Custom Map #506: Tactical Infiltration. By: JoaoPistori

[AutoPost]

This topic is for discussion of map #506: Tactical Infiltration


Author: JoaoPistori
Size: 384x384

Desc:
#PRPL - Custom Modules Ships! Sequel of my map "The Ultimate Ship Factory". This is the third of four maps in this small story I created. > FIGHT AGAINST ENEMY SHIPS WITH CUSTOM MODULES! Additional info and changes since the 2nd map about ships with custom modules on forums.

[JoaoPistori]

Ships info (only ships with custom modules):

Obs: I'll only tell you part of what they do. Where and how to use them is up to you.

Global changes:
- Custom modules work properly with ship's energy (instead of stored energy);
- Minor bugs fixed;
- Custom modules now work properly when pausing the map and pressing 'N' (Next frame key);
- Added radius display, with angle limit for Siege Ships and Demolishers;
- Custom modules for enemy ships!

Death Ray and Laser Ray:

Spoiler

Changes since the last map: Decreased range, increased barrel rotation, added chain strike.
Target only particles. No changes with decoupler.
Note that the cannon at Death Ray targets the particle with highest health in range, while the one at the Laser Ray targets the nearest one.
Amp gem: +range, +fire rate, -energy per shot.

[close]

Reactor:
The name of the ship is enough :D
Amp gem = +energy p/tic

Laser Gun and Death Ray 3:

Spoiler

Changes: Same changes of death ray and laser ray.

[close]

Overcharge:
Nicant's custom images (at custom modules thread). Downloaded Nicant's script but I rewrite almost all the script.

Spoiler

Use plenty of energy to attack stunners. Upon destroying them, creates a friendly stunner.
Amp gem = +range, +fire rate, +damage per shot

[close]

Howitzer:

Spoiler

Deals area damage. Target the nearest enemy's ship hull, the nearest emergent or the deepest concentration of particles in range. Also deals a nice knockback.
Amp gem = +range, +fire rate, +area of damage against ships, +faster barrel rotation
Edit: Also destroys bound of affected particles..

[close]

Tesla Ship:

Spoiler

Works like the laser ray and death ray but has increased range and doesn't need to rotate a barrel. Can also attack emergent and enemy ships, targeting the nearest of them. Also deals chain strike at ships :D
Amp gem = +fire rate, +range, +damage against ships,-energy per shot

[close]

Demolisher:

Spoiler

Changes: 2 engines instead of just one, range +8.
Fires big missiles at enemy ships, emitters, doppels.
Amp gem = +fire rate, +range, -energy per shot, -energy to reload

[close]

Death Ship:
The titan ship of the level. This one I don't want to spoil anything :D

***The last ship***
I won't tell the name, because the name spoil part of what it does.
I also don't want to spoil anything for this one :D

Don't forget to read in-game dialogs when picking up the new ships.

Yeah... no friendly Siege Ship and no Mini Thor this time... but they'll be at the 4th map.
1st map: "Strong Particles" (moderate difficulty); 2nd map: "The Ultimate Ship Factory" (very hard. Expert-only);
3rd map: This map (moderate difficulty) - not as hard as the 2nd map in terms of losing the game. Actually you would only "lose" if a big enemy ship catch your fleet disorganized. Quite hard to advance in some parts.

Edit: Added the missing information about the howitzer.

[D0m0nik]

No time to play this today but can't wait to give it a go, the new ships sound very interesting. The layout of the level is very elegant!

[JoaoPistori]

Thank you! Several hours per day working on those ships and map design. I had to "erase" everything in the map twice to reach this layout and gameplay.
Don't look much at my time score because I lost plenty of time with wrong attacks without reloading a quick-save.

Please expect a bit of lag during the play until you conquer 2/4 or 3/4 of the map (depending on your machine). 1 second in game (x1 speed) may be ~1.2, ~1.4 seconds in real life.

