So far In CW2 I have talked mostly about returning to the old Creeper covered worlds of CW1 and liberating them once and for all from the scourge of the Creeper. On some maps this means fighting down into the belly of a world and routing out the emitters and destroying them. Make no mistake, it’s lots o’ fun to destroy every last bit of Creeper and take out the emitters….
But along the way, not all missions will start with the Assault ship on the surface. On some worlds you will find yourself trapped deep within a world and the Creeper is all above you. This means fighting your way up and out and just let me say…. if you think gravity makes a great ally just wait till it’s your enemy.
To experiment with this, I slapped together a test scenario with three subterranean chambers. The top most chamber had a couple of high intensity emitters and the bottom of the chamber was lined with long decaying terrain that led to the second chamber. The second chamber was initially empty, and the third chamber was the furthest down and where the Assault ship started.
I gave myself plenty of ore deposits to start with and initially built a bunch of reactors and ore rigs. This would give me energy and ore…. but I had to hurry and get a foothold on that second chamber above me before the Creeper ate through and flooded it.
I rushed the second chamber and built a bunch of friendly Creeper Makers and started to flood the chamber with my own Creeper… and I built a formidable force of Blasters, Launchers and some Repulsors.
Fighting Up!
Here you can see what happened when the ceiling of the second chamber completely decayed and a volume of Creeper I didn’t fully appreciate came pressing down. Now as I write, I have the game paused and things don’t look good…. I’m not sure I have the resources to survive this. My bubble of friendly Creeper is buying me some time, but I estimate that in about 3 or 4 minutes defeat will come. Some days you get the bear, some days the bear gets you….
So was the experiment a success? The answer is a definite “Yes!”. My goal was to create a mission with a sense of dread… where even some formidable equipment wouldn’t guarantee victory. By flipping the scenario to one of “fight up”, a different mission feel was created and this is just the kind of mission variety I am looking for.
It seems that … this is VERY intersecting! Great job Virgil! By the way… did you win this mission?
I held on for another 30 minutes…. I tried a couple “Battle of the bulge / Arden Offensive” maneuvers where I took most things from one side and threw them towards the other. I made some progress, but when I depleted my friendly Creeper reserves the bulge collapsed and I lost two blasters and a repulsor. I regrouped and tried on the right side of the map about 5 minutes later. Same idea…. same result. After another bit the evil Creeper was right at the edge of my creeper makers… all was lost at that point.
I’ve learned that clustering repulsors can help… but only for a while. They are expensive critters to operate, so you can’t just build them all over the place.
Also, on this map I made it accidentally really hard… there is no place to put an emitter in the middle chamber except on the extreme right up on a ledge you can hardly reach. If I play again, that will become a major objective before the Creeper floods the chamber.
Great, I love variety! 🙂 And I like ’em tough, so I’m glad to read you’re not forgetting about the hard maps.
So are there any implications of having the assault ship underground? Does it have the same functionality as above and does placement matter?
The left and right repulsor seem to show their maximum range, is that correct? Did you deliberately put them only the sides to push the friendly creeper up or to prevent the normal creeper from flowing down? Would the repulsor effect be increased by putting some of them tightly together or is it better to spread them a bit like you did?
Looking forward to more info, especially about the upgrades and the technology/research levels!
The Assault ship works equally well underground as above… except you can’t end the mission while below ground. So you must reach the surface to rift out. (At least that is the rule right now).
Yes, that is the max range for the repulsors. I plan to allow you to set the range (right now you can only rotate them). I am using them here to both push the evil creeper away and to also push my own creeper up.
My strategy so far has to always been to separate the repulsors. There is no value to stacking them since they are pretty powerful as is. The issue with them is that they only project a beam…. that lets Creeper flow down beside the beam unless you position them beside each other (with no more than 1 or 2 spaces between them).
That looks…painful. Not sure what you could do about it (build more energy and weapons, outflank the Creeper, or something).
Some questions and comments:
Those things below the ship are ore rigs, right?
The Repulsors look like starfish. So much.
That’s a Shield in that tunnel connecting the chambers, right? It looks a bit similar to the friendly Creeper, seeing as they’re both white. Perhaps this should be changed.
Yes, those things below the ship are ore rigs. I have moved away from digging up ore crystals to a system where you build ore rigs over ore deposits. Each ore rig produces ore at a small but steady rate. This lets you make friendly Creeper in “unlimited” quantities to match the “unlimited” amount that evil emitters can produce. You are only limited by you ore production rate.
The repulsor graphics aren’t finished. They are just outline shapes.
