This topic is for discussion of map #1112: TAC Shaper Adaptation
(https://knucklecracker.com/creeperworld4/queryMaps.php?query=thumbnailid&id=1112)
Author: UberWaffe
Size: 256x160
I love the flood unit, very fun to use
wow, that was fun
once i figured out what each of the specials did.... it was glorious
I truly hope the part in the message saying you weren't going to make another one isn't true. That was an EXCELLENT map!
Hands down the best PAC map I have ever had the pleasure of playing. I really hope you continue to make more maps like this, and the other PAC creators take note. This is hard, but really fun!
Wow, this is unexpected.
I'm glad people enjoyed that.
It was mostly meant as a test of the new units.
I'll look into making another map.
To that effect, which special shaper units did you use and which ones were sort of pointless?
Any suggestions?
Great map. I hope the other PAC style map makers adopt some of your special units.
I feel that the one shot egg and spore specials just didn't seem powerful enough to bother with. I used the flood, skimmer and blob specials a lot, and they made a hell of a difference.
Definitely the most enjoyable (and reasonably winnable) PAC map I've played so far. So I hope you make more. Once I got some floods set up, skimmers were the way to go. Eggs and spores didn't seem too useful. But at least in the case of the spores, I think that was just more of an issue with the airship. If it wasn't there, you could easily overwhelm the anti-air resource production with enough spores, but airships are OP and their ammo lasts forever (and is purely energy) so you can't really overwhelm them if they have a steady connection to the network.
Personally, and because of the massive amount of anticreeper at the base, I used Floods and spores that honed in on the buildings. The random spores were useless for my style of play, and the eggs and exploding blobs things weren't very effective. The massive amount of running blobs helped me get some early ERNs, but the inability to determine where they went out from limited the ability to make them useful. The skimmers were very situational, and also suffered from the lack of direction they shot out towards. The eggs were useless for me, and because of the heavy anticreeper and ERN missiles, the floating orbs were also pretty useless for me.
The biggest and the most enjoyable part for me was pushing towards a breeder and/or uncapping a native emitter. That really opened a lot of options for me and really made the game fun. The mesh I loath with a passion, but I think because of how it fundamentally works is what bothers me the most. It seems that each emitter had only a certain amount of mesh it can creep along, and when it gets further out from the source emitter, it is either extremely weak, or it takes forever to replenish. The hardest part to deal with was the Bertha wrecking things from the beginning. I had to restart a couple times because I committed too much to certain fields and the bertha just rekt me.
Quote from: UberWaffe on March 22, 2021, 01:24:37 PM
Wow, this is unexpected.
I'm glad people enjoyed that.
It was mostly meant as a test of the new units.
I'll look into making another map.
To that effect, which special shaper units did you use and which ones were sort of pointless?
Any suggestions?
I think all of them can have some use in terms of optimizing a run through. However, for me I basically just used the flood for the majority of the map and then used the mortar lures at the end to be able to break through.
Great map and fun new units. Fantastic job with the tooltips describing what things do.
The one unit I couldn't find a use for was the OrbBurst. They almost always either bounced back into area I already controlled, effectively wasting half the creeper I spent on them, or they went too far forward and got sniped down for a total loss.
EggBurst was also a bit hard to use, as its specialty, defense, wasn't that needed.
I used most of the rest of them at points, sporly early on, coupled with scimmers to get out of the first area. Blubbers coupled with skimmers to get the northern area down. Flood felt necessary just to increase the amount of creeper I had to work with.
I kind of forgot about the lure and the crimsonator, so I ended up taking down the fort with an endless swarm of blobs, using air sac orbs as distractions, to overwhelm the defending snipers reload rate. Prior to that, I tried taking it down with the sporful, but I ended up with the problem that even when the spores started to hit, they didn't kill anything.
It did feel kind of hard to direct which way your offensive went at first, with only the mesh and launchers having any control on direction.
Quote from: Blaarg on March 22, 2021, 08:39:34 PM
EggBurst was also a bit hard to use, as its specialty, defense, wasn't that needed.
