eduran's maps

[Ceraus]

OK, I finished Asteroid Belt, and while I generally liked it, my fun was dimished by what I suspect is a bug: missing Power Zones.

I first assaulted the bottom island right next to the starting one, but when I blew up the rightmost Emitter, its Power Zone dissappeared. I then got rid of the Runner-spawner and its weak Emitter, but, again, only one left a Power Zone, which I needed to waste on a Relay if I had any hope of bring back any Ore. But then the middle island gave me no Power Zone at all!

So I was unable to bridge the islands with Relays and couldn't built a powered-up Bertha. Frustrated, I just mounted a massive Guppy-backed assault on the Nullifier and took it out from the back.

[eduran]

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

Should be fixed now. For some reason the url of the attachment changed and broke the link.

missing Power Zones

It's not a bug. The idea is that you have to use Guppys to assault the islands and bring back ore. Personally, I really enjoy maps that force me to use Guppys instead of relays, so that's what I went for. Should have made that clear in the intro text. Sorry for the frustration the map caused you.

[pawel345]

Just finished the Asteroid Belt and it was a great map ^^ Hope more maps like this are to come. Two things I didn't like are that you can't nullify the mortar or the creeper bridge. While it makes sense that you shouldn't be able to nullify the Out end of creeper bridge, it would be cool to be able and blow up the IN end, and that would cause the entire bridge to disappear. Likewise the mortars, if there is less ammo than required to fire a shot, it would be cool to be able to nullify it.

As for the power zones I think it's ok as it increases difficulty but I think that the islands should be connectible by relay after you manage to clear the island. The firs one was connectible after blowing up the emitters, and it would be cool if I could also connect the second and third one as long as I sacrificed the single PZ available for relay instead of a weapon. This way those that what PZ Bertha have to supply it via guppys and those that rather have more building space have a new island. The assault has to be done by guppies anyway.

[Ceraus]

Alright! I was able to download Under Fire and play it. Nice map, quite unique; I liked the early pressure, the two small, easily taken islands, the vulnerable Digitalis and the relentless enemy Mortars at the end. I used my two Power Zones for Bombers which carpeted my advances with AC.

missing Power Zones

It's not a bug. The idea is that you have to use Guppys to assault the islands and bring back ore. Personally, I really enjoy maps that force me to use Guppys instead of relays, so that's what I went for. Should have made that clear in the intro text. Sorry for the frustration the map caused you.

Oh no. No.

I thought it was a bug because there was no way to collect the top island's Ore. After all, Ore Guppies bring Ore forward (say, to Sprayers), not back. Never used them, though; I prefer Bombers.

And then I got it: you build Ore Guppies near Ore Mines and target them back to your base. Obviously, too, since offensive Ore Guppies would be AC Guppies. And I like that about custom maps: they make me learn new things. I might have to redo the map now that I know; your score is tantalizing.

Still, the lack of Power Zones from most enemies was entirely unexpected, and that's what frustrated me. One thing I like about Creeper World is that you (mostly) have perfect information and can strategize in consequence. Every missing PZ not only kept from me a nice enemy-kill reward, but also torpedoed my plans. Altering the start text would be ideal (even better: also indicate graphically which enemies don't leave a PZ), but just a warning in this topic's first post would suffice.

But you should take note that I really enjoyed what you did with those maps and am looking forward to what you come up with next.

[Annonymus]

I just played on fire (btw it's a great map with a great idea (I wish I'd have such great ideas :( )) and since I played it in a very different manner than all of the previous posters I will post my walkthrough here:
First thing I did after landing the CN was building reactors all over the space NOT covered by any of the mortars and making an ore mine on the available ore, then I built 4 blasters to hold off the creeper while I was building reactors (all of this happened without any of the mortars firing a single shot bcs I always kept out of range) and helping out with a sprayer when the blasters were too weak. Once I had a (more or less) stable energy-situation I assaulted the top-shard with 2 mortars and the sprayer (I built 2 more blasters to keep off the creeper so i could use the sprayer for the shard) I cleared the creeper on it and nullified it's emitter, on the power zone I placed a mortar to help in fighting back the creeper.
Then I made the same thing with the bottom shard but this time i had to fly the sprayer directly on the shard else I couldn't have placed the mortars near enough, again on the PZ I placed a mortar.
Then I built the forge and just let it go for some minutes until I could afford some upgrades, in the meanwhile I built some more reactors.
Once I had enough upgrades I built 4 bombers and used them to stop the bottom mortar from firing and advanced on the space I freed in doing so.
After some more upgrades I built 4 more bombers and sent them to the top mortar so these two would stop bothering me and instantly took the second ore vein.
Advancing with 6 blasters and 4 mortars I rapidly took the 3rd ore vein also.
By this time I had fully upgraded ore production, it wasn't enough to supply 8 bombers but it was enough to control the mortars so I left it be. Since the PZ mortars got useless until now I replaced them with strafers and attacked the inhibitor with those 2 PZ strafers and 4 normal strafers to try to stop the other 2 mortars from firing; it wasn't enough so i sent 2 of the bombers that were attacking the berthas (the long range mortars) to the inhibitor, 3 bombers per bertha were enough to keep them from firing, so I could at least reduce the mortars' firerate and tried to conquer the powerzone of the rightmost emitter, this is the only moment in the entire map when the mortars fired at me (apart from the shots that i controlledly let fire at one of my blasters to empty the ammo of the mortars after i already cleared the creeper under them) and I just tanked them: I expanded the wall so I could place a nullifier on it, got 2 of my blasters onto the platform before the wall and built as much collectors as possible so even if the mortars would kill some, there would always be others to connect to the nullifier. After I took out the emitter I placed a mortar on its powerzone and that along with the strafers and the bombers weakened the inhibitor (and killed the digitalis) enough to not allow the mortars to continue firing and to nullify the inhibitor.

