Very nice, thanks for the bug reports, fixing the Command Beacons to cap out in a reasonable manner was difficult, took me sometime as there was no easy way to do this the way I wanted, but now it is fixed. Also fixed the attack upgrade bug. Updated difficulty on hard mode.
Closer to bug free? I hope so.
I will check on Stranded on Kydor and see how these objectives are done.
@Abacus142 With the small amount the commander abilities actually does for you, The level should be infinite, you should be able to continually grow him stronger very slowly. Of course each next level is harder to attain than the last.
Sorry haha, it's more convenient to use reply, since i use a touchpad to do everything currently. You're old 'hard' difficulty was able to be beaten by my handicap of no mouse, so it's good it's better. Mission Grants will be way more popular now haha since I'm one of many who are good enough to cheaply use the command beacon advantage. Honestly, last game i had mine to 560 minerals each. Anyway, I think prices should go down for each command beacon destroyed, because it's unfair if they are running off of one, and they can only expand to another if they pay 440 cash.
I still think I am going to stand by my decision to keep the Command Beacon's cost increasing despite losing them all, I still think they should be used conservatively and strategically, not as supply depots for generating income, I want this to be important aspect to the player to not lose those Command Beacons because they are not easily replaced and to not build them carelessly.
@Grimshad, unfortunately there is no way to do infinite levels, I would have to add in every single level, which is a little bit of a pain. For now the cap is 12 but I will likely raise it in the future. I will probably add more abilities to choose from too. Any ideas of what you would like to see?
@AlwaysImagine, I had a number of bugs affecting the exp banks, but to my knowledge they are all gone now and my latest released are fairly stable. I can't guarantee you won't ever lose them again, but I can say things are looking good.
New update out, I added in a tutorial for new players, I don't believe it has bugs and I think I elaborated enough on most aspects to get players started and hopefully hooked, we will see! I also did alot of re-factoring and I think the game should be smoother now. Or at least I can look at the code easier! :)
Other mods have infinite levels. may want to search around on how to do that. xp*multiplier=next level.
I agree on the command beacon thing, I use my command beacons to expand so my commander can acquire energy further out. I know a lot of people use them as $$ sources.
I use them as energy sources, and i use APC's as a method of transportation. It's a cheap way to get economically started, but its gonna be harder for me now that i need mission grant to get anywhere XD. I used to spread my base out, but a small hideout that never gets attacked is a better way of gameplay for me, as I usually secure large amounts of territory with technicians and upgraded skirmishers.
BTW, did you check on the skirmishers' upgrade? It' showed the commando last time i played.
haha I ace'd hard... I think the technician should be able to build stuff on creep, as I envision a tactical technician, building defensive towers on the frontlines of a battle... but the enemy's creep is in the way -_-. For me, I was able to secure 2 ramps with autoturrets from the technician in the first 2 days. Then I just walled in my troops at other ramps and controlled vision. Easy stuff.
I hope you could maybe make something that attracts the natives to a location? or attracts nearby natives? that like your technician could build, which is also invisible. That would be so cheap to use in pvp lol.
*k man its so laggy to solo, and body armor has a messed up description.
THE GUYS ON HARD CLUMP UP ON THE BOTTOM LEFT CORNER
Bugs/Problems:
- A lot of mineral nodes spawn outside of the borders of the playable map. The map pulse indicates that they spawn in the bottom left corner just out of zone.
- Mineral nodes occasionally become hostile and can no longer be mined, only blown up. I'm not positive, but I think this occurs any time a player leaves or is eliminated; existing mineral nodes turn hostile. I'll try to pay more attention to this.
- The APC has a lot of issues navigating through the forest outer part of the map. Especially at the bottom, there are too many trees blocking it and it is unable to get by. Consider removing a lot of the trees or only using a kind that can be walked/driven through.
- Some of the outermost funding centers are in positions where they completely block passage for units larger than infantry.
Suggestions:
- I don't believe the new tutorial explains how you need to purchase units in groups of 12. The #1 question a new player asks is "where are my troops??" followed by "How do I restore my commanders energy?"
- Reduce the price and research time of assault rifle upgrades. Just seems excessive to me, especially when compared to rifle upgrades.
- Greatly reduce the price and research time of body armor upgrades. Body armor doesn't have anywhere near the impact on your units that weapon upgrades do. It just doesn't make much difference whether your guys have 3 armor or 0, so it should be cheaper accordingly.