Same for the shields. They are just translucent brown squares right now. And yes, there is one on this map. I built it to keep my own Creeper from flowing down into the bottom chamber.
Is the infinite amount of evil creeper the only reason you moved away from digging up ore? I actually liked that concept, also because you can limit the amount as a map maker and make sure the player uses it efficiently or has to make choices between upgrading to a new research level or creating friendly creeper. You can also make some of it hard to access or only become available in a later stage of the game.
The fact that the amount of evil creeper can theoretically be infinite doesn’t have to be a problem: in CW1 it’s also possible to put 100 emitters with 1000 intensity on a map; you just won’t be able to survive, so it’s the responsibility of the map maker to make sure you can.
My thinking is that I will still leave the option for digging up ore, just simplify it a bit. I mainly moved away from it because I had too many “levels” of ore and it was confusing. But perhaps just having one graphic that represents a small amount of diggable ore and a graphic that represents an ore deposit will be simple enough.
So, that way there can be maps that only have diggable ore, maps with minable ore, and maps with both.
Oh, there’s a difference between diggable ore and minable ore?!! I wasn’t aware of that….
So for diggable ore you just send dig packets and for minable ore you need a dedicated unit? I guess the minable would be available in larger quantities, so it becomes interesting to use this after some investments early game?
I like it, I like it!
I see you redid the artwork for the repulsors, except I don’t think they are pushing the Creeper. This keeps getting better and better!!!!
Repulsors will push the creeper (friendly or evil) that is within their beam. This mission taught me that when you move a repulsor that is holding up a column of Creeper…. you better be ready. The beam goes offline while it is moving. So those seconds it is offline will lets the evil Creeper come crashing down. It’s really quite a shock the first time you see it, and it makes you appreciate what that repulsor does 🙂
Now THIS is what I’m talking about! It seemed like it would be a bit too easy just digging down to the creeper…
The only really hard levels in the first game were ones like Tucana and Chop Raider, where you had to establish your control quickly, or you would be destroy by the overpowering flow of creeper or spores…
So, yay for challenge!
What happens if you dig out a square that is the only square holding something up (see the squares above the ship). Do the things holding onto the squares fall? Do they flip and hold on to the top? Can they hold on to a square above them? Can you even dig a square that’s holding something up to begin with? So many question!
When a structure is built and anchored into the terrain you can’t dig that terrain anymore. You can destroy the structure, then dig the terrain… but as a safety precaution you can’t dig it while the structure is there. If you build the structure on terrain that can decay, then the structure will explode if that terrain decays.
Very neat! As a map maker, it will be a very cool tool to be able to change where the city starts. Now a few questions:
1. As I see there are three ways to collect energy. Collectors, reactors, and ore rigs. Since ore rigs need to be placed in a specific spot, do they produce more energy?
2. The buildings that produce friendly Creeper are on ore deposits. Does the ore (the different types) that the buildings are sitting on cause the friendly Creeper to be produced faster?
3. I am not sure if you mentioned this, but how are the shields powered and what is their maximum quota of Creeper they can hold (the pressure) or the maximum time they can be exposed to Creeper?
4. Lastly, to move the city out, do you need to excavate enough ground so it can fit through? About four or five tiles in lenght?
The ground is looking really good! I like how they are rounded at the edges now.
the ore rigs make ore, not energy.
But if ore rigs make ore and ore is used to make friendly creeper, isn’t ore just a way to store friendly creeper with the price you pay being a double delay (2 phased production of friendly creeper)? Or can the ore be used for other things as well?
It is only for friendly creeper currently…. but this is far from a final decision. I will definitely be experimenting with charging “ore” to get some things done.
Those blue things that used to be ore deposits are actually “amplifiers” in this version. I have moved away from ore deposits and am experimenting with “amp” cells. Basically, anything that is build or sitting on an amp cell will have enhanced capabilities. I’ve just reused the old ore deposit graphic for now.
Repulsors require energy to operate. If they run out, they turn off. Repulsors do have a maximum pressure rating, but the number wouldn’t make any sense to you. It’s just an amount of creeper that you will have to get a feel for empirically when you play the game.
As for moving the city, yes it must be able to reach the surface by fitting through a 5 wide section. That, or I might relax the rule by saying that you must just reach the surface and build something….
can the ship go through Rifts?
It can right now… but this is just because I have not prevented it. I don’t think I will keep this… but it is a way to solve the “get to surface” problem.
