Custom Map #1205: The Queen Returns. By: CS Z

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This topic is for discussion of map #1205: The Queen Returns


Author: CS Z
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[CS Z]

This is a completely custom Lightweight Play As Creeper (LPAC) map built from the ground-up with three brand new units.  Designed for all players at all skill levels to enjoy.

The available units:

Egg:  Strategically drop eggs from orbit onto the map.

Boost:  Boost the stats of the map's emitters, spores, the blob nest, the skimmer factory, the air sac factory, stashes, and the dark tower as you see fit.  Kind of like leveling up in a RPG (only you don't get to pick which stats are upgraded - sorry).

Rocks:  Occasionally throw rocks from orbit onto the map to instantly destroy a unit.

I call this PAC "Lightweight" because units don't return once they are destroyed and there isn't a mesh network to lay down for Creeper to travel on as seen in most PAC maps.

There are quite a few different and interesting ways to play this map.  You could go for a natural, balanced approach or see what happens when one of the units becomes ridiculously overpowered.  There's no right or wrong way to play this map - so have fun!

[delfiler]

this is a great idea but there are a few problems it doesn't hamper play at all but could be nice chances

• being that the rockets pick a random target even if i ut it cose to a enemy unit i want to ahve destroyed it can ick the turret further away
• once freeing the tower you can't boost it anymore
• the airsac unit doesn't seem to get a boost from the boost object

and that is it overall great idea

[Vyce223]

So, I love the idea. It's a nice twist on the normal PAC


ONE maybe big bug... even if you don't have the eggs, rocks, booster numbers as long as you drag you can draw lines of the object and create as many of them as you want (given space).

[UberWaffe]

So, I love the idea. It's a nice twist on the normal PAC


ONE maybe big bug... even if you don't have the eggs, rocks, booster numbers as long as you drag you can draw lines of the object and create as many of them as you want (given space).

This is a bug in the base game. Unit limits on custom units on all maps have this bug (as it stands in v1.4)

[dwilkinson]

the airsac unit doesn't seem to get a boost from the boost object

Mine did until i think i hit a limit, it reduced production delay down to a minute, then another boost made it 2 per minute. it ended up very powerful once the army of snipers was downed, they just all ran to rift lab to drop off a full load of ammo on top of it :)

[CS Z]

this is a great idea but there are a few problems it doesn't hamper play at all but could be nice chances

• being that the rockets pick a random target even if i ut it cose to a enemy unit i want to ahve destroyed it can ick the turret further away
• once freeing the tower you can't boost it anymore
• the airsac unit doesn't seem to get a boost from the boost object

and that is it overall great idea

Rocks aren't actually random as they have target type priority.  For the most part, Rocks will pick off the nearest Cannon in range.  It looks random as a result.  I actually had them originally targeting Towers and Pylons BUT found that could be used to cut off energy for the whole map pretty easily.  Limiting to one target per rock kind of makes them fairly weak.  Blowing up more units per rock (maybe 3) might be a useful improvement.  And maybe just making them actually hit random things in the approved target list and in range rather than prioritizing could help make it a better unit too.  Right now it's just a nice, "Imma gonna blow up a unit right now out of spite" unit but didn't want to make it too OP a custom unit that it destabilized the map.

Actually, you can continue to boost the Dark Tower if you leave the closest Beacon intact.  There's just enough space to nudge in upgrades.  That said, there's a sweet spot for how big to make the circle and you can plan your circle size prior to blowing up the Nullifier, so I'm not too concerned.  Boost is labeled as an enemy unit but still can't be placed on darkened terrain, which seems like a game-level bug.

The Airsac's Interval is reduced and the Count only increases to 2 after it reaches a certain upgrade level.  I'll admit that it's not as pronounced/obvious an upgrade up front as other units.  The reduced interval does make it a more powerful unit as you upgrade it.

That said, the CPACKs are there in the map.  Feel free to play with/tweak them.