- Have body armor add 3-5% health per upgrade to make it much more worthwhile. If it already does this and I didn't notice, then I apologize.
- Mech units seem weak for their price. The tank is solid; it is an actual high HP tank. I think the rest of the mech units could use a range boost to make them more effective.
- Heavy infantry could use more health and armor, I think this unit still dies a little too easily even with medics around.
Economy:
- POWERED funding centers do not generate anywhere near enough money. When I started playing this map I would get about 4-5 funding centers and power them, which is very difficult to defend. Sometimes I would make 2 power generators at each funding center to see if that would help. The money flow was awful considering how much it cost to build up and how tough it was to defend. Once I switched to making command beacons I stopped making power generators at all and the game became much easier.
If you want people to stop making command beacons for income, then reduce the amount of income they grant to 3 or 4 per tick. OR make powered funding centers give a lot more cash. A clearer explanation of how power level. army size, and income interact would be helpful. I would prefer something simpler, or at least have army size not annihilate your cash flow from funding centers.
I'm not sure if this is a bug or not, but I feel like it's not intentional. I was playing hard mode and I had built radar sensors at the four ramps that enemies generally use to get to the center of the city. Well, I noticed that there weren't many natives going to the center where my base were and based on where all the red dots were moving, it seems as though the natives were gathering somewhere outside along the edge. After each day, the amount of lag increased, so I sent some troops to do some exploring to see where all the natives were going. It turns out that they all gathered at the lower left corner for some reason... there were well over 500 natives there, not really sure how many exactly. My units were killed and the units just stuck around the corner till daylight and then burrowed. I'm not sure why they all gathered there and did nothing.
Soldiers and armored soldiers are good, but cost too much to upgrade. I prefer long range units because of this, which makes the game too easy.
Armor is never worthwhile, so just moderate all the upgrades to be geniunely the same price, neither is the upgrade for weapons.
The problem is, the pvp isn't worth it, as teamwork is always more worthwhile. Funding centres just seem like something good for beginner players, but people who've played this too many times can say otherwise, that they are too weak, that there's no point to keep recapturing them and all that hassle... make them worth their weight! I got mission grant in the first 6 minutes of the game, and no work is needed to beat hard, standard or long days when you fund yourself with command centres, and use long range weapons almost all the time, since they're the cheapest to upgrade, have good damage and range, and with command beacon money, easy to fund for and provide, as their upgrades are 10 cash.
I'd like to point out to you that you can capture abandoned buildings with your "Capture Funding Centre" ability. KEEP THIS. But make it more obvious that you can do this, because it provides vision (+1) a 'bunker' (+2), and it's not that overpowered because the fire rate is only 15%.
Agreed. Nerf command beacon income. Make it so only the first one provides cash, or at least only the first one provides that much cash. Then buff the funding centers.. ESPECIALLY powered ones. by mid game the natives take your funding centers and it's really not worth taking them back, by the time you get them and get back to your base it's night again and they take them back. You don't have the resources or time to be defending every single funding center you have.
Im sure people on the official forums would help you, or even give you a open source for objects that could help you. I've seen games which are like type -easy for easy or -hard for hard, and Hero siege zeta has a thing the host can choose, while stranded on krydon has a majority vote
Alright, I fixed most of the things mentioned here, I have to head out for errands quickly here but I fixed alot. Copying and pasting from updates on my map:
-Moved things around on map as to make pathing easier for large units.
-Adjustments to research upgrades.
-Decreased amount of possible Command Beacons through non pvp terms and increased their resource tick slightly.
I also believe mineral nodes won't hostile anymore and fixed the bottom left corner thing where they amasses in great numbers. Powered buildings have 1 second less per tick.
Body armor is powerful enough, just needed price adjustments, if you us it you will see how much .75 armor makes a difference. Heavy Weapons, I feel are fine, they rip through armored units and have stim packs. For infantry units that also receive upgrades, I might make them OP for buffing them anymore.
I also like my pre game set up for most of the variables as it doesn't create more clutter at the start nor does it cause more in game variables that could potentially lag slower players. The SC2 doesn't have a garbage collector for used global variables and I can't dispose of them in game so if I use them, they exist all game. So I want to keep things hopefully smooth as possible, a voting system would likely require alot of variables and time on my part to implement. I see that there are better things for me to work on at the moment. If in the future the demand is all the rage, then perhaps.
Mech units and the raiders are quite powerful units, in fact a number of them will and can win the game which is why they are costly. They don't take alot of hits so you should have infantry in there in front of them, Armored Infantry and Heavy Weapons do well to absorb damage.
