Zombie apocalypse happens. Humans have been pushed off the planet itself and forced up space elevators into orbit. As the zombies follow behind, our ragtag survivors have to equip themselves for a last stand.
Objective
LSA is a wave-based survival game. As usual, each wave results in the spawning of numerous zombies from the edges of the map. Each wave ends either when most zombies are eliminated-save for a few select types that do not influence the kill count or are different otherwise-or after three minutes.
Every wave, numerous zombie "slots" are rolled for behind the scenes. If all goes well, new types of zombies are introduced most waves, ranging from heavily armored roaches to cliff jumpers, to towering abominations.
There are 4 difficulty levels, ranging from easy softcore mode, to the virtually impossible nightmare setting.
Surviving
This is where Last Stand Alpha differs from the standard formulas of survival games. Whereas most survival maps have the player either controlling a hero with numerous abilities, or a base built up of many production structures and appliances, Last Stand Alpha simplifies base building to a clean yet enjoyable level, removing the need for redundant production facilities altogether. Your workers can construct defenses such as sandbags and bunkers, as well as turrets and towers to provide an unmanned solution to base defense.
Unit Management
With an unmanned solution, there has to be a manned alternative, correct? With no production structures, units are instead produced by equipping survivors with weapons. When the game starts, every player gets a number of civilians (more if there are fewer players) and can morph these survivors into units to fight with.
Additional units are acquired by killing a certain amount of zombies-presented in the leaderboard next to the word "Reinforcements." When the entire team lowers this number to zero, it is reset to a slightly higher value, and civilians for each player show up in the center of the map. Civilians are cloaked and have 1000 health as of now, so protecting the center is not as-of-yet crucial.
Units may be morphed into units such as marines, firebats, casters such as escorts (sentries) or dummies (wannabe high templars). Using minerals, vehicles may also be produced. Minerals are also used to upgrade unit statistics from every unit's unique upgrade menu. This leads us into the next question: how do you acquire minerals?
Economy
There are two ways to acquire minerals.
First off, killing zombies gives a bounty. This bounty starts off at 5 per kill, received every 5 kills-amounting to 25 per 5 kills. As a player produces engineers (SCV's) the 25 minerals given each turn decrease by 3 minerals for each engineer. The exception is the softcore difficulty mode, where this does not not decrease as you make more engineers.
The second and more reliable, albeit less sustainable method, is to mine the space platform's various deposits of scrap scattered around. Each pile of scrap holds about 2000 minerals, and while you can find about 3-4 scrap piles per general baseable area (yes, baseable is a word as of now), you must expand constantly or the piles will run dry, regenerating slowly but giving only a single mineral per 10 second trip instead of five.
Minerals are dropped off at the armory, a structure constructed by both engineers and the later mechanic.
Content
The Survivors
There are over 30-40 units that you can make, but here are some of the basic ones:
Rifleman
A battle-hardened marine, the rifleman deals moderate damage per hit to targets over two times per second. They are decent all-around troops and have both grenades and stimpacks in case you get in trouble. Their health and armor can be upgraded as well as their attacks and range.
RPG Trooper
Equipped with dual rocket launchers, this madman/anti-tank soldier fires debilitating rockets which slow down lesser foes (non-massive) and deal additional damage to armored targets. They share upgrades with the rifleman.
Marksman
Standard anti-light/medium trooper with a long ranged rifle. He can snipe important targets for a quick boost of damage. He can also morph into the mercenary...
Mercenary
A highly-trained assasin and psionic master, the mercenary deals heavy damage at a slow rate to just about anything, but more importantly, she can dominate zombies, adding them to your force.
Sniper
The sniper penetrates armor and has a long range, allowing him to take down targets that other units have difficulties with, such as the fearsome elephantus.
Heavy
With the same minigun as the Mounted M134 turret (built by engineers and mechanics), this soldier deals low damage per hit at an increased fire rate, dealing heavy area damage-especially to lightly armored foes.
