New weapon tech is always a welcome sight… This week, I show some auto targeting capabilities just added to everyone’s favorite weapon of mass Creeper destruction… the Bertha.
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I can’ wait to get my bertha’s online. Till then, I’m stuck watching these awesome videos. I love looking back at that one (I forget the name) huge map that had “creeper” written with stone.
I’m confused, did this game already come out?!? Because I can’t find it!
ooh big boom ^^
I kinda hope some of these maps can be downloadable when the game comes out. (at least if they’re not part of the bonus/story missions)
Those that aren’t will be really easy to recreate using the editor. The bigger maps are done by some others, so they will likely be custom maps.
Nice, What happen to your twitter account?
Everything appears to be in order:
https://twitter.com/knucracker
I think Havvix might be referring to the twitter feed on the side of the screen showing an update ‘0 seconds ago’ which takes you to this screen: https://twitter.com/account/suspended
sweetness, I watched the creeper die 5 times, then once after I post this.
hmmm, I just had a crazy though, remember its crazy
you are the creeper, the bertha shoots at you, you scream “NO!” and punch the shot back at a command node… to crazy?
oh and any prediction when this will be out?
Don’t give him ideas for when he finally stops hiding his disease.
Will the bertha auto-fire the closes creeper that another bertha is not targeting?
“auto-fire the densest creeper” is what I meant to say…
Currently, each Bertha looks for the densest cell… but it factors in where other Bertha’s are shooting when determining densest.
His human simulator device is getting better all the time, it’s almost like he’s not infected with the Loki Virus.
awsome work!
couple things i noticed/thought about.
i noticed that they only targeted emmiters. could we have a “fire at densest creeper” option?
and could we have a “Time on Target” option, where the berthas hold fire until all units in a selectable group are loaded and aimed? current way is good, but sometimes you can have a signifigant amount of creeper flood back in before the bertha reloads. ToT would allow for massive clearance operations with one firing cycle instead of several minutes worth of reloads.
and yes, this is my first post. hello everyone!
they do fire at densest, the emitters are the densest because the produce it
Densest creeper usually IS on emitters. Salvo fire is . . . . an interesting idea. I personally like that the minor discrepancies between various berthas provide constant suppression instead of single moments of huge suppression, and no support between reloads.
You could select a group, disarm them, then when ready to fire rearm them.
It appears so, but will they take in the fact that emmiters spawn in really dense creeper, then spreads? I dont want 1 layer auto taken out when I could get 10.
Also, I am sooooooo doing this strategy 😀
please let there be an unlimited resource mode 😀
ya know that seems like a good idea, unlimited resource, with a separate score table, my score for this map (so to speak) is 10 min, my score with UR mode is 3 min.
? are you a beta tester and actually played the map, or just guessing? Cause what you said makes very little sense…I would guess the bertha is targeting the thickest creeper on the map at the time it becomes fully charged. It then fires. Meanwhile the other birthas target somewhere else because they see that the “deepest” spot is already targeted. That swhy at the beginning they target creeper, and toward the end they are targeting emitters. By the end the only deep creeper is right on top of the emitters.
I wish I had the game, for now im busy pouring liquids on the table and floor and what not, then watching a flash light or some thing try to destroy it.
just guessing to be clear, and ya I know what they are doing
You could just build lots of reactors.
Are they auto-targeting in conjunction with how soon they will fully charge up so that they are full right when they get beads on their targets?
By the way, having seen all of them auto-home in the end, what will be the point of having manual targeting anymore?
And since you talk about the bertha’s destructive potential, why don’t you just make it so that they can actually damage enemy structures like the dark beam?
They use up much energy and are really powerful and if the structure damage was possible, it could be really slow to completely destroy the structures like the DB.
Heck, they could just have another technology feature that makes them auto-target structures or something along those lines.
Another thing, each consectuive game in this series has another subordinate enemy. 1 had just spores, 2 had phantoms and drones, so shouldn’t 3 have more than just spores?
Also, nice touches with the graphic and CN updates. But I seriously have a feeling that they will end up being called “Command Centers” upon release.
ADDITION: Besides, the Berthas are all targeting emmiters at the end, so that makes it seem more potent for them to damage structures.
http://knucklecracker.com/blog/index.php/2012/09/the-march/
look how he is using the bertha from about 9 min, if it had been on auto it would probably have hit somewhere else. also from 14 min and 30 sec trough the rest of the video.
Keep in mind that auto may not have existed at that time, either.
i know auto-targeting probably didn’t exist at the time but i just wanted to give an example of were it would be better to use manual targeting rather than auto.
