Vapen: What is happening here??? (Spoilers?)

[JoshuaFH]

Alright, so this mystifies me so I thought I'd go through the trouble of seeking out this forum for an answer.

I'm progressing along Vapen quite nicely, I have an extremely strong foothold, terps are terraforming everything they can get their measly mits on, a small army of mortars are constantly blowing away the creep, and I've finally gotten the machine operational. I was actually surprised to find that it's like a forcefield projector that makes a road straight to the core nexus! I immediately start terping the road, and, then something downright bizarre happens: the creep starts overflowing into the empty space in the corners. I thought that was impossible since it was basically the empty void of outer space, but I think "OK Whatever" and keep on doing what I was doing.

Then something more bizarre happens, one of the machines goes offline, some creep musta spilled onto it by accident or something, and then it's like the machine reverses polarity and creates a completely unkillable, growing creeper pool. In the middle where the projectors are, the pool quickly swells to maximum size, and absolutely NOTHING can hurt it. My supercharged power ring mortars, my AC, nothing, I was going to try a last ditch effort with massed berthas, but then the fit hit the shan and my beams went down, letting in the spores for a coup de grace on me.

This is what it looks like:

http://imgur.com/r79zCmc

Like, what is happening here? Is that an intended feature, like a RAGE MODE that it goes into where it just outright kills you, or is that a glitch?

[planetfall]

My guess is that when the field is turning off it's somehow being cancelled twice, leaving an inverted field. So even if it was somehow reactivated the field would just cancel the derp-field already there.

My suggestion is you save and reload the map. Fields don't persist in saves, so custom units that use them have to include provisions to recreate them when the map is reloaded. If the field is still like this when the save is reloaded, then this is probably a case that Virgil intentionally included. If the creeper seems to flow normally, there is likely a mistake with the code for when the field deactivates.

[Karsten75]

Why did you terp that path???  You invoked the rage furies... ha ha

Edit: GOing to test it now. WIll report back and let Virgil know if there is a real bug.

But I still feel you deserve punishment for "unnecessary use of Terps"

Also, void is "merely" 500 high terrain. If creeper overflows into the void, you have LOTS of creeper on that map.


Edit: Indeed, there is a "reverse"  field that takes effect if the artifact stops working. It can be neutralized and the original field will take effect.

[JoshuaFH]

Well, if I'm reading the depth-meter corrently, the creeper in the center of the map is hundreds of meters deep. The force projector DID normalize, but now there's many magnitudes of order more creep than any thing can hope to quell.

SO, I guess I'm starting over then.

[Grayzzur]

VOID acts like terrain level 500.

When creeper exceeds 500 it can flow into the void. It can freely flow from the void back to land at any time.

You're probably just seeing the effects of greatly concentrating the stuff into >500 level amounts, plus the back-flow from thick creeper when the field cuts off.

[Flabort]

I agree with you on the first part of what's probably happening to him. The back-flow does not explain the image, though. It's not back flow, it's genuinely full on reversal of the field. Which is completely odd.

[Karsten75]

There is a reversed field after the path has been established and then broken. I've asked Virgil if it is intended or not.

[knucracker]

I don't remember doing this on purpose, but it wouldn't be the first time I did something intentionally then went Total Recall on it.

Of course at this point, I might retroactively decide to proclaim, "Yeah, yeah... that's supposed to do that" :)  If you ever let the power plants go offline after all are online, then penalty...

[Flabort]

Er... might this be related to the shield bug that PF's having?
Man, fields do weird stuff.

[4xC]

I don't remember doing this on purpose, but it wouldn't be the first time I did something intentionally then went Total Recall on it.

Of course at this point, I might retroactively decide to proclaim, "Yeah, yeah... that's supposed to do that" :)  If you ever let the power plants go offline after all are online, then penalty...

I have to admit, sometimes after I activate the Field Beam, creeper just edges to a power node or two and the beam will be offline, but I always cleared the creeper away again too quickly to notice this.

Besides, doesn't the 48 minute time play a part in this too?