I have much experience with playing the creeperworld games and I can confidently say there isnt much that actually scares me.
that air sack? that scares me. that thing looks far worse than spores ever were. looking forward to not realizing a mission has one (or worse, more than 1) and absolutely not being ready for it
or the custom maps where the only way to deal with them is massed snipers cause there are no resources to build missiles…
Ok, that is way to overpowered in its current state, but what if it was more like a bomber?
It could only gain tail while hovering over emitters or sucking up ambant creeper, having to load up on creeper instead of spawning it.
Strafers could be set to prioritize and auto engage these things.
It could have mini globs to defend from air attacks.
Thanks for being awesome, keep us posted, and nice building ghosts 🙂
I really like how powerful these are, it has the potential to make the late game as thrilling as the start; just, maybe, have them come in at 10-15 min
I love how the game is evolving so far, but to be honest, the air sacks are the *only* part in the entire game so far that I hate.
I can just imagine the player created maps with endless waves of those things.
That air sac flies _awfully_ high. Is that configurable? It reaaaaally cuts down on the missile’s effective range.
Wandering WaranMarch 24, 2018 at 9:39 am | Permalink
Changing the shape of the range of turrets capable of shooting the airsacks could help a lot. It doesn’t really need to be so spheric, an oval-like range zone stretched upwards seems to be a good idea.
What if instead of the drones waiting above the drop point, they delivered the extra crate? In this way, you could have multiple crates on the same spot, and essentially build a storage of crates one on top of the other (provided your resources allow it).
Would that really be necessary though? For the added code and visual clutter, I don’t see much of an advantage to this system. The fact they drop off their cargo unlike guppies already makes them more efficient, and if they are fast enough to transport boxes before they’re depleted, than a stockpile shouldn’t be necessary. Also, building another drone would be faster if you want a buffer for planned or unplanned expenses.
Love the import feature its really nice being able to mess around with old maps in a new 3d setting. The air sacs seems to be way over-powered right now, I feel like you had the missle towers spot on when dealing with spores.
A fix might be, have the bottom chain of creeper explode when it touch’s the ground and have it fly at mid to high spore height instead
Air sacks are very neat, obviously needs balancing as there doesn’t seem to be any reasonable defense, although not everything should have a perfect defense. Consider in particle fleet the cannon that fires in a line and can one shot any ship if it just happens to hit the right pixel.
I actually like that air sacs dont have a perfect defense, makes them more scary. one of the issues I had with the previous games was that every enemy had a weapon that dealt with it directly, and that every weapon had a primary use. air sacs as we saw them solves both those problems
It was really cool seeing some of those old CW3 levels in full 3D. I recognise them, but that last one wasn’t actually the same as what I imagined when playing the original. For some reason there’s something about the walls, and the voids around the islands that my brain dreamed up as working differently.
Keep up the great work Virgil, can’t wait to buy the game.
Youtube recommended CW3 a few weeks ago and I’ve been sucked in! CW4 definitely looks interesting. The new creeper flow mechanics seem a bit too fast and “watery” compared to the CW3 method that builds up more like a giant wall. A watery creep makes creep attack the player very quickly and I think it may overwhelm them too early. A thicker, jelly-like creep builds up high and is very imposing, but if it just sits there all game it won’t threaten the player at all. I’d like to suggest a few mechanics that may help give the best of both worlds.
1) Change creep viscosity based on depth. When creeper levels are low it acts very watery, so that a thin layer reaches far and wide. Thin layers are easily repulsed by shields and turrets and will eventually build up into thicker layers. These thicker layers reduce the flow speed, becoming more “jelly” like and building into the large mountains of CW3. This way creep levels can build up very high.
—-
2) Supplement the viscosity system with a “tension” mechanic. Essentially this works like a “set/reset” system for viscosity. As the creeper level gets higher the tension level increases. When the tension level reaches its threshold it “snaps”. A snap sends out a shockwave (potentially snapping areas around it) and suddenly reduces the viscosity of that tile. When a huge pyramid of creeper snaps it basically flows down like an avalanche, until it reaches a low level and “resets” the normal viscosity mechanic. This type of system does multiple things:
a) It acts as a creeper “attack wave” mechanic. Large amounts of creeper can build on the map and become a very sudden threat. The strength of the wave is indirectly set by the tension height. If the required level is high then the player will be hit by very few, very large avalanches of creeper. If the tension level is lower then it will trigger many softer attack waves.
