Enemy Establishment Enhancement Sugestion

[lurkily]

So basically, you're saying it's the player's job to make an old map fun again by playing the role of mappers with a terp?  I'm not sure that's something most players would consider fun - else we'd have a much larger mapper community, no?

I think most players using terps only use them as far as they help keep creeper out of their base.

[Ronini]

The attack is being executed on a location that you'd completed.  I'm not sure how you would prevent the player from replaying the same map without removing it from the sector and replacing it.

Well, if you play a map normally you enter by dropping CN's from orbit onto an empty planet while the creeper responds from established positions.
I'd assume that if the creeper attacks you'd already have assets on the ground while the creeper doesn't start with a fixed position.
The map would be the same, but the mechanics wouldn't.

That actually could work. I wouldn't like it, but that's a different story.
You'd need the emitters to errupt one massive wave of creeper in the beginning, though. So they overcome possible PCs capping them off right away. This again could make a map impossible to win if it's your sole CN that is covered by creeper in this way. It might be not impossible to balance this feature, but I consider it to be to hard to balance to be worth it.

[Chawe800]

I don't understand why you can't start with units placed down. I think if creeper has already been generated in the map before you join then I think that isn't a problem. Basically you'd start out with limited space and you're base could already be surronded by creeper but you already have some generated power and weapons to defend yourself. It's similar to some CW maps I've played where their is units that are already on the map and some are really close to the CNs. Why not create pools of Creeper like in CW2 at the beginning of maps too?

EDIT: Sorry my bad, I thought we were discussing custom maps in general, not still debating about the multiple missions per map defense idea.

[lurkily]

Too easy to 'secure' a map my spreading PC's and mortars all over the place before you leave.  Because fortifying a planet before leaving would make repelling an attack simple, it would encourage players to play after completion. That might be boring to some people.

[Ronini]

Too easy to 'secure' a map my spreading PC's and mortars all over the place before you leave. 

Not if the creeper comes in one gigantic wave in the beginning.
Chawe800's idea of pre-inserting the creeper before the player enters the map might be another solution. But how this should be done code-wise I have know idea.

Another thought: Since we have a limited supply of CN's (up to just three at any given time), the logical consequence is that all CN's are retrieved from a planets surface after a map is finished. That would make it possible to really swipe a completed map of all structures, place new emitters (in new positions) and then let the player redo the map. I'm not saying I'd like it, but it's a way this could work.

I do hope the limited CN feature will also take effect when starting multiple maps at once. Otherwise: why limit the useable number of CN's to three, if more are available?

[lurkily]

Too easy to 'secure' a map my spreading PC's and mortars all over the place before you leave.  

Not if the creeper comes in one gigantic wave in the beginning.

Doesn't matter.  If I have PC's and mortars all over the place, it will thin out the spreading wave fast and early.  Mortars will core the center of the creeper mass immediately, limiting spread pressure.  Many PC's/mortars will be lost, but only because nodes or relays, which can't survive even a moment of exposure, will be lost.  Once the initial spread is contained, you will only be left with the emitters, totally surrounded by a densely constructed network, with a very powerful infrastructure already pre-built.

Even if the emitters did blow a massive hole in your network structure with pre-emitted creeper at high pressure, the pre-built infrastructure alone would make the map a cakewalk, if you distributed it intelligently.

Another thought: Since we have a limited supply of CN's (up to just three at any given time), the logical consequence is that all CN's are retrieved from a planets surface after a map is finished. That would make it possible to really swipe a completed map of all structures, place new emitters (in new positions) and then let the player redo the map.

Not convinced that a new emitter placement is enough to make a map fresh and fun.  Too much of the players tactics are dictated by the terrain.

I do hope the limited CN feature will also take effect when starting multiple maps at once. Otherwise: why limit the useable number of CN's to three, if more are available?

Multiple maps at once?  What?

EDIT: Limitations like that are easy to explain if you want a lore reason for it.  The one that comes most obviously to me is that the computer systems on the ship can't effectively administer more than three CN's at once.  I'm sure you can come up with a different reason on your own, if you try.

The point of this is that gameplay is what's important.  If a reason really does need to be given, they're easy to make up.  Just blame it on the midichlorians.

[Ronini]

Once again, you're right. With multiple maps I was referring to the ability to stop playing a map, freezing it in time, complete a different map to collect a new tech, return to the first map and continue where you left off. I just thought treating CN's as a very limited ressource and having to manage them would give the game a strategic level. I know I said I hoped for this earlier. But having thought about it a bit more I realised it would probably be too limiting.