Just place a huge swath of eggburst leading from where your creeper is to where the enemy sniper is. When the eggs pop they feed into the next generation. Like a trail of gunpowder.
Loved this map. Best of the PAC so far. The variety of units really helped, especially since you can build stuff without needing ERNs.
I didn't like the airship. While I could deplete the arg, the airship apparently doesn't use that to fire anti-air.
Excellent map. Thank you.
So far it seems that people are enjoying the more open map design much more than the second more linear one.
Quick question: What do you all use the ERNs for?
Do you make stashes?
Targeted blobs or spores?
Emitters?
I'm trying to figure out what the right balance between ERN powered units and creep powered units are.
Quote from: IGSkaarj on March 22, 2021, 01:41:21 PM
Great map. I hope the other PAC style map makers adopt some of your special units.
Ok. I will. Not sure I'm gonna make as many units or anything, but I may include part of these...
I think the erns themselves had limited use in this level, especially with the heavy need for creeper to begin with and lack of suitable targets for a lone spore/skimmer/blob, not to mention how using the flood to setup makes it a little hard to push a creeper front in favor of the blober/skimmer/sporer/whathaveyou that can utilize the creeper at the source to attack (which for all but the cleanup (and blobs) the extra creeper technically isn't wasted because no matter the payload it wouldn't drop if it gets intercepted anyway)
I would play around with other uses for the erns or adjusting the power of the ern-ed structures (if part of the point of the shaper is it is an alternative to ern-eater to make up for the lack of erns, I would think it reasonable that the erns would be Powerful in comparison to the shaper stuff) something like maybe being able to ern a shaper structure to quadruple its creeper modifier (gets 4 times the progress per unit of creeper, 8 times? 16?) or maybe have any "free" ern power contribute to the efficiency of your shaping (for each unused ern power all shaper structures need 10% less creeper, that sorta thing)
This all as someone who won't touch the map making stuff and thus don't know how much of a nightmare it might be to code, but I can see great potential in this shaper system meshing very well with the "Autopilot" (smart* AI base to fight as creeper instead of a static preset field) what with the egg system plus being able to tone down the shaper units for high-pace use
I'm getting a bit giddy just thinking of the possibilities
Quote from: superbrias on March 24, 2021, 02:47:58 AM
I think the erns themselves had limited use in this level, ...
...
I would play around with other uses for the erns or adjusting the power of the ern-ed structures (if part of the point of the shaper is it is an alternative to ern-eater to make up for the lack of erns, I would think it reasonable that the erns would be Powerful in comparison to the shaper stuff) something like maybe being able to ern a shaper structure to quadruple its creeper modifier (gets 4 times the progress per unit of creeper, 8 times? 16?) or maybe have any "free" ern power contribute to the efficiency of your shaping (for each unused ern power all shaper structures need 10% less creeper, that sorta thing)
....
I'm getting a bit giddy just thinking of the possibilities
Thanks for the feedback.
I had similar thoughts. Initially I wanted to keep the shaper completely separate from the normal PAC, and distinct in that it doesn't use ERNs, but that seems to have been a poor design choice.
An idea I am currently toying with (still busy working on it, haven't even gotten to testing yet), is an Shaper structure that called "Caretaker", as an effective alternative for Floods.
Instead of generating creep, it would suck up creep and then with a multiplier boost the maturity of nearby shaper units. Think of a stash that multiplies growth instead of creep.
Following your suggestion, I could make this ERN-able, to increase its multiplier as well as progress growth even when no creep is available.
I was having some trouble with the upper left fortress spot so I just ended up slowly building up lots of the flood units and overwhelmed the fortress with creeper. Pro tip: build the flood units next to each other and use emitters to "feed" them quickly.
And just to see what would happen, I replayed this building ONLY emitters and flood generators, and ONLY within the initial valley.
I beat the game in just about 61 minutes.
I really should have been paying attention to the new units. They are amazing! I will need to go back and try again now that I understand the mechanics.
Fantastic! Thank you!