If it MAY not have existed at the time, what is the guarantee that it didn’t until now?
I’m not trying to make any guarantees. Nobody has anything to prove. I’m just warning against making assumptions about how videos were handled in the past, based on features that exist now. Things change very quickly in Alpha.
If they change so quickly, why does the modifying and upgrading process of Alpha take as long as it has before it becomes beta?
It’s Alpha. Fundamentals are not sound, bugs are everywhere, nothing is finalized, and everything is subject to experimentation.
The reason generalities progress slowly is the same reason particulars can change quickly – nothing is certain.
The reason for the manual targeting is because certain situations may demand it such as what if there are two seperate areas on a map seperated by void and you are on the first and about to get overrun by a HUGE wave of creeper then all of your berthas target the creeper on the 2nd area because its slightly denser
Sometimes it can seem like you hit a point of balance with creeper. But if you look at the map, there are still areas that are filling in with creeper, places it’s flowing other than towards your base. The more the rest of the map fills with creeper, the more pressure is applied to your defenses.
I would prefer to aim a betha into places where creeper builds up and pools, transmitting pressure to the front line. If I drop a shell immediately onto an emitter under deep creeper, then the emitters output will suddenly increase, helping to limit the pressure that is taken off the front line.
Bottom line – auto targeting will never be as intelligent as human selection. Instead of conserving energy by targeting intelligently, it conserves a different resource – attention span.
Please do not have the bertha hurt the emitters. Way too many maps where you have to wait for a dark beam to kill an emitter. That would just set up maps where your only job is to create a reactor/bertha farm and wait 20 minutes for the map to end.
Whixh is why maybe they could either cause less damage to farther structures, or none at all at a far enough distance.
Eh, don’t like it. Berthas are already powerful – they don’t have to be an ‘I win’ button, too. Suppress the creeper, build one bertha, and then go make some coffee? I would avoid using berthas simply to prevent killing the fun.
Which raises the CW2 Dark Beam controversy. It damages structures over a long time. And I wasn’t really into the idea either for Berthas. It just looked too logical to deny CW3 offensive unit stuff like that based upon CW2 weapon history. Games that come after others in any series tend to operate on the history of their predeccesors. (Not that it’s always a good thing.)
Also, is there going to be an option that makes structures durable enough to require more than 1 nullifier to destroy? It took 3 to destroy each of the 4 nexus emitters in CW2 on the last level. I’m neutral about this one too.
I did not like that mechanic of dark beams. At all.
As for that aspect of nullifiers . . . meh . . . I’d prefer not. In my mind, nullified is nullified. There is no half-nullified. Ultimately, though, I’m hesitant to say it shouldn’t be . . . it’s a tool for mappers, and not as often abused as dark beams were. But if you can place one nullifier, you can place another.
DB’s: Why? Made it too easy?
As for multiple nullifiers on 1 structure, I don’t really have high hopes for that to look good in CW3 seeing as they each take even longer to function fully than the CW2 nullifiers.
They select a target when they are 20 packets away from a full charge.
So what speed could we say the berthas rotate (such as in accumulatable packets per second)? And I forget what the answer was to this next previous question if there was an answer, but how many packets does a bertha take to fire 1 shot?
So much wonderful destruction.
We’re gonna need a bigger moat…
We don’t need a moat when Berthas are on our side.
Question: with all these units that will be operating in an area separate from where they are built, will be be able use to use control groups?
disclaimer: control groups may be misleading, I call them such because most games assign a group to 1-9(or 0) by holding control while having said group selected.
Yep…
The ellipses suggest this question has already been asked/answered. If so, I humbly apologize for taking up your valuable time with a redundant question /shame
No worries. Everyone can’t read every word I write in every context. Asking questions doesn’t waste my time. It encourages me because it shows continued interest.
From the looks of things, continued interest doesn’t appear to be an issue. Big fan from game one.
Assuming you mean Berthas too, that’s music to my ears because CW2 did not allow it for Dark Beams. It did allow players to make control groups of Dark Mirrors, but definitly not for the Beams themselves.
my fascination level:
IT’S OVER 90000!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
…out of 100000? 🙂
nope, out of 5 :D:D:D:D:D
What made you decide to rate by a logical and mathmatical excess factor of 18000?
Memetic reasons.
Berthas damaging structures sounds a tad bit OP to me 4xC. They have already decimated creeper levels now.
Anyhow, this video is awesome! I wholeheartedly want to see more of these explosions. CW3 just keeps getting better and better.
I don’t plan to make Bertha’s damage enemy structures.