Engineer
The Engineer can gather scrap and build basic defenses such as sandbags, bunkers, and Mounted M134's. They can also repair mechanical objects.
Mechanic
The Mechanic wears a heavy suit that protects him from harm. He has decent combat potential, but he also constructs three types of turrets in addition to psi-disrupters and biological healing towers. He gathers minerals as well and doesn't reduce your zombie bounty-but gathers more slowly than an engineer.
Ion Gunner
The answer to large groups of mid-ranged enemies, the Ion Gunner is an upgradeable trooper with an ion rifle that deals biological area damage to nearby units, friend or foe. He is short-ranged but can be upgraded to fire at a longer distance.
Pyro
Exactly what it says on the tin. Shares upgrades with the mechanic.
Vehicles
Vehicles cost minerals to build but are generally more resilient and thus more efficient with regards to attrition.
David
(Uses Goliath model. See what I did there?) Equipped with autocannons and anti-armor missiles, this mech can strafe zombies and take hits from ranged enemies, making it ideal for supporting other troops.
Abrams
It can run over targets, and deploy into artillery mode, where it deals reduced damage at increased range.
The Zombies
Zombies are modelled after zerg units. Once again, there are countless zombies that you will face, but here are the basic types you should get around to knowing:
Spewers
These roaches devastate structured with ranged acid. Killing them first is preferable to avoid compromising your barricade.
Tinylings
These zerglings travel quickly and penetrate armor. It's important to have weaponry capable of dealing with a lot of them at once, since they tend to rush your bunkers quickly.
Skeletal Archers
These short-ranged zombies cause nearby infantry to fire more slowly. Garrison them in bunkers and stay away from them to avoid these effects. Or just use vehicles.
New update, featuring a number of changes. I'm looking for feedback and suggestions:
A series of perks to choose from, which help by adding more health, speed, etc for different units, and other effects.
Units can now have one of 5 random bonuses which increase size, armor, damage, etc.
A number of balance changes and fixes.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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Last Stand Alpha
Background
Zombie apocalypse happens. Humans have been pushed off the planet itself and forced up space elevators into orbit. As the zombies follow behind, our ragtag survivors have to equip themselves for a last stand.
Objective
LSA is a wave-based survival game. As usual, each wave results in the spawning of numerous zombies from the edges of the map. Each wave ends either when most zombies are eliminated-save for a few select types that do not influence the kill count or are different otherwise-or after three minutes. Every wave, numerous zombie "slots" are rolled for behind the scenes. If all goes well, new types of zombies are introduced most waves, ranging from heavily armored roaches to cliff jumpers, to towering abominations.
There are 4 difficulty levels, ranging from easy softcore mode, to the virtually impossible nightmare setting.
Surviving
This is where Last Stand Alpha differs from the standard formulas of survival games. Whereas most survival maps have the player either controlling a hero with numerous abilities, or a base built up of many production structures and appliances, Last Stand Alpha simplifies base building to a clean yet enjoyable level, removing the need for redundant production facilities altogether. Your workers can construct defenses such as sandbags and bunkers, as well as turrets and towers to provide an unmanned solution to base defense.
Unit Management
With an unmanned solution, there has to be a manned alternative, correct? With no production structures, units are instead produced by equipping survivors with weapons. When the game starts, every player gets a number of civilians (more if there are fewer players) and can morph these survivors into units to fight with.
Additional units are acquired by killing a certain amount of zombies-presented in the leaderboard next to the word "Reinforcements." When the entire team lowers this number to zero, it is reset to a slightly higher value, and civilians for each player show up in the center of the map. Civilians are cloaked and have 1000 health as of now, so protecting the center is not as-of-yet crucial.
Units may be morphed into units such as marines, firebats, casters such as escorts (sentries) or dummies (wannabe high templars). Using minerals, vehicles may also be produced. Minerals are also used to upgrade unit statistics from every unit's unique upgrade menu. This leads us into the next question: how do you acquire minerals?
