Custom Map #3041: VPAC Frontal Assault. By: Vertu

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This topic is for discussion of map #3041: VPAC Frontal Assault


Author: Vertu
Size: 256x160

[Vertu]

Fact: My mission time was mostly out of having fun rather than speed running as I would normally have.

Please provide suggestions for the name of the new unit. Even after a week or maybe even 2 of developing this map, still got nothing.
Also I am welcoming any opinions for the Launcher's veterancy system.

Also play hardcore at your own risk lol. It gets quite insane.
Hope you all enjoyed! I even managed to take out the Reactor Fighter. Forgot to update it's retreat AI to retreat before it's shields went down before abandoning the defense.

Also known bug: While having the <Needs to be named> Sniper selected upon it being destroyed, the range visual is stuck active. I have tried fixing it but it seems my current "fix" has failed and I was happy with the last playtest.

[ikkonoishi]

Maybe Lancer?

[Vertu]

That is actually a really good one.
But this is only the first.

[Brila]

Ok beat it in 2 hours because of my habid to do it mostly mit adv. emitters, the synergies with the enemy rocket is to good. :D
i like the change for the launcher, but i think you can too easy overwhelm the defences with them and one lucky hit with our rocket and its game over.

Well, you want a name for the sniper, but i do not know. "Don't-do-a-lot", maybe? Also to be fair, he does something, i used it to break the defense on the first wall, but that didn't help me at all. I tried to use it in front, but it can not pierce shields and dies quickly. For defense maybe? Well, the enemy fighter(s) ignored the damage from it and for incoming bullets, its way to weak and slow. Oh and the short range does not help at all. I didn't try it on that big ship, because on that point he arrives, the map is mostly over and it didn't matter anymore. 

So, see you in the next one.

[Vertu]

Lancers actually do go through shields. They have to drain the ammo first. A good combo is to target only shields so TCMLs can get in though at the same time, they seem to wipe out everything if they can get that close. They have more range than the normal sniper (a reluctant design choice though in practice it was needed due the the sniper's firing height advantage) and are actually good AA due to their consistent damage (not by any means a replacement for the SAMs) when you get like 4. Also helps how they can chase retreating units. But yes, my big worry for the launcher is how much they can stack but at the same time, you took 2 in-game hours so it may be fine.

Maybe I should add bonus damage to shield towers (fact: Lancers deal bonus damage to Towers due to how easily they can be rebuilt). Basically how the Lancer works against shields is, if an enemy is under a shield, the damage will nick at their ammo. If the ammo is depleted, damage the unit. This means that entrenched towers and Pylons will actually be more meaningful as the biggest issue for the Lancer is it's need to hit the target's foundation/center (due to how unit detection works obviously) and is why it has more range than Snipers as snipers can easily hit the Lancer without the Lancer having Line Of Sight.

As for the health, that is too something I am looking at. It got buffed twice in the making, one in actual health, second in health regen. I will probably increase it's maximum HP further and add its health % in the UI at that point, maybe also increase range a tad bit, and add increased damage to Shield towers (since I don't want to say "Shield" as that would include the actual "shield" rather than the unit called "shield").

Or even a further change: Add a 2nd type of range which is for stunning. Rather than damage, it's a stun. Which is somewhat the original idea of the Lancer. A long-range laser that can stun shields for TCMs to then destroy.

Also for some reason, the Lancer has a hard time shooting missiles. It's probably due to how "movement" works in computers. The missile 'teleports" to the next position which then the Lancer needs to aim at but by then, it has "teleported" again. This was a massive issue when the Rockets moved faster. I reduced said rocket speed from the rocket launchers but when the Lancer starts to rotate to missiles about to land, it gets stuck trying to aim at missiles that are about to land over and over again. This may need prioritization logic.

Thanks for the feedback.

To put it bluntly, the Battleship is not meant to be killable, (though it will retreat when under 100 health. Yes, when under only 100 health).

[Brila]

Ok 1:03H with 27 launcher. Once you reach 20 and they leveled up a bit, they shred everything in there way. Around 25 Launcher you hit the Riftlab and every launcher after that point is a free hit. I think that is the strat for the 0:30H record.

[Snicker]

Still enjoying all the maps. My plays are on hardest, just for reference.

