I've uploaded a new map called STARDRIVE. Available in all regions.
If you've played my previous project, Factory Ships, much of this will be familiar to you. Here's the blurb:
Defend your capital ship from attackers by constructing defensive turrets, garrisoning shipboard infantry and launching attack squadrons. A choose-your-own adventure game with many different paths and ways to play.
Please leave bugs, feedback, suggestions, ideas, etc. This map is a work in progress.
This map can be played solo if you wish, so learn/play at your own pace! Separate tutorial level coming soon.
It was insanely difficult. It took us some 5 tries to even beat the first level. There were so many enemy units on the second level that it didn't actually seem possible.
We tried full economy builds, full attack builds, and basically everything inbetween.
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THE FOLLOWING IS HONEST FEEDBACK. DON'T READ ON IF YOU JUST WANT PRAISE.
-
1) What's the point of having 3 different economy units? 2 of them are just plain identical (costs double, harvests double), and all 3 do the same thing. Seems easier to just have all SCVs.
2) The repair structures are atrocious. Not only are they really ineffective, but they often get "stuck" healing free fighters over expensive turrets. Same goes for the battlecruiser hero's repair beam.
3) There doesn't appear to be any way to find out how much damage the "marines" that you buy for the bunkers deal.
4) The upgrade for the strike turret costs as much as 3 extra strike turrets, but doesn't even give a bonus greater than a single strike turret.
5) The hydralisks in the drop pods will often just stand there doing nothing if there's nothing for them to attack.
6) Is there a gameplay reason for having vespene as a 2nd resource? It would appear to me that it's purpose could easily just be baked into minerals.
7) I don't know if it's just me, but I hate having camera control taken away from me, especially when it's not for a good reason. The cutscenes are barely on the side of "not annoying" the first time you see them. After a few tries, they become just plain annoying.
8) It'd be nice if your units got repaired after each stage. It kinda sucks to get thrown into the next level when your ship is burning down.
9) On that note, and probably a larger change, it'd be even nicer if destroyed structures got rebuilt for free after each stage. Takes some of the headache away.
That's probably all the issues I could see from playing. I only spent about an hour with it though.
Which destination were you going to those first 5 times you were getting slaughtered? The Zerg stages ramp up slower than the other ones.
Re: feedback
1 ) Why 3 econ units? Each unit returns a different amount of minerals, the SCV is 5, Nomad is 10 (just fixed), and the Crazyhorse is 15. The longer term idea with the Nomads is that they will also be used for long-distance harvesting of special wave resources, but for now they are essentially just a SCV+.
2 ) Healing Priority: This was recently fixed, healing turrets will now only autocast on structures. Fighters and your Battlecruiser may be healed manually. This should help with Protoss and Space Pirate waves especially.
3 ) Gauss Rifle damage now mentioned on the tooltip (8 dmg).
4) Shrike Turret upgrade is now more modestly priced to encourage use. Mine Nodes too.
5 ) Dopey Hydralisks: The Zerg wave drop pod spawners aren't fixed yet but the Primal Zerg wave now has a first pass at a replacement drop pod spawner that scales with the number of active CCs.
6 ) Why Vespene? The costs could just as easily be baked into minerals like you said, but I do like the idea of two resources. Vespene costs have been reduced all around until it is a little easier to acquire.
7 ) Cutscenes: yeah, I see how they can become tiresome the 10th, 40th time you see them... my immediate plan is to make the cutscenes shorter and shorter the deeper into destination depth you get, meaning later stages would generally just be an establishing shot of a few seconds and then back into gameplay. Do you mean specifically having your zoom level readjusted each time? I'm not sure how but I could probably save that via trigger.
8 ) The Stardrive already gets temp invulnerability during cutscenes. Now that healing turrets are more effective this may not be much of an issue anymore, but I could just give everything invulnerability if it is really a problem.
9 ) Maybe with an upgrade at some later stage, but probably not by default.