b) shields and anticreep become VERY important. Generally it’s better to shoot creeper than to hold it at bay, since you pay energy either way. However a sudden wave can’t be cleared with your normal defenses. You’ll need shields to slow down the surge. Once the surge calms down a bit it can potentially reset the viscosity to normal behavior, further calming things down. It also becomes important to stockpile a “moat” of anti creep as a way to defeat a massive surge of creeper all at once.
c) you can avalanche your own anti creep! Build up a huge pyramid and let it flow across the map. This may not be entirely helpful but you never know.
d) Berthas can kill you! Big berthas presumably generate huge shockwaves into the creeper. Those shockwaves may snap the tension and trigger the rest to avalanche over your base.
e) Hopping into thick creep isn’t an instant death sentence. Because thick creep acts more jelly like, you can try pushing it aside and establish a stronghold into thicker creep. Daring tactics are always encouraged!
——
3) Flow rate = flow speed x tube area. The giant peak created by creeper spawners can be softened by spreading the spawn over multiple tiles. Dividing the spawn across 3×3 tiles may work, but a spawner could be any arbitrary shape kind of like a fissure in the ground.
——
4) A new creeper spawner type: Volcano. It uses its own internal generation rate to fill a reservoir. When the volcano is full it shoots an airborne shot of creeper that splats at a random location around it. This type of spawner is very difficult to attack straight up because it has a long and random range. You may want shields to deflect the creeper splats or anti creep to ward off a splat that lands on your turrets.
a) Variant 1: Surrounding creeper flows into the volcano, causing it to attack faster. Deeper levels of creep will flow in faster.
b) Variant 2: As more creep flows into the volcano it will shoot larger projectiles and at longer range. Clear out the creeper!
c) Variant 3: The volcano multiplies all the creep that flows into it, causing it to become even more dangerous in deep creep.
The viscosity effect would change berthas even more than I mentioned. In CW3 Berthas were flat out creeper nukes, clearing absurd patches of creeper for a very economical cost. A few CW3 berthas would quickly dominate the map no matter how loaded it was.
In a special viscosity world, Berthas become less important for their pure nuclear destructive power and more important for their shockwave’s ability to deliberately trigger avalanches. If you have a thick defense that isn’t doing much, lob a few bertha shells to destabilize a thick patch of creep. It will flow into your defenses, giving you a chance to remove a large threat in one fell swoop. Berthas would still function as a map clearing tool, but this extra level of synergy drives them into more of a supporting role rather than a solo map clearing powerhouse.
A big shockwave means moving a lot of creep at once, so Berthas could also push a lot of creep aside at one time. This kind of effect could linger for a bit, letting the player push creeper around in a forceful way for whatever reason they need. Push it back to move forward, or pit it to a special objective maybe. Maybe they could even push creeper off the edge of the world! It still counts.
What happens if an emitter is destroyed before it’s supposed to trigger an event? If you don’t already have a solution, (you might not need one, based on how hard it would be to build nullifiers close to them early in the game) I’d suggest events being triggered early if any towers are built/moved in a certain range, around the attack range of a nullifier. (or slightly larger)
I’m not sure this would work, but couldn’t you use a conversion bomb above an emitter, then move a precharged nullifier next to it? would the emitter be destroyed before the creeper got to it?
its funny as hell how terrible the dev/testers on yt play. but it surely looks amazing! i want to play it already so bad
Lucian WischikApril 24, 2018 at 1:54 pm | Permalink
When creeper runs over the edge of a cliff, could we maybe have a more “waterfall” visual effect? Something to unambiguously indicate the direction of flow? — quite a lot of times in this video, I got confused and couldn’t see whether something was lower or higher; couldn’t tell which way the creeper was flowing.
A Random Creeper World PlayerMay 17, 2018 at 2:06 pm | Permalink
Looking good! I love the new Liveries, they seem so much less annoying than Guppies from CW3 only returning when they’re 100% dead, which tends to cause my defenses to run out and die, was SO annoying. Also the air blob seems annoying, but it adds a reason to expand so yay 🙂
Good to see the snipers are far more useful than in CW3 🙂
I have much experience with playing the creeperworld games and I can confidently say there isnt much that actually scares me.
that air sack? that scares me. that thing looks far worse than spores ever were. looking forward to not realizing a mission has one (or worse, more than 1) and absolutely not being ready for it
or the custom maps where the only way to deal with them is massed snipers cause there are no resources to build missiles…
i agree completely that thing is SCARY!
Ok, that is way to overpowered in its current state, but what if it was more like a bomber?
It could only gain tail while hovering over emitters or sucking up ambant creeper, having to load up on creeper instead of spawning it.
Strafers could be set to prioritize and auto engage these things.