Lastly on the tutorial I clarified that the units you order will be delivered by dropship after queuing exactly 12 units.
I really hope with reducing the ability to create only 4 command beacons with the mission grant, reliance on Command Beacons will be greatly reduced.
My opinion on economy, revisited:
- It's not just that the command beacons are good, but that powered funding centers don't seem to do hardly anything at all past the early game. I would like to know exactly what powering a funding center does, and how having a higher army size interacts with it. My experience is that once you have past 60ish units, your funding centers will read 0/100 whether you have 0, 1, or 2 power generators by them. Even if you have 4-5 generators at 4-5 funding centers, money will trickle in at a very slow rate.
Power generators
- Cost a lot
- Take a while to build
- Are a high target for enemies
- Are VERY fragile
- If i'm understanding things right, they get less effective as your army size increases
- Give you a pretty small shield bonus
I think a different bonus would go a long way to making power generators better. If your units are being hit at all then they are probably going to be dying whether your have 5-15 more points of shield or not. An armor bonus, attack speed bonus, move speed bonus, or even a penalty to enemies (energy field interferes with the control of the units) in the field would be a better incentive.
Beacons
- Can be massed in one area for easier defense
- Get pretty expensive
- Are not fragile and regen naturally
- Generate a lot of ammo
- Yield a good amount of money
- As far as I know, they generate the same cash whether your army is huge or not.
- Raise your money and ammo cap
It is a monumental effort to power and DEFEND 5 funding centers. The payoff doesn't seem worth it since the money will trickle in once you have a mid size army.
Mech units:
Edit: I took a closer look at the mech and realized I was wrong about the DPS. It is pretty solid for the price. I still prefer units with longer range, but winning with mechs is definitely an option.
I appreciate the work you do on this map. I love holdout maps like this one.
Very nice, thanks for the bug reports, fixing the Command Beacons to cap out in a reasonable manner was difficult, took me sometime as there was no easy way to do this the way I wanted, but now it is fixed. Also fixed the attack upgrade bug. Updated difficulty on hard mode.
Closer to bug free? I hope so.
I will check on Stranded on Kydor and see how these objectives are done.
I was wondering, does your commander exp reset each time you patch the game? It seems like everytime I come back after a break I'm back at lvl 1.
@EaZy > plz learn to use the edit button? :)
@Abacus142 With the small amount the commander abilities actually does for you, The level should be infinite, you should be able to continually grow him stronger very slowly. Of course each next level is harder to attain than the last.
@Grimshad: Go
Sorry haha, it's more convenient to use reply, since i use a touchpad to do everything currently. You're old 'hard' difficulty was able to be beaten by my handicap of no mouse, so it's good it's better. Mission Grants will be way more popular now haha since I'm one of many who are good enough to cheaply use the command beacon advantage. Honestly, last game i had mine to 560 minerals each. Anyway, I think prices should go down for each command beacon destroyed, because it's unfair if they are running off of one, and they can only expand to another if they pay 440 cash.
I still think I am going to stand by my decision to keep the Command Beacon's cost increasing despite losing them all, I still think they should be used conservatively and strategically, not as supply depots for generating income, I want this to be important aspect to the player to not lose those Command Beacons because they are not easily replaced and to not build them carelessly.
@Grimshad, unfortunately there is no way to do infinite levels, I would have to add in every single level, which is a little bit of a pain. For now the cap is 12 but I will likely raise it in the future. I will probably add more abilities to choose from too. Any ideas of what you would like to see?
@AlwaysImagine, I had a number of bugs affecting the exp banks, but to my knowledge they are all gone now and my latest released are fairly stable. I can't guarantee you won't ever lose them again, but I can say things are looking good.
New update out, I added in a tutorial for new players, I don't believe it has bugs and I think I elaborated enough on most aspects to get players started and hopefully hooked, we will see! I also did alot of re-factoring and I think the game should be smoother now. Or at least I can look at the code easier! :)
@Abacus142: Go
Other mods have infinite levels. may want to search around on how to do that. xp*multiplier=next level.
I agree on the command beacon thing, I use my command beacons to expand so my commander can acquire energy further out. I know a lot of people use them as $$ sources.
I use them as energy sources, and i use APC's as a method of transportation. It's a cheap way to get economically started, but its gonna be harder for me now that i need mission grant to get anywhere XD. I used to spread my base out, but a small hideout that never gets attacked is a better way of gameplay for me, as I usually secure large amounts of territory with technicians and upgraded skirmishers.