The "Lancer" does have a nice ring to it,  but something simple like gunner or shooter is more apt then "Sniper". With 3 Lancers on my first fun run ( ~2 hours) i was able to gain ground north. The mid snipers had huge range so i didnt use them after that. i didnt want to send them in those fights because of the reclaim time and the fact that you cant make more then one for 3-5 mins.  What i did like about them was the small rocket defense they provided when at base. With 3 Lancers and placing them out to the missiles target site did make them some what useful. But when the Battleship was coming  i stuck with AA to take out fighters. i didnt bother with killing the Battleship this map since only TCML can hit the thing and they take like a 100 missile hits with 40 shooting at the same time. Would love to the longer range stun on it or shield bonus damage.  but the Launcher vet does make shields  more viable as a target now

I also like  the Launchers vet upgrades. Even in on my speed run i built a few early early to gain some ground later.  it feels fair atm but i havent tried anything weird yet. i normally dont bother with them but at the 20 min mark i got the power low enough to spam blobs at the Lab. Even with selling every thing and making 20 more Launchers didnt improve my time more than a minute. i submitted 24:04 with 9 full vet launchers, but got like 23:20 with the additional 20. Point is the vet levels make them valuable if you can invest the time.

Stash faster start is great for this level.

[Vertu]

Seems that "Lancer" is going to be the name of it. Very great first suggestion lol.
Nice to know all of the balance decisions have worked well in your case. In my run of not speed running, I had TCMs take out the Vet Sniper past the Prestige Blaster and Sprayer wall so the Lancers could continue being useful. Also yes that is what those icons mean. Here is the rundown of them:

• The green icon is an AutoERN. Just that unit but with the power of the ERN.
• Red is Veteran. The unit has ERN power and increased range, packet request rate, health, and ammo. Custom units gain more direct changes like increased damage.
• White/Platinum is Prestige which is Vet but upscaled in every way and custom units gain a special effect when Prestiged unless they are simple like the Blasters.

I can also say that I will be committing to the 2nd range idea for stunning units with the Lancer.
Will also most certainly alter the destroy time of the stash based on what kind of stash it placed. More for the sake of convenience as the time is entirely based on how long a maximum Stash takes to recharge so you can't cheese the timer by destroying and replacing the Stash.

Also, well done in your speed run!

Casual reminder that the Battleships is not meant to be killable and apparently you where nutso enough to try bombarding it with 100 TCMs so I may need to add behavior for it it does go down even while retreating. Also little fun fact: That battleship model was utterly LITTERED with point defense laser cannons but the amount of independent guns, objects, and units that would of been added to include the point defense would most certainly be too much for CW4 to handle. Also it actually is not fully finished. It is missing one weapon type which it should have like 30 weapons of though thankfully, all they need is an added object just to provide the firing location relative to the ship and a simple script along with many new timers in the Battleship script. Though I will most certainly be doing VPAC changes as priority.

[Vertu]

In case this personal message was a name recommendation I have copied it and placed it here.

i was thinking the C.A.P. or creeper assault platform

Although alright, "Creeper" would refer to the actual fluid thing while the Lancer shoots a laser. It also has no properties that indicate anything related to a platform as platforms have large surface area as to be space to put things onto. The Lancer does not have this property.

[Vertu]

At this point, Lancer has been accepted as the official name of the unit.

Maybe Lancer?

Thank you ikkonoishi. As I said in reply, it was a really good first name suggestion and I think everyone agreed including me as we instantly started using "Lancer" when referring to the unit.
It has now been officialized in VPAC-V2.4.0 and onwards.

And for some extra info: (In the next VPAC map, VPAC-V2.4.0 and onwards).

• Stun system now added to Lancer as previously stated. Very angry at how the shield unit can not be stunned even by direct code methods. No idea how it gets stunned by spores. Maybe some hard-code does it. So to workaround, the Lancer stun removes ALL ammo from the shield. In general the stun shot also has a stun radius. This sadly means you would need to remove the connection to the shield to have long-term effect and the connection range of towers is far too large to not cause balancing issues if I where to make it possible to stun anything in connection range to a shield tower. A possible workaround is to make shields "absorb" TCMs rather than instantly destroying them so a shield with low ammo from being hit by a stun shot can't stop a TCM. This however won't work for spores and other such units as they are core-units with built-in reactions to psedoterrain from specifically shields.
• Stash now varies in destruction time based on the created Stash Size for sake of convenience (and balance).

[Freed]

Nice Map - but it got laggy at some point. That´s something I don´t like that much. Anyway - I´ve done it the long way (nearly 1 hour), mainly because I was playing around with the lancer (I still can´t hit a sniper without getting hit by him - dunno why - and I´ve changed hight). after around 30min the rocket hit the north east - that was when I started. Done it without the lancer then (aes + field helps a lot to get behind enemy lines in the north... and after cutting the supply-chains it´s getting really easy).

[Proxy]

Hey Vertu, I just made this account so I could comment here, this map, although quite laggy, was fantastic to play. I've been going through most of your created maps and even the ones with the "bad" or "broken" tags are not deserving of those tags, even playing the older ones and seeing the evolution of VPAC take shape, I found none of them lacking. The effort and care you put into these maps is palpably felt and as a Creeper World veteran since they were just flash games, even the most challenging VPAC maps are fun and enjoyable. Thank you for making these phenomenal maps