Custom Map #8874: Immortal Emitters Try 8. By: nathanaelps

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This topic is for discussion of map #8874: Immortal Emitters Try 8


Author: nathanaelps
Size: 119x119

Desc:
Inspired by the CW4 emitters, take on a shattered world of immortal creeper! Neither emitters nor nests are destroyed by nullifiers, but they are weakened enough that a constant stream of packets will keep them quiet. Towers aren't destroyed by nullifiers either, instead they're quelled by flooding them with AC. Don't let them emerge from the AC, though, or they'll come back to life! The towers will come to life after the first minute or two (Or three? I don't remember already!). Still playing with te

[nathanaelps]

Thanks to TrickyPlayer for being a pain in the butt about terrain generation & everything. I appreciate the brutally honest critiques and generous suggestions. Sorry to D0m0nik for the rage, maybe this one'll be better for his blood pressure. Thanks to everyone for playing and enjoying!

In other news, some of you were aware that we're expecting a birth... Not anymore! Daniel Lazarus just showed up last night at 6! Everyone's doing well!

[TrickyPlayer]

Don't generate/place emitters (or spore towers) in space. They are effectively at height 500, meaning they are stronger than normal. It's ok for this level because there isn't extremely much enemy power, but overall you don't want things in space. You could add something that creates a 15x15 area of terrain whenever an enemy structure is generated in space. Other than that, the terrain generation is doing quite fine. I will never like 1x1 terrain generation, but at least it's no longer all over the place. Thanks for the level.


Actually, spore towers are somewhat OK, I guess? Just don't allow emitters to be generated or placed in space. (Do you place enemies yourself, or do you let them get generated?

Edit: Digitalis changes the effective/real height of space/void to 0. Because of that, emitters in space are ok as long as they are connected with digitalis.

Edit2: What are these things that make spores that land near them? A warning that these spores don't take damage from beams would have been nice.

[nathanaelps]

Thanks for playing, TrickyPlayer, and for your feedback. I'm really appreciating it.

I do place the enemies somewhat manually. It seems like the only way to get intelligent placement, sometimes, and it definitely means that I can shape the narrative of the level a little bit ("OH, left and then up the valley and THEN over the top!") It *does*, however, make suggestions to me.

The generator is also a suite of tools and procedural generation snippets that I'm writing myself, so it's completely customizable or rewritable. Which means that I can look into the 1x1 terrain issue that you mentioned, and can take steps to intentionally minimize or amplify it depending on the level.

Also, the... volcanoes? I guess that's what they'd be called? create spores with health=... Oops. Twenty. It should have been two. My bad. I guess I didn't even try to beam them, I'm too close to the code and just assumed I should Bertha->Bomber them... Thanks for bringing this to my attention.

Would the... Volcanoes? do well to have a different icon? I understand the call for variety in icons, but I also have played games that have so many new and different icons that I just couldn't keep them separate. What's your opinion?

[TrickyPlayer]

Thanks for playing, TrickyPlayer, and for your feedback. I'm really appreciating it.

I do place the enemies somewhat manually. It seems like the only way to get intelligent placement, sometimes, and it definitely means that I can shape the narrative of the level a little bit ("OH, left and then up the valley and THEN over the top!") It *does*, however, make suggestions to me.

The generator is also a suite of tools and procedural generation snippets that I'm writing myself, so it's completely customizable or rewritable. Which means that I can look into the 1x1 terrain issue that you mentioned, and can take steps to intentionally minimize or amplify it depending on the level.

Also, the... volcanoes? I guess that's what they'd be called? create spores with health=... Oops. Twenty. It should have been two. My bad. I guess I didn't even try to beam them, I'm too close to the code and just assumed I should Bertha->Bomber them... Thanks for bringing this to my attention.

Would the... Volcanoes? do well to have a different icon? I understand the call for variety in icons, but I also have played games that have so many new and different icons that I just couldn't keep them separate. What's your opinion?

I eventually figured things out, but the volcano and spore tower should not have the same visual look.
...And why are some spores AC? The volcano AC spores didn't seem to create AC by the way.
Weird... oh well, guess I should say something else.
...I eventually used bertha-bomber too after like 40 minutes of not noticing that my beams did nothing.
...and...eh...
By the way, spores normally have 1 health. There also is a 100 spore limit for the entire map (there can't be more than 100 spores at the same time)

After finding out beams didn't work, I got rid of some and built a few shields...
but a shield would lose 50% ammo and 50% health when blocking a single 20-health spore.

Volcanoes had more power than emitters in this level, because spores don't have a creeper limit like emitters.

I don't have anything else to say.

Oh, there's something. There are a lot of 'volcano' scripts right now:

Spoiler

Your version (CW4 volcano)
My oldest version (currentcoords randcoordsinrange createspore) (Simple volcano)
My reversed version (Randcoordsinrange currentcoords createspore) (Simple onaclov)
My most recent version, the flip-volcano
The RVC volcano

[close]

I'm not even talking about all other spore towers in existence yet:

Spoiler

Regular spore tower
Emitter tower (kinda like spore tower but more dangerous)
Reversed spore tower (randunitcoords currentcoords createspore)
AltTower (or whatever that thing is called, it's like a spore tower but more retro sound effects and spore power isn't limited to 2000)
Creeper Clouds (Yes, I count these too somehow)
-and literally anything else that moves and that can be targetted by beams.

[close]

[nathanaelps]

Oh, cool. I guess this is as good a time as any to ask: Am I expected to just copy other people's scripts for my own use? Is this ::by attribution:: or ::please don't use my code:: or what? Do we have a central repo for "really useful scripts and hacks", or... IDK, "Here's the PAC libraries" or the something like that? I'm not sure of the etiquette around here, and I'd really not have to learn by ticking off everyone!

The volcanoes shouldn't be producing AC spores, that was bad code on my part again :(

100 spore limit is good to know. Makes sense, but I didn't even think about the possibility.

And as far as the spore health being way too high... Yeah. I'll address that. I've added that note to my "preflight checklist" so that it hopefully won't ever be an issue again.

Lol @ creeper clouds being "spores". I mean, I get it, it makes sense... but I have them filed under "enemies that just make my blood boil"... I don't understand why, but they just seem *wrong* somehow.

Thanks!

[TrickyPlayer]

Oh, cool. I guess this is as good a time as any to ask: Am I expected to just copy other people's scripts for my own use?

In most cased you are free to copy someone's scripts as long as you give them credit for it. "(script name) from (user name)" for example.
As for the scripts I use myself, I don't care how much people copy them. Just give proper credit for it, though I won't instantly make a problem of it if you forget it a few times. To be safe, you could ask someone if it's ok to use their scripts, but on the other hand it might just annoy them if you ask.

I never actually used someone else's scripts though, so I am never 100% certain. It might be good if someone else reacts just to verify that I am right, or to correct me if I am wrong.

[Helper]

Great discussion above.
I'll take a quick peek at this map, but think I'll be holding off playing until the suggestions are implemented.
Thanks,
H

[nathanaelps]

I dropped an 8.1 that has these updates applied to it!