//About enemy ships with custom modules:
They naturally have 2x the effect of an amp gem. Example: your module has a range of 30 and a fire delay of 20. With amp gem it has 35 of range and 15 of fire delay.. Then, the enemy module has 40 of range and 10 of fire delay. They use ship's energy but even if the ship doesn't have energy, they'll fire. This is a way to make them challenging.

[D0m0nik]

There is a bit of lag but loving it anyway, about 20 mins in and taken the entire left side of the map, play time of 2 hours though (including saves and reloads).

The ships who's name I dare not spoil are excellant, really great ships in this map. The map is defo easier than the last one despite some serious opposition. I will finish it tomorrow hopefully.

[svartmes]

Phew, playing your maps is exhausting work!
I'm pretty psyched having just finished the map and wanted to say thanks for another epic map and that the new ships (and improvements to the old) were really cool and shows what talented coder can do with the prpl! In comparison to the previous map I kindof miss the puzzle element as this one didnt seem to rely much on any tricks or sneaky tactics and felt more straightforward unless I missed something. Though ofcourse tactics and order of events matter and the new mechanics of converting stunners and the "last ship" awesome. Now that I know how things work I'm sure I'd be able to shave off a significant amount off the time but I don't think I will because as I said it's hard work playing your maps. I both love and hate your maps, right now I'm kicking myself for not being 30 seconds faster ;)

Rating: It has to be 10/10 from me. The creativity and work put into this map shows. Looking forward (and dreading) your next one! :)

[RrR]

Is there a way to re-read the dialog? (without reloading a save which I may not have).

Alternatively, how do I control the ship that must not be named?

[D0m0nik]

I find the control of some of the ships quite strange. Generally speaking you just make sure they are facing at the enemy and they fire, the ships that fire a projectile will not fire if facing away from an enemy. The rays and Tesla will take care of any particles in range regarldess of orientation.

I have not finished building the final massive ship yet.

Is it just me or is the demolishers range circle incorrect? I have to get it much closer to a unit before it launches its missiles.

[JoaoPistori]

@svartmes: Thank you very much! Next map is in progress!

@RrR: To control the ship press the 'B' key, then it will enter the "aiming" state.
Press 'B' again to cancel or click to activate.
If the ship doesn't have energy (it drains almost all the ship's full energy) a message telling it doesn't have energy will appear over it and fade out in some seconds. A message will also appear if you click outside the max. range.

@D0m0nik: Demolishers target the ship's CM, not the hull. So, the CM has to be in range, and not a hull part. So, the bigger the ship, the more you have to "get closer".

I didn't understand what you mean with strange control. Yes, by coincidence the Demolisher and the Siege Ship (the enemy one that fires the big blue ball) are the only ones that fires projectile. The others ships rotate a barrel, delaying a bit the first hit while the barrel rotates, not in case of the Tesla Ship, it doesn't have a barrel and instantly (actually 1 tic later due to prpl reading, but it's not the case) attacks the target.

[D0m0nik]

That explains the range thing! Great map, 9 out of 10, because the lag was so bad I only played this one map for three evenings and gave up on all other life/wife duties! Perhaps unfair to down a point fot lag as a super duper computer won't have this issue but i suspect 95% of users will not have a fast enough one to really fuly enjoy the game properly.

[svartmes]

I have a pretty good PC but I've found lag to be unpredictable in this game and while there certainly are instances and maps that will lag no matter what, sometimes a save and reload or restart will fix or atleast improve it. I suspect and hope there is some further improvements possible by virgil in this area.
For me this map ran at about 75-80% speed at the later stage which I found perfectly acceptable for such a complex map. The slower speed can actually help with aiming and positioning ;)

[RrR]

Nice map but the lag became a pain. First time I tried, I had only taken a little over a quarter of the map before the red ship started their main attack. Second time, I had 3/4 of the map under control and was much better prepared.

