Custom Map #90: Alpha Madness. By: Viperwasp

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This topic is for discussion of map #90: Alpha Madness


Author: Viperwasp
Size: 500x500

Desc:
This map represents what I believe is mid level difficulty.Perhaps Hard... Your object is to kill all the red stuff. And defeat the "Hell Guard" which is the so called "BOSS" of this level. Just destory everything you can. This is my first level and I'm still learning. It's alright though. Features a mix between stock vanilla ships and custom ships of my own design. Good Luck. I plan to release an overall harder and more balanced version of this map in the coming weeks but this is still complete.

[D0m0nik]

Perhaps a bit too big but a very good battle map still, challenging at every stage and with lots of options to fight in different ways and on different fronts at the same time. I enjoyed it a lot, thanks!

[viperwasp]

Thanks Feedback and advice is about the most helpful thing right now. This map is currently not up to par based on how I want it.  I think it's still good but I am already working on a modified version.

My goal when creating this level was to...
1) Make a Large Level were the most challenging areas are far aware from Mines/Bases so it would involve recon and careful planning and use of energy resupply ships etc.
2) Include an somewhat interesting Boss.
3) Test stuff out and learn stuff.

I kind of accomplished that. The level is large because I wanted players to feel sort of lost and away from the bases. While it was sort of unintended like you mentioned you can fight in different ways and on different fronts. That was not completely planned. You were meant to mainly focus on the bottom three mines for a while but my first time beating the level I took the five bases that are off to the right and held them before working my way down then left, then up the left side of the map. So I learned you could do a couple different styles before I even uploaded it.  So I like that.

And for some of the Cons...  Noob mistake you cannon collect the 2x Gem Factory at the start. It's out of range. But to be fair I had extra AMP gems anyhow so it made no real difference.
And while I did like some of my own ship designs the two strongest ones were sort of overpowered. In this level you kind of needed that a little but the B.Cubes you unlock while they take forever to build they are kind of unbalanced. However a pro player likely won't use them while someone like me may need them to win. So the level has options available. But people can take customship sets into this level if they don't like my selection.  The last real con I feel is that this level if you know exactly what to do is very easy. But that may be a fault of this entire game. Once you learn a trick of a level very little of it is random it all follows a formula.  But like D0m0nik said it is challenging still. 

What I feel I need to learn!

I don't like how all the red particles just collect on the mines etc... and I wish they would break off and chase ships more easily. I feel like the particles behave quite differently during single player VS my map. And I feel like I just don't understand all the emitter settings. In this map I did play with most of the settings. It's not simple.  I was almost fully finished the map when I even found out about the whole % of particles that track and  % to track ships VS emitters.  I think most of my particles have there max speed setting to low.

What I plan to do?
I plan to make a new map only for myself that's purely a test map. Place all sorts of different stuff in it with different settings until I am failure with the mechanics on an in depth level. Then I am going to go back to this level here and balance it. I wand to make it both harder and easier. I want more particles to favor ships VS emitters. I want the custom made ships to feel strong in there own way. I will weaken the B.Cubes a little and probably only have one in the level. I will play the level 5-6 times completely instead of twice before uploading.  Then if I am not bored of the game or burned out I will go on to make some more levels because I have some interesting ideas if I am skilled enough and have enough time.

My questions to those who are still reading. First of all thanks. Second what type of emitter settings do you most commonly use for the average emitters? What max speed? What target percentages. I know it's good to mix it up in the same level and I know about the different types of particles now bar, wheel etc... I use some in this level but sometimes it feels bugged I'm not doing everything right yet.

[ikx]

i quite liked the fact you need to use multiple tankers to get to some places of the map. or some places just being almost completely out of reach.

since you seems to be looking for feedback heres some:
-instead of multiple weak emitters maybe use a single strong one. sometimes id just streamroll over several emitters back two back which didnt feel good.
-i hardly noticed the boss at the end i dont know if thats because of general endgame or the boss was a bit on the weak side or there was just a lot of stuf to worry about and the boss didnt stand out among all that

stil very enjoyable. tyty.

[viperwasp]

i quite liked the fact you need to use multiple tankers to get to some places of the map. or some places just being almost completely out of reach.

since you seems to be looking for feedback heres some:
-instead of multiple weak emitters maybe use a single strong one. sometimes id just streamroll over several emitters back two back which didnt feel good.
-i hardly noticed the boss at the end i dont know if thats because of general endgame or the boss was a bit on the weak side or there was just a lot of stuf to worry about and the boss didnt stand out among all that

stil very enjoyable. tyty.

Thanks. The final version of this map is out now. It's custom Map 115. But not to much has changed. It's got polish but I found out that if I made some of the ship changes that I was thinking about it's a little to difficult. At least for me! lol  And the end boss is pretty difficult attack it without having the B.Cube ship and it's not easy. Well you could pull it off with several ships and using the D.Classx ships but it chews though every other ship in seconds without taking any damage. The B.Cube ships are a little over powered but surviving to get those ships built is a difficult. This map should make you feel the pressure now. 

I really appreciate your advice by the way and your right. I feel the same way about most of your feedback but it's difficult to resolve most of it.

The emitters thing is something I need to work on but I wanted to have particles of several different specs. Different speeds, life times, percentage to target emitters and ships. So if I have several stronger emitters the downside is I get less customization. Some emitters in this level serve a small but important purpose. I placed emitters that have particles with short life time but spam tons of particles so you can't cheese the level by warping and snipping important targets with your HQ Ship. So what I mean is because I had such a big level I needed a TON of partial coverage over the top half of the map to prevent sniping. But if the particles did not have a distance or life time limit then you would get overwhelmed and the level would be impossible. This means the alternative is to have many emitters each with there own goal/purpose that add up to a real challenge but balanced map. 

The main different with the MKll version Customer Map(115) is that I changed some of the emitters settings and such so that more particles go after ships instead of collecting around emitters and doing nothing. So you will feel the pressure more. I changed and tweaked a lot of things but most of it will be hard to notice.

[yum-forum]

Surely 10/10 game! Thank You for excellent and enjoyable map!  :)

Multi-variant playing and well balanced big game. Very interesting B.Cube and D.CLASSX ships.
1stFighter was not so useful. Setting of emitters also was unusual for me. Boss was a little weak
against B.Cube and D.CLASSX ships.

[Johnny Haywire]

Loved your map! I went up the left side first and once I got the two Borg ships I let them build while I went to Chick-Fil-A for some yummies.

While playing this map, I realized a couple things:
1) The particles seem to cap out at a certain number, so if you just let the non-aggressive ones build up it's easier
2) A Spicy Chicken Sandwich is simply a lot yummier with ranch dressing and a few jalapenos on it

Thanks so much for this epic map! You rock! ;D