Well that’s actually quite comforting. I thought it was a little overkill when the DB’s of CW2 could do it over a long period of time. However, the CW2 Beams and Conversion Bombs still played the biggest role in the destruction of the second nexus in which there was no way to win without them as they were all Experimentals.
So about CW3, which of the following if any will be to key for the last level of the campaign or story?
a. All titans are required
b. Some titans are required
c. All orbitals are required
d. Some orbitals are required
e. a and c
f. b and d
g. a and d
h. b and c
My guess is, that you aren’t required any/most of them, but it will hell of a lot harder to win, like CW1 last level without the Titan, you need lots of weapons and energy just to survive, + now that you have wind + virgil has to think of something to add to the creeper, because we keep improving our tech and for the creeper to be a match for us, they need to be stronger, like smarter creeper.
Yeah, my opinion is that candy isn’t something you require, it’s something you strive for despite everything. 🙂
Well what if, like in CW2, the “candy” was something that was among the only things that make the last level possible to beat. Recall that the DB’s were REQUIRED to build to destroy the Nexus. I don’t see any way to beat the last CW2 level without CB’s either.
By candy, I mean things that are not necessary. In this case, things that you aren’t forced to acquire in story mode, but would have to visit other worlds to acquire.
I don’t think anything should be ABSOLUTELY REQUIRED to succeed unless you are forced to acquire it through the story.
. . . and looking at my reply, I didn’t answer the question at all. I don’t think nonconventional force (orbital or titan weapons) should be absolutely required at all.
Those should be things you strive for despite the difficulty in attaining them, despite not REALLY needing them.
big bertha shots auto…. boooom! but in my opinion is needed a bertha limit… if you build a lot of bertha, you are automatically the winner… is too easy
everything is subject to balancing
It takes quite a lot to even build one bertha… (350 packets), and arming them takes time too. If you feel like turtling, then yes, you could gather massive amounts of berthas. But that took time.
Perhaps to prevent such a cheap strategy Bertha’s could slowly increase in cost for each subsequent build, like tech domes in CW2?
If people have fun winning that way, then have fun.
Just keep in mind that they’ll have to work for it.
Exactly. Elaborate strategy games are indeed supossed to require player work and effort. Otherwise, the Starcraft series would not suit the people who like it so much like me.
will there be a speed up mode more than 4 times?
I don’t think anybody, even Virgil, knows the answer to that yet.
4x is pretty fast… and on large maps with lots going on, only the highest end machines can actually achieve 4x.
Auto mode is good for strategic bombing; but manual targeting is still needed for tactical fire in support of your advance. 😉
It could be used to keep creeper backflows from building up and applying more pressure to your advance without having to focus your attention on too much. But I agree, the most intelligent targets will rarely be the ones that can be chosen with simple logical rules.
Regarding chosen targets, if players had to clear out an island with deep creeper, and there was deeper creeper anywhere else off the island, and your current bertha number was not enough to cover the whole map or just the island at once, would auto-target make them fire everywhere other than the island?
This is centered around the idea that maybe you would want to secure an island before the rest of the map, but the deepest creeper is not on the island, and you have too few berthas to cover everywhere at the same time with auto-target. Maybe they could be told to auto-target points on just the island or a group of ground or something.
I mean to imply that said island has gaps of space separating it from the rest of the map land like the North island in “The March”.
I would just manually task a couple berthas where I need them, and leave the rest auto.
With your manually assigned berthas suppressing one place, the autos will focus themselves elsewhere.
Even if there were not enough berthas built to cover even just the whole island? As in, not having any others to take care of the other places and not likely being able to build and utilize more any time soon?
If that were the case, and I needed the bertha fire on that island, I don’t think I’d be using auto at all . . . my assumption is they pick the best target they can find, anywhere.
Auto-fire is a sensible addition, although I doubt I’ll be using Berthas much. But then, I’m more of a minimalist, tech-wise.
One crazy idea:
What if you could fire a Bertha prematurely with less firepower?
Example – you have a “fire” button when Bertha is selected, and not yet fully charged, and when you click it, it shoots, but the damage to the creeper is exponentially lower. (should depend on how much the Bertha has charged…)
That makes it sound less exciting to use them.
Awesome video man. I liked the initial bertha shot. All the way to bedrock! I can envision maps with huge emitters, enough power for 10 berthas, and having to time them out so they fire in succession. Mmmmm.
When are you taking my money?? SOON??!? I know you want to release it, just go ahead and do it 🙂
The GUI shows creeper at a depth of 16ish. And the bertha clears it down to bedrock.