Woohoo! Looks like people are liking it, even if there are still bugs and placeholders.
I've made a lot of changes recently and will continue to do so over the next few months - if anyone else has more feedback I'd love to hear it. Suggestions for balance tweaks, new encounters, etc. I'm open to it all. Especially things you dislike about the map.
-onw more type of worker (lightning projector) harvests minerals without having to return to cc ( 0.5 mins per second - or 0.25)
-being able to build shrike turrets on bunkers
-having the barracks deploy reapers like the truck shop did in factory ships- except with an upgrade system like fighters with reaper recruits,reapers, and merc reapers
reaper recruit could use the reapernojet model
overrall gameplay is fun - but could be better with a dificulty option
Be sure to check out the extension mod: Hots Custom Map support on NA and EU, Despite the name it greatly expands the roster of options for the default 3 races and is updated all the way to NCO.
I agree that the difficulty could use some tightening up. The boss on the 2nd level is insane. Far, far more difficult than the waves before him.
I also suspect that there's something odd going on with player balancing. I've tried it with 2 of us for every match so far, and we've consistently failed to beat the 3rd boss (the space whale).
However, we joined a public game with 2 randoms. They did nothing, and quickly left. We went on to easily beat the 3rd boss without any effort.
I think the fault lies with Point Defense Drones. They're very important for taking down the bosses, and when you have 4 bcs, you just plain get more of them.
Perhaps making it so that when you claim an empty command center, you also gain access to an empty battlecruiser too?
-onw more type of worker (lightning projector) harvests minerals without having to return to cc ( 0.5 mins per second - or 0.25)
-being able to build shrike turrets on bunkers
-having the barracks deploy reapers like the truck shop did in factory ships- except with an upgrade system like fighters with reaper recruits,reapers, and merc reapers
reaper recruit could use the reapernojet model
overrall gameplay is fun - but could be better with a dificulty option
I could probably add another mineral harvesting upgrade (another vespene upgrade is going to happen for sure), although there are some phase-specific harvesting units planned for future destinations.
Bunkers won't be getting Shrike turrets since the model doesn't face the correct direction when the bunkers on the sides of the ship fire (it looks really dumb), but there will be another bunker addon similar to the shrike soon, possibly something that fires a beam.
Good idea - I had been considering adding Reapers, but not sure if it will be part of the infantry yet, or a special 'wave' of (flying) Reapers that you can launch from the shipyard. I may just make it so that you can upgrade your infantry like you mentioned though...
I have been toying with ideas of how to give players an 'easier' mode, the most simple being that if selected you would just start with additional resources.
I agree that the difficulty could use some tightening up. The boss on the 2nd level is insane. Far, far more difficult than the waves before him.
I also suspect that there's something odd going on with player balancing. I've tried it with 2 of us for every match so far, and we've consistently failed to beat the 3rd boss (the space whale).
However, we joined a public game with 2 randoms. They did nothing, and quickly left. We went on to easily beat the 3rd boss without any effort.
I think the fault lies with Point Defense Drones. They're very important for taking down the bosses, and when you have 4 bcs, you just plain get more of them.
Perhaps making it so that when you claim an empty command center, you also gain access to an empty battlecruiser too?
Which boss, which wave? Since you can choose where to go in which order it can vary which boss is #2. Keep in mind that the bosses are active the entire anchor phase but only move towards the Stardrive near the end... you can direct your fighters to attack near them earlier on and whittle them down if you have trouble killing them after they start moving.
Balancing goes off of the number of active CCs, 1 set of spawns per CC, so you will have 4x as many units being spawned if there are 4 active CCs. Boss life is also determined by the number of active CCs. Off the top of my head I believe the formula is something like: Number of active CCs * (number of phases seen * 2000). Those extra BCs for players that leave the game should be getting despawned, and will be in a future update.
Going to work on a separate tutorial level this weekend which should help to get new users up to speed. I already have the 'training ship' competed, just need to hook up all the triggers and cameras.
