Knuckle Cracker

Creeper World => Suggestions => Topic started by: Ordinaryman on January 29, 2010, 10:54:10 AM

Title: Spores
Post by: Ordinaryman on January 29, 2010, 10:54:10 AM
How about......

Spores of a different color..... that target shallow creeper... and spawn a new emitter!!!!
That would be downright diabolical!!!!

~OM
Title: Re: Spores
Post by: Aurzel on January 29, 2010, 10:55:24 AM
and what happens if the spore lands next to odin city?
Title: Re: Spores
Post by: Ordinaryman on January 29, 2010, 10:58:44 AM
If you already have shallow creeper close enough to the city for a new emitter to be a direct danger..... you're already doomed :) but I see you're point.... perhaps have it target level 2 depth of creeper..... or even 3.... or better yet, for the custom maps, have it a user-defined target depth :)

~OM
Title: Re: Spores
Post by: Aurzel on January 29, 2010, 11:01:04 AM
plenty of times creeper has come close to odin city and i've won, not to mention levels where odin city is in a bowl and creeper moves on it quickly
Title: Re: Spores
Post by: Ordinaryman on January 29, 2010, 11:07:31 AM
Very true, been there myself many times. But imagine, if you will, you're holding the creeper back with a blaster and two mortars (most maps, disappointingly) when a red spore comes in.... and you don't have the SAM's to shoot it down... and boom! new emitter that puts some pressure on you to defend yourself better, or go shut the emitter down..... would definitely add some excitement to the game :)

~OM

P.S.     Granted, I don't consider a map "won" until I have all the emitters capped..... not the intended playstyle I'm sure... but scores are nothing when I'm having fun just surviving :)
Title: Re: Spores
Post by: JACKL on January 29, 2010, 06:21:47 PM
That would be cool,and the user defined depth thing seems like a good idea
Title: Re: Spores
Post by: djcian on January 29, 2010, 10:56:22 PM
it seems neat but how can you prevent spores from hitting creeper in the back and eventually making the map impossible.
Title: Re: Spores
Post by: JACKL on January 30, 2010, 10:04:32 AM
Habe them target human structures,like regular ones
Title: Re: Spores
Post by: Ordinaryman on January 30, 2010, 12:26:23 PM
The creeper never really is a real problem. I made a map with three emitters, set at 1000.... and still held it all off with just 4 mortars :P
Title: Re: Spores
Post by: Aurzel on January 30, 2010, 12:58:58 PM
jackl, you want emitters to be spawned in the middle of the network?
and ordinaryman, there's a difference between 3 emitters at 1000 and 1000 emitters at 3
Title: Re: Spores
Post by: djcian on January 30, 2010, 02:26:57 PM
and besides.  it is also possible to make a map impossible if you add more emitters.  it is not the power but how you use it (if it is in a place it could be way harder then if it were somewhere else
Title: Re: Spores
Post by: JACKL on January 30, 2010, 04:23:48 PM
No i don't want them in the middle of the network,thats why we have sams,THat was in reply to other peoples saying it would be hard if the spore spawners kept landing in the creeper,and making it harder to push back
Title: Re: Spores
Post by: Aurzel on January 31, 2010, 05:17:02 AM
yeah so what if one gets through your SAMs or you forget to build them for the first wave? many people including me do that
Title: Re: Spores
Post by: archn on January 31, 2010, 09:19:54 AM
Quote from: Aurzel on January 31, 2010, 05:17:02 AM
yeah so what if one gets through your SAMs or you forget to build them for the first wave? many people including me do that

Then you must come up with a different strategy.  You won't make that mistake twice
Title: Re: Spores
Post by: Aurzel on January 31, 2010, 03:00:28 PM
actually i make that mistake on many spore maps, but what this isconsidering pretty much means that if one spore lands in your network you lose
Title: Re: Spores
Post by: crazy20164 on January 31, 2010, 03:27:04 PM
I tried playing around with spores (100 on first wave ever 5 seconds) they dont target odin at all just the buildings around it. i'd like more choices with spores like , Don't target buildings, all spore target odin or larger creeper spores (bigger area then the 3x3) just my thoughts.
Title: Re: Spores
Post by: djcian on January 31, 2010, 04:08:00 PM
if you want spores to target odin city then when you make the map put hundreds (alot) of collectors under odin city and they will be likely to target those collectors
Title: Re: Spores
Post by: JACKL on January 31, 2010, 06:16:09 PM
i have never forgoten my sams.....except when seeing how much damage the do on my homemade maps.
Title: Re: Spores
Post by: Karsten75 on January 31, 2010, 06:35:45 PM
Quote from: crazy20164 on January 31, 2010, 03:27:04 PM
I tried playing around with spores (100 on first wave ever 5 seconds) they dont target odin at all just the buildings around it. i'd like more choices with spores like , Don't target buildings, all spore target odin or larger creeper spores (bigger area then the 3x3) just my thoughts.

Somewhere Virgil posted that spores DO NOT ever target Odin City.  I do not know if the advice of placing collectors/reactors under Odin City will change that behavior.
Title: Re: Spores
Post by: Aurzel on January 31, 2010, 06:55:06 PM
hey thats a great idea dj, with 100 collectors under odin some of those spores are bound to land on it, the only problem is i think the collectors will appear on top of the city
Title: Re: Spores
Post by: The Creep Destroyer on February 02, 2010, 10:58:45 PM
It would be nice if we could choose each waves *Target* and how many Anti-air missles it takes to bring each spore down. Also if we could send the waves every 1 sec instead of every 5 :)
Title: Re: Spores
Post by: Biglulu on February 03, 2010, 10:28:14 PM
Spores do target Odin city when it's the only building left.
Title: Re: Spores
Post by: kwinse on February 04, 2010, 12:55:25 AM
Erm, no they don't?

