Is Insane Mode Possible?

Balanite

Worker
I got it! Final tally: 67 level 2-3 rapidfire ants and 70+ level 1 workers to beat insane 2.1.

The workers died ultra fast but the rapidfires around the queen killed the spiders easily enough. I quickly put surviving workers back on egg-placing duty (nest group) between waves to replenish my numbers, and kept a buffer of about 200 food. The final "mother" spider lasted 3 seconds.

Onto 2.2! :)
 

MikeSlugDisco

Community Manager
Staff member
Community Manager
Just sayin' - if any of you guys could record your Insane playthroughs (using something like OBS) and put them on Youtube, we'd be rather grateful...
 

Balanite

Worker
Yeah, got 2.2 in one try following Stewster's strategy of 50 workers and as much upgraded mortars as possible. You were right Rayalot, it's much easier than 2.1.

I started hunting beetles to increase the size of my army by the second night. Got 40+ level 3 mortars by the end. Too bad there's no challenge mode for 2.1 and 2.2 yet though.

Mike, I'm not very familiar with recording games stuff (I can't even take screenshots of the game for some reason). I'll post it here if I managed to get it working, though.
 

Rayalot72

Maximum difficulty
Beta Tester
Extremely Helpful Person
No clue how to make videos here, although I could always try some random software. I'll have to give OBS a look in over the Christmas break.
 

MikeSlugDisco

Community Manager
Staff member
Community Manager
We'd really appreciate it guys, I'll write up a guide to using OBS (which is free) to do a simple screen / audio capture. :-*
 

Balanite

Worker
Mike, thanks for the tips about OBS. Here's my 2.1 insane run recorded on Youtube, along with the rest. I hope it helps you guys.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=nGfj6cO2FXI

I got to do some stuff before I record 2.2, though.
 

MikeSlugDisco

Community Manager
Staff member
Community Manager
Balanite said:
Thanks, guys. I uploaded all my videos, but now I'll have to wait for more content... :)

I'm gonna be sharing some of these on our social media. I salute you insane-o-nauts!
 

Rayalot72

Maximum difficulty
Beta Tester
Extremely Helpful Person
BeigeAlert said:
...and I'm just sitting here trying to beat 2-1 on hard... :( (damn spiders just blow past my ants and kill the queen anyways...)

Stack literally everything on the queen nights 1 and 2, and gradually take out the spiders based on which is furthest away.
 
It is possible. I have won 1.1, 1.2 on insane, and even 1.1(challenge), 1.2(challenge) on insane too. It was hard. Very hard. You cant have only one tactic. Every mission have his own tactic to beat them on insane. Sadly AI pheromones, is sometimes stupid, and its even harder to beat it.
 

Balanite

Worker
You have to plan ahead with the pheromones, and know that ants generally don't retreat.

Got to group them up before you charge and pick your battleground well, that sort of thing. I usually keep them behind where I want the ants to defend before charging them forward.

Sometimes it's useful to turn off attack/gather mode too, or play around with the pheromone groups.
 

Rayalot72

Maximum difficulty
Beta Tester
Extremely Helpful Person
Yo Balanite, how many attempts does it generally take you to beat 1.2 Insane? I figure I'm playing slow, but I thought I'd ask to know if I'm actually just getting bad luck (I do need to work faster).

Also, we should race for the 3.1 and 3.2 insane mode wins, just for the challenge and learning process.
 

Axelay

Larva
Balanite, I watched your video and was amazed at how very much exactly the same you and I start out. I guess it is a testament to how tightly balanced the map is that two random people would be nearly click-for-click identical after (in my case) ~20 hours of failure.

I had the idea that maybe there was a way to game the mechanics of the spiders by spreading out the brood chambers to split as many spiders off from the main group as possible, but it wasn't until I saw your video that I actually tried it. (I really felt strongly that I shouldn't need to).

Compared to your video, the third spider wave of night 2 I actually had a few more ants than you did, but still was rolled over like they were nothing. Yet you handily defeated them. Even with my brood chambers spread out all over. I cannot understand exactly what is happening, why do I fail so hard there?

I noticed (this may be purely animation weirdness) that the spitters seem to stall out, it looks like they stand around doing nothing, and occasionally spit once. Almost like they are firing at the same rate of a mortar ant. This complete lack of DPS would explain why I can't kill very many, but I would expect if that were a genuine bug, that everyone would be experiencing it.
 

Axelay

Larva
Re-watching your video, your shooters took everything down rapidly. So I don't think it's just a display glitch, they are actually not firing properly.

@Mike should I try to look at this as a bug, or perhaps this is an undocumented feature of 'arachnophobia' mode? I've had that mode turned since I first installed.. Is it actually increasing difficulty?
 
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