1) how deep can a bertha shell go? All the way to ground no matter the creeper depth?
2) for comparison, how many levels of creeper depth would a morter shell have gone on this level? 3? 5?
Bertha shells take out 50 deep (currently).
Mortar shells penetrate down 3.5 deep.
That bit about how deep the Berthas penetrate is interesting because density in CW2 played no factor in how much creeper was killed at once when it was densly packed before its spot became part of the path of a Dark Beam.
Berthas may not be based off the Dark Beams, but they both strike me as fraternal twins in various ways, same as the CW3 Shields and Repulsors, Pulse Cannons and Blasters, Mortars and Launchers etc.
I don’t think they have anything to do with DB’s myself – they’re a very big mortar, that’s all. Beyond that, they’re very different. DB’s ammo consumption is off the scale in comparison, its damage pattern is different, its rate of fire in virtually infinite, one of them can completely suppress any map from beginning to end, and its damage depth is infinite.
Bertha shares none of these aspects, save for an increased ammo consumption. The rate of the bertha’s consumption is a joke compared to dark beam’s consumption – I don’t think they compare.
Keep in mind, there will likely be more titans – just because they’re both the only obvious big gun in the two games right now doesn’t mean they fill the same role.
If that’s the case, what CW2 weapon would the bertha relate most to and what CW3 weapon/titan/orbital (WTO) would the DB relate most to?
I’m not really comparing them again in the usual sense, but the DB’s depth penetration being infinite is similar to the bertha’s range being infinite. And both are monstrously expensive, and even though the bertha is costlier, players could still buind the largest energy production base in CW history to compensate for that.
Plus, berthas could be considered an improvement to the DB since that much firepower may make one think friendlies in range of the target would feel the bertha’s burn too just as friendlies in the path of a DB always snuff it. I assume they don’t when they are in the blast range of a bertha’s hit.
And I must ask, if the bertha is under a list of tians in the sense that titans is a plural word, why did you say “likely”? And what are the main roles that you see as different between them?
The CW1/2 unit the bertha closest relates to is probably mortars/rocket launchers. They have the same targeting mechanics, damage mechanics – the difference is scale. The Bertha is a big mortar. Bigger boom, bigger range, bigger consumption, but essentially the same thing.
The DB, I think, has no counterpart anywhere in CW1/3 that I’ve seen. Nothing in either game is remotely like it in damage pattern, control (via mirrors,) ammo supply, or have unique mechanics anything like the DB’s unique mechanics, such as infinite damage, or the ability to hurt emitters.
I say there would likely be more titans because there is a tab dedicated to titans in the blog videos. 🙂
The role I see as different between DB and Bertha? DB is a game-ender. You build it, and you use it to end the map. A sufficiently supplied dark beam, alone, without blaster or rocket support, can finish many maps – even a majority of maps, if used carefully.
Berthas role looks more like something that would be used as a deep-strike weapon, to support a push or eliminate extremely dense regions. On auto, they would be useful to prevent creeper from backing up in remote areas and putting pressure on your front lines. They currently appear to be the only deep-strike option into areas covered by AEZ’s, as well.
yep, there are benifits both ways, i realized. It is balanced nicely. Good work Virgilw!
Please make a limit on the bertha’s, like 5 tops because then you could just build a whole bunch and just annihilate the enemy and then it becomes boring real quickly
berthas cost 350 packets to build (yes thats a lot) and require all of the ammo tank to fire, have a long recharge rate, slow turn rate, and take up 3 times as much space as any other unit
bottom line, its balanced. upsides are that it has infinite range and massive damage, and it will take massive amounts of energy to build tons of berthas and it would also be slow
Noone’s forcing you to build Berthas, are they? It’ll be the same as trying to beat a level without building drones or mortars in CW1.
And if it is high scores you are worried about: Somehow I doubt building a massive amount of berthas is quicker than using the other techs available. Especially the Guppies.
Even if you build lots of Berthas (very expensive and time consuming to build and fire)…. the just destroy Creeper with large intervals in between. Even on this demo map, you would still have a bit of a time building a network and taking out the emitters.
Please make a limit on the dark beam’s, like 5 tops because then you could just build a whole bunch and just annihilate the enemy and then it becomes boring real quickly.
Right? Sure, Dark Beams are really REALLY overpowered, but they suck up energy. You can only run 4 at once with the 60 packet cap, 3 if you want to do anything else. Berthas are actually being balanced in this game. I doubt they’ll be anything like the Thor or Dark Beams.