[superbrias]

My non-map-maker two cents on the dark tower issue is that it's effect probably just straight disallows players from "building" within it's range, as well as the whole disconnect and no-drop-zone effects and I think you can't even move in non-beacon units

[CS Z]

ONE maybe big bug... even if you don't have the eggs, rocks, booster numbers as long as you drag you can draw lines of the object and create as many of them as you want (given space).

I woke up this morning to some lovely screenshots in the Discord chat showing the cheese.  I also went ahead and posted my own 2:16 ultra cheese run on my own map.  What fun!  There are probably methods to get times even lower than 2:16.  I don't recommend doing a cheese run until beating it legit.

My original plan this morning was to skip the obvious starting points on the far right, plant eggs all over the flip breeder (legitimately), then connect an egg or two in a line like a fuse in range of the hopefully sufficiently upgraded Dark Tower, and then let the snipers handle the rest.  Cheesing the map with lines of eggs was a lot more fun though than what I had planned to do.

I suppose I could have the various units first check the current unit limit against the total number of units of that type on the map and then either refuse to execute code, destroy themselves, or punish the player (e.g. do the opposite - Eggs could emit a bunch of AC, Boost could downgrade, and Rocks simply miss all targets).  Any of those options would solve the problem.

I've opened a bug report on the CW4 bug tracker because it's a game-level bug that affects any map with unit build limits.  (I didn't see a similar bug report on the bug tracker.)  Seems more like it should just be fixed in the base game though when drawing lines of units to not create a bunch of units past the unit build limit rather than requiring unit and map designers to work around game-level bugs for every unit and map they make that uses build limits and waste a bunch of game cycles doing the same calculations at unit creation time.

[qwazzy]

There is also a bug with rocks - if you place them and then manually destroy them before they naturally despawn, you get them back, even after they blew up a unit. So you could deploy like ten of them, quickly reclaim them before they vanish, and deploy them again, and again, and again.

Not nearly as cheese as the line drag method mentioned before, but yeah.

[CS Z]

There is also a bug with rocks - if you place them and then manually destroy them before they naturally despawn, you get them back, even after they blew up a unit. So you could deploy like ten of them, quickly reclaim them before they vanish, and deploy them again, and again, and again.

Not nearly as cheese as the line drag method mentioned before, but yeah.

Okay, that is a unit bug.  I should have disabled either unit selection or destroy (or both) upon destroying another unit.  Close to the end of making the Egg and Rocks units, I wanted to be able to recall the placement if it was outside the allowed region so I enabled "Player can destroy" but forgot about the time delay on Rocks before it disappears as being a possible problem area.

By the way, and unrelated to any unit bugs, I made this map, the mission, the story, and all three custom units in a mere 1 1/2 days (I started the map Monday around noon).  I forgot to mention that in my original post.

[dwilkinson]

By the way, and unrelated to any unit bugs, I made this map, the mission, the story, and all three custom units in a mere 1 1/2 days (I started the map Monday around noon).  I forgot to mention that in my original post.

Well, (as another non-map-maker throwing his bit in) Thats impressive, Also I actually forgot in a previous post to mention i like the idea of having a story behind maps, and i found the messages funny. i hope to see some more of that in future PAC(or PACLite) maps. The DEATH AI is good too but variety is nice, so i'm happy seeing the more creative people doing their thing.

[SteveCarlo]

took me a try or two to appreciate the power of the boost.   boosting that dark tower just cut off the AC's  right wing, the center emitter on the bluff can just pour creep out like a fountain, and  once you get enough snipers out of the way, the blobs can run amuck

strategic egg strikes can take out the supply network... great fun

not sure why I find destroying everything and covering it in creep so satisfying...... must be my inner 8-year old

[heritor]

I actually really enjoyed this - there's a small amount of things to play with, but it feels like everything you do has an effect.
10/10 would play a map like this again.

[timlikehello12345678]

I loved it! can you fix this one bug though? I think it would be cool too boost the air sack but it doesn't work :( hopefully this is fixed :)