BTW, did you check on the skirmishers' upgrade? It' showed the commando last time i played.
Grimshad, i love that idea lol, it should save exp every 10 levels you beat, and theres a boss on those levels!
haha I ace'd hard... I think the technician should be able to build stuff on creep, as I envision a tactical technician, building defensive towers on the frontlines of a battle... but the enemy's creep is in the way -_-. For me, I was able to secure 2 ramps with autoturrets from the technician in the first 2 days. Then I just walled in my troops at other ramps and controlled vision. Easy stuff.
I hope you could maybe make something that attracts the natives to a location? or attracts nearby natives? that like your technician could build, which is also invisible. That would be so cheap to use in pvp lol.
*k man its so laggy to solo, and body armor has a messed up description.
THE GUYS ON HARD CLUMP UP ON THE BOTTOM LEFT CORNER
Fun map, been meaning to post here.
Bugs/Problems: - A lot of mineral nodes spawn outside of the borders of the playable map. The map pulse indicates that they spawn in the bottom left corner just out of zone.
- Mineral nodes occasionally become hostile and can no longer be mined, only blown up. I'm not positive, but I think this occurs any time a player leaves or is eliminated; existing mineral nodes turn hostile. I'll try to pay more attention to this.
- The APC has a lot of issues navigating through the forest outer part of the map. Especially at the bottom, there are too many trees blocking it and it is unable to get by. Consider removing a lot of the trees or only using a kind that can be walked/driven through.
- Some of the outermost funding centers are in positions where they completely block passage for units larger than infantry.
Suggestions: - I don't believe the new tutorial explains how you need to purchase units in groups of 12. The #1 question a new player asks is "where are my troops??" followed by "How do I restore my commanders energy?"
- Reduce the price and research time of assault rifle upgrades. Just seems excessive to me, especially when compared to rifle upgrades.
- Greatly reduce the price and research time of body armor upgrades. Body armor doesn't have anywhere near the impact on your units that weapon upgrades do. It just doesn't make much difference whether your guys have 3 armor or 0, so it should be cheaper accordingly.
- Have body armor add 3-5% health per upgrade to make it much more worthwhile. If it already does this and I didn't notice, then I apologize.
- Mech units seem weak for their price. The tank is solid; it is an actual high HP tank. I think the rest of the mech units could use a range boost to make them more effective.
- Heavy infantry could use more health and armor, I think this unit still dies a little too easily even with medics around.
Economy: - POWERED funding centers do not generate anywhere near enough money. When I started playing this map I would get about 4-5 funding centers and power them, which is very difficult to defend. Sometimes I would make 2 power generators at each funding center to see if that would help. The money flow was awful considering how much it cost to build up and how tough it was to defend. Once I switched to making command beacons I stopped making power generators at all and the game became much easier.
If you want people to stop making command beacons for income, then reduce the amount of income they grant to 3 or 4 per tick. OR make powered funding centers give a lot more cash. A clearer explanation of how power level. army size, and income interact would be helpful. I would prefer something simpler, or at least have army size not annihilate your cash flow from funding centers.
btw, in game name is CombatJoe, sup hazard :)
@Alberico: Go
Hey combatJoe... I'm Horizon lol
I'm not sure if this is a bug or not, but I feel like it's not intentional. I was playing hard mode and I had built radar sensors at the four ramps that enemies generally use to get to the center of the city. Well, I noticed that there weren't many natives going to the center where my base were and based on where all the red dots were moving, it seems as though the natives were gathering somewhere outside along the edge. After each day, the amount of lag increased, so I sent some troops to do some exploring to see where all the natives were going. It turns out that they all gathered at the lower left corner for some reason... there were well over 500 natives there, not really sure how many exactly. My units were killed and the units just stuck around the corner till daylight and then burrowed. I'm not sure why they all gathered there and did nothing.
@Alberico
It does state in F12 that you need 12 troops to have them dropped off.
The minerals on the outside are captured by the natives and need to be taken control of before you can mine them again
Some things I guess I should point out.
Soldiers and armored soldiers are good, but cost too much to upgrade. I prefer long range units because of this, which makes the game too easy.
Armor is never worthwhile, so just moderate all the upgrades to be geniunely the same price, neither is the upgrade for weapons.
