Custom Map #7230: SM-02 Upgrades. By: Taishan

[yum-forum]

Very much enjoyable and fascinating game!  :)
Congratulation and big thanks to SMTaishan and Regallion for this GREAT WORK!  :D

My vision how it can be better:

ABOUT THIS MAP
1. Too many objects and too many stages for upgrading - not optimal dynamic of gameplay.
2. Not so useful bomb as it could be. And very slow speed of bomb's movement.
3. Explanation about chip and bomb's type was not enough. At least for me.
4. Instead of terrain 1=50 better 1=100

ABOUT GENERAL CONCEPT 
Will be nice:
1. Together with individual emitter's upgrades under cursor by "U"/"Ctrl+U" will be nice to introduce "TOTAL UPGRADE" by "Ctrl+Shift+U" when all friendly emitters will be automatically updating till maximum possible level. Like special upgrade mode in game. Of course they should be connected to CN. And player can decide whether (s)he need upgrades of individual friendly emitter or more slowly upgrade all emitters.
2. Bomb can influence/effective not only on one friendly emitter, but on many/all friendly emitters within ring with some radius. And within this area all friendly emitters within XX second will be upgraded step by step to maximum possible at that time level. As possible more tricky variant: if in this area (inside ring) of bomb's efficiency will be also enemy emitters - they will be upgraded to doubl level of creeper production. And player can decide what is better - individual upgrade or big square upgrade by bomb.
3. Visually will be nice to see by one glance what friendly emitter can be upgraded (green dot in center?) or couldn't be upgraded (red dot in the center?).

Once more I would like to say big thanks for Regallion and SMTaishan for VERY CREATIVE work! Waiting for more maps!  :)

[lividbishop]

Wanted to love this but gameplay is too slow (even at highest speed) and there's a lot of tedious upgrading.

Great interesting ideas I think can be used in many games though.  Will try other maps in the same style.

[Taishan]

Wanted to love this but gameplay is too slow (even at highest speed) and there's a lot of tedious upgrading.

Great interesting ideas I think can be used in many games though.  Will try other maps in the same style.

I think one way of balancing is limiting how many reactors you can build. The game does go slow when you have 300+ power. With reactor limits to say 50 and disable collectors altogether it would be smoother.

About tedious upgrading, have you tried shift+u as Regallion suggested to someone else?



To answer yums points
About the map
1: This map was more a proof of concept and more focus on the upgraders than I envision for a normal map, hence many stages for upgrading.
2: I personally don't like the overwhelming impact bombs have on progress on these types of maps and I prefer to tone down bombs and instead use stargate joiners more. This bomb was included because well, Regallion had made it and fit the theme with upgrading. And by my intent tuned to not have massive impact on progress.
3: Yeah, there are some surprises =) perhaps bad
4: I preffered terrain 1=50 on this map to get the four waterfall effect in the middle without having to scale up AC emissions even more. More numbers does not necessarily mean better in this case.

About the general concept
1: I'm not sure what features Regallion finds reasonable to include without adventuring performance. A slow upgrade for all emitters does have its drawback though because the energy is shared with terps. Meaning you might not be able to build terps or other buildings as fast as you want.
2: Interesting idea. Again up to Regallion what he can implement. For now I don't think upgrades will be touching Creeper emissions but perhaps that could change.
3: Yeah, I'd like a system where it is possible to see how far an emitter has been upgraded (like 3 out of 15 times would say 3/15 or something). Perhaps can be toggled by a hotkey. Again, up to Regallion who has the knowledge and puts in the work for this. We just come with suggestions :)

[yeldarb96]

Really enjoyed this new feature. I like the concept of affecting the emitters rather than just flipping them. I would love to see some more maps with this feature.

I have similar suggestions that once an emitter is maxxed, somehow indicate it without all the yellow text - perhaps change it's color or make it bigger?

For most of the time, I was severely low on power despite maxxed energy from the forge and a TON of reactors. I suppose that's my fault because I was max upgrading all emitters rather than being more judicious on what really needed it - but I would have really appreciated a few extra pz's to put reactors in.

Also, I noticed that if I had an emitter on auto-upgrade, but I dropped the upgrade bomb on it. After the bomb came off, the auto-upgrade setting had been turned off. I would have liked it to turn back on automatically after the bomb came off. I stopped using the bomb because of this. I didn't want to hunt for emitters that were not fully upgraded.