Economy
There are two ways to acquire minerals.
First off, killing zombies gives a bounty. This bounty starts off at 5 per kill, received every 5 kills-amounting to 25 per 5 kills. As a player produces engineers (SCV's) the 25 minerals given each turn decrease by 3 minerals for each engineer. The exception is the softcore difficulty mode, where this does not not decrease as you make more engineers.
The second and more reliable, albeit less sustainable method, is to mine the space platform's various deposits of scrap scattered around. Each pile of scrap holds about 2000 minerals, and while you can find about 3-4 scrap piles per general baseable area (yes, baseable is a word as of now), you must expand constantly or the piles will run dry, regenerating slowly but giving only a single mineral per 10 second trip instead of five. Minerals are dropped off at the armory, a structure constructed by both engineers and the later mechanic.
Content
The Survivors
There are over 30-40 units that you can make, but here are some of the basic ones:
Rifleman
A battle-hardened marine, the rifleman deals moderate damage per hit to targets over two times per second. They are decent all-around troops and have both grenades and stimpacks in case you get in trouble. Their health and armor can be upgraded as well as their attacks and range.
RPG Trooper
Equipped with dual rocket launchers, this madman/anti-tank soldier fires debilitating rockets which slow down lesser foes (non-massive) and deal additional damage to armored targets. They share upgrades with the rifleman.
Marksman
Standard anti-light/medium trooper with a long ranged rifle. He can snipe important targets for a quick boost of damage. He can also morph into the mercenary...
Mercenary
A highly-trained assasin and psionic master, the mercenary deals heavy damage at a slow rate to just about anything, but more importantly, she can dominate zombies, adding them to your force.
Sniper
The sniper penetrates armor and has a long range, allowing him to take down targets that other units have difficulties with, such as the fearsome elephantus.
Heavy
With the same minigun as the Mounted M134 turret (built by engineers and mechanics), this soldier deals low damage per hit at an increased fire rate, dealing heavy area damage-especially to lightly armored foes.
Engineer
The Engineer can gather scrap and build basic defenses such as sandbags, bunkers, and Mounted M134's. They can also repair mechanical objects.
Mechanic
The Mechanic wears a heavy suit that protects him from harm. He has decent combat potential, but he also constructs three types of turrets in addition to psi-disrupters and biological healing towers. He gathers minerals as well and doesn't reduce your zombie bounty-but gathers more slowly than an engineer.
Ion Gunner
The answer to large groups of mid-ranged enemies, the Ion Gunner is an upgradeable trooper with an ion rifle that deals biological area damage to nearby units, friend or foe. He is short-ranged but can be upgraded to fire at a longer distance.
Pyro
Exactly what it says on the tin. Shares upgrades with the mechanic.
Vehicles
Vehicles cost minerals to build but are generally more resilient and thus more efficient with regards to attrition.
David
(Uses Goliath model. See what I did there?) Equipped with autocannons and anti-armor missiles, this mech can strafe zombies and take hits from ranged enemies, making it ideal for supporting other troops.
Abrams
It can run over targets, and deploy into artillery mode, where it deals reduced damage at increased range.
The Zombies
Zombies are modelled after zerg units. Once again, there are countless zombies that you will face, but here are the basic types you should get around to knowing:
Spewers
These roaches devastate structured with ranged acid. Killing them first is preferable to avoid compromising your barricade.
Tinylings
These zerglings travel quickly and penetrate armor. It's important to have weaponry capable of dealing with a lot of them at once, since they tend to rush your bunkers quickly.
Skeletal Archers
These short-ranged zombies cause nearby infantry to fire more slowly. Garrison them in bunkers and stay away from them to avoid these effects. Or just use vehicles.
And that's all for now. Good night folks!
New update, featuring a number of changes. I'm looking for feedback and suggestions:
A series of perks to choose from, which help by adding more health, speed, etc for different units, and other effects. Units can now have one of 5 random bonuses which increase size, armor, damage, etc. A number of balance changes and fixes.