eduran's maps

[eduran]

To download maps just click the title.

River Crossing



The only thing between you and another destroyed inhibitor is a river. Crawling with Leeches. Don't feed them.

And a warning from the second page of this thread:

The map has a lot of CRPL and while I tried my best to test it thoroughly I expect a couple of bugs to pop up once people start to play. If that puts you off you should probably wait a few more days. The same is true if you are playing for highscores (they don't carry over when I update the map).

Both the start and the final assault on the inhibitor were decently hard for me during my test runs. I'll most likely release an easier version within the next few days. Unless you tell me it's already easy and I just suck at CW3, in which case it's going to be a harder version  :).

Under Fire



An artificial asteroid, created by a long forgotten species as their last refuge from the creeper. With their own weapons turning against them, they never stood a chance. Can you do better?

Features a new enemy, the Corrupted Mortar. It collects creeper around it to bombard you.



Asteroid Belt



Another asteroid mission, but this time there is more than just one. Try to make your way towards the inhibitor while Spores and Mortars make your life miserable interesting. As if this wasn't bad enough, it seems like the creeper found a way to bridge the void...

Features Corrupted Mortars (not as prominent as in Under Fire) and a few Creeper Tunnels:



Unit Packs
Here you can download the custom units I made for use in your own maps. Most settings can be tweaked without ever looking at the code. The .zip files include both scripts and images.

Corrupted Mortar
Creeper Tunnel

[eduran]

Removed the map I originally posted until I fix some bugs and posted a new one instead. This one hopefully bug free  :)

[TLMike]

I'm not sure I like the new tower because there's not really a way to defend against it. Beams don't work; shields don't work. You simply have to suffer one of your buildings getting destroyed every few seconds. In the first few minutes, it's really hard to keep up because power generation is so low: Much of the map is quickly overrun with Digitalis, and because you start on pretty low ground, the creeper flows in pretty fast. There's almost nothing you can do in the way of building reactors or blasters. (Although, I'm probably over-complaining, since I only gave it one try so far....)

Also, it behaves like less of a mortar and more of a spore/Bertha hybrid. That's not exactly a criticism. Just an observation.

[ThirdParty]

Interesting enemy.

It would be nice to have some intro dialog describing the enemy and giving some clues for defeating it.  (For example, I never quite figured out how the enemy targeting worked.)

I did encounter one problem.  My nullifiers target enemy mortar bullets, but not the enemy mortars themselves.  This was upsetting; I went to some effort to get a nullifier into range of a mortar, only to have it totally flop.

Here's how the fight went if anybody's interested:

Spoiler

My first attempt was a disaster; I tried to spread out fully and claim as much space as possible, but the mortars hit hard and fast and I soon collapsed.  The second attempt I was more modest, but still lost quickly.  I almost gave up, but decided to try one more time.

On my third try, I finally realized an important fact that I'd missed: the digitalis can't grow across the southeastern edge.  So I stopped trying to claim anything in that vicinity, and only had one digitalis strand to deal with.  I also started flying a sprayer to wherever a mortar was about to hit, so that the hole would at least close instantly.  I cautiously built some reactors as far to the right as possible, and happily they didn't get shot.  I managed to attain stability (if a kind of dynamic stability, in which I was constantly having to rebuild destroyed collectors).

I tried an assault against the northeast island.  It failed due to insufficient landing space.  However, I realized that even though I couldn't nullify the emitter, I could (with the help of a sprayer on the mainland) keep a relay alive long enough to collect some aether.  I upgraded energy and ore efficiency as much as possible, relieving some of my problems.  Reactors on the two captured power zones didn't hurt my situation either.

I built a Bertha and then landed some guppies on the western island, hoping to make a backdoor attack against the enemy runner nest.  Unfortunately, my forces suddenly got creamed by mortar shots.  This was interesting data, since it was the first time I'd seen mortars fire at anything that wasn't a collector.  But it was clear that a back-to-front assault wasn't going to work.

I set the Bertha to auto and then started a slow slog up the steps.  Eventually I got a Terp in range of the wall around the rightmost emitter, and enlarged that wall so that it could hold units.  Putting collectors or relays on it proved impossible--the mortars would fire at them instantly and without the usual crosshair warning--but I managed to land some guppies and nullify the emitter.

I cleared the creeper from the power zone and set a nullifier on it, expecting to kill the two easternmost mortars.  When that didn't work, I set a Terp on it instead and built a bridge over to the Inhibitor for victory.

[close]

In retrospect I missed two obvious things that would have helped enormously:

Spoiler

1.  The enemy mortars turn out to show their ranges when the game is not paused.  Since I was always so busy trying to rebuild damaged base components, I never really scouted except during pauses, so never discovered this.  If I had, I would have been less cautious about reactors and built a lot more of them.  I also would have started further to the southeast, so I could be at least mostly out of range of the enemy.

2.  I possibly could have used Berthas to neutralize the mortars in the northwest and southwest corners.  I'd thought of assaulting them by putting terps on the western island to terraform some space, but somehow it didn't occur to me to just blast them with Berthas rather than seeking to nullify.

[close]

[eduran]

Thanks for the feedback. I didn't intend to make the map as hard as you described it. I guess part of the problem is the missing description of what the mortar does, exactly. I'll work on including some pre-mission text.

I did encounter one problem.  My nullifiers target enemy mortar bullets, but not the enemy mortars themselves.  This was upsetting; I went to some effort to get a nullifier into range of a mortar, only to have it totally flop.

