Custom Map #1702: FPS: Resourcefulness. By: Heritor

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This topic is for discussion of map #1702: FPS: Resourcefulness


Author: Heritor
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[heritor]

Here's the link to the full Sleeper wiki page, for anyone who wasn't able to access it via the menu.
https://knucklecracker.com/wiki/doku.php?id=cw4:cpack:docs:0a396ad4-0276-481c-a41f-be35900c37b1

[Durikkan]

A fun map, but I didn't really notice most of the new effects.  The creeper conversion never happened that I saw, and it seemed like there was an attack of 5 or so bats at one point that lasted a few waves over like 45 seconds, and then I never saw a bat again after that.  (I could be wrong, but that's what it felt like.)

[Shatterstep]

Good pacing, enjoyable map. I didn't miss the activated abilities, like laying down AC breeder, though I would like to see them on some maps still.

With blue on blue, and some areas being in darkness, it can be hard to see some of the units, especially new ones. Not a criticism, just a comment. Love the design for the units. I wonder what some of the units would look like with different color schemes. Hmm.

Some of the units remind me of both Nod and GDI units from Command & Conquer. Love all C&C games (except C&C 4 which was a big disappointment).

Thanks for creating this map :)

[Karzon]

This was a really easy one, and it was strange to see the total amount of creeper dropping so early (rather than hitting the emit cap, and then being harder to push back as you take more of the level).  I'm wondering if the new stuff was working properly, as I never saw any of the new units at all.

[InwardChaos]

I also didn't notice any of the new effects during my playthrough, but the new units at least look nice. 

I also had to restart twice due to bugs with the Autobuild AI. On my first attempt, I got up to destroying the north east emitter. I then looked at my map, and saw a massive area of grey, but only a tiny area of green. Upon inspection, I found that a single tower along the upper rim of the starting area had been destroyed, and it was the only link to the rest of the map. The AI refused to rebuild the tower, and wouldn't build any other towers to connect to the rest of the map.

My second attempt fared even worse somehow, as the AI built towers up the ramp to the top of the rim, but they didn't connect to any of the pre-built towers on the rim. It was stuck inside the caldera of the starting area. Thankfully, on the third attempt, it managed to build enough to escape it's starting location, and I was able to proceed with the map.

[Shatterstep]

I wonder if adding more color to units would be interesting. This feels a bit uncomfortable for me to share. Meh, I dorked around with some of the coloring. They looked different. Not sure it was better though. I tried to use the base coloring of the cannon and mortar.

Creeper Cannon:
  - base and barrel: #E58403FF and color brightness 1
  - blob: color brightness 3

Creeper Mortar: base and dome: #BE311EFF and color brightness 1
  - barrel: color brightness 3
  - pew was #BE311EFF and color brightness 4
  - for the dome I switched to "HouseD" and adjusted the Y position up from .8 to .9.

Again, I'm not saying these changes would be better or worse. It is my nature to play around with things, try variations, etc... Just thought it would be fun to share. Feels like the color choices I made might be a little off, and I reserve the right to not liking my suggestions later if I change my mind, lol. Just dorking around.

[Shatterstep]

I feel a bit like a jerk for the comments about unit colors. Hopefully I didn't give offense.

[Niflthaena]

I really want to like this map, but it seems like it's trying to do too many things, and they're stepping on each other's toes.

The new Sleeper things and the Prism Towers sound neat, but the player's in FPS - they're down in the weeds and don't have vantage points to observe what's going on.

The opening looks cool, and it seems like it's trying to be a finely tuned start that sets up the rest of the map, but as much as I love Autopilot, it's not finely tuned. I played 5 times, and only once did the autopilot make it past the starting area. 3 times it built up to the ridge, then one of the towers got bombed and it just could not re-establish the links. Once it never made it up the hill at all.
The core problem here seems to be the tower build scripts. Autopilot does not appear to have a concept of "link things together", simply "expand", and it will only expand at a sizable distance from the last towers - if there's an unlinked tower at about 1.5x that distance, then all spaces are too close to a tower to build a new one.

Regarding the new content - the Sleeper resource nodes are a little underwhelming. They all have the same effect - feed the sleeper resource facility and charge a superweapon -  and that effect is not thematically linked to the individual resources. In addition, the resource buildings have no direct effect - looking at them, one would be unable to figure out what they're doing.
The first two problems are fixable. Corrupted Bluite could feed other buildings - perhaps they link to a nearby Emitter to empower it? Corrupted Redon could build new buildings and fly them out, like a sort of Autopilot for the Sleeper. And Corrupted Greenar remains an excellent candidate for superweapons.
The third problem - making effects visually apparent - is harder. Without visible links or packets transporting resources, map design may be the best recourse - making sure resource buildings are near the things they feed.

[rowlet]

As someone else pointed out the levels are pretty fun but the new enemies just don't seem to do much. Very few bats ever appeared and they were a minor annoyance at most and the the orbital strike just never happened. The various coils (enemy and friendly) also didn't seem to do much. A bit of tweaking should be able to get it to work.
On a side note I found a strange visual glitch. Not sure how it happened. Found it after destroying sleeper lab and then turning around to full clear.

[helmetflakes]

That visual happened to me,  it was caused by destroying one of those laser tower things just as it was firing. I guess as it was destroyed it's script stops running to remove the shot? Overall a good fun map. Like others wasn't really sure what some of the new units were doing but hey it was still fun to blow everything up! Really enjoying these sleeper maps and can't wait for the next iteration  ;D Thanks for all the hard work hat I'm sure goes into these

[Jimragnark]

if we have a play as sleeper? (PAS)

if the idea is cool reply me

[heritor]

if we have a play as sleeper? (PAS)

if the idea is cool reply me

That's part of what these additions are building to - although I do agree that I tuned this one to be a little too forgiving.

Don't worry - you'll all be seeing much more of these new additions.

[OmegaJasam]

Fun enough map, though the Autobuild broke for me as well (on the upper rim of the starting area).
Might be hitting a point where there's actually too many types of unit per map, or the map layout themselves needing work, because at the current distribution of everything everywhere, nothings effective enough that I'd do anything else must point my mortar at the nearest unit, and nothing really stands out. I'm not actually sure what some of the new stuff was doing other then looking cool.

[heritor]

Good pacing, enjoyable map. I didn't miss the activated abilities, like laying down AC breeder, though I would like to see them on some maps still.

With blue on blue, and some areas being in darkness, it can be hard to see some of the units, especially new ones. Not a criticism, just a comment. Love the design for the units. I wonder what some of the units would look like with different color schemes. Hmm.

Some of the units remind me of both Nod and GDI units from Command & Conquer. Love all C&C games (except C&C 4 which was a big disappointment).

Thanks for creating this map :)

I'll be looking at color schemes and ways to make them stand out more, for sure.

There's a good reason as to why the Belfry looks slightly like the Tiberium Sun GDI's Power Plant.