BC should have both auto and manual attacks:
Auto - Anti-fighter turrets and close range laser cannons. Anti-missile defenses (shoots down missiles).
Manual - Beam Cannons. Anti-Beam Canisters. Missile Barrage. Counter Missiles.
Cool idea too! Have most ship functionality, except lasers and energy weapons, to use up ammunitions, which is a large counter for your ship. The average ammunition should be 20,000 units of ammo, and different weapons will drain ammo at different rates. Resupplying will restore ammo at a fixed amount.
They should also have two kinds of abilities:
- Quick and Easy use, has downtime.
- Switches on or off.
Quick:
- Beam Cannon (limited range up to 50 and damages in a straight line from the BC), takes 20 seconds to fully charge. Alerts opponents that a "incoming beam cannon" is in their vicinity. Deals 375 damage per second for 6 seconds. Note that your ship must be facing the target if you want to shoot it, otherwise it'll just shoot things in front of them (once you press the ability, your ship charges it and can still turn, but not move). Costs energy to power this weapon, and has a cool down of 2 minutes.
- Missile Barrage (inflicts small but fast damage over time to target), takes 5 sets to load, and launches 25 small missiles at the target, each dealing 75 damage. Can fire at a direction too, but the missiles can essentially lock on to any heat signatures in the area. Aiming at a target prioritizes all missiles to go for only that target, but shooting at a location basically makes it lock onto any enemies. Unleashes at the speed of 4 missiles per second. Missiles are in limited supply and ammo.
- Counter Missiles (launches the same number of missiles to counter the incoming missiles targeting the ship), counter missiles inflicts no damage but is very fast and accurate in destroying enemy missiles. Uses munitions.
- Anti-Beam Canisters (short range, alters the path of beam cannons, and weakens the laser damage in half). A counter to Beam Cannons by weakening the focus of the light by disbursing them.
- Emergency Repairs (causes your ship to cut it's engine power in half, so you can start repairing the ship), repairs the ship to 90% capacity. Your ship moves 50% slower and regains roughly 150hp per second. Your turret functionality drops to 50%.
Switch:
- Full Anti-Missile Defenses (sets 80% of your turrets' priority to shoot down enemy missiles), a good counter to barrages of missiles but if too many missiles are sent, they can't shoot them all down. Even with this off, you still can shoot down missiles, but with 20% turret efficiency.
- ECM (cloaks your ship from being detected on the radar, makes missiles less likely to target you, jams opponent's radar in the vicinity), drains a fixed amount of energy on use. You can possible upgrade the engine to provide enough power to continously power the ECM with your other ship functionality, but using quick abilities will cost 25% more. Does not cloak your ship physically. Taking damage can affect the ECM capabilities.
Ship Functions:
- Send recons (spawns and allows you to send recons to scout out your enemies), the game should focus on fleets and having the fog of war will allow you to launch ambushes. recons operate in a AI manner, avoiding combat with bigger fleets, and it has much larger view radius. They explore the space in a interesting manner, and give information back to the fleet.
- Send Fighter & Bombers (typical function I think you would know)
- Send Supplies (essentially spending your minerals to send supplies to your allies ship, and allowing you to heal and restock their munitions.
- Resupply (use up minerals to speed up the cooldowns of your ship, and heals your ship at a decent rate of 25hp per second for 60 seconds, and repairs your docked ships faster by 50%.)
Btw... there's a pretty large open area around the top of the Flagship that you chould put a buildpad... or rather why not place a ''bridge'' there? and have it slightely boost the ships functions or so? that whould definatly make the enemy target the isolated bridge more then the tight rows of cannons xD
but honestly it'd be nice with abit more build pads... especially on the wings.... or atleast some buildpads where you can build ''suport'' buildings rather then rows of cannons >.<;; how about a building that slowely auto repairs the ship or any allied ships nearby? that whould bring in some roles for people to fill atleast =P
They should just make the SC2 editor to allow you to graft units onto units, without the hassle of messing with the manual labor.
Like a pseudo 3d editor inside SC2, that actually lets you graft props onto a unit and add triggers or constants to them.
I gave it a good test, I have to say it does feel incredibly similar to Star Battle but overall a bit inferior. This is mainly because it's the same gameplay with less players and less options. I'm not trying bash your map just saying I hope you'll go a different way making it more unique with a different style of gameplay.