The mortars aren't supposed to be targetable by nullifiers (I overlooked the bullets). Assuming you had known about that beforehand, would you be fine with that decision? Or would you rather have them nullifiable? They can already be neutralized by taking away the creeper surrounding them.

I'm not sure I like the new tower because there's not really a way to defend against it. Beams don't work; shields don't work. You simply have to suffer one of your buildings getting destroyed every few seconds.

That is pretty much the intention of the long-range mortars in the corners. You can check their range by mousing over them when the game is unpaused and keep your important buildings at a save distance. I'll probably increase the delay between shots to make it easier to deal with them. I could also tweak their target priorities. Right now they shoot at energy producing structures first, which all die in one hit.

[TLMike]

I did notice that they seem to target Collectors > Reactors > Relays > Everything else.

I think I might like the mission slightly more if the range on the Southwest core wasn't so large. Even 95% of current would make things so much better.

[eduran]

Uploaded a new version of Under Fire. Changes:

• slightly less range on the lower left mortar, slightly lower rate of fire on the top left one
• emitter output reduced and removed a hole in the outer wall of the fortress; both changes should give you a bit more time to set up before being overrun by creeper
• removed a digitalis connection, should now take a little longer untill digitalis reaches you
• added pre mission conversation between Lia and Abraxis to explain what the mortars do and how the range indicators work
• added a line connecting mortar and crosshair to clear up who is shooting and make it easier to spot when a mortar is targeting you
• some minor tweaks to the way the bullet graphic works, bullet movement should be smoother now

And some thoughts on how I played the map, in case you are looking for pointers:

Spoiler

1. I try to set up my perimeter right above the first height step. That way my units are in range of only one mortar with lots of space for initial collectors and access to the mainland totem as well as two ore deposits. Alternatively you can stay out of range of both mortars, but that means no totem and only one ore mine.

2. Have one or two cannons dedicated to defend against the mortar that is already shooting you. There is enough time between shots to move the cannons to the next target if you react quickly.

3. Start building up your reactor count and add pulse cannons and a few mortars to your front line. Once you feel like you are in a stable position you can attack the broken off shards to get access to two additional totems and two power zones. A mortar and two pulse cannons can do the job when placed correctly. The bottom shard is easier to take, so start there.

4. Add a couple of strafers and bombers to your arsenal. Three to four bombers can shut down the bottom mortar (assuming you are not using your AC to supply a sprayer). Send your strafers to attack mortar in the top left corner to reduce its rate of fire.

5. Guppys can help with the final assault (unlike collectors or relays they don't die in one hit from the mortars), as can a Bertha or extra air force to reduce the creeper supply for the mortars

6. How the Mortar targeting works:

Spoiler

The two long range mortars pick targets by priority, which is, from highest to lowest:
Reactor -> Collector -> Relay -> Terp -> combat unit -> everything else. Whenever there are several possible targets one gets picked at random.
The mortars in the center just pick targets at random.

[close]

[close]

[Relli]

• added a line connecting mortar and crosshair to clear up who is shooting and make it easier to spot when a mortar is targeting you

What's the code to make that line show up? I'm going to need it for my project once I get to the aesthetics, and I haven't even begun to mess with SetImage and the like. Thanks in advance.

[knucracker]

This is a cool mission...  I like the shots those corrupted mortars fire.  The warning they give is nice and makes it possible to deal with them.

[eduran]

Code Select Expand

$lineImg:"Custom3"
$callerUID:0
$scalingFactor:24

once

GetUnitAttribute(<-callerUID CONST_PIXELCOORDX) ->cPX
GetUnitAttribute(<-callerUID CONST_PIXELCOORDY) ->cPY
CurrentPixelCoords ->selfPY ->selfPX
Distance(<-selfPX <-selfPY <-cPX <-cPY) ->dist
<-cPX sub(<-selfPX) div(2) ->deltaX
<-cPY sub(<-selfPY) div(2) ->deltaY
Atan2(<-deltaY <-deltaX) ->angle
SetImage(Self "line" <-lineImg)
SetImagePosition(Self "line" <-deltaX <-deltaY -0.1)
SetImageScaleX(Self "line" <-dist div(asfloat(<-scalingFactor)))
SetImageRotation(Self "line" <-angle)  

endonce

You have to put the image of a line of the desired width and color into the image slot specified by 'lineImg'. I've attached the one I am using. The code assumes the image to be a straight horizontal line. 'callerUID' and the resulting 'cPX'/'cPY' variables are one end of the line with the other being the unit the script is attached to. If either end moves around you'd have to remove the once block. 'scalingFactor' depends on how long the line in your image is. Not sure what the exact formula is to convert the length in pixel into that factor. I just messed around with it until the line was the right length.
Btw, can anyone tell me why the line looks more grey than white in game, even if I remove the black border?

This is a cool mission...  I like the shots those corrupted mortars fire.  The warning they give is nice and makes it possible to deal with them.

Thank you, that means a lot coming from you :)

[Grayzzur]

Now that was a fun map to play. Nice job on the corrupted mortars.

I think the gray lines are a side effect of the way the engine is blurring/anti-aliasing your image when you scale it up by a large factor.

[TLMike]

I haven't tried it with the nerfed Mortar, but I imagine it's much more playable now.

[teknotiss]

great fun, loved this map, i spy another script i think i'll steal, problem is how do i get them all in a map? ::)

[eduran]

Updated my opening post with a new map.

[Ceraus]

The board doesn't allow me to download Under Fire, yet Asteroid Belt works.