Custom Map #1704: [PAC] [CURSOR] The Vacuum. By: CS Z

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This topic is for discussion of map #1704: [PAC] [CURSOR] The Vacuum


Author: CS Z
Size: 320x120

[CS Z]

I created a new type of cursor for this Lightweight PAC (LPAC) map.  It allows you to teleport creeper and gets more powerful as you destroy enemy units.

You are Drone 5582 and have been deployed in orbit over this world by the Central Hive.  Start with 5 creeper.  Cleanse the world with creeper.


I think my favorite part of this map is the first 15 seconds of gameplay where the AC appears.  The effect is quite neat and the AC is perfectly flat despite the rugged terrain.


Struggling?  Read the ADA message.  There are some important gameplay tips.

If you are still struggling, then here's a spoiler:

Spoiler

Teasing mortars is fun.

Time your beam up shortly before mortar fire hits the ground.  Then beam the stored creeper down again once the danger's passed.  Repeat until the target unit blows up.  Then repeat until more units blow up.  This should at least get you out of the corner in about 3-5 minutes and it's good, clean fun too.  Don't try to get through the AC (yet).  Instead, go for the nearby nullifier that's suppressing the nearby emitter after clearing the corner.  It's a 200 creeper every 0.5 sec emitter, so you get really fast beam up to your storage maximum that you can start dumping everywhere.  Of course, you can play however you want to but this really gets the ball rolling in just a few minutes.

[close]

NOTE:  If you aren't careful, you can exceed the creeper limit by beaming all creeper to a single location, which will turn it into AC briefly.  Really only a problem towards the end.

[Malignantmind]

Very fun once everything gets rolling. But the start was agonizingly slow. Took about 10 minutes on 4x speed just to get out of the starting corner. Which would have been 40 minutes otherwise.

But man, once things get going this was really fun. I loved cutting off the supply lines and disabling huge chunks of the map.

[CS Z]

Very fun once everything gets rolling. But the start was agonizingly slow. Took about 10 minutes on 4x speed just to get out of the starting corner. Which would have been 40 minutes otherwise.

But man, once things get going this was really fun. I loved cutting off the supply lines and disabling huge chunks of the map.

See my spoiler above on how to consistently get out of the corner in the first 3-5 minutes at 1x speed.  The start is probably my other favorite aspect of this map.

I'd love to know how someone already got a 12 minute run on this map...  My best time was 26 minutes and I'm the mapmaker.

[Shatterstep]

The start was agonizing. After about 10 min I just enabled the editor and made sure there was creeper at the start.

Might be worth re-upping this map, but with a start that isn't so painful, especially since this seems to be the first of its kind so-as to ease people into it. Just put an emitter surrounded by absorber should do the trick.

After the start it was mildly interesting. I pan the map by holding the right-click, which caused it to release creeper every time I tried to look around. I ended up having to pan way out and just make due.

It will be interesting to see where this mode goes from here. I enjoyed the story elements and spawns as the map progressed. Thanks for sharing.

[ButterySkank]

Spoiler

What I found worked for me, once I took out enough of the mortars at the start, take out the nullifier, that creeper emitter is 200, fills your cursor up really fast. Asw well, I took out any nullifier I could, and you can cut off the power supply by taking down a line of towers across the map.

[close]

[alche]

super fun map, just annoyed that when i wanted to scroll thru the map, i unloaded the creeper...

but yeah, at first target some energy pylons to let you pick up some more creeper, then you can just drop a lot of tiny smounts on the nearest mortars, keeping it in creeper till they r gone, then the nullifier.
After that its easier to just cut thru some pylons so you cut the power to half the map than actually attack the towers..

at the end keep in mind theres a creeper cap, so the emmiters wont produce as much..

[CS Z]

The start was agonizing. After about 10 min I just enabled the editor and made sure there was creeper at the start.

Might be worth re-upping this map, but with a start that isn't so painful, especially since this seems to be the first of its kind so-as to ease people into it. Just put an emitter surrounded by absorber should do the trick.