It could have mini globs to defend from air attacks.
Thanks for being awesome, keep us posted, and nice building ghosts 🙂
I really like how powerful these are, it has the potential to make the late game as thrilling as the start; just, maybe, have them come in at 10-15 min
I like the idea that it only picks up existing creeper.
I love how the game is evolving so far, but to be honest, the air sacks are the *only* part in the entire game so far that I hate.
I can just imagine the player created maps with endless waves of those things.
That air sac flies _awfully_ high. Is that configurable? It reaaaaally cuts down on the missile’s effective range.
Changing the shape of the range of turrets capable of shooting the airsacks could help a lot. It doesn’t really need to be so spheric, an oval-like range zone stretched upwards seems to be a good idea.
Oh man, those destroyed buildings “going to heaven” just cracked me up. Dunno if that was intended to be temporary, but I like it 😀
I really like that effect. It gives you some visual feedback after an explosion exactly what died, especially if you missed it.
Really great video Virgil. Keep up the good work 🙂
I will keep plugging along on all the user created content in Particle fleet.
What if instead of the drones waiting above the drop point, they delivered the extra crate? In this way, you could have multiple crates on the same spot, and essentially build a storage of crates one on top of the other (provided your resources allow it).
Would that really be necessary though? For the added code and visual clutter, I don’t see much of an advantage to this system. The fact they drop off their cargo unlike guppies already makes them more efficient, and if they are fast enough to transport boxes before they’re depleted, than a stockpile shouldn’t be necessary. Also, building another drone would be faster if you want a buffer for planned or unplanned expenses.
I agree. It is a nice concept, but then the drone should be rebalanced, one way or another.
this would allow long distance sustainability as there could possibly end up being 0 gaps in energy availability
at the same time, long distance sustainability might be something that SHOULDNT be possible
I think this game looks SO FUN! Do you have any sort of release date? Also I would love to help out with any 3D modeling if you want.
if this game follows the pattern of the other games it may be more than a year till release. and he will never give a date till it’s done
Love the import feature its really nice being able to mess around with old maps in a new 3d setting. The air sacs seems to be way over-powered right now, I feel like you had the missle towers spot on when dealing with spores.
A fix might be, have the bottom chain of creeper explode when it touch’s the ground and have it fly at mid to high spore height instead
Air sacks are very neat, obviously needs balancing as there doesn’t seem to be any reasonable defense, although not everything should have a perfect defense. Consider in particle fleet the cannon that fires in a line and can one shot any ship if it just happens to hit the right pixel.
I actually like that air sacs dont have a perfect defense, makes them more scary. one of the issues I had with the previous games was that every enemy had a weapon that dealt with it directly, and that every weapon had a primary use. air sacs as we saw them solves both those problems
It was really cool seeing some of those old CW3 levels in full 3D. I recognise them, but that last one wasn’t actually the same as what I imagined when playing the original. For some reason there’s something about the walls, and the voids around the islands that my brain dreamed up as working differently.
Keep up the great work Virgil, can’t wait to buy the game.
Youtube recommended CW3 a few weeks ago and I’ve been sucked in! CW4 definitely looks interesting. The new creeper flow mechanics seem a bit too fast and “watery” compared to the CW3 method that builds up more like a giant wall. A watery creep makes creep attack the player very quickly and I think it may overwhelm them too early. A thicker, jelly-like creep builds up high and is very imposing, but if it just sits there all game it won’t threaten the player at all. I’d like to suggest a few mechanics that may help give the best of both worlds.
1) Change creep viscosity based on depth. When creeper levels are low it acts very watery, so that a thin layer reaches far and wide. Thin layers are easily repulsed by shields and turrets and will eventually build up into thicker layers. These thicker layers reduce the flow speed, becoming more “jelly” like and building into the large mountains of CW3. This way creep levels can build up very high.
—-
2) Supplement the viscosity system with a “tension” mechanic. Essentially this works like a “set/reset” system for viscosity. As the creeper level gets higher the tension level increases. When the tension level reaches its threshold it “snaps”. A snap sends out a shockwave (potentially snapping areas around it) and suddenly reduces the viscosity of that tile. When a huge pyramid of creeper snaps it basically flows down like an avalanche, until it reaches a low level and “resets” the normal viscosity mechanic. This type of system does multiple things:
a) It acts as a creeper “attack wave” mechanic. Large amounts of creeper can build on the map and become a very sudden threat. The strength of the wave is indirectly set by the tension height. If the required level is high then the player will be hit by very few, very large avalanches of creeper. If the tension level is lower then it will trigger many softer attack waves.