Various stuff, in no particular order. Mostly bug fixes/balance issues.
1) Tooltips are wrong on about 90% of everything. I don't think it'd even help to list the wrong ones, because I don't know which ones are right.
2) Cerberus cruisers say they deal 80 damage per shot. It's actually about 12.
3) Spawning 6 hydralisks at the start of the game on top of the stardrive is just cruel.
4) Gamebreaking. The game pauses during the end of level score screen. You can purchase multiple upgrades during this period, and the cost won't increase. For example, you can get all 4 vespene upgrades for 300 each (1200 total).
4) Fighters are just bad. They're really, really bad. At no point are they a good investment, and their cost becomes insane as you level them up.
5) Protoss units all lack death animations.
6) The 7000hp swarm guardians are just not fun. They're not really overpowered, they're just needlessly durable. They also come from a really strange angle.
7) Gamebreaking. The diamondbacks have far too much hp. Even if you spend the entire game preparing for nothing but the diamondbacks, you will still lose. Also the bottom-right side diamondback spawn is just plain lame. You have to know it's coming to defend against it, and even then, there's no space to really build up there. 8) Semi-gamebreaking. Fighters disappear off-screen after their route is complete. I imagine that this is intended, but it's still very silly. They should go after the remaining objectives, or at least attack the nearest unit.
9) Speaking of which, it'd be nice if there were an option to just have fighters attack whatever is close, rather than an attack path.
10) The void seeker boss's attack is completely ruined by PDDs. While all bosses are, this one is especially vulnerable. Pretty much a single PDD will shut the boss down long enough to kill it.
11) Losing a BC level on BC death feels painful. Investing vespene in your BC is already less value than investing it in turrets, and you're doubly punished if you lose it. I'd rather just see a longer respawn time, or perhaps just having your BC be revived at the start of each level.
12) I don't really understand the point of the science vessels. Are they just for vision?
13) Engines don't seem to have a reason for existing. Losing all your engines has apparently no gameplay impact.
14) Gamebreaking. You can attack your ally's units. If you want to be a jerk, you can happily blow up your own stardrive. This shouldn't be possible, because if the map ever becomes a page 1 mainstay, this will become a real issue.
I like the map. It's fun and replayable. It needs polish though, a LOT of polish. The diamondback issue has sucked the fun out of it for me right now though. The level feels so impossible that it's barely worth trying to beat it. Even with a ship that is made to do nothing but counter the diamondbacks, you will still get swamped with them and lose by shear volume of units.
New version on NA (EDIT: all regions) now, partial changelist:
1) Values for damage, life, etc all need to be updated for pretty much every unit, but if you find a tooltip that is clearly wrong in its content or description (like it lists a manifest for a Banshee squadron even though it is on a turret or something) those are helpful to have reported.
3) No hydralisks will spawn at the Stardrive for Braxis Alpha and fewer will spawn now for Asteroid Belt. Mini Banelings now spawn on Asteroid Belt instead of the full size ones. Ultralisks no longer spawn.
4a) Command Center and Starport now have a 1 queue instead of a 5 queue, which should address this. Good find.
4b) Fighters now cost less to upgrade but spawn slightly less frequently. Should also help with framerate on later stages.
7) Yeah, the Pirate spawners were bad. Debris Field has been reworked a bit, but will likely need additional changes. Diamondback range reduced by 1, health reduced, damage bonus against heroic units cut in half.
9) Destination-specific route paths for objectives that don't neatly fit onto one of the 4 paths is likely. To be able to direct the fighters over to the Starbase on Debris Field for example.
11) Battlecruisers no longer lose a level when destroyed unless level 4 or higher.
12) Just for vision of the asteroid belt, but a revealer could work just as well I suppose. More will be happening there eventually.
13) Losing an engine or a Stabilizer will now deal some damage to the Stardrive. Additionally, during mobile phases your Stardrive will take periodic damage that scales with the number of missing engines (10 /sec per missing engine).
14) Will be changed at some point to prevent griefing.
1) Values for damage, life, etc all need to be updated for pretty much every unit, but if you find a tooltip that is clearly wrong in its content or description (like it lists a manifest for a Banshee squadron even though it is on a turret or something) those are helpful to have reported.
Just a short note: You know, you can directly link e.g. effect damage values in button-texts? So there wont be the need to manually update them.
I don't think I'll be adding turrets near the Stardrive since that's what infantry are for, they can be moved right up next to it. Infantry not being very good will be addressed with more upgrades.
RE: running out of nodes - I've got about 30 more defense nodes that will show up on the 'hammerhead' section of the ship at the front once it is built. Still trying to figure out where to plug all that in though, if it can be built from the start, or only at a new 'Space Station' or Shipyard type destination. (I think the cheat 'hammerhead on' will still work if you try it in a solo game. It has also been included by default in a few past publishes on accident, so if you saw that - that's the plan for it.
RE: relentless attack waves - I kind of like that behavior from the Zerg, but I would definitely like to make the Protoss and Pirate waves less of an all-out swarm and more about strategy and 'smarter' spawns. I think I may have found a way to hide the second ship though so (if successful) that will open up a lot of space for more interesting encounters instead of just having all the objectives directly in front of you all the time.
7) Yeah, the Pirate spawners were bad. Debris Field has been reworked a bit, but will likely need additional changes. Diamondback range reduced by 1, health reduced, damage bonus against heroic units cut in half.
That minimap. Is this what it was reworked to be?
Because you play for one hour with spawns coming from the same place. Then suddenly, the rules are completely changed and they bypass every single structure you built.
The last level is even more impossible now than it was before.
Nope, that is unintended behavior. Debris Field spawners should be moving from the front of the ship to the rear and then to the Stardrive. This change is live now. There are also some enemies that spawn from the rear and move back and forth between the rear areas, but depending on the new difficulty their spawn rate will likely be reduced.
New destination 'Stardock' has been added. This is a neutral destination with no enemies that you can go to where all destroyed Stabilizers and Engines will be rebuilt and all units will have their health restored. This destination costs vespene to go to and all active players can contribute towards the cost.
Stardock rewards vespene after completing it. You can spend 20 vespene, and receive 150+. Would suggest halting mining and giving no rewards for the Stardock. It'd also be nice if you could just stay forever in the Stardock, and only start to leave when someone picks a new destination. Lastly, overlords spawn in the Stardock. Doubt this is intended. I've not tried, but I'd wager that the Stardock also contributes to the setting you have that increases the strength of objectives based on the amount of locations you've visited - it probably shouldn't do that.
Would like to see some Stardock-only upgrades available for purcahase. The truck stop's command card also appears to still be from Factory Ships.
The Corona level is just dumb, from what I can gather. Unless I'm seriously missing something. I can't for the life of me find where "fire protection" is. Fire-suppression doesn't work.
The spaceworm level should probably have some minion spawns, and should probably not have those nydus worms on your ship. It's pretty easy to enter this level without a clue what is coming, only to find out that you have next to no mineral income to react to what you're seeing. It's not a hard level when you know what's coming, but it's offputting the first time.
Space pirates level is too easy now. Needs a boss.
The "fight your rival ship" level (Antiga Shipyard?) is bugged. All command centres are invisible, as is the Stardrive. In addition, the AI appears to be enemies with the NPC defenders, causing the invisible defending marauders to attack their defending marines. Still, the stardrive is hidden, so you can't actually win the level.
Lastly, can't say I'm a fan of the "bar system" you use for tooltips. I mean, what's 5 bars of life mean? 3 bars of attack? 8 bars of range? Rather just see "500 life. 30 dps. 11 range." etc, but that's just personal preference.
I'd consider just removing the ability to claim the extra command centers. It's a total noob-trap. It seems like it'd be positive to claim them, but it just secretly ups the difficulty.
I'd recommend testing every unit too and making sure it has the proper death animations. Many of the units, protoss especially, either have no, or the wrong death animation.
I don't see what role the "medivac bay" serves.
I like the map. Sounds negative but we've still sunk a good 15-20 hours into it, which I think says a lot. It just needs a lot of polish and small gameplay changes to get new players interested.
Hello -
I've uploaded a new map called STARDRIVE. Available in all regions.
If you've played my previous project, Factory Ships, much of this will be familiar to you. Here's the blurb:
Defend your capital ship from attackers by constructing defensive turrets, garrisoning shipboard infantry and launching attack squadrons. A choose-your-own adventure game with many different paths and ways to play.
Please leave bugs, feedback, suggestions, ideas, etc. This map is a work in progress.
This map can be played solo if you wish, so learn/play at your own pace! Separate tutorial level coming soon.
Game Link:
starcraft://map/1/214245
Tried it with 2 of us.
It was insanely difficult. It took us some 5 tries to even beat the first level. There were so many enemy units on the second level that it didn't actually seem possible.
We tried full economy builds, full attack builds, and basically everything inbetween.
-
THE FOLLOWING IS HONEST FEEDBACK. DON'T READ ON IF YOU JUST WANT PRAISE.
-
1) What's the point of having 3 different economy units? 2 of them are just plain identical (costs double, harvests double), and all 3 do the same thing. Seems easier to just have all SCVs.
2) The repair structures are atrocious. Not only are they really ineffective, but they often get "stuck" healing free fighters over expensive turrets. Same goes for the battlecruiser hero's repair beam.
3) There doesn't appear to be any way to find out how much damage the "marines" that you buy for the bunkers deal.
4) The upgrade for the strike turret costs as much as 3 extra strike turrets, but doesn't even give a bonus greater than a single strike turret.
5) The hydralisks in the drop pods will often just stand there doing nothing if there's nothing for them to attack.
6) Is there a gameplay reason for having vespene as a 2nd resource? It would appear to me that it's purpose could easily just be baked into minerals.
7) I don't know if it's just me, but I hate having camera control taken away from me, especially when it's not for a good reason. The cutscenes are barely on the side of "not annoying" the first time you see them. After a few tries, they become just plain annoying.
8) It'd be nice if your units got repaired after each stage. It kinda sucks to get thrown into the next level when your ship is burning down.
9) On that note, and probably a larger change, it'd be even nicer if destroyed structures got rebuilt for free after each stage. Takes some of the headache away.
That's probably all the issues I could see from playing. I only spent about an hour with it though.
Which destination were you going to those first 5 times you were getting slaughtered? The Zerg stages ramp up slower than the other ones.
Re: feedback
1 ) Why 3 econ units? Each unit returns a different amount of minerals, the SCV is 5, Nomad is 10 (just fixed), and the Crazyhorse is 15. The longer term idea with the Nomads is that they will also be used for long-distance harvesting of special wave resources, but for now they are essentially just a SCV+.
2 ) Healing Priority: This was recently fixed, healing turrets will now only autocast on structures. Fighters and your Battlecruiser may be healed manually. This should help with Protoss and Space Pirate waves especially.
3 ) Gauss Rifle damage now mentioned on the tooltip (8 dmg).
4) Shrike Turret upgrade is now more modestly priced to encourage use. Mine Nodes too.
5 ) Dopey Hydralisks: The Zerg wave drop pod spawners aren't fixed yet but the Primal Zerg wave now has a first pass at a replacement drop pod spawner that scales with the number of active CCs.
6 ) Why Vespene? The costs could just as easily be baked into minerals like you said, but I do like the idea of two resources. Vespene costs have been reduced all around until it is a little easier to acquire.
7 ) Cutscenes: yeah, I see how they can become tiresome the 10th, 40th time you see them... my immediate plan is to make the cutscenes shorter and shorter the deeper into destination depth you get, meaning later stages would generally just be an establishing shot of a few seconds and then back into gameplay. Do you mean specifically having your zoom level readjusted each time? I'm not sure how but I could probably save that via trigger.
8 ) The Stardrive already gets temp invulnerability during cutscenes. Now that healing turrets are more effective this may not be much of an issue anymore, but I could just give everything invulnerability if it is really a problem.
9 ) Maybe with an upgrade at some later stage, but probably not by default.
Edit: Oh yeah, thanks for the feedback!
Stardrive hit page 1 on EU if you're interested! Grats!
@TyaStarcraft: Go
Woohoo! Looks like people are liking it, even if there are still bugs and placeholders.
I've made a lot of changes recently and will continue to do so over the next few months - if anyone else has more feedback I'd love to hear it. Suggestions for balance tweaks, new encounters, etc. I'm open to it all. Especially things you dislike about the map.
-onw more type of worker (lightning projector) harvests minerals without having to return to cc ( 0.5 mins per second - or 0.25)
-being able to build shrike turrets on bunkers
-having the barracks deploy reapers like the truck shop did in factory ships- except with an upgrade system like fighters with reaper recruits,reapers, and merc reapers
reaper recruit could use the reapernojet model
overrall gameplay is fun - but could be better with a dificulty option
http://www.sc2mapster.com/assets/nolanstars-textures/
Be sure to check out the extension mod: Hots Custom Map support on NA and EU, Despite the name it greatly expands the roster of options for the default 3 races and is updated all the way to NCO.
I agree that the difficulty could use some tightening up. The boss on the 2nd level is insane. Far, far more difficult than the waves before him.
I also suspect that there's something odd going on with player balancing. I've tried it with 2 of us for every match so far, and we've consistently failed to beat the 3rd boss (the space whale).
However, we joined a public game with 2 randoms. They did nothing, and quickly left. We went on to easily beat the 3rd boss without any effort.
I think the fault lies with Point Defense Drones. They're very important for taking down the bosses, and when you have 4 bcs, you just plain get more of them.
Perhaps making it so that when you claim an empty command center, you also gain access to an empty battlecruiser too?
I could probably add another mineral harvesting upgrade (another vespene upgrade is going to happen for sure), although there are some phase-specific harvesting units planned for future destinations.
Bunkers won't be getting Shrike turrets since the model doesn't face the correct direction when the bunkers on the sides of the ship fire (it looks really dumb), but there will be another bunker addon similar to the shrike soon, possibly something that fires a beam.
Good idea - I had been considering adding Reapers, but not sure if it will be part of the infantry yet, or a special 'wave' of (flying) Reapers that you can launch from the shipyard. I may just make it so that you can upgrade your infantry like you mentioned though...
I have been toying with ideas of how to give players an 'easier' mode, the most simple being that if selected you would just start with additional resources.
Which boss, which wave? Since you can choose where to go in which order it can vary which boss is #2. Keep in mind that the bosses are active the entire anchor phase but only move towards the Stardrive near the end... you can direct your fighters to attack near them earlier on and whittle them down if you have trouble killing them after they start moving.
Balancing goes off of the number of active CCs, 1 set of spawns per CC, so you will have 4x as many units being spawned if there are 4 active CCs. Boss life is also determined by the number of active CCs. Off the top of my head I believe the formula is something like: Number of active CCs * (number of phases seen * 2000). Those extra BCs for players that leave the game should be getting despawned, and will be in a future update.
bug report:
respawned battlecruiser's plot armor buff doesn't count down. i had to play through missions with a battlecruiser that can't shoot.
@caparosmith: Go
Shit, I know exactly what that is. Fix will be deployed tonight.
@Trieva: Go
Going to work on a separate tutorial level this weekend which should help to get new users up to speed. I already have the 'training ship' competed, just need to hook up all the triggers and cameras.
Various stuff, in no particular order. Mostly bug fixes/balance issues.
1) Tooltips are wrong on about 90% of everything. I don't think it'd even help to list the wrong ones, because I don't know which ones are right.
2) Cerberus cruisers say they deal 80 damage per shot. It's actually about 12.
3) Spawning 6 hydralisks at the start of the game on top of the stardrive is just cruel.
4) Gamebreaking. The game pauses during the end of level score screen. You can purchase multiple upgrades during this period, and the cost won't increase. For example, you can get all 4 vespene upgrades for 300 each (1200 total).
4) Fighters are just bad. They're really, really bad. At no point are they a good investment, and their cost becomes insane as you level them up.
5) Protoss units all lack death animations.
6) The 7000hp swarm guardians are just not fun. They're not really overpowered, they're just needlessly durable. They also come from a really strange angle.
7) Gamebreaking. The diamondbacks have far too much hp. Even if you spend the entire game preparing for nothing but the diamondbacks, you will still lose. Also the bottom-right side diamondback spawn is just plain lame. You have to know it's coming to defend against it, and even then, there's no space to really build up there.
8) Semi-gamebreaking. Fighters disappear off-screen after their route is complete. I imagine that this is intended, but it's still very silly. They should go after the remaining objectives, or at least attack the nearest unit.
9) Speaking of which, it'd be nice if there were an option to just have fighters attack whatever is close, rather than an attack path.
10) The void seeker boss's attack is completely ruined by PDDs. While all bosses are, this one is especially vulnerable. Pretty much a single PDD will shut the boss down long enough to kill it.
11) Losing a BC level on BC death feels painful. Investing vespene in your BC is already less value than investing it in turrets, and you're doubly punished if you lose it. I'd rather just see a longer respawn time, or perhaps just having your BC be revived at the start of each level.
12) I don't really understand the point of the science vessels. Are they just for vision?
13) Engines don't seem to have a reason for existing. Losing all your engines has apparently no gameplay impact.
14) Gamebreaking. You can attack your ally's units. If you want to be a jerk, you can happily blow up your own stardrive. This shouldn't be possible, because if the map ever becomes a page 1 mainstay, this will become a real issue.
I like the map. It's fun and replayable. It needs polish though, a LOT of polish. The diamondback issue has sucked the fun out of it for me right now though. The level feels so impossible that it's barely worth trying to beat it. Even with a ship that is made to do nothing but counter the diamondbacks, you will still get swamped with them and lose by shear volume of units.
New version on NA (EDIT: all regions) now, partial changelist:
1) Values for damage, life, etc all need to be updated for pretty much every unit, but if you find a tooltip that is clearly wrong in its content or description (like it lists a manifest for a Banshee squadron even though it is on a turret or something) those are helpful to have reported.
3) No hydralisks will spawn at the Stardrive for Braxis Alpha and fewer will spawn now for Asteroid Belt. Mini Banelings now spawn on Asteroid Belt instead of the full size ones. Ultralisks no longer spawn.
4a) Command Center and Starport now have a 1 queue instead of a 5 queue, which should address this. Good find.
4b) Fighters now cost less to upgrade but spawn slightly less frequently. Should also help with framerate on later stages.
7) Yeah, the Pirate spawners were bad. Debris Field has been reworked a bit, but will likely need additional changes. Diamondback range reduced by 1, health reduced, damage bonus against heroic units cut in half.
9) Destination-specific route paths for objectives that don't neatly fit onto one of the 4 paths is likely. To be able to direct the fighters over to the Starbase on Debris Field for example.
11) Battlecruisers no longer lose a level when destroyed unless level 4 or higher.
12) Just for vision of the asteroid belt, but a revealer could work just as well I suppose. More will be happening there eventually.
13) Losing an engine or a Stabilizer will now deal some damage to the Stardrive. Additionally, during mobile phases your Stardrive will take periodic damage that scales with the number of missing engines (10 /sec per missing engine).
14) Will be changed at some point to prevent griefing.
Just a short note: You know, you can directly link e.g. effect damage values in button-texts? So there wont be the need to manually update them.
I can certainly see how you'd run out of space toward the end with 4 players.
Some turrets near the stardrive would be grand.
I don't think I'll be adding turrets near the Stardrive since that's what infantry are for, they can be moved right up next to it. Infantry not being very good will be addressed with more upgrades.
RE: running out of nodes - I've got about 30 more defense nodes that will show up on the 'hammerhead' section of the ship at the front once it is built. Still trying to figure out where to plug all that in though, if it can be built from the start, or only at a new 'Space Station' or Shipyard type destination. (I think the cheat 'hammerhead on' will still work if you try it in a solo game. It has also been included by default in a few past publishes on accident, so if you saw that - that's the plan for it.
RE: relentless attack waves - I kind of like that behavior from the Zerg, but I would definitely like to make the Protoss and Pirate waves less of an all-out swarm and more about strategy and 'smarter' spawns. I think I may have found a way to hide the second ship though so (if successful) that will open up a lot of space for more interesting encounters instead of just having all the objectives directly in front of you all the time.
Duplicate post.
That minimap. Is this what it was reworked to be?
Because you play for one hour with spawns coming from the same place. Then suddenly, the rules are completely changed and they bypass every single structure you built.
The last level is even more impossible now than it was before.
Nope, that is unintended behavior. Debris Field spawners should be moving from the front of the ship to the rear and then to the Stardrive. This change is live now. There are also some enemies that spawn from the rear and move back and forth between the rear areas, but depending on the new difficulty their spawn rate will likely be reduced.
New destination 'Stardock' has been added. This is a neutral destination with no enemies that you can go to where all destroyed Stabilizers and Engines will be rebuilt and all units will have their health restored. This destination costs vespene to go to and all active players can contribute towards the cost.
Seems fixed!
Stardock rewards vespene after completing it. You can spend 20 vespene, and receive 150+. Would suggest halting mining and giving no rewards for the Stardock. It'd also be nice if you could just stay forever in the Stardock, and only start to leave when someone picks a new destination. Lastly, overlords spawn in the Stardock. Doubt this is intended. I've not tried, but I'd wager that the Stardock also contributes to the setting you have that increases the strength of objectives based on the amount of locations you've visited - it probably shouldn't do that.
Would like to see some Stardock-only upgrades available for purcahase. The truck stop's command card also appears to still be from Factory Ships.
The Corona level is just dumb, from what I can gather. Unless I'm seriously missing something. I can't for the life of me find where "fire protection" is. Fire-suppression doesn't work.
The spaceworm level should probably have some minion spawns, and should probably not have those nydus worms on your ship. It's pretty easy to enter this level without a clue what is coming, only to find out that you have next to no mineral income to react to what you're seeing. It's not a hard level when you know what's coming, but it's offputting the first time.
Space pirates level is too easy now. Needs a boss.
The "fight your rival ship" level (Antiga Shipyard?) is bugged. All command centres are invisible, as is the Stardrive. In addition, the AI appears to be enemies with the NPC defenders, causing the invisible defending marauders to attack their defending marines. Still, the stardrive is hidden, so you can't actually win the level.
Lastly, can't say I'm a fan of the "bar system" you use for tooltips. I mean, what's 5 bars of life mean? 3 bars of attack? 8 bars of range? Rather just see "500 life. 30 dps. 11 range." etc, but that's just personal preference.
I'd consider just removing the ability to claim the extra command centers. It's a total noob-trap. It seems like it'd be positive to claim them, but it just secretly ups the difficulty.
I'd recommend testing every unit too and making sure it has the proper death animations. Many of the units, protoss especially, either have no, or the wrong death animation.
I don't see what role the "medivac bay" serves.
I like the map. Sounds negative but we've still sunk a good 15-20 hours into it, which I think says a lot. It just needs a lot of polish and small gameplay changes to get new players interested.