After the start it was mildly interesting. I pan the map by holding the right-click, which caused it to release creeper every time I tried to look around. I ended up having to pan way out and just make due.

It will be interesting to see where this mode goes from here. I did enjoy the story elements and spawns as the map progressed. Thanks for sharing.

See my spoiler above for a much easier 3-5 minute start.  The approach should get you out of the corner in 5 minutes and it's fun to mess with the enemy.  It is really hard to gauge how good players are at figuring out little tricks.  You only have one button to press, which theoretically should make things easier.  But there is still some strategy for the player to work out.  I thought about adding an emitter at the start but figured that would make it too easy and then players would miss out on critical tactics.

If I re-up, it would be to add one ADA message after 6 minutes to provide the player with some additional help from my spoiler.  Within the context of the story/lore, of course.  I don't like seeing people get stuck.

I did notice that right-click was already bound to panning the map by default.  I wondered who used that feature since the arrow keys do the same thing without limitations.  That is, you can only pan to the edge of the screen with right-click while the arrow keys don't have that issue.  Since I pause-micro vanilla maps by pressing 'P' a ton, the arrow keys are already right there.  I didn't think it was a good idea to bind to left-click since someone might want to combine the cursor with regular PAC units.

[Durikkan]

A fun and interesting map.   I can't comment on the 12 minute times because I wasn't anywhere near that, I had a 28 minute time. 

If someone's curious of my rough timeline

Spoiler

3.5 min, clear all the mortars on the left cliff face
5 min, clear first emitter
6 min, clear all emitters and blob nest
11 min, kill airstrip
13 minutes, cut off right third of map from the rift lab
17 minutes, cut off middle third of map from rift lab

[close]

My only complaint is that I'd frequently dump the storage contents by accident by scrolling the map with the right mouse button.   Eventually I just zoomed out all of the way so I wouldn't try to scroll.

[CS Z]

super fun map, just annoyed that when i wanted to scroll thru the map, i unloaded the creeper...

at the end keep in mind theres a creeper cap, so the emmiters wont produce as much..

Hmm...maybe I should ask which mouse button the player wants bound to the cursor.  That would let players choose their preferred binding.

By the time I reach the end, I've already dumped out 1.5 to 2 million creeper using the cursor.  Remember the cursor is more powerful the further away you get from the rift lab (plus don't forget about the bonuses).  So a 10x multiplier * 105% at the back is going to dump a LOT of creeper.  The creeper cap is kind of irrelevant at that point.

[Shatterstep]

See my spoiler above for a much easier 3-5 minute start.

Saw the spoiler. The script was lagging so it wasn't responsive enough, especially with all the mortars hitting it. I'm also playing on a 55" screen so it is harder to see the display and where my cursor is quickly.

Could I have done it? Yes, but it was soooooo tedious. To each their own I guess. I just wanted to get to the more interesting parts. I suspect others will struggle with the start as well. Just wanted this style to have as much of a chance of being accepted as possible. Anyway, no biggie.

[Niflthaena]

Love it. L o v e it. These LPAC maps are really creative.

Personally, I would have enjoyed a "hold LMB to dump, hold RMB to vac" control scheme. But I'm also someone who exclusively uses WASD to scroll, and never touches the right mouse button otherwise.

[Ionie]

First playthrough was over an hour long, as it took me a while to figure out the mortars.

Second playthrough, I got the mortars down by 2 minutes, first emitter operational within 5, and the whole game took under 25 min.

Whereas I love this twist on PAC, there's one thing to keep in mind when designing these kinds of maps; cutting supply-lines wins the game. Sure, can't beam down close to rift lab was a great idea, as not to let people to take out the rift lab in short bursts, but it was easy to pop the collectors in a neat row, and watch the cannons and mortars starve themselves to death; I didn't even bother destroying the nullifiers at the blob nest or the other emitters, I let the nullifiers starve.

Great twist on the PAC and cursor-playstyles nevertheless.

[SteveCarlo]

it took a while to get used to the mechanic with the right click

[Clueless Disgrace]

Very fun and creative map, thank you creator. I'd also would prefer LMB for the toggle, it's not really doing anything else isn't it?