At the moment you generally move forward and just stand there in a dog fight with enemy players both upgrading/building, there doesn't really seem to be any real strategy? Again not bashing just highlighting this.
Gameplay Suggestions
I'd suggest adding different classes of ships, not quite like Star Battle where there the same but different races. More as in different roles such as Frigate, Cruiser, Battle Cruiser etc. each with different roles and capabilities.
The terrain/lanes/waves etc. is pretty standard and boring. I'd recommend spreading the lanes out, adding computer controlled outposts along the way which players can attack. Adds ways where people can co-ordinate and cripple the enemy forces in many different ways.
I can suggest more but I'll see if you reply first :p
I've been "busy" with Cataclysm lately so I've not had much time to map, but that'll change in the future. For now, I've added 2 new lanes of spawns. I'd be interested to know if the map still feels too small and if the pace is still too slow. I'm prepared to up the income and increase the map size if needed. More weapons will come.
Made a lot of small changes tonight. I might just remove the flagship hangar entirely and put all the fighter upgrades into the ship upgrades tab. The fact that you have to stop to launch fighters is just beyond irritating for me and I've spent hours trying to fix it. I may add some default ship weapon to compensate.
The survivability of the cruisers is an issue for me. I played about 10 games tonight and most of the time, people just liked to slug it out with some other cruiser until one of them died. Not that I dislike this concept by any means, it's how the fights should go, just it seems to happen 3 minutes into most matches and I'd probably prefer more farm than gank with games ending so quickly. I won't jump into any drastic changes. I'll spend tomorrow adding defensive hardpoints and a few new abilities instead.
Someone needs to make a map of the "epic" calibur, but fill it with space instead.
Then, you throw in a few "important" space stations and "zones" that the game deems high priority, and give players mobile bases to use.
The map then needs to be able to cater to the following:
- Small forces of specialist units should be able to defeat larger armies of units, in a unique manner.
- Army vs Army clashes should involve ships flying around, doing drive by shots to nearby ships.
- Shots fired by small ships need to be small orbs. Shots fired by bigger ships needs to be straight beams or larger orbs.
- Bullets belonging to a team should have it's color marked appropriately.
Essentially, the bullet system borrows back to Touhou's bullet hell style, but the ships are able to take the hits easily with their shields.
Problem though, is the increased lag when hundreds of ships are firing bullets at each other.
Quote from Eiviyn:
Made a lot of small changes tonight. I might just remove the flagship hangar entirely and put all the fighter upgrades into the ship upgrades tab. The fact that you have to stop to launch fighters is just beyond irritating for me and I've spent hours trying to fix it. I may add some default ship weapon to compensate.
The survivability of the cruisers is an issue for me. I played about 10 games tonight and most of the time, people just liked to slug it out with some other cruiser until one of them died. Not that I dislike this concept by any means, it's how the fights should go, just it seems to happen 3 minutes into most matches and I'd probably prefer more farm than gank with games ending so quickly. I won't jump into any drastic changes. I'll spend tomorrow adding defensive hardpoints and a few new abilities instead.
----
Star Battle has it working, when enemies approaches the 'docked' units automatically flies out. But to do this one your map for your ships, you need to attach the "docked" units to a button so it would release 1 fighter, when the button is hit.
EDIT: NVM, that 'stop to launch ships' is a result of your unit stopping to use an ability, i noticed this in Star Battle when running away and trying to spawn corruptors behind me.
I played about 10 games tonight and most of the time, people just liked to slug it out with some other cruiser until one of them died.
It also happens most of the time in Star Battle, and this is precisely why I don't play it anymore. Who could seriously stand against 4-5 battlecruisers chasing him over the map? It ruins the gameplay because basically, the first team to kill a enemy ship is the team that wins the game. Pretty much pointless if it's played that way, in my opinion... If you find a way to avoid massive rush against one target (ex: suicide ability that becomes stronger and/or increase radius when taking damage from battlecruisers), it will probably add some balance.
First off, hands down to the epic battlecruisers in this game, and the turret placements attached to it, at first i was just astonished. after that i noticed the game needs quite some improvement, here's what i think need to be done:
- More interesting map: add some space stations along the way that produce vespene gas for you to use on certain upgrades/weapons.
- Adjust creep pathing: right now they all go in a straight line towards the base, since you need to farm them for money you stay there as well, i think it would make greater gameplay if the move around the edges of the map as well, a bit like in star battle.