Unrelated please-don’t-take-it-personally note: apostrophes are used to indicate contractions and possession, not plurality. ‘Real’ is an adjective, not an adverb. Adjectives can’t modify adverbs, but the reverse is true. 😉
-Anon: making the world a little less wrong every day
No dark beams exist as of yet. I doubt berthas qualify as a match for them, either.
Something nobody has pointed out yet: Take a look at the rate packets flow to berthas. Their ammo consumption to reload is much higher than other units, and they take a LOT of energy to fire a single shot. They are a severe burden on your network.
If someone has fun with Berthas, who are we to say they’re having fun the wrong way? If the map needs that limit, let the mapper set limits like that.
They may not match, but berthas and dark beams are more related to each other than anything else in CW3 made public could to them.
That bit about the bertha’s rate of consumption is one example of how.
I think the only strong similarity they bear is that they’re both titan class. There are no other units in that class that have that kind of firepower . . . but I don’t think that makes them similar.
I know Dark Beams don’t exist and won’t exist, but I’m comparing to what he could say about CW2. Berthas won’t be essential to maps either (unlike Beams on many). Honestly, it looks to me like they do less damage with one shot than a Mortar using the equivalent amount of energy. Berthas just have infinite range and suppress dense Creeper behind enemy lines.
The reson why their power looks more underratable than a mortar’s is probably because we never saw any creeper at level 50 on a small enough island yet. And they don’t have to have the same proportion between energy usage and damage output. And since it may be possible to have a really large island and a small isolated base with no other means to thin the creeper out enough initially, I think somehow berthas could become essential.
I think what he’s saying is that mortars do more damage per packet, not more damage per shell. They’re probably far more economical than berthas, considering berthas cost 150 to fire.
How exactly strong is a bertha shell compared to a “blaster” shell. Lets just say the “baster” shell=1
Berth shells damage down 50 deep and Mortar shells damage down 3.5 deep. Mortar shells damage with a diameter of 9. Bertha shells damage with a diameter of 21.
Ok saneman, you try that and tell me how that works out for you 😉
but anyways, in the campaign, have you decided if we will get access to all 3 command nodes at the beginning, or unlock more as missions are complete.
They will be unlocked as you progress. I’m fairly sure you will start with only one.
How will it work for unlocking structures? Obviously, we’ll start with a Node, Collectors, Relays (probably), and Blasters, but with the open-endedness of the game, I could see this as a problem. Are you crazy enough to take on Day 13 with no Launchers? Wouldn’t Reactors have been the greatest addition to Tucana?
I remember tucana. I think that was the hardest double-down level of them all, with the possible exception of that one with all the pods on all the islands. That one is EVIL even if you know where to build the relays ahead of time)
It got easier once I started using two mortars to keep the 4 pools under controll.
I did all the academy missions without launchers, though. I still made the weekly kongregate highscores with my times. lol.
“I did all the academy missions without launchers, though. I still made the weekly kongregate highscores with my times. lol.”
Heh.
I haven’t played much Double Down (or campaign… or CW1 in general recently) except Loki without the Thor but I would love to see it return. Virgil could even be nice to us and have a score multiplier or add 2500 at the start when you activate it.
First time I watched I wondered why half of the berthas didnt fire for a while. I just noticed they are actually rotating to target! I really cant wait to start tilling stuff here Virgil…keeps looking better and better.
And wow – 350 to build? And it looks like aroung 150 to fire? Not a cheap weapon to fire.
And a much higher rate of ammo consumption, compared to other weapons. They eat packets fast!
Much like the Dark Beams.
I try not to compare anything to dark beams unless I hate the idea. 🙂
Go ahead then. I try to make all my comparisons unopinionated.
I see where you’re coming from, but it’s not really because of my personal dislike. Comparing things to a Dark Beam seems to be a common burn when someone thinks something is way too powerful.
That’s one reason I reacted a little too powerfully to your comparisons – my first instinct was that you were taking a dig at Berthas.
For future reference, I never take digs at the most powerful weapons offered.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1zWmr0CVFM
use this link for a song idea for the game
I’m conflicted as to whether I should buy the Creeper World Bundle now, or buy the trilogy all together later. Depending on when 3 comes out, it could make a nice Christmas gift from me to myself 😀
Anyway, this game looks very awesome. Can’t wait to get my hands on it. (And the previous two, I came a little late to this party :P)
I came late to the party too. I didn’t know about CW2 till a few months ago. At that point, I found this blog, and I’ve been keeping up (reading, rarely posting) ever since.
Are there any outer titan builds besides Bertha?