Play as Creeper Template

[4xC]

Well someone has been busy!

So here I am, finally making time to check threads I haven't seen often to find solidification of a template that allowsplayers to play as the creeper!

I must admit, I didn't fully see this coming even after learning of the option to choose Loki at Arca. I must also give high praise to the update progress made since the earliest PAC maps I have seen in CS.

I can easily assume it was challenging to make it all work so well in the end, but I do have a challenge or two to throw your way to see what you would do to address them with my predicted difficulties that account for effort put into the coding and satisfaction from the audience assuming you make it work some way:

Have PAC include:

Hard:  the abilities of AET's

Extremely hard: full(ish?) control of runners

[teknotiss]

Have PAC include:

Hard:  the abilities of AET's

Extremely hard: full(ish?) control of runners

AET's are to limited, but it may be useful.
runner control has been discussed, i believe the agreement was too tricky to have work right.
but a code monkey would have better answers ::)

[Hubs]

Have PAC include:

Hard:  the abilities of AET's

Extremely hard: full(ish?) control of runners

AET's are to limited, but it may be useful.
runner control has been discussed, i believe the agreement was too tricky to have work right.
but a code monkey would have better answers ::)

Hmm...I could see AET towers being somewhat useful. Something like you have to fight really hard through a bunch of bombers to get a PZ and plop an AET tower on it to protect from bombers.

Full control of runners...that's craziness! And awesome! Right now I'm focusing on my PAC series Arc Eternal: Redemption, but if there's a lot of interest I may tackle it in the future.

[alfanugan]

I decided to try my hand at creating a PAC map and downloaded the template today.  I am having issues between the guide in the original post and the Abraxis.crpl section to create additional units.  Line 62 appears to find placeholder cores and doesn't mention anything about "# Manually add additional units"

The guide posted lists this as an example, while README.CRPL doesn't contain this:
"NULLIFIER" 15 20 @AddUnit

On which line would I add the information for additional units and could I see an example please?  Thank you for the help and thank you for creating PAC, the coolest CRPL I have seen yet!

[4xC]

Have PAC include:

Hard:  the abilities of AET's

Extremely hard: full(ish?) control of runners

AET's are to limited, but it may be useful.
runner control has been discussed, i believe the agreement was too tricky to have work right.
but a code monkey would have better answers ::)

They could serve important purposes in special scenarios.

For one thing, the recent space station map with an asteroid carrying 2 emitters had high use of PZ Bombers that seemed to take of half of the trouble of pressuring your hold on each of the sections.

I know it took about 3 emitters' worth of creeper in the lower left and middle right just to negate the possibility of nullifiers serving their purpose. Combine that with the need to divert so much creeper away from them just to help capture a semifinal section with the impossibility of spores breaching the lower right, and you got a fair case for AET usage.

To add to that, more than one map had enemy Strafer usage to fair effect.

All I am saying is there are unique cases that would be supportive to the cause of including the AET's ability in PAC. (Maybe it does not have to be a default considering that 1. Spore Towers were once able to make their own runners and 2. Spore Towers once had their recharge rate reduced from 20 seconds to 5 seconds.

[Hubs]

I decided to try my hand at creating a PAC map and downloaded the template today.  I am having issues between the guide in the original post and the Abraxis.crpl section to create additional units.  Line 62 appears to find placeholder cores and doesn't mention anything about "# Manually add additional units"

The guide posted lists this as an example, while README.CRPL doesn't contain this:
"NULLIFIER" 15 20 @AddUnit

On which line would I add the information for additional units and could I see an example please?  Thank you for the help and thank you for creating PAC, the coolest CRPL I have seen yet!

The README.crpl script in the template should be up to date. I forgot to update the forum post. Read that section in the template file and it should better explain it. I'll update the forum soon.

Also, if you're just trying to place nullifiers you can press J to place a nullifier placeholder on your map, instead of needing to edit Abraxis. However if you have other units you want added, those will need to go into Abraxis. If you can't find the right spot, just search/find "@AddUnit" - that should take you to the right spot.

[alfanugan]

I found the updated information in the README.CRPL file near the end of section 1:

# The placeholder can be changed to build a different type of unit. In edit mode,
# select "units", double click the placeholder, and change "type" to a unit type
# listed on http://knucklecracker.com/wiki/doku.php?id=crpl:docs:getunittype.

This will be way easier than manually entering in the coordinates in the script, thanks again!

[4xC]

Suggestions:

A. Show Beam Coverage when selecting Spore Towers

B. Target settings for Spore Towers. (nearest void cell, nearest structure, support other Spore Towers)

I say the last because the second redemption mission took a long time due to the inefficient firing of the Hyper Spore Tower. (I didn't see a way to get past the PZ Cannons with creeper and I thought the point of the HST was to not need to make your own Spore Towers, so I waited for lucky strikes until I had enough and built a Spore Tower of my own which helped in the end)

[stdout]

Even better would be to show the coverage all the time (toggleable, perhaps with a keystroke). Then you'll be able to see where all the coverages are.

[Hubs]

It would be really nice to have options available like you do when selecting normal units in vanilla (like cannon targetting options). That would open up the ability to do a ton of cool custom settings like those recommended.

[Asbestos]

There should be a controllable giant runner that you can program with the effects of a runner nest or an AET, which are both heavily designed to be moved around for better accuracy.

Spoiler

[close]

[Flash1225]

Needs a way to show the range of a unit, especially beams so you can tell where a spore is gonna hit.

[BTUx9]

Suggestion:  Version Numbers
Reasons:

   
• Easily identify the control capabilities on a downloaded map
• Document those difference (on wiki, etc.)
• Without too much effort, update PAC controls by running diff against stated version(s)

Could be shown on first help message or a dialog box triggered by a key. (maybe shift-V)
There could be a PAC template version#, with a list of script versions.  The version#s of individual scripts that differ would also be listed.
I'd suggest that those who modify scripts for their own maps could add "-<username><theirver#>" to the version# for clarity.  If a user's changes are adopted to the template, the suffix removed and version# would be bumped.

P.S. This isn't a "do this for me" request.  I'm willing to implement this.

[JoaoPistori]

I created my PAC map, followed all the steps to convert, save and finalize. But when I play the finalized map and finish it, the victory icon doesn't appear so I can't upload the map. The Loki dialogue appears (when it says that all humans structures were destroyed) but the window to click in "claim victory" doesn't appear. Could someone help me? :P

[Hubs]

Did you finalize the map and play it in your finalized map list? If you play it without doing that you won't get the victory trigger.