stewbasic's maps

[Asbestos]

What does support mode do?

[DestinyAtlantis]

Well, I couldn't get past the very first bit because the twin Berthas kept completely erasing my progress.

Aw, I like the berthas :P. I guess I'll remove them if the consensus is against them. If you are interested in trying with a few hints, these might help:

Spoiler

* Keep emitters in burst or support mode unless you need to quickly kill a nullifier.
* Build digitalis whenever you can (this is a way to save your progress).
* Focus on a single target to destroy using the field.

[close]

Don't remove the Berthas, if anything add more (and you can even time-delay /progress-delay them (every 10 minutes build another bertha/for every few enemy units (emitters/spore towers) build another bertha), because currently at my progress i don't feel them doing anything significant. Maybe even make some of them PZ Berthas.
I forgot to take earlier screenshots, but i took the middle-top PZ with the nearest emmiter to fully-supported burst + 1 Spore tower firing the closest possible on the hill (annoying PZ beams), then slowly made my way to the right, and circled around the base (i couldn't force my way trough the sprayers, so i attacked from left, top and right side of the top-right base).

The 3 modes the emitters have are:
1. 10x every 0.5 seconds
2. 400 every 20/x seconds (possible bug/intentional, you can't channel more than 10 emitters in burst mode (at least the text says 400 every 2 seconds, and can't go any faster))
3. Supports another emitter
(x=total number of channeled (this one+supports) emitters)

Great map, i'm enjoying it very much.
One thing that could make it even better, but i've got no idea how much codding that would take, is having the computer (Abraxis) build more berthas/air units/something to try to take back what land it/he lost, because after i took the third PZ, i wasn't in any danger of failing the mission. Also, how hard would it be to make additive emitters (if they aren't already coded), that instead of saying make this x amount of creeper, make it add x amount of creeper (if there was 30, and the emitter is 40, instead of making it 40, make it 70 (30+40)).

Note: I'm going to test the spore towers, and then see if i can suggest anything.

Maybe add the support to the spore towers too, either the amount of spores, or the time between them.

Btw, i'm using version 2.0 of CW3.

Edit: is the proportional (to the number of support emitters)) repulsion field on the emitters intentional?

I had trouble attacking the bottom half (too many damn PZ powered units in an up-hill battle), so i decided to attack with air-power, though it could only be effective in the middle section (where there were only 4 ordinary beam towers), and this is the initial result :)

Edit 2:it seems 9 reactors and a few collectors can't possibly power 5 PZ PC, 2 PZ Mortars, let alone another 6 PZ Beams to defend from 19 spores every 20 seconds (1-2 waves depleted the ammo, and the third broke trough) :D

Only 3 guys have finished the map? (15:15 GMT 29.06.2014) (stewbasic, Planetfall, and me)

[stewbasic]

What does support mode do?

As DestinyAtlantis says, it strengthens the supported emitter by increasing the amount (in normal mode) or frequency (in burst mode). Actually there is one other significant effect I didn't mention (the help dialogue already felt too verbose): An emitter with x supporters gets a repulsive field of radius 8*sqrt(x) to help it cover more area.

Don't remove the Berthas, if anything add more (and you can even time-delay /progress-delay them (every 10 minutes build another bertha/for every few enemy units (emitters/spore towers) build another bertha), because currently at my progress i don't feel them doing anything significant. Maybe even make some of them PZ Berthas.

I agree they aren't very noticeable after a while. Maybe I could make their charge rate proportional to the number of towers the player has. I'll see how other people feel about the difficulty.

2. 400 every 20/x seconds (possible bug/intentional, you can't channel more than 10 emitters in burst mode (at least the text says 400 every 2 seconds, and can't go any faster))

It maxes at 400 every 0.5 seconds when x=40. But yeah, it goes down in jumps at the moment (interval is always a multiple of 0.5). I'll make it more continuous.

Great map, i'm enjoying it very much.
One thing that could make it even better, but i've got no idea how much codding that would take, is having the computer (Abraxis) build more berthas/air units/something to try to take back what land it/he lost, because after i took the third PZ, i wasn't in any danger of failing the mission. Also, how hard would it be to make additive emitters (if they aren't already coded), that instead of saying make this x amount of creeper, make it add x amount of creeper (if there was 30, and the emitter is 40, instead of making it 40, make it 70 (30+40)).

Thanks! Abraxis has a lot of room for improvement here but it's not easy. At the moment (you probably noticed) he just tries to rebuild lost units and nullifiers in specified locations. One thing I could fix is that he's slower to rebuild things when he's lost more units. Unfortunately I don't know if it's possible in CRPL to target air units or berthas (I guess I could make fake CRPL air units).

Abraxis on this map is about as dumb as creeper on a regular map, so it's a bit like how once you've secured a base on a regular map you're quite safe.

Additive emitters can definitely be made (in fact a regular map with emitters replaced by additive ones could be interesting). I made the emitters this way to mimic regular ones.

[J]

Nice map and great CRPL, but gets way too boring halfway. I quit after retaking the top half. In fact burst mode is far more effective than normal mode (if it are normal emitters that just set the creeper to a certain height). Spores feel pretty useless with all those PZ beams.

[planetfall]

Nice map and great CRPL, but gets way too boring halfway. I quit after retaking the top half. In fact burst mode is far more effective than normal mode (if it are normal emitters that just set the creeper to a certain height). Spores feel pretty useless with all those PZ beams.

Spores can be used to put digitalis in the void. Also, if you cripple the energy production so that beams can't refill quickly, spores become very useful for cutting networks.

[J]

Well, yeah, I was just searching for the nearest PZ. The 'enemy' base was still to big to think about crippling the energy production, so I didn't think of that. Had some fun anyways, so gj on that :)

[Flabort]

There's four scores now.  :D

[Lost in Nowhere]

Make that 5. :D
That was a fun map. The start was a bit difficult, but it's unbelievably fun to crush the bottom-right corner with a 450-intensity emitter after draining all of their energy by spamming spores.
Also, slight bug: spores are drawn over the custom menu

[Flabort]

As in, drawn to fly towards it (which you can fix by pressing space before clicking the menu), or drawn as in actually drawn art-wise a layer above the custom menu?

[Lost in Nowhere]

They are drawn in a layer above the menu.

[DestinyAtlantis]

Here are 2 more suggestions, the latter also directed at virgil.
1. The ability to remove digitalis growth.
2. The ability to opaque the digitalis or make it completly invisible (if it's possible to change the alpha, making it 100% opaque also counts as invisible).

[stewbasic]

Thanks for all the comments!

They are drawn in a layer above the menu.

I'll see if I can fix this with SetImagePositionZ (though it may be that spores always display above CRPL cores).

Here are 2 more suggestions, the latter also directed at virgil.
1. The ability to remove digitalis growth.
2. The ability to opaque the digitalis or make it completly invisible (if it's possible to change the alpha, making it 100% opaque also counts as invisible).

I can certainly add the first. Out of curiosity, why would you want to do so? Digitalis only benefits you in this map. Probably can't do much about the second beyond what's in the visibility options in the top left.

[Asbestos]

Remember that creeper sticks to digitalis, making it hard for you to advance off it.

[DestinyAtlantis]

Yeah, normally the creeper is supposed to enter the void at 100+ but with digitalis and 150, it didn't give any indication of ever going into the void.
Edit: when did it become 500? Or am i just really stupid?

[Flabort]

Yeah, normally the creeper is supposed to enter the void at 100+ but with digitalis and 150, it didn't give any indication of ever going into the void.

Correction: Creeper enters the void at 500+, so of course it wouldn't at 150+
Unless it is set using CRPL to something different.