Probably I could have done it faster (it took me 1:20 min game-time or ¹/₄ of it real-time (in the scores i'm listed as Annonymus)) by not always having the speed on 4x or using bertas.

P.S. There is a bug: the bullets can be nullified.
      If you want to make the map more of a challenge I suggest you add more payload to the berthas (maybe slightly increase the firerate of the low-range mortars) and do NOT
      let the first (rightmost) emitter make a PZ on death.

[eduran]

My next map is getting close to being finished. Here are two preview screenies showcasing a new enemy:



The first picture features a deployed Leech stealing packets from the player's network.



In the second screenshot you can see a hovercraft leaving its home base, another one being unloaded by a crane and a third one under construction in the dry dock to the right.

[Grayzzur]

What are you using to create the unit images? They look pretty darn good.

[Clean0nion]

I can't be sure, but this images look very much to be MadMag's style plus possibly a modification or two. I'm guessing some concept art was handed out.

I've had a look at the two images, and now I'm to guess what these enemies do.

Spoiler

The are build at the docking station, then fly over to your network. Here they connect and take in ammo, which drains your network of energy. This ammo is then taken back to the dock where it is used to fire a weapon of sorts (or perhaps just bomb creeper over the host network).

[close]

[Relli]

Looks to me like the ammo those things steal is being used to fuel the Inhibitor. So it'll be important to kill off those leeches before they can make things too tough. Assuming they're even destructible.
And I love the way you made those cranes.

[eduran]

The leeches are a modified version of the flyer, taken from the wiki's concept units page. For the cranes I use siphons with a modified ore mine bar as arm (both are available here). Credit goes to whoever made these.

@Clean0nion: Pretty much spot on, with the exception of the last part about firing a weapon.

Looks to me like the ammo those things steal is being used to fuel the Inhibitor. So it'll be important to kill off those leeches before they can make things too tough. Assuming they're even destructible.

They started out being destructible, but that made it possible to shut down the map's core mechanic for good. Right now they are only vulnerable while connected. If you damage them heavily (using snipers) they will disconnect and go back to base to repair, which takes more time than just unloading.

[Clean0nion]

Well, this is one of the few maps I know I'm going to play.

[eduran]

And it's done. 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  :).

[Clean0nion]

Nice map you have there!
Room for future improvements: add some more effects! It's shame there are so few.
But then again, how many effects can you really add before it gets ridiculous?

I have to add, your handiwork on this project is amazing. All of your scripts are works of art and even the terrain is excellent. You've looked at every detail, even to the point of keeping the dock clean and having a door that the leech turns round and actually closes! The map I'm in the process of making now seems somewhat pathetic and insignificant.

I am very impressed.

Spoiler

I also noticed you have a ship image in Custom4_128. Is that used for anything? Did I miss something?

[close]

[Grayzzur]

Interesting map. It took me an hour of game time, but I beat it without the inhibitor ever hitting level one. It's quite possible in it's current form to stay far enough back from the river to avoid the little collector hovercraft, built a bunch of reactors, take out the emitters/spore tower, then build an overwhelming guppy-powered strike force to take out the inhibitor. I'm going to have to go back and try it again, and let it build to see what it actually does.

Nice work on the hovercraft AI. I drew in about 8 of them at once to shoot at them, and they queue up for the 4 repair bays quite nicely.

It is hard to tell how many there are when they are all stacked on that one home square, and all their popup text overlays. Have you considered giving each of them a slightly different home space?

[eduran]

@Clean0nion: Thank you for your kind words  :) The image you found is unused, I just forgot to delete it. I used it for the Leeches at some point, but the long tip of the ship makes it look really weird when it turns.

@Grayzzur: I am aware that it is currently possible to bypass the Leeches - the time I submitted for the map is achieved by doing that - and I am trying to find a way to change it. Increasing the connection range is impossible, so I'd either have to allow the leeches to move to higher elevation levels or change the terrain. In my opinion, neither fits the map's theme. I could also allow the inhibitor to generate a small amount of power, even when not collecting anything from Leeches.
I am currently trying to find a way to stop Leeches from colliding with each other and player buildings. Once I've either done that or given up on it I'll address the home space stacking and maybe add a Leech counter somewhere near the docks.