Creeper attributes

[Karsten75]

I've been thinking of a few features that might be interesting for the creeper to acquire in a future release.

1. Creeper pools. A creeper pool might be something where the creeper can fill it up very fast, so fast that perhaps a few blasters can't stop it, but at the same time it will not flow over the rim of the pool. So it will fill up to a pre-determined depth and then the emitters would stop. Should something fire at the pool, then one of two things can happen. Either the emitters will fill the pool back up, or the emitters will go crazy and the pool can overflow at the rate that the emitters are set to create creeper.

2. Directed creeper flow.  While this probably defies the "heat algorithm" of the creeper, perhaps it can be built into the terrain, where certain types of terrain is more conducive to the creeper, so it will flow in that direction a little faster than in another direction.  This way the creeper can be guided to aim for certain targets before others while still looking natural. THink of the creeper perhaps flowing at different speeds over sand, rock and water/ice?

[NoobSauce]

I dunno about 1, that seems like it can be achieved by having an emitter set to intensity 1 in a pool 1 level below the rest of the map...

2 seems rather decent, though.  Currently I'm sure you can work around it with creative use of terrain height, but it would be very interesting to see "more conductive" terrain to creeper.

[djcian]

a "more conductive" area for creeper could be a ramp or sloped terrain that it would flow down faster then flat terrain.  i don't know anything about coding but it sounds like it would require a lot of work and it would require messing around with the creeper constants like flow speed which i remember Virgil saying were very hard and time consuming to code.

[crazy20164]

ooh how bout
Frozen Creeper and Super Heated Creeper , the frozen one would be frozen by like the cold atmosphere of a planet then thaw out, you can build ontop of it without damage to buildings. Super heated Creeper is lessly effected by blasters. since blasters work by incineration.

[Karsten75]

I dunno about 1, that seems like it can be achieved by having an emitter set to intensity 1 in a pool 1 level below the rest of the map...

If you do it the way you say, then the rate of flow is constant and the pool can overflow. My suggestion is for creeper that attempts to stay at a specific depth - analogous to the more you take out the more flows in, or erupts only if disturbed.

a "more conductive" area for creeper could be a ramp or sloped terrain that it would flow down faster then flat terrain.  i don't know anything about coding but it sounds like it would require a lot of work and it would require messing around with the creeper constants like flow speed which i remember Virgil saying were very hard and time consuming to code.

From the little I know about programming, there is probably a parameter in the code that has some "coefficient of conductivity" to emulate the medium that is the planet surface. At the moment this is probably uniform. My suggestion is that you can delineate some area and allocate a different coefficient to that. But you are right, I'm guessing and I don't know how Virgil programmed it.

What set me thinking about this is things like the Mickey map, the Gump map and another map I played today where the creeper seems to form a sort of an "afro" on the head before flowing "down." So if you could adjust the conductivity of the surface, you could get an almost invisible "river running in a specific direction, or a secret channel that the creeper is slow to invade. Something like that.

[djcian]

actually noobsauce is right. if the intensity is set to one the creeper wont go over anything higher then it no matter how many emitters you have or no matter how small the pit is.  i even made a map that demonstrates this principle.  it was called island fun.

[TheBuilder]

i think he means that it would fill up over its constraints but stay inside the dimensions of the pit, so u would have like a plateu of creeper sticking out of a pit, or the creeper fills up a pit and only overflows it when u disturb it, ie blasters/motors/etc. . .

[Commander Strife]

I like the super heated one, but the frozen one would kinda  be unfair if super heated reched it wouldn't it? your whole base would get engulfed by thawed creeper. i do have some ideas to add to atleast the map editor...

Maybe there could be a window were you could tool the creeper attitude, to a small but fun point. like you could tool it so then the creeper doesn't flow with another creeper from a different emmitter, like two incompatible types of creeper. or make them destructible. Dry Creeper Emmitters. A special emmitter that only activates when in creeper. or Creeper Roamers, a kind of emmitter that would move around, would be a ***** to cap-off. or freindly creepers that would be like pets (non controllable of course) and would give energy to buildings in it's creeper but would be naturally a cheap imitation of emmitters and would be very slowly producing it's creeper, that would be really awsome but would make some maps way easier. one that would make it way too stupid to do and would make maps five times harder, would be to have creeper that attacks you, like spores but on the ground.

[Strider]

I dont know if this is still an active thread or whatever, but you there should be creeper volcanoes. Like a mound or hole, that after a certain amount of time creeper comes out. If you go with dry creeper and stuff said in earlier posts, volcanoes should be able to make that to.

[Fisherck]

I doubt anything else will be implemented in CW1, but in CW2 we will be able to do things like that and more!

[Colin]

I dont know if this is still an active thread or whatever, but you there should be creeper volcanoes. Like a mound or hole, that after a certain amount of time creeper comes out. If you go with dry creeper and stuff said in earlier posts, volcanoes should be able to make that to.

If you go to the blog, Virgil has a dev video (with a 'volcano')!  ;)

[CreeperSlayer]

I don't want this. It will ruin the whole game I think. Creeper pools ruin it because creeper isn't meant to just...stop. It destroys anything and everything. Plus the terrain that will move creeper...no, once again, ruins the game because it technically means the creeper can be controlled. The creeper is meant to be uncontrollable.

CreeperSlayer.

[Karsten75]

What's it called when people dig up 2-year old threads for no good reason? :P