Nice to see that suggestion I made months ago on IRC finally got put up as a contest. Here's the one I did that made me think of it in the first place, