inside the very short range of the artifact can be 1-shot by it, but there are a LOT of positions just slightly outside the range.
Put supply depots up on top there then? Put them on the spot that just slightly outside the range, and work your way in. You have to build them anyway, so why not where they can defend from the Nyduses (Nydii?)
He means outside the range of the artifact. The artifact has a range higher than the perimeter of the base.
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On October 16 2010 01:29 TheFinalWord wrote:Show nested quote +On October 16 2010 01:24 JHancho wrote:On October 15 2010 23:57 Shiladie wrote:
Nydus worms inside the very short range of the artifact can be 1-shot by it, but there are a LOT of positions just slightly outside the range.
Put supply depots up on top there then? Put them on the spot that just slightly outside the range, and work your way in. You have to build them anyway, so why not where they can defend from the Nyduses (Nydii?) He means outside the range of the artifact. The artifact has a range higher than the perimeter of the base.
Oh. my bad. Regardless, I'd recommend put supply depots up there anyway, because if you're getting to the last few seconds you can wall off effectively and buy some time if the Marines are getting overwhelmed.
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On October 15 2010 23:57 Shiladie wrote:
There is a randomizer in where the nydus worms spawn, but it is based on your troop position in some way. This means if you don't move anything since a save, they will be in the same spots 100% of the time, if you start moving units you have a chance some will spawn in different locations. I originally though they simply were not spawning where lots of units were sitting, but this is incorrect, as they have spawned in the middle of a pile of units I moved there numerous times. This leads to a lot of sending troops all over the map to the possible spawn locations for that wave, and getting lucky.
This isn't entirely correct, actually. If you open the map in the editor, you can see that the nydus worms are actually spawned at random points one of 5 regions, chosen according to distance from base (worms spawn farther away as you increase difficulty and get farther into the level). The reason it changed if you moved units is (i think) because numbers in the RNG got used, leading to new ones for the spawn points.
Spoiler: The nydus spawns are actually very scripted; the only random aspect is the physical location, and even that is pretty constrained. For example,
+ Show Spoiler + the first nydus spawn for brutal comes at exactly 4:50, and will contain one worm either by the artifact or in the areas around the starting two bunkers, 1 worm near your merc camp, one just past the barricades on the outskirts of your base, and one a fair distance outside of your base, easiest described as right before the ramp entrances to the zerg bases. The second wave will come at exactly 6:50 and will have the same parameters. The worms will also spawn in that order. Similarly, once the artifact hits 25%, it stops spawning in the artifact area and by the starting bunkers, then starts spawning in the artifact area again after the artifact hits 75%. Someone should also correct me if I read the triggers wrong.
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How many more brave marines must die to your stupid bestial urges?!?!?!
In all seriousness though, no stim or shields? That's pretty ridiculous. Better get that 10rax reactor pumping out ASAP. Are you allowed to use planetary fortresses?
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blanket the top cliff with the artifact with rax to prevent nydus from spawning all over it
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On October 16 2010 04:51 OfficerTJHooker wrote:
How many more brave marines must die to your stupid bestial urges?!?!?!
In all seriousness though, no stim or shields? That's pretty ridiculous. Better get that 10rax reactor pumping out ASAP. Are you allowed to use planetary fortresses?
No upgrades, including PF, bunker turrets, perdition turrets, etc.
:o
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Perhaps you could slowly build a morrow-porter along each path, allowing for rapid reinforcement to attack each nydus...
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My first serious attempt got me to 79%, where a compound of lost troops meant I didn't have the forces to kill 1 of the nydus from the wave at 69%, or any from 73% This map gives you next to no downtime to rebuild anything, as you always need to be moving to be in position for the next wave of nydus worms.
Things that caused the first loss/things I'm doing differently
Letting medics/marauders die by not pulling them out during kerrigan waves, as well as keeping a more watchful eye on them as a whole.
2 additional barracks positioned in the middle, serving both as more troops production and nydus blockers
additional engineering bay for faster armour upgs, also positioned for nydus blocking
Using a trick i found with kerrigan near the end of last attempt(I gotta keep some secrets here, or the video won't be as interesting...)
Additional SCVs mining, there are 14 patches to mine from, so 28-42 SCVs on minerals at all times will be required. This as well as pulling 2 out of gas after I have started the lvl 3 upgs, leaving just enough to repair BC/banshee/tanks.
Not building turrets for the overlords, marines can cover it, especially with the earlier +3 armour upg helping vs the infesteds that drop.
For people suggesting cute strategies, thank you, I do appreciate it, and if you have ideas I'd love to hear them, but a lot of the strats that you think may be great for the situation are simply too expensive both in resources and in APM to feasibly use.
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Just had an idea, though I'm not sure it will work - what if you wall off with buildings but leave a small gap, and have tanks behind. It might allow you to funnel units through an artificial choke point.
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I kind of get the feeling that this is Engineer's(from TF2) approach to solving problems, and if that don't work... use more gun
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On October 18 2010 23:40 Tohron wrote:
Just had an idea, though I'm not sure it will work - what if you wall off with buildings but leave a small gap, and have tanks behind. It might allow you to funnel units through an artificial choke point.
I toyed with this for a while, but unfortunately at brutal level difficulty units that can't move forward to get to what's attacking them look for something in range that they can attack instead of just sitting there unable to get forward.
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With regards to Fraps, What Frames Per Second do you set in the options ?
What have you got ticked / unticked.
How good is your computer ? What settings do you play on, especially resolution.
I don't know much about Marine Brutal but I know alot about Fraps  lol
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For some reason my lag issues have gone away completely while doing all-in, I think it was very map dependent. Right now I'm doing 60 FPS framerate locked (don't actually know how that check affects things)
For an update to my progress, I recently found the ladder to be a lot more fun again, so my play time has been split a bit more.