Quote from: virgilw on December 23, 2009, 06:54:53 PM
Small clarification about the spore targeting.   Spores will target random structures.   If there are no structures on the map, they target random locations.
So..... it almost never makes sense, but if you built a tight cluster of collectors over in a part of the map you didn't care about you would increase the probability that the spores would target them and not the rest of your base.  This strategy really only makes sense on custom maps where you can't build sams but spores are inbound.  (And even in this case you should position blasters everywhere to pop the spores when they hit).

Quote from: virgilw on December 24, 2009, 02:53:48 PM
I had to actually go check the code on this one...
Looks like it targets collectors and relays. 

So the only way to make spores target Odin City directly is to stick a collector or relay underneath it with the map editor.
Title: Re: Spores
Post by: Aurzel on February 04, 2010, 04:58:23 AM
biglulu if you dont believe us try making a map with just odin city and a collector elsewhere and then make a wave of 10 spore, the first wave all the spores will hit the collector, the second wave they'll scatter randomly over the map
Title: Re: Spores
Post by: Spartan on February 20, 2010, 02:13:44 PM
I would love to see a emitter spawning spore added, I think it would add more dynamic games seeing as you have to adjust your defenses to deal with the new emitters. If the spores target creeper than you'd also not have to worry about them penetrating your defenses unless you have a creeper pool in the middle of your network. If they targeted medium creeper you'd need to be agressive with Sams to stop the creeper flow from increasing every time those spores launch since they would hit away from your network. I think making Sams take on a more agressive role, like repostitioning outside of supply range or even suiciding them to stop emitters from spawning, would be an awesome addition to the strategies in the game without complicating it too much. Additionally, would there be anyway to make it so that once the emitters spawned by these spores get capped for a minute or two that they die or is it too hard to do that from a programming point of view? That way they could tie up your weapons for a good bit but wouldn't require you to have turrets all around your network to cap emitters that landed earlier in the level.

I think a third color spore that targets thin creeper and just adds a significant amount of creeper to it would be cool as well, an area that needed only one blaster would need two for a bit and it would be able to fill up shallow pools so they wouldn't slow the creeper down, until bombed ofcourse. They would also added a quick burst of movement in areas that you could've previously ignored because of thin creeper. You would still need to be agressive with sams to deal with these but much less so than emitter spores that hit further back.
Title: Re: Spores
Post by: Aurzel on February 20, 2010, 05:44:06 PM
this has already been suggested and shot down in another thread, an emitter spawning spore just has too many opportunities to ruin the game
Title: Re: Spores
Post by: Spartan on February 22, 2010, 06:30:50 PM
I've read through the reasons it was shot down in this thread at least and it seems that if it were a choice like double down or more likely put in by custom map makers than it wouldn't ruin the game but provide a challenge. Same with the second suggesetion I made. True emitters landing far away would be harder and if you sit around forever and don't play the map than you'll lose but emitter spores probably won't be coming every minute like normal spores and one or two won't ruin you. As long as you don't take hours to progress through the map than it should be possible to beat. It would also add some more time pressure or force you to use Sams agressively, maybe a Sam drone pair to land in shallow creeper long enough to hit the spores coming in.

The second suggestion would be as easy as making another color spore that hits randomly and could have some interesting results. Changing the amount of creeper and frequency is done in the map maker already so all that is needed is to take away targeting. If you think a random emitter would be too unpredictable for scores than it could be a mode just for fun.
Title: Re: Spores
Post by: UpperKEES on February 23, 2010, 06:53:11 AM
One thing about spores that would be nice, is an indicator (a little arrow in the red spore timer) that shows which side they will be coming from next time. You might like the element of surprise, but when you play a map the second time you will know anyway, so there is no need to keep it secret the first time.
Title: Re: Spores
Post by: Karsten75 on February 23, 2010, 01:10:56 PM
Quote from: UpperKEES on February 23, 2010, 06:53:11 AM
One thing about spores that would be nice, is an indicator (a little arrow in the red spore timer) that shows which side they will be coming from next time. You might like the element of surprise, but when you play a map the second time you will know anyway, so there is no need to keep it secret the first time.

What would be nicer is a "random direction" for the spores - and *no* little red arrow.  ;)
Title: Re: Spores
Post by: UpperKEES on February 23, 2010, 01:43:48 PM
Yeah, that could be an option as well. However this would mean that you might get very unlucky when the spores keep coming from the bottom (where Odin City is initially located most of the time). For high score comparisons it is not a good idea, so I go for the indicator. ;)
Title: Re: Spores
Post by: Spartan on February 23, 2010, 03:54:40 PM
True, random directions would be way harder for high scores but I never leave much air space open for spores anyways since Sams don't use energy after being created. I always have atleast one near Odin city incase something slips through.
Title: Re: Spores
Post by: Karsten75 on February 23, 2010, 03:59:32 PM
Here's a hint for you - Odin City is "never" targeted.
Title: Re: Spores
Post by: UpperKEES on February 23, 2010, 04:13:13 PM
You know what we mean Karsten! :P Close to Odin city are valuable structures like reactors and speed injectors. Although the spores only attack collectors and relays everything around it will be destroyed as well.

When I go for a high score I only want to build things that are really necessary. SAMs are not part of this minimal budget. Luckily a lot of maps can be finished before the first wave of spores even arrives.... ;)
Title: Re: Spores
Post by: Ordinaryman on September 14, 2010, 02:19:50 PM
*sigh* I feel sorry for people who play ONLY for the score..... kinda sad, like watching a football game alone.

I'm all geeked up for CW2, so this has become a moot point.