VT is not typically known to be a mission that can be prolonged for 9 hrs 6 mins 7 secs. That’s generally saved for Dead of Night, Chain of Ascension, and Lock and Load.
Unless there’s another so-far unknown loss condition, this should be possible.
FYI, the mission will fail when it hits that upper limit for total time, so either end it one minute before so that it shows up in match history & has a valid replay file; or record the whole run.
Side note: I think once this mission is extended to 45 minutes, the possibility for 9 hrs+ is proven.
Ah! Aneroid if you are seeing this then ignore my previous suggestions!
Apparently the Void Thrashers react differently than I thought.
They will not attack a target unless they are attacked.
So even if a building or a unit nearby, if it isn’t attacked they will keep hitting the Sergeant Hammer’s Fortress.
That means to achieve 9 hours of play you need to hit the Void thrashers with workers of unit of low dps.
It must be done manually.
Previous Suggestion
Karax/Swann can do it or even abathur.
Simply Destroy all but one Void thrasher and make static defence and leave your main armies in each spawn point.
Karax
Make a pylon or a Building barely close to its range.
Repair Beam/Shield Battery will repair them easily. You can also put Aiur carriers close (but not close enough for it to attack) so they can also repair buildings (this is optional)
Swann
Pretty much same with Karax but with SCV.
You have to be becareful with how you put your SCV otherwise they will be destroyed. You can put Science Vessels to heal your SCV
Abathur
Same with the two commanders but maybe bit tricky as you need creep to instantly make your building and you can’t make crawlers to walk over there otherwise they will attack (Actually, do it with hatchery).
Put several well fed Swarm Queens near the buidling so they can very quickly heal the building.
I suppose every terran commanders can work since SCVs can repair your buildings, if you can control the distance you won’t have much problem. Stettman can work to maybe.
Zagara/Kerrigan can work but their Transfusion is manual.
Their range is 10 and Search area 2.2 so roughly similar to Siege Tanks in Siege mode.
You’ll learn how to counter while fighting them.
Yeah, I was thinking Swann’s Science Vessels, since they can be upgraded to not use energy to repair. And just keep a Goliath in ‘hold position’ but out of the Goliath’s attack range and within the VT’s aggro range. Again, I’m not aware of the VT’s attack/aggro range. I thought it was quite small/short distance.
Other option is a Stalker under Vorazun’s Dark Pylon (50% increased shield regen for cloaked) and potentially backed up by a Karax Shield Gen, also within the DP (400% increased energy regen for cloaked).
Vora’s Darchons and Arty’s Archons have 350 shields - but such heavily shielded units shouldn’t be needed if it needs to last un-attended. Basically, two consecutive attacks should not deplete shields, or the time between each attack should be enough to fully regen the shields. Or repair/heal for terrans.
Edit: Or a Kerrigan Ultralisk (melee) on hold position being healed by Nikara farther away, also on hold position. With Nikara having the double heal-rate upgrade.
Or Blaze with Nikara. I’m sure even if the VT’s attack/aggro range is short, it’s more than Blaze’s and with his ultimate upgrade of just 30 dmg taken per attack, Nikara can heal it before the next one, probably even with un-upgraded heal.
But they have 1000 shields so if it can be kept interchangeably aggro’d and not aggro’d, with enough time in between to regen some or all of its shields, that could extend the max possible mission time.
Maybe having a row of probes under Vora’s DP (for emergency recall) or lings attacking it one at a time would work. Need an eco strategy that supports a continuous attack run, like a mined out map gives 70k or whatever minerals so about 1400 probes, minus whatever is used for army. And two players.
This will require knowing its aggro, de-aggro, attack unit and attack fortress timings; and then some sort of fine balance in the strat.
Whether manual or afk, If an equilibrium can’t be established, then a successful 45-minute run doesn’t prove a 9-hour run is possible.
Can Karax’s shield gens be forced to regen the shields of an enemy unit? If so, that might give us the balance we’re looking for. With a photon cannon attacking it to keep it aggro’d.
Or same thing with terran healers, since it’s biological.
There are things that can get around. Toxic nest for example.