- Randomize creep pathing: i think this would make the game more fun as fighters will occasionally advance or retreat because the opponent has less or more of them on that lane. also you won't be able to sit bakc and relax and enjoy the standard income, you need to work for your money with the shifting frontlines. for example make 5 paths, 8 groups that should spawn, and let them spawn wherever they like on the 5 paths.
- make the game faster!: i know that 2 mile long battlecruisers have a hard time accellerating to great speeds, but the game is very slow, the titan eengines aren't very titan as i only see a slight increase in the horrendous movement speed. i think they should have more power, acceleration can stay low but i'd like to speed up more if i use titanic engines so it doesn't take 3 minutes to get back to base.
- make easier selectable emplacements: i find the turret hardpoints pretty difficult to select, especially the small ones. make buttons on the ship to select hardpoints.
- make superweapons!: i think you should use the 2 templar > 1 archon code for a 3 large points > 1 ultimate frontal death ray or something type of weapon. for example you can combine 3 wraith bays for a wraith fleet bay creating 6 wraiths instead of 3 (same with viking and merc viking) at a cost, or combine 3 heavy siege tanks for an awesome splash damage Magnetic Accelleration Cannon of some sort. the possibilities are endless.
- new small weapons: in the games i have played i have seen the basic sentinel weapon, and then upgrade to autocannons and missile launchers and their heavy variants, thats it. I don't know if there's anything beyond that, but the game is over too fast for those weapons to be bought. the missile launchers are currently vastly superior due to the range. i think there should be a bit more weapons, and I have thought of a new small weapons system: you start with a sentinel, then you have 3 upgrade paths: damage, range, fire rate. it doesn't increase the range/damage of the sentinel, but it gives you a new weapon in that upgrade path. for example the first range upgrade would be a 25 range weapon with the same dps (a light missile launcher?), the first fire rate upgrade has the same range but increased fire rate (obviously) for 50% more dps or so, and damage just deals 50% more damage. then you can upgrade for a second time, so you can go pure damage, or for example range/damage. and so you design your very own turrets for your own gameplay. every combination has a different ability/effect, for example some weapons can have splash damage, bouncing, void ray like damage increase, the current over charge/emp missiles abilities, ignore armor, extra damage against shields, Damage over time debuffs, speed debuffs, that sort of stuff. sentinel costs 50, first tier costs 100, second 250, third 500 (not more than three tiers so you don't need THAT much new turrets made, and you shouldn't be able to buy it anyway, then the game would be going on way too long.
- more creeps: in the singleplayer you get more and more units coming at you and even new ones. i would like to see this happen late game too in multiplayer. it gives us more money for more expensive upgrades, gives a bit of variety too, and might potetntially get dangerous. The star bases would need some defense cannons (with 1 minute respawn or so, because then if a massive wave suddenly appears all hope isn't lost) so they won't get swarmed by a wave of creeps.
I think this would improve voidcraft greatly and might make it way more fun than ship battle which i personally dont find all that interesting, but is still featured.
The ship's speed is something I've played a lot with. On one hand, I want them to feel epic and I want your ships position to matter a lot. On the other, waiting "3 minutes to get back to base" just isn't fun. I don't want to add a warp drive or anything so I may just buff the turning rate, acceleration and the titan engines.
I'm working on a selection of defensive hardpoints. It's difficult because I suspect people won't want to use them because they don't help you farm creeps, so I'm trying to make them attractive in other ways (such as point defence turrets that will interfere with other people's creeping). The ship hangar will likely go. Superweapons, I'm working on adding a few as useable skills that will cost a lot of energy.
I had an opportunity of playing this fantastic game a few times, and here is feedback:
You can see hostile cannons long before you can see his ship.
You can hear sounds from the ship only if camera is close to the "ground", standard problem with scrolled cameras.
Mothership is too damn fragile.
You should increase build times or allow building turrets and upgrades only near the motherships. Now the best strategy is sitting close to enemy mothership and intercepting enemy fighters for +10 minerals.
the mothership should definitively get more Hitpoints. I got several game now where after the first 2 minutes all enemies with 2 large hardpoints cannons and 6-8 small hardpoint cannons just go for the mothership, and everything is over in an blink of eye. Also i advice to have some sort of outpost which work as a kind of last line of defence, should be destroyed first before mothership can be attacked.
The ship's speed is something I've played a lot with. On one hand, I want them to feel epic and I want your ships position to matter a lot. On the other, waiting "3 minutes to get back to base" just isn't fun. I don't want to add a warp drive or anything so I may just buff the turning rate, acceleration and the titan engines.