It’s just really goofy seeing the big ship move through the tiny rift…
So when you can make the assault ship move upwards, you’ll probably also be able to move it downwards when fighting your way down to shorten the supply lines, right? This would save some energy that I would otherwise have to spend on microrifts…. Or would this cost a lot more in terms of dig packages and space lost needed to build other structures?
Yes, you can move the assault ship anywhere it can fit… up, down, wherever. The problem is that it takes a 5×2 wide/tall terrain section to move through. This can be a lot of digging and terrain loss. It can also just not be possible because of the un-diggable terrain boulders. Lastly, it may not always be the safest thing to do…. keep in mind that there may be other critters besides Creeper you will eventually have to contend with in the stygian depths on some of these worlds.
Virgil,
You continue to impress me. This looks incredible and as a mapmaker makes me excited about different scenarios for me to make once CW2 comes out. Keep up the great work!!!
Just wait till you see the field editor… I’ll be doing another blog post about “fields” and their effect on Creeper flow.
Yes,I’m sure CW2 will be great.
I see you really worked on the graphics, there are much differents to the first screenshots.
it really looks hard, if you see how much reactors you have and there’s anyway not enough energy.
It will be a challenge.
…
…
(Hurry up^^, I can’t await it.)
Not all missions will be really hard. I want a mix of easy, short, long, and hard missions. Up fighting can be a real challenge (like this mission), or it can be made a bit easier.
For instance, imagine there is a volume of creeper above you but you have the option of excavating a large cavern beside and underneath your starting position. In this case you could let lots of the creeper above you flow down and into that “expansion chamber”. This could make it easier to fight upwards and reach the emitters and nullify them.
@Fisherk
1. ore rigs collect ore not energy (hence the name) ore is used to produce friendly creeper and research upgrades (correct me if i’m wrong virgil)
2. I think you’re seeing things, those friendly emitters are on regular ground, they’re the umbrella shaped buildings under the blasters and the buildings under the ship are the ore rigs, you can see the yellowy ore in the ground tile
3.&4. very interested to hear that myself
and for my own comments:
i think this is going to definately be one of those against the clock/set up and expand fast type missions since the creeper will get to you a lot faster (gravity thou art a heartless b**ch :P)
i’m very curious to know what the story will be behind getting your ship stuck underground and allowing emitters to trap you in 😀
(unless this type of mission isnt in the campaign just the challenge maps)
Yes, I played this mission a second time and paused the game and planned better. I definitely did better with proper planning and by acting quickly. I turned around and modded the mission to make it more playable, though, as I’ve learned a few things about how this kind of level should be designed.
As for the story, yes it’s interesting what happens along the story arc that creates this kind of scenario. Most of this I’m keeping to myself for now 🙂
Wow, this doesn’t only look great, this is great.
I honestly first thought CW2 was going to be a bit boring because of all the time gravity bought you, and to make hard maps you would already have to severely limit building space, or do something with micro-rifts.
But now you have everything needed to make hard maps without extremely intensive emitters.
But how will you explain this in the story, why is the assault ship suddenly underground?
Oh, you’ve not seen the end of potential mission variety just yet. There are also “fields” that can affect the flow of creeper and potential gravitational fluctuations you can incorporate into custom maps.
Story wise, there’s a good reason the ship ends up under the surface… but the story isn’t something I will reveal many details about until the game is done.
Great! By the way it’s “just” not “jsut” 😉
Did you just say that in the editor, we have the power to turn gravity upside down?
Me like.
Probably…. or more specifically the ability to change the direction of gravity on a schedule. So you could flip gravity for 5 seconds every 2 minutes or something like that.
I’ve not implemented this, it just sounds like a good idea right now.
Btw, you can thank Karsten75 for getting me to play with changing the direction of gravity.
Hmm….
So about how many missions do you think there will be to start with?
15, 20, 25…. hard to say at this point. It will depend on how many missions it takes to tell the story. Some missions might also be broken into parts or phases…
ok….
1. Will there only be specific points you can build ore drills at?
2. Does the bottom line show any depeltion/collection? since a simple ‘energy’ will confuse the hell out of me…
3. wouldn’t stacking repulsors have a use now? since the creeper doesn’t get to the point the laser beam stops…
1: Only over ore deposits.
2: Yes, there will be “Rate” bars for energy, ore, etc.