But I mean the challenge is really how to let it AFK. Anyone can sit there for 9 useless hours lol.
My bet is on Abathur. With full biomass, toxic nest, and queens there should be a potential to continuously aggro and stay safe. Setting up enough well spaced out toxic nests is probably the most difficult part.
The ones I’m not sure about are:
mass Medics (will they survive late game Thrasher circle of doom, and will they aggro at all)
same thing for Science Vessels
how well so held-position Ultralisks work
how long do Toxic Nests lasts because they do die and not respawn (so the longevity issue)
can a roach burrow and aggro because then you are set
what structures can aggro without having to attack Thrasher (ie. setting cannons to target each other but built within aggro range
You won’t have to worry about camping attack waves, there isn’t one listed after the 8th wave. The devs didn’t anticipate anyone realistically going beyond that.
If they don’t attack, Void Thrashers will just ignore them.
Strangely Void Thrashers in Void Thrashing and TotP behave differently for some reason.
Maybe it has something to do with targets objects (the Temple and Fortress could trigger different responses) Or the trigger within the game itself.
Discovery: If you gather mass medics and have a worker attack the Thrasher, it will attack the medic instead.
Link: https://youtu.be/hUTCUZSRGGY
Same can be said for Roaches, Just burrow them near the Thrasher and have a worker attack it.
I bet it can work on others like Science Vessels and Ultralisks.
I’m thinking you should be able to just park a Swarm Host or 2 out of range of the VT, but have their spawned locusts just keep attacking the VT. It should be enough to aggro them away from their long range bombardment, but not enough to eventually whittle them to death.
The thing is, Locust’s Dps is pretty high, each is 16.67 dps and VT has 1000 Shields 3000 health (A single 0 Biomass SH without pause can kill a VT in 120.33 seconds).
Swarm host can definitely stall the VT but if you can’t control the SH well, you might end up killing it.
Yeah, did you mean have the swarm hosts burrow beside the Thrasher? Because it needs to be aggro’d. And then have the Locusts move away so it doesn’t kill the Thrasher.
Or it would have to be some really sick timing with a lot of Locusts to just move towards the Thrasher and die just before it… then for a continuous line of distraction. Locusts do have a shorter range of attack than the Thrasher’s aggro range.
In theory it works, but that is a lot of work lol.
Not quite. I’m thinking SH burrows outside the range of the VT, and then have it “attack move” on the VT. AFAIK, that should point the locusts towards the direction of the VT, and they’ll automatically engage once they’re in range.
IIRC, something just needs to attack the VT, while still being within range of their lightning attacks to cease its long range bombardment and focus on that instead (so a SH burrowed nearby shouldn’t be necessary.
Hmm, worth a shot. It seems like at best, you prolong it for an hour, at best. And another thing is you’d need to maintain constant pressure. Else, potshots at the fortress means the mission will end the other way.
Nice! But we need to see the damage bars on the Thrasher or its Shields & Health stats in the unit info to ensure that the probe isn’t killing it too fast to last 9 hours.
Since the probe is constantly attacking the thrasher, it’s not getting an opportunity to regen its sheilds, so even at 4.67 DPS, that would whittle down a full 1000 Shields 3000 health VT in about 14 mins 16 secs. I know the VT is armoured but at what level? That would reduce the damage taken, as long as you’ve not researched ground attack. And since the other Thrashers will spawn on their own timer regardless of mission progress, it’s not like we can take the 15 minute-per-thrasher math and multiply by 4 (four sets of thrashers) to get to even one hour.
Hi, aneroid. apologies for the late reply.
Link: https://youtu.be/MRyM3jCXH-s
I’ll cut to the chase, use Life Leech mutation. Grab a partner, and run Custom Mutation.
I simply can’t find how to do it in ordinary mission.
With Life Leech and Abathur’s Roach you will be able to sustain up to 9 hours as Roach heals very quickly and the Void Thrasher can fully regenerates from Roaches (1 will suffice).
It is possible to do with Karax but Shield Batteries won’t charge themselves and production buildings (other than towers), and even with that their energy will deplete rather fast.