I currently have a save game at 72% that I am happy with, (did 52-72 tonight) I'm sitting at 177 supply after dropping to 155 from the first kerrigan that does razerswarm, definitely an annoying challenge.
There are 4 more waves of Nydus, and 1 more kerrigan before the endgame last 5% hits, and I've got the nova timed so I have 1 more use, and then have it up going into the endgame, as I believe it will be required then.
What I'm wondering now is when/how to transition into losing my entire fucking base. essentially when i move to the highground and let the zerg kill everything below. I'm thinking it may be after the next kerrigan wave, as she would rape my face if I were clumped on the highground at the time.
I've currently not lost any of my starting non-marine/scv units, which is why I'm confident I can pull this off, as long as I don't hit some kind of brick wall where it's impossible to kill the nydus in time.
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I can barely keep up with your strat in Utter Darkness... by 800 kills i'm already having issues keeping them away from my vault
EDIT: Had some problems towards the last part until I realised the AI stops spawning anti-ground once there isn't any buildings left. That can be a problem with raking numbers cause zerglings are easy kills. I finally beat it with just a 100 to spare by trying to keep as many buildings up as possible.
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I have it in my mind that you'll be floating ALOT of Rax and CC's throughout all these missions. Maw of the Void should be possible, but painstakingly slow. I think the bigger problem with Maw of the Void will actually be the lack of minerals. You'll be using SCVs to repair your BCs right? It's going to be a pain trying to snipe all those Rip Field Generators.
Still, I would love to see the vids.
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On October 30 2010 13:56 Conrose wrote:
I have it in my mind that you'll be floating ALOT of Rax and CC's throughout all these missions. Maw of the Void should be possible, but painstakingly slow. I think the bigger problem with Maw of the Void will actually be the lack of minerals. You'll be using SCVs to repair your BCs right? It's going to be a pain trying to snipe all those Rip Field Generators.
Still, I would love to see the vids.
Shiladie has had Maw of the Void done for about a month now, video has been posted for a while, you can check it for yourself.
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I have spent a LOT, of time on All-In, more then the rest of the campaign combined. My best run so far is uploading to Youtube as we speak.
I fail at 89.7%
To anyone who watches it, I am open to any tips and pointers, each spot where the F10 menu comes up I have a saved game, so if you think there are spots where something done differently would have changed things to make it possible, let me know the % that it is at and the details (my saved games are named by %, so that makes it easy to find)
The most obvious spot that will probably be pointed out is the time period around 80%
80% and onward is the period I spent the most time on, trying different variations on nova timing to where troops are located to where to use yamato. The version you see in the video is my most recent attempt and may seem a little sloppy past 82% as I didn't hunt through my vids for the most impressive looking death at 89% instead just going with the most recent.
So as I said, while I have nto given up, I have determined that it is near impossible due to 3 units:
Baneling:
makes trying to repair behind a wall-in extremely difficult, future attempts will only see sucess if I can micro to kill them before they hit the wall-in
Ultralisk:
at 6 armour fully upgraded marines do an astounding 3 damage a shot to them, at the 600 health they have in the campaign version, this means it takes 200 shots to take one down, late game you are faced with over 8 at a time. They also still do their full damage to marines, with their larger splash, groups of marines without combat shield die in 3 fast hits.
Hunter killer:
26 damage means they 2-shot even 3/3 marines, while their 4 armour and 180 hp makes them tanks unto themselves. They only come with kerrigan, but the 5 that do come each time essentially force a nova eery time kerrigan comes by, otherwise your losses to them are simply too high.
Another pet peeve is the nydus worms that are 'just' out of range of the nova, I used a trick of delaying kerrigan a little so that she arrives just as the nydus wave after her spawns, allowing me to clear out the hunter killers at the same time as all but a few of the nydus worms, I can pick off 1 out of range worm with my air units, but things get dicey when there are more.
Kerrigan's insta-kill is anothing annoyance, as it has a rediculous range, forcing you to move your tank way way back from the side she ends up attacking, as well as keep your air units away from her entirely. From what I can see, the moment a mehcanical unit comes within range 10 of her, it is instantly targeted and killed.
Things I realized afterwards that I will improve upon if/when i try again:
removing 2 of the scvs off gas after getting the marine upgrades, I kept them there for repairs, but grossly overestimated how much those cost.
Possibly moving onto the highground before the 79% kerrigan spawn, as I was unable to hold off without a nova even without her arriving.
Possibly getting ground or air mech upgrades for the few units I had, though i don't know if it would be worth it...
I am confident that with the use of one of any of the following I would be able to crush it without much problem:
1) Research, mind control towers would make this easy-mode, not to mention planetary fortress, 15% faster attack speed, double scv production, faster gas (only need 2 scv on one gas to get enough) more energy on BCs, allowing for 2 yamato's each before running out of energy
2) Upgrades, combat shield + stim would make kerrigan waves a LOT nicer to deal with, as the hunter killers would 3-shot marines instead of 1-shot, and the entire thing would be over faster from stim, suped up medic healing wouldn't hurt. Double scv repair rate+self repairing buildings would be an absolute godsend, as would orbital command for extra minerals. The tanks upgrades would make my 2 tanks a rediculous amount more useful, as would the aoe upgrade for my banshees
3) Mercs, do I even need to say anything here, 4 super tanks + 4 super banshees + 1 super BC would have made this level a cakewalk in comparison to what is is now, if onyl for the extra airforce to kill worms with. The marauders would also have made the late-game ultras easier to deal with.
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EPT