3: You can place repulsors with one at the end of the others range to create a really long beam. But stacking two with one on top of the other (with beams pointing up) doesn’t do much good (since most of the beams will overlap)
sweet! Last question (for now at least…)
how free are you in the turning of repulsors? just north, east, south, west, or also the diagonals
They can be turned in 8 directions (up, down, left, right, both diagonals).
cool
Very cool with the gravity. I already have and idea of a mission with caves that have stalactites hanging from the ceiling dripping creeper on you every few seconds. That would be entertaining. Creeper Rain 😀 Anyway this is looking good and Im very interested in seeing what you have in store for us in the next blog post.
sorry for asking, but do you have a certain time period in mind where it comes out? 2011 Q1,Q2,Q3…??
As soon as possible…. which means when I am happy with it. This is one of the advantages I have as an independent game developer…. I don’t have to release a game until it’s something I’m proud of.
That said, I want to get this done over the next few months so everyone can enjoy it.
alright i lied, this is the last question: are the shields the more balanced way of undug terrain?
Not sure I follow…. but shields are prevent the flow of creeper but don’t stop anything else.
yes, but i believe in earlier posts you mentioned undigging dug terrain. will that still be an option?
personally i cant wait to find out how the ship got down there in the first place 😛
Are you going to add a FAQ section for CW2?
Eventually….
I remember something about a field editor.
Gravity fields, Creeper fields, or other?
Fields effect the flow of creeper.
Two thing,
One: You said long and hard….. 🙂
Two: Epic….
Three: I can’t wait.
you do all of this by yourself? my god, you dont even have like, a team or something? your very impressive if not.
About the terrain types:
Wouldn’t it be nice to have a type of terrain that lets energy packets pass, but not units or creeper? Makes sense, as energy is not a material. It would allow the player to build something in an enclosed chamber before you’ve dug into it. Of course you wouldn’t use this terrain type on every map, but it may offer nice possibilities, comparable to the green walls of CW1.
And another question comes to mind: can microrifts be moved themselves? They don’t seem to be anchored…. If so, can one microrift transport another? If no, maybe after an upgrade? 😉
Shields act this way and they are very useful in that they let packets and units move through, but not creeper (friendly or evil).
Now a terrain type that acted this way would be interesting. If it just let packets through, then you could build inside something but not move existing units there (unlike shields). And of course you could build on this terrain. This might be worth investigating…
MicroRifs can’t move. I suppose if they could then they would be able to move through one microrift to another. Of course I guess they could move through themselves and pop out where another microrift is 🙂
I think I’ll keep them “static” for now.
Yep, the minable ore requires you to take the time and energy to build an “Ore Rig” on top of it. But, once built you get a small but steady production of ore. The diggable ore just takes dig packets (and not always that many). You get an instant hit of ore, but it’s just a fixed amount of ore. Plus, you had to dig to reach it and this might make you dig away some terrain that you wouldn’t otherwise dig away. This can expose you to more creeper, or take away building space for units.
Is there going to be survival type levels?
It is possible. If you can see the CW2 forum, check it out.
Hm, my other post got rejected..
As I said,…
I love the game and I can’t wait for CW2! I really want to be in the Beta if you don’t mind, virgil 😀
First I am sorry about forgetting that ore is not energy. Ironically enough, after I went to bed, I suddenly remembered it. But I thought,” Oh well, I will just get hammered for by other people. And that certaintly happened. It was pretty funny.
Second, what if all ore was both diggable and mineable? Then the player would have to think about whether or not to invest short or long term. I think that would be very interesting tactically. But that is just a thought!
Quick minor question!
The creeper seems more it’s original purple here as opposed to the red it’s been for the last few posts.
Will the creeper remain purple? It seems only right as to keep continuity from CW1 😉
I’ve not set the final colors for the Creeper yet.
I assume it will stay, and the red was easier to have and them move into purple.
Yeah. I prefer the purple!
Here’s a quick off topic idea that I had just now while playing CW1.
One thing I love to do is once the rift is open while Odin City is moving I love to pause and delete all of my units and watch the creeper just overtake the land again.
I know a chunk of gameplay with CW2 is actually destroying the creeper emitters but is there a way to work that into the game? Like once you complete the level put a “Complete Level” button you have to click– but you can linger on and watch things get destroyed in the meantime. 😀
The goal in this CW sequel is to destroy all Creeper and clear the new worlds again, so it would be strange to let the Creeper destroy things again at the end of a map. Besides that: emitters won’t only be capped, but actually destroyed.
Tip for Virgil: don’t include the new type of spores on the last map of the story line. Where would they be coming from if all planets are clear now? 😉
i love that too! although, i sometimes make the mistake of deleting them too early, and then all is lost. 😛 ’tis fun.
Can’t happen, when you go to leave, all the emitters would be destroyed.
how will things get destroyed if the emitters have been wiped out?
so when is the post about research?
The next blog post will be about making maps (fields, creeper simulator, and other goodies). Research is a bit further out. Upgrades are typically added towards the end of the game dev cycle since that number and kinds of upgrades can be better evaluated at that point.
When is the blog post about mapmaking coming?
tomorrow, in a week, or later?
1-2 week range. I’m in the middle of implementing field containers and behaviors right. Tricky work… You’ll understand what they are once I’m done and post.
Virgil, one quick qwestion, suppose the gravity change could effect the packet flow speed? Very daunting in close situations.
Interesting concept…. packets moving slower when they move against the direction of gravity….
Faster with?
Get blown towards the sides when gravity goes the the sides?
Interesting, but not very realistic. Of course light can be bend and even sucked into a black hole, but the gravitational effect of a planet on packets of energy wouldn’t be noticeable to the human eye.
Yes like if say you build a blaster and the pakets flow from the ship to that blaster, but the gravity not only slowes down the paket or even stop it but reverse its course intierly until the gravity switches back. And the same goes for the later, a paket is sped up by a gravitational push to its destination.
One more note about the gravity, most likely all your units that arnt hooked in the rock then would they also start to move, like when that black hole opened up at the end of CW1. the limits are endless.
i gotta go with upper on this, unless the planet we’re fighting on has freakishly strong gravity but that’d probably end up crushing the creeper, the buildings and the ship too
Wrong, have you ever considerd dark matter? Its density as a substance can litteraly out pull a planet with its own gravitation, relitive that gravity depends on proximity
So far the repulsion things only send out a beam- Why not eventually earn a new type of them, that goes in all directions? (i.e. a wave affect?)(Kind of like upgrading from collectors to reactors)
I’m experimenting with a “Field Generator”. It’s interesting… more details later.
I don’t know if that’s very usefull as weapon because the creeper mostly only comes from one direction, so half of your energy for powering it will be lost.
if becons have to be build on land how is it possible to reach the top
Yeah, in that shot, there is not enough ground to build on.
undigging the sides?
Just a quick idea while on the topic of repulsers and new types of repulser like things. A repulser should be able to push creeper in front of it and pull creeper behind it. Think of it like a fan. It pulls air behind it and pushes air in the front of it. It should also be able to only push the creeper in front of it and not pull any creeper behind it for twice the cost of energy.
I think there is a ledge where you can put a beacon and then dig a terrain cell in its range to put another beacon down.
in CW2 will mapmakers be able to choose what changes on double down?
in cw1 it is half the interval
so maybe mapmakers can choose what changes?
oh, *that’s* what double down is. this is completely off-topic, but how do you get it?
finish all the levels in the game
thank you.
actually, just the last special ops mission is needed…
Ehm, no… If you only work through the last special OPS mission, you won’t have double down. (Trust me, I did this myself) You actually need to finish the last 2 special ops missions.
ok, I think I get what you meant by beacons lighting up the terrain
that’s really cool!
love the new CW image over the video
are the enemys that can go threw walls affected by gravity?
Nope… gravity won’t affect them.
Oh, so you fight not only the creeprer, but gravity Too.
And more! 🙂
just got a good idea
a unit that can be a collector, relay, storage, speed, reactor, or any other civillian building, but only one at a time
kind of a one-size fits all unit
Because of this repulsers can be more vulnerable to creeper behind it or not for twice the cost of energy. it should be like this because I’ll just say do you know any fans in real life push air in front of it and not behind it?
or, another idea would be to have a switch, between “off”, “on”, and “fan”, each with their respective energy consumptions.
Nice work! It sonds like this will be a awsome game and definitly will be worth 20$ But one thing you need to add is cause/effect events to the mapmaker. It was ne of the things I missed alot from CW1
He is making all the story missions with the map editor so anything we see in the story we can do ourselves.
unless, of course, it’s similar to the Creeper Nexus. we can’t build that.
Nope, anything he does we can do.
Not if he uses same trick as he did with the Nexus in CW1 😉
Good point…
That would work too.
so…*when’s* the next post?
Man, we need a new blog post…
A new post will be coming no later than this weekend (one way or the other). I had planned on doing a video post last weekend, but bugs kept getting in the way….. They’ve all been taken care of, so now I just have to produce the video.
Hurray for stuff happening!
By the way, do you know of a developer called Flashbacker?
Guy who made a game called Shellcore Command.
Can’t Wait! 🙂
Me neither!
frist time reading this post and I just had a idea virgilw
what about flooding the bottom chamber with frindly creepers