SC2Mapster

Hello, people of the world!

My name is SCStalker/Slayer, you may have seen some of my projects which sadly had to be abondoned.

However, I have decided to return and now, I can work on my campaign, New Arrival.

New Arrival will be a 10 mission campaign which will be focused around the Flaming Fists, a human organization dedicated to stopping the tyrannical government, Dark Watch.

Because I am not that experienced with the editor, missions will be released slowly however I hope to make it a great campaign.

Thanks,

Slayer.

Log 2

I've been working on banking and user types structures these weeks.

User Types

I have defined 7 User types at the moment:

- Campaigns. Defines the folders where the maps are and stores the campaigns progress.
- Episodes. Classifies the missions and defines the subfolders where the maps will be.
- Missions. Stores the map names, paths and arcade links, and keeps track of the stats and rewards achieved in the missions.
- Stats. It's a sublevel of missions. It contains most the information of the missions that I want to be tracked and retrieved by other missions. Thanks to tya, I could set a variable text describing the stats progress, allowing them to be easily mantained when editing the mod and viewed from any map that uses it.
- Upgrades. It's a sublevel of campaigns. It's used to know if an upgrade was already unlocked and/or aquired when a mission is being played.
- Upgrade Groups. It's going to be used to make windows for each upgrade group when purchasing them.
- Achievements. It's a list of all achievements. Contains their icon and description, and an indicator that shows if they were unlocked or not.

They'll allow me check the campaign status at any moment without filling arrays. I just have to call a function that writes in those tables the player's progress stored in banks.
I had to make some considerations, like how to handle the saving in replays of missions already played, missions that weren't unlocked yet or missions saved before playing other ones and continued afterwards.
I've decided to directly ignore saving in missions that weren't unlocked yet, and check before ending the rest of the maps which data from other maps needs to be overwritten, which is new and which is not.

Tech Tree

After making these definitions and filling the user types with the data needed by the first missions, I stumbled with my first rock:

I asked myself "What's the easiest way to restrict and unlock progressively the tech tree?" The answer was "Why don't you just check how Blizzard does it?"
So there I went. I've found the action "Apply Campaign Tech", which was pretty straightforward. It just disables the abilities and enables them back again if they are unlocked.

I've created a trigger removing all the unlockable abilities for all the players, and another one that checks for the upgrades that should unlock those and enable them back if it corresponds. The enemies will have their abilities unlocked manually in each map, since I want to manipulate their units and abilities compositions.

Briefing screen

I remember that I've made this briefing screen originaly for my failure coop project Exodus and iterated several times over it by adding functionality and new features.
The outcome of the process is an incomprehensible code that takes hours to debug and update. I've spent 2 days adjusting it to the new initialization triggers.
I like how it looks after the changes, but I feel pity for the future me that will have to add voice acting, fix it for other races or move it to the UI module.

As you can see, there's not as much text as before, and it doesn't feel as overwhelming as it did.

Banks

As I've said before, I load the banks containing the campaign progress and write their content in the editable fields of the user types when the map inits. Doing it this way, I avoid the potential lag caused by loading a lot of variables when a mission starts.
There's also much less amount of code in the triggers, and the data is more organized than when I was using records.

The structure of the banks is basicaly a shorter version of the user types I've defined. It only contains their ids and the information that needs to be carried over.
It also has an extra section called "slot", used to start a new campaign without losing the progress of another one.

I have to copy the load and save functions into every map for arcade compatibility reasons. If I do it that way, I can upload the mod with a different account, saving space for one more map.
I remember having troubles with preloading if it was done directly from the mod, so I preload the banks in every map instead.

I've created functions to retrieve the values from these user types. Now I can check with a line of code how many credits the player has at the moment, in which order he completed the missions, when did he unlock a tech, when did he purchased it, what's his record in this or that stat, etcetera.

Take control from replay

I've been investigating how this works. It will be pretty useful for the arcade version, but I've found two issues with it: If it's used, the banks can't be saved anymore, and the actor messages sent via triggers aren't issued again.
I couldn't find a workaround for the first one. I'll have to send the actor messages over and over again in a periodic event for the second.

I'm almost there. The only thing missing to start working on the actual maps is the launcher. If these implementations work fine, the story and the missions are the only things I'll have to focus in the future.

SC2Mapster Project Page: http://www.sc2mapster.com/maps/vespene-warlord/

Mapsters is a single player campaign where the characters are primarily named from users on some random website (or variations thereof). It primarily follows the story of Wargirl, a broodmother, and her Lieutenant, Hockleberry. Wargirl is a middle management broodmother who intends on making her way up the ladder, perhaps even to head advisor to the Queen of Blades one day.

Mission 1: Vespene Warlord
American Arcade Link: battlenet://starcraft/map/1/263246
European Arcade Link: battlenet://starcraft/map/2/184852
Jayborino Playthrough:

The zerg have received intel that there is a terran enemy conducting strange vespene experiments. Middle management broodmother, Wargirl, and her lieutenant, Hockleberry, have been sent to investigate.

Mission 2: Snowball's Chance
American Arcade Link: battlenet://starcraft/map/1/264095
European Arcade Link: battlenet://starcraft/map/2/185394
Jayborino Playthrough:

Wargirl's next conquest is on a terribly cold map with frequent flash freezes. In order to counter this, she has decided to strike hard and fast! She has ended up far from the primary hive, but it matters not as the enemy seems nearly defeated.

Mission 3: The Omashu Performance Review
American Arcade Link: battlenet://starcraft/map/1/264733
European Arcade Link: battlenet://starcraft/map/2/185813
Jayborino Playthrough:

Because of Wargirl's recklessness in her last mission, she has been sentenced to cleaning up feral zerg on the planet Omashu as a performance review. Her nemesis, EvilDL, will be directly supervising her actions as well as rating her performance.

Mission 4: Jayborino's Laboratory
American Arcade Link: battlenet://starcraft/map/1/265694
European Arcade Link: battlenet://starcraft/map/2/186549
Jayborino Playthrough:

Wargirl commits to a daring rescue mission to save EvilDL despite her negative feelings towards him! Hockleberry is maintaing a force outside the lab to secure their escape. Special thanks to Narudek for contributing a custom model for this mission!

Mission 5: The Cult of Sixen
American Arcade Link: battlenet://starcraft/map/1/266621
European Arcade Link: battlenet://starcraft/map/2/187198
Jayborino Playthrough:

Jayborino has escaped! With no leads to his wherabouts and unable to contact TacoManDan, Wargirl decides to pay Narudek a visit.