I'm working on a selection of defensive hardpoints. It's difficult because I suspect people won't want to use them because they don't help you farm creeps, so I'm trying to make them attractive in other ways (such as point defence turrets that will interfere with other people's creeping). The ship hangar will likely go. Superweapons, I'm working on adding a few as useable skills that will cost a lot of energy.
I think that you should only increase speed and turn rate a little, but boost titan engines alot that way ships still feel epic in normal combat, but can use titan engines to speed up (acceleration should be small though) and then going to your base will go very fast, but you won't get overpowered close combat. Also, disabling titan engines in combat isn't nice, all ships are equally fast so you can be hunt down for eternity. if you enable titan engines but the damage taken will be doubled or tripled it will mean strategic HP-watch and you can get away easier.
the rest sounds nice though, i'll play this once in a while and watch the improvements :)
I had an opportunity of playing this fantastic game a few times, and here is feedback:
You can see hostile cannons long before you can see his ship.
You can hear sounds from the ship only if camera is close to the "ground", standard problem with scrolled cameras.
Mothership is too damn fragile.
You should increase build times or allow building turrets and upgrades only near the motherships. Now the best strategy is sitting close to enemy mothership and intercepting enemy fighters for +10 minerals.
ah yes that first point is pretty weird xD had that too though i forgot to mention. and even though sounds may sound awesome, 1. space is space, no sound in space 2. with this many weapons firing this many things with 6 ships the sounds are a pain to listen.
I approve of the rest :)
I'm not happy with the sound issue. The solution of enabling sounds at long range may be even worse though, as the amount of weapons fire over a large distance may just be plain noise.
The mothership is getting a massive facelift. I've also finalised the first defensive hardpoint, the shield battery. This structure will restore shields to your cap ship if you need it, or an ally's cap ship if they are in range. Restoring shields costs hardpoint energy. Their counter is the EMP missile, though prolonged battering of a ship's shields until the batteries have no energy left will also work.
I'm not happy with the sound issue. The solution of enabling sounds at long range may be even worse though, as the amount of weapons fire over a large distance may just be plain noise.
Actually, maybe the "Dupe Maximum Method" field in the sounds data might help. I remember when I added custom sounds in my own project, this field can either prevent from playing a sound twice from the same source, or replace the old sound by the new iteration. If you change the "Dupe History Count" to a low number (like 1 or 2) you can't have more than 2 sounds coming from the same unit at the same time (or so I guess it's what it does). I'm not sure how it will work when there are many players on the field shooting at each other, but it's worth a try.
BC should have both auto and manual attacks:
Auto - Anti-fighter turrets and close range laser cannons. Anti-missile defenses (shoots down missiles).
Manual - Beam Cannons. Anti-Beam Canisters. Missile Barrage. Counter Missiles.
Cool idea too! Have most ship functionality, except lasers and energy weapons, to use up ammunitions, which is a large counter for your ship. The average ammunition should be 20,000 units of ammo, and different weapons will drain ammo at different rates. Resupplying will restore ammo at a fixed amount.
They should also have two kinds of abilities:
- Quick and Easy use, has downtime.
- Switches on or off.
Quick:
- Beam Cannon (limited range up to 50 and damages in a straight line from the BC), takes 20 seconds to fully charge. Alerts opponents that a "incoming beam cannon" is in their vicinity. Deals 375 damage per second for 6 seconds. Note that your ship must be facing the target if you want to shoot it, otherwise it'll just shoot things in front of them (once you press the ability, your ship charges it and can still turn, but not move). Costs energy to power this weapon, and has a cool down of 2 minutes.
- Missile Barrage (inflicts small but fast damage over time to target), takes 5 sets to load, and launches 25 small missiles at the target, each dealing 75 damage. Can fire at a direction too, but the missiles can essentially lock on to any heat signatures in the area. Aiming at a target prioritizes all missiles to go for only that target, but shooting at a location basically makes it lock onto any enemies. Unleashes at the speed of 4 missiles per second. Missiles are in limited supply and ammo.
- Counter Missiles (launches the same number of missiles to counter the incoming missiles targeting the ship), counter missiles inflicts no damage but is very fast and accurate in destroying enemy missiles. Uses munitions.