I took to saving and reloading the map repeatedly to avoid rebuilding the lathe. Perhaps two lathe ships would have been nice. Perhaps with fewer (stronger) particles the lag would have reduced

[JoaoPistori]

I'm thinking about reducing max. particles from 6000 to 3000 and duplicate their health for next map. Also checking the far emitter's initial delay to start producing at the right time but this timing is very relative depending on what the player does.
About ships: Planning to check if a small number of massive OP enemy ships causes more lag than a higher number of medium ships.
I'm still finishing scripts, so if someone has better information about the ship lag that I said above I would like to know :D
(We should not forget that big ships are hardly destroyed, so they may come back to regenerate and keep in the map)

[GoodMorning]

I think this map outdoes every Exchange map before it. I am content to take the fifth and last place on the scoreboard for the forseeable future, although I could probably trim a half-hour or more with a replay.

I stalled long enough at the border of the fourth quadrant that I almost asked here. Fortunately stubbornness prevailed. Thanks also for the opportunity to use a split fleet. I also must have missed the main function of the energy-hungry one in the dialogue, but discovered it by accident.

Let's see... feedback...

Spoiler

OperateWhilePaused needs a check, as a few of the black modules didn't respect it after a reload.

Also, one fragile four-lathe craft is much harder to operate than two fragile two-lathe craft, and makes retrieving gems from ships destroyed in the other fleet a pain. (Maybe I should use the HQ more, but oh well...)

I never thought I'd be asking for more Stunners, but even if you make them fire one at a time with the same overall rate, it would make the ending faster (I spent a number of cycles of waiting for the Stunners to come up again, although thinking back, doubling the sacrifices would be as good.).

Also, the yellow specials I found to be less useful than the black, because it (generally) all has to go anyway. If the yellow do sacrifice rate for damage, I'd still be willing to take the efficiency drop in using the targeting algorithm of the black.

One final thought: If the last one could progressively move the target, and use energy constantly, that would be easier to manage without microattention.

[close]

Please take it as the highest compliment that I save during your maps. This one I even went so far as to rate.

To assist with even range circles, I spoiler some PRPL which builds a range "circle" out of straight "struts":

Spoiler

Code Select Expand

:awake
64 ->Struts
TWOPI <-Struts div ->StrutAngleChange
<-Range 4 mul ->PixelRange
<-StrutAngleChange 2 div sin <-PixelRange mul ->StrutLength
<-StrutAngleChange 2 div cos <-PixelRange mul ->StrutDist
<-Struts 0 do
"Strut_" I concat ->StrutName
<-StrutAngleChange I mul ->StrutAngle
Self <-StrutName "Default" SetImage #The default image for a Core gives a dashed effect.
Self <-StrutName <-StrutAngle HALFPI add SetImageRotation
Self <-StrutName <-StrutAngle cos <-StrutDist mul <-StrutAngle sin <-StrutDist mul 0 SetImagePosition
Self <-StrutName <-StrutLength 6 div SetImageScaleX
Self <-StrutName 0.125 SetImageScaleY
Self <-StrutName 255 255 255 255 SetImageColor

[close]

With respect to the lag, partially constructed ships are the greatest cause I have seen, something in the AI. 6K particles is also not good, but distributing them makes it somewhat better.

Thanks for making this, and so you are aware, the map seemed possible even when I was battling the fourth-quadrant ships with the first-quadrant fleet, having taken too long and let the edge ships get a 30eps supply on the aborted first run.

For any other map, I'd leave a walkthrough, but this ... the satisfaction would ring hollow if I hadn't figured it out myself. Even though it took all day.

[JoaoPistori]

Thank you GoodMorning for all your feedbacks in those 3 maps (strong particles, the ultimate ship factory and this). I just read them now and I'll certainly take them into account, in special the lag problem and the lathes ships micromanagement.
Also, thanks for the circle range code.
I don't have time to edit CW3 and PF after january, but I have some time to edit them now. The ships of fourth map were already finished (and operatewhilepaused anomaly was already fixed) and now I'll work on the map itself and try to have it uploaded before next sunday (and then upload my custom scrips into the custom modules page).