Custom Map #1931: Eye of Orion. By: Telanir

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This topic is for discussion of map #1931: Eye of Orion


Author: Telanir
Size: 180x95

Desc:
A new game mode! Fight a creeper with abilities remarkably close to your very own command center... As game time progresses expect surprises and twists that will make you panic--and then think like never before. Can you best this new Creeper enemy?

[Telanir]

For those of you who enjoyed this map, check out this post for more like it and some tips & suggestions!

Hey guys, I'm a fairly seasoned coder and this map as well as the game mode took about 40 hours to make and I think it's fairly decent.
Every unit was made from scratch using mostly my own code, I think it ain't a bad job. :)
Some advice: I highly recommend acting quickly because as the game progresses it will get much harder, creeper units can be damaged by conventional attacks e.g. strafers, keep the map clear of too many collectors.

If there's anything wrong with it please let me know and I can make corrections.

This one features the following custom creeper units:

• Creeper Collector
• Creeper Pulse Cannon
• Creeper Beam
• Creeper Strafer
• Custom Spore Tower
• DigiMaker (constructs digitalis)
• Creeper Command Node (constructs all of the above and flies around wreaking havoc, will not approach too close to player)

Creeper units will suck up creeper in a circle around them and use that as ammunition. An added bonus on the map is the two simple totems that act as nice weapon against the creeper. :)

[Loren Pechtel]

This map is different--a simple massed cannon attack like works on just about any other map doesn't fare so well here.

A PZ bertha shot takes out the anti-air and strafers take out anything else except the CN so it's not that difficult, though.  (Strafers can kill anti-air but you'll lose some in the process.)

[iwishforpie2]

Nice, but I got some lag during the game with all of the CPRL scripts

[porlob]

I really liked this map. I didn't get a good foothold early on, so it took me quite a while to complete, but I didn't mind, as it was quite fun.

A hint: Set your cannons to target Digitalis. They'll also target CRPL units. I sent mine on suicide missions to take out problematic units this way. Might even be fun to build a future map with this strategy in mind?

[Tyler21]

Great job! I completed both the intended and the quick way.

A short suggestion for your next maps (I hope there will be more of these):

Spoiler

correct me if I am wrong (I haven't looked at your scripts yet) but the enemy CN seems to target the closest unit and this makes it quite vulnerable against nullifiers (by using collectors or pulsecannons as decoy). A more sophisticated targeting script that weights the relevance of player units (nullifiers first) would make it much stronger and would make this loophole impossible (how I, and apparently others just completed this map in a few minutes. Actually, it could have been even quicker if I didn't have to collect both the info and the bertha to win the map :))

[close]

10/10

[Loren Pechtel]

Great job! I completed both the intended and the quick way.

A short suggestion for your next maps (I hope there will be more of these):

Spoiler

correct me if I am wrong (I haven't looked at your scripts yet) but the enemy CN seems to target the closest unit and this makes it quite vulnerable against nullifiers (by using collectors or pulsecannons as decoy). A more sophisticated targeting script that weights the relevance of player units (nullifiers first) would make it much stronger and would make this loophole impossible (how I, and apparently others just completed this map in a few minutes. Actually, it could have been even quicker if I didn't have to collect both the info and the bertha to win the map :))

[close]

10/10

Nullifiers?  Why get that close?  It dies to snipers.

[Tyler21]

Nullifiers?  Why get that close?  It dies to snipers.

I didn't try that but it's definitely slower than 1 minute. :)

[Telanir]

Great job! I completed both the intended and the quick way.

A short suggestion for your next maps (I hope there will be more of these):

Spoiler

correct me if I am wrong (I haven't looked at your scripts yet) but the enemy CN seems to target the closest unit and this makes it quite vulnerable against nullifiers (by using collectors or pulsecannons as decoy). A more sophisticated targeting script that weights the relevance of player units (nullifiers first) would make it much stronger and would make this loophole impossible (how I, and apparently others just completed this map in a few minutes. Actually, it could have been even quicker if I didn't have to collect both the info and the bertha to win the map :))

[close]

10/10

Thanks Tyler!

There were several solutions I was thinking of to the quick sniper-boom for the command node, if you manage to get a nullifier close enough to that thing I'd very much applaud your skills...
Sure, I didn't think of it, but it would be very smart to implement a priority list, as well as an escape feature to liftoff and seek a new destination upon reaching 'x' health. (when the command node lifts off it is targeted by beams but snipers no longer target, beams do a lot less damage comparatively though so I'm going to need to think of a solution for that if at all possible).

I didn't expect the results I'd get on posting the map, I just kind of made a neat thing for my little brother and he liked it so I went ahead. I'm writing up a much neater and documented script for future maps, I'm also currently working on a template as well in case anyone wants to just plop down a Creeper Command Node into their map. :)

Edit: also, you've got a wicked score, I have no idea how you pulled that off :P

[strigvir]

DigiMaker is a pretty good idea for future PAC maps actually. I hate manually spreading it.

[Telanir]

This map is now a bit dated but for people who like this kind of map you can visit this post for more like it.
It contains updated Sleeper maps and Creep units and some tactics and strategy to help you win these maps.

[hbarudi]

between the two special weapon totems, what is that in the middle? It didn't do anything for me.
this map does lag a lot due to lots of crpl code.

[Telanir]

If you charge those totems it will spin up and freeze creeper, but you have to connect and charge both totems to your network.

[speef]

This was a really cool map, but I had to quit about a quarter of the way in because it ran so slowly. Unity grabs one CPU core (out of 8, on my PC) and just chokes to death in a monolithic heap of sadness.

Maybe someone could ask Virgil to get the CRPL interpreter into its own process?  Unity allows IPC with non-Unity processes too, so it might make a lot more sense to do the CRPL interpreter in C++ or C.

...and even cooler than that? Imagine a CreeperAPI that let us plug in our own external processes. Imagine how much more accessible hacking on CW3 maps would be if you just had an API to feed, and you could do it in whatever language you wanted to build an extension for.  Nothing against RPN and stack-based stuff, but there's a few more people out there who speak C and Java than there are people who speak Forth and Factor.

I don't know if he's still working on this game (or if he wants the headaches that go along with platform-dependent maps), but even if he just broke CRPL out into its own process, that would make maps like this playable for me.

[Telanir]

This was a really cool map, but I had to quit about a quarter of the way in because it ran so slowly. Unity grabs one CPU core (out of 8, on my PC) and just chokes to death in a monolithic heap of sadness.

Maybe someone could ask Virgil to get the CRPL interpreter into its own process?  Unity allows IPC with non-Unity processes too, so it might make a lot more sense to do the CRPL interpreter in C++ or C.

...and even cooler than that? Imagine a CreeperAPI that let us plug in our own external processes. Imagine how much more accessible hacking on CW3 maps would be if you just had an API to feed, and you could do it in whatever language you wanted to build an extension for.  Nothing against RPN and stack-based stuff, but there's a few more people out there who speak C and Java than there are people who speak Forth and Factor.

I don't know if he's still working on this game (or if he wants the headaches that go along with platform-dependent maps), but even if he just broke CRPL out into its own process, that would make maps like this playable for me.

VirgilW is already working on Game 4 so I doubt he is going to push any updates to CW3--the last such update was a year ago. If you found this map really laggy I think you should try the latest Sleeper map Dreams of Eridani, it has fixed the lag problem a lot and has an updated gameplay. You can find the list over here.