- Anti-Beam Canisters (short range, alters the path of beam cannons, and weakens the laser damage in half). A counter to Beam Cannons by weakening the focus of the light by disbursing them.
- Emergency Repairs (causes your ship to cut it's engine power in half, so you can start repairing the ship), repairs the ship to 90% capacity. Your ship moves 50% slower and regains roughly 150hp per second. Your turret functionality drops to 50%.
Switch:
- Full Anti-Missile Defenses (sets 80% of your turrets' priority to shoot down enemy missiles), a good counter to barrages of missiles but if too many missiles are sent, they can't shoot them all down. Even with this off, you still can shoot down missiles, but with 20% turret efficiency.
- ECM (cloaks your ship from being detected on the radar, makes missiles less likely to target you, jams opponent's radar in the vicinity), drains a fixed amount of energy on use. You can possible upgrade the engine to provide enough power to continously power the ECM with your other ship functionality, but using quick abilities will cost 25% more. Does not cloak your ship physically. Taking damage can affect the ECM capabilities.
Ship Functions:
- Send recons (spawns and allows you to send recons to scout out your enemies), the game should focus on fleets and having the fog of war will allow you to launch ambushes. recons operate in a AI manner, avoiding combat with bigger fleets, and it has much larger view radius. They explore the space in a interesting manner, and give information back to the fleet.
- Send Fighter & Bombers (typical function I think you would know)
- Send Supplies (essentially spending your minerals to send supplies to your allies ship, and allowing you to heal and restock their munitions.
- Resupply (use up minerals to speed up the cooldowns of your ship, and heals your ship at a decent rate of 25hp per second for 60 seconds, and repairs your docked ships faster by 50%.)
Btw... there's a pretty large open area around the top of the Flagship that you chould put a buildpad... or rather why not place a ''bridge'' there? and have it slightely boost the ships functions or so? that whould definatly make the enemy target the isolated bridge more then the tight rows of cannons xD
but honestly it'd be nice with abit more build pads... especially on the wings.... or atleast some buildpads where you can build ''suport'' buildings rather then rows of cannons >.<;; how about a building that slowely auto repairs the ship or any allied ships nearby? that whould bring in some roles for people to fill atleast =P
@Mirvra:
They should just make the SC2 editor to allow you to graft units onto units, without the hassle of messing with the manual labor.
Like a pseudo 3d editor inside SC2, that actually lets you graft props onto a unit and add triggers or constants to them.
siggd cuz i couldnt find a better one
Congrats on getting to the first page on Europe.
I gave it a good test, I have to say it does feel incredibly similar to Star Battle but overall a bit inferior. This is mainly because it's the same gameplay with less players and less options. I'm not trying bash your map just saying I hope you'll go a different way making it more unique with a different style of gameplay.
At the moment you generally move forward and just stand there in a dog fight with enemy players both upgrading/building, there doesn't really seem to be any real strategy? Again not bashing just highlighting this.
Gameplay Suggestions
I'd suggest adding different classes of ships, not quite like Star Battle where there the same but different races. More as in different roles such as Frigate, Cruiser, Battle Cruiser etc. each with different roles and capabilities.
The terrain/lanes/waves etc. is pretty standard and boring. I'd recommend spreading the lanes out, adding computer controlled outposts along the way which players can attack. Adds ways where people can co-ordinate and cripple the enemy forces in many different ways.
I can suggest more but I'll see if you reply first :p
This map looks really fun. I'd love to play it, but I take it its not currently on US?
I've been "busy" with Cataclysm lately so I've not had much time to map, but that'll change in the future. For now, I've added 2 new lanes of spawns. I'd be interested to know if the map still feels too small and if the pace is still too slow. I'm prepared to up the income and increase the map size if needed. More weapons will come.
Yeah. I'll be waiting for 1.12 for the regional select.
Made a lot of small changes tonight. I might just remove the flagship hangar entirely and put all the fighter upgrades into the ship upgrades tab. The fact that you have to stop to launch fighters is just beyond irritating for me and I've spent hours trying to fix it. I may add some default ship weapon to compensate.
The survivability of the cruisers is an issue for me. I played about 10 games tonight and most of the time, people just liked to slug it out with some other cruiser until one of them died. Not that I dislike this concept by any means, it's how the fights should go, just it seems to happen 3 minutes into most matches and I'd probably prefer more farm than gank with games ending so quickly. I won't jump into any drastic changes. I'll spend tomorrow adding defensive hardpoints and a few new abilities instead.