The problem is, the pvp isn't worth it, as teamwork is always more worthwhile. Funding centres just seem like something good for beginner players, but people who've played this too many times can say otherwise, that they are too weak, that there's no point to keep recapturing them and all that hassle... make them worth their weight! I got mission grant in the first 6 minutes of the game, and no work is needed to beat hard, standard or long days when you fund yourself with command centres, and use long range weapons almost all the time, since they're the cheapest to upgrade, have good damage and range, and with command beacon money, easy to fund for and provide, as their upgrades are 10 cash.
I'd like to point out to you that you can capture abandoned buildings with your "Capture Funding Centre" ability. KEEP THIS. But make it more obvious that you can do this, because it provides vision (+1) a 'bunker' (+2), and it's not that overpowered because the fire rate is only 15%.
I think maybe if there was something to fight for, or maybe if the funding centres were more worth it.
Agreed. Nerf command beacon income. Make it so only the first one provides cash, or at least only the first one provides that much cash. Then buff the funding centers.. ESPECIALLY powered ones. by mid game the natives take your funding centers and it's really not worth taking them back, by the time you get them and get back to your base it's night again and they take them back. You don't have the resources or time to be defending every single funding center you have.
Im sure people on the official forums would help you, or even give you a open source for objects that could help you. I've seen games which are like type -easy for easy or -hard for hard, and Hero siege zeta has a thing the host can choose, while stranded on krydon has a majority vote
@EaZyAZN: Go
Alright, I fixed most of the things mentioned here, I have to head out for errands quickly here but I fixed alot. Copying and pasting from updates on my map:
-Moved things around on map as to make pathing easier for large units.
-Adjustments to research upgrades.
-Decreased amount of possible Command Beacons through non pvp terms and increased their resource tick slightly.
I also believe mineral nodes won't hostile anymore and fixed the bottom left corner thing where they amasses in great numbers. Powered buildings have 1 second less per tick.
Body armor is powerful enough, just needed price adjustments, if you us it you will see how much .75 armor makes a difference. Heavy Weapons, I feel are fine, they rip through armored units and have stim packs. For infantry units that also receive upgrades, I might make them OP for buffing them anymore.
I also like my pre game set up for most of the variables as it doesn't create more clutter at the start nor does it cause more in game variables that could potentially lag slower players. The SC2 doesn't have a garbage collector for used global variables and I can't dispose of them in game so if I use them, they exist all game. So I want to keep things hopefully smooth as possible, a voting system would likely require alot of variables and time on my part to implement. I see that there are better things for me to work on at the moment. If in the future the demand is all the rage, then perhaps.
Mech units and the raiders are quite powerful units, in fact a number of them will and can win the game which is why they are costly. They don't take alot of hits so you should have infantry in there in front of them, Armored Infantry and Heavy Weapons do well to absorb damage.
Lastly on the tutorial I clarified that the units you order will be delivered by dropship after queuing exactly 12 units.
I really hope with reducing the ability to create only 4 command beacons with the mission grant, reliance on Command Beacons will be greatly reduced.
Nice to see the rapid fixes.
My opinion on economy, revisited: - It's not just that the command beacons are good, but that powered funding centers don't seem to do hardly anything at all past the early game. I would like to know exactly what powering a funding center does, and how having a higher army size interacts with it. My experience is that once you have past 60ish units, your funding centers will read 0/100 whether you have 0, 1, or 2 power generators by them. Even if you have 4-5 generators at 4-5 funding centers, money will trickle in at a very slow rate.
Power generators - Cost a lot - Take a while to build - Are a high target for enemies - Are VERY fragile - If i'm understanding things right, they get less effective as your army size increases - Give you a pretty small shield bonus
I think a different bonus would go a long way to making power generators better. If your units are being hit at all then they are probably going to be dying whether your have 5-15 more points of shield or not. An armor bonus, attack speed bonus, move speed bonus, or even a penalty to enemies (energy field interferes with the control of the units) in the field would be a better incentive.
Beacons - Can be massed in one area for easier defense - Get pretty expensive - Are not fragile and regen naturally - Generate a lot of ammo - Yield a good amount of money - As far as I know, they generate the same cash whether your army is huge or not. - Raise your money and ammo cap
It is a monumental effort to power and DEFEND 5 funding centers. The payoff doesn't seem worth it since the money will trickle in once you have a mid size army.
Mech units: Edit: I took a closer look at the mech and realized I was wrong about the DPS. It is pretty solid for the price. I still prefer units with longer range, but winning with mechs is definitely an option.
I appreciate the work you do on this map. I love holdout maps like this one.