b) shields and anticreep become VERY important. Generally it’s better to shoot creeper than to hold it at bay, since you pay energy either way. However a sudden wave can’t be cleared with your normal defenses. You’ll need shields to slow down the surge. Once the surge calms down a bit it can potentially reset the viscosity to normal behavior, further calming things down. It also becomes important to stockpile a “moat” of anti creep as a way to defeat a massive surge of creeper all at once.
c) you can avalanche your own anti creep! Build up a huge pyramid and let it flow across the map. This may not be entirely helpful but you never know.
d) Berthas can kill you! Big berthas presumably generate huge shockwaves into the creeper. Those shockwaves may snap the tension and trigger the rest to avalanche over your base.
e) Hopping into thick creep isn’t an instant death sentence. Because thick creep acts more jelly like, you can try pushing it aside and establish a stronghold into thicker creep. Daring tactics are always encouraged!
——
3) Flow rate = flow speed x tube area. The giant peak created by creeper spawners can be softened by spreading the spawn over multiple tiles. Dividing the spawn across 3×3 tiles may work, but a spawner could be any arbitrary shape kind of like a fissure in the ground.
——
4) A new creeper spawner type: Volcano. It uses its own internal generation rate to fill a reservoir. When the volcano is full it shoots an airborne shot of creeper that splats at a random location around it. This type of spawner is very difficult to attack straight up because it has a long and random range. You may want shields to deflect the creeper splats or anti creep to ward off a splat that lands on your turrets.
a) Variant 1: Surrounding creeper flows into the volcano, causing it to attack faster. Deeper levels of creep will flow in faster.
b) Variant 2: As more creep flows into the volcano it will shoot larger projectiles and at longer range. Clear out the creeper!
c) Variant 3: The volcano multiplies all the creep that flows into it, causing it to become even more dangerous in deep creep.
The viscosity effect would change berthas even more than I mentioned. In CW3 Berthas were flat out creeper nukes, clearing absurd patches of creeper for a very economical cost. A few CW3 berthas would quickly dominate the map no matter how loaded it was.
In a special viscosity world, Berthas become less important for their pure nuclear destructive power and more important for their shockwave’s ability to deliberately trigger avalanches. If you have a thick defense that isn’t doing much, lob a few bertha shells to destabilize a thick patch of creep. It will flow into your defenses, giving you a chance to remove a large threat in one fell swoop. Berthas would still function as a map clearing tool, but this extra level of synergy drives them into more of a supporting role rather than a solo map clearing powerhouse.
A big shockwave means moving a lot of creep at once, so Berthas could also push a lot of creep aside at one time. This kind of effect could linger for a bit, letting the player push creeper around in a forceful way for whatever reason they need. Push it back to move forward, or pit it to a special objective maybe. Maybe they could even push creeper off the edge of the world! It still counts.
What happens if an emitter is destroyed before it’s supposed to trigger an event? If you don’t already have a solution, (you might not need one, based on how hard it would be to build nullifiers close to them early in the game) I’d suggest events being triggered early if any towers are built/moved in a certain range, around the attack range of a nullifier. (or slightly larger)
I’m not sure this would work, but couldn’t you use a conversion bomb above an emitter, then move a precharged nullifier next to it? would the emitter be destroyed before the creeper got to it?
this assumes you can move nullifiers, which im fairly sure you cant
I really like the viscosity idea. Reminds me of this video I saw recently: https://youtu.be/bOSVX8zOPkc.
Also, there is potential in the idea of enemies that make shockwaves in creeper. And giant peak problem can be solved, too.
This was meant to be a response to Bobucles’ post.
Thinking that variable viscosity would give the creeper itself a cool dynamic it never had in any of its past games.
And that’s a really cool angel ascension effect you got with the dead good guys.
And I like how there is now a viable excuse to spread anticreeper across the base despite there being no visible threat.
Have the drivers already been demonstrated or is that to come?
One more thing, it looks like it’s time for reactors.
its funny as hell how terrible the dev/testers on yt play. but it surely looks amazing! i want to play it already so bad
When creeper runs over the edge of a cliff, could we maybe have a more “waterfall” visual effect? Something to unambiguously indicate the direction of flow? — quite a lot of times in this video, I got confused and couldn’t see whether something was lower or higher; couldn’t tell which way the creeper was flowing.
Looking good! I love the new Liveries, they seem so much less annoying than Guppies from CW3 only returning when they’re 100% dead, which tends to cause my defenses to run out and die, was SO annoying. Also the air blob seems annoying, but it adds a reason to expand so yay 🙂