Someone needs to make a map of the "epic" calibur, but fill it with space instead.
Then, you throw in a few "important" space stations and "zones" that the game deems high priority, and give players mobile bases to use.
The map then needs to be able to cater to the following:
- Small forces of specialist units should be able to defeat larger armies of units, in a unique manner.
- Army vs Army clashes should involve ships flying around, doing drive by shots to nearby ships.
- Shots fired by small ships need to be small orbs. Shots fired by bigger ships needs to be straight beams or larger orbs.
- Bullets belonging to a team should have it's color marked appropriately.
Essentially, the bullet system borrows back to Touhou's bullet hell style, but the ships are able to take the hits easily with their shields.
Problem though, is the increased lag when hundreds of ships are firing bullets at each other.
Quote from Eiviyn:
Made a lot of small changes tonight. I might just remove the flagship hangar entirely and put all the fighter upgrades into the ship upgrades tab. The fact that you have to stop to launch fighters is just beyond irritating for me and I've spent hours trying to fix it. I may add some default ship weapon to compensate.
The survivability of the cruisers is an issue for me. I played about 10 games tonight and most of the time, people just liked to slug it out with some other cruiser until one of them died. Not that I dislike this concept by any means, it's how the fights should go, just it seems to happen 3 minutes into most matches and I'd probably prefer more farm than gank with games ending so quickly. I won't jump into any drastic changes. I'll spend tomorrow adding defensive hardpoints and a few new abilities instead.
----
Star Battle has it working, when enemies approaches the 'docked' units automatically flies out. But to do this one your map for your ships, you need to attach the "docked" units to a button so it would release 1 fighter, when the button is hit.
EDIT: NVM, that 'stop to launch ships' is a result of your unit stopping to use an ability, i noticed this in Star Battle when running away and trying to spawn corruptors behind me.
It also happens most of the time in Star Battle, and this is precisely why I don't play it anymore. Who could seriously stand against 4-5 battlecruisers chasing him over the map? It ruins the gameplay because basically, the first team to kill a enemy ship is the team that wins the game. Pretty much pointless if it's played that way, in my opinion... If you find a way to avoid massive rush against one target (ex: suicide ability that becomes stronger and/or increase radius when taking damage from battlecruisers), it will probably add some balance.
First off, hands down to the epic battlecruisers in this game, and the turret placements attached to it, at first i was just astonished. after that i noticed the game needs quite some improvement, here's what i think need to be done:
- More interesting map: add some space stations along the way that produce vespene gas for you to use on certain upgrades/weapons.
- Adjust creep pathing: right now they all go in a straight line towards the base, since you need to farm them for money you stay there as well, i think it would make greater gameplay if the move around the edges of the map as well, a bit like in star battle.
- Randomize creep pathing: i think this would make the game more fun as fighters will occasionally advance or retreat because the opponent has less or more of them on that lane. also you won't be able to sit bakc and relax and enjoy the standard income, you need to work for your money with the shifting frontlines. for example make 5 paths, 8 groups that should spawn, and let them spawn wherever they like on the 5 paths.
- make the game faster!: i know that 2 mile long battlecruisers have a hard time accellerating to great speeds, but the game is very slow, the titan eengines aren't very titan as i only see a slight increase in the horrendous movement speed. i think they should have more power, acceleration can stay low but i'd like to speed up more if i use titanic engines so it doesn't take 3 minutes to get back to base.
- make easier selectable emplacements: i find the turret hardpoints pretty difficult to select, especially the small ones. make buttons on the ship to select hardpoints.
- make superweapons!: i think you should use the 2 templar > 1 archon code for a 3 large points > 1 ultimate frontal death ray or something type of weapon. for example you can combine 3 wraith bays for a wraith fleet bay creating 6 wraiths instead of 3 (same with viking and merc viking) at a cost, or combine 3 heavy siege tanks for an awesome splash damage Magnetic Accelleration Cannon of some sort. the possibilities are endless.
- new small weapons: in the games i have played i have seen the basic sentinel weapon, and then upgrade to autocannons and missile launchers and their heavy variants, thats it. I don't know if there's anything beyond that, but the game is over too fast for those weapons to be bought. the missile launchers are currently vastly superior due to the range. i think there should be a bit more weapons, and I have thought of a new small weapons system: you start with a sentinel, then you have 3 upgrade paths: damage, range, fire rate. it doesn't increase the range/damage of the sentinel, but it gives you a new weapon in that upgrade path. for example the first range upgrade would be a 25 range weapon with the same dps (a light missile launcher?), the first fire rate upgrade has the same range but increased fire rate (obviously) for 50% more dps or so, and damage just deals 50% more damage. then you can upgrade for a second time, so you can go pure damage, or for example range/damage. and so you design your very own turrets for your own gameplay. every combination has a different ability/effect, for example some weapons can have splash damage, bouncing, void ray like damage increase, the current over charge/emp missiles abilities, ignore armor, extra damage against shields, Damage over time debuffs, speed debuffs, that sort of stuff. sentinel costs 50, first tier costs 100, second 250, third 500 (not more than three tiers so you don't need THAT much new turrets made, and you shouldn't be able to buy it anyway, then the game would be going on way too long.
- more creeps: in the singleplayer you get more and more units coming at you and even new ones. i would like to see this happen late game too in multiplayer. it gives us more money for more expensive upgrades, gives a bit of variety too, and might potetntially get dangerous. The star bases would need some defense cannons (with 1 minute respawn or so, because then if a massive wave suddenly appears all hope isn't lost) so they won't get swarmed by a wave of creeps.
I think this would improve voidcraft greatly and might make it way more fun than ship battle which i personally dont find all that interesting, but is still featured.
The ship's speed is something I've played a lot with. On one hand, I want them to feel epic and I want your ships position to matter a lot. On the other, waiting "3 minutes to get back to base" just isn't fun. I don't want to add a warp drive or anything so I may just buff the turning rate, acceleration and the titan engines.
I'm working on a selection of defensive hardpoints. It's difficult because I suspect people won't want to use them because they don't help you farm creeps, so I'm trying to make them attractive in other ways (such as point defence turrets that will interfere with other people's creeping). The ship hangar will likely go. Superweapons, I'm working on adding a few as useable skills that will cost a lot of energy.
I had an opportunity of playing this fantastic game a few times, and here is feedback:
the mothership should definitively get more Hitpoints. I got several game now where after the first 2 minutes all enemies with 2 large hardpoints cannons and 6-8 small hardpoint cannons just go for the mothership, and everything is over in an blink of eye. Also i advice to have some sort of outpost which work as a kind of last line of defence, should be destroyed first before mothership can be attacked.
I think that you should only increase speed and turn rate a little, but boost titan engines alot that way ships still feel epic in normal combat, but can use titan engines to speed up (acceleration should be small though) and then going to your base will go very fast, but you won't get overpowered close combat. Also, disabling titan engines in combat isn't nice, all ships are equally fast so you can be hunt down for eternity. if you enable titan engines but the damage taken will be doubled or tripled it will mean strategic HP-watch and you can get away easier.
the rest sounds nice though, i'll play this once in a while and watch the improvements :)
ah yes that first point is pretty weird xD had that too though i forgot to mention. and even though sounds may sound awesome, 1. space is space, no sound in space 2. with this many weapons firing this many things with 6 ships the sounds are a pain to listen. I approve of the rest :)
I'm not happy with the sound issue. The solution of enabling sounds at long range may be even worse though, as the amount of weapons fire over a large distance may just be plain noise.
The mothership is getting a massive facelift. I've also finalised the first defensive hardpoint, the shield battery. This structure will restore shields to your cap ship if you need it, or an ally's cap ship if they are in range. Restoring shields costs hardpoint energy. Their counter is the EMP missile, though prolonged battering of a ship's shields until the batteries have no energy left will also work.
I'll upload once I have everything polished.
Actually, maybe the "Dupe Maximum Method" field in the sounds data might help. I remember when I added custom sounds in my own project, this field can either prevent from playing a sound twice from the same source, or replace the old sound by the new iteration. If you change the "Dupe History Count" to a low number (like 1 or 2) you can't have more than 2 sounds coming from the same unit at the same time (or so I guess it's what it does). I'm not sure how it will work when there are many players on the field shooting at each other, but it's worth a try.
Things I didnt like:
- The turrets are kinda small, just doesnt feel right trying to click them...
- Turrets had abilities (which is fine, but they should be autocast abilities). I would prefer battlecruiser abilities over turret abilities.
and the gameplay needs some upgrading too. It wasnt that much fun...
I updated the mothership. Feedback is appreciated.
What model did you use for the missiles shot by the siege turrets that the left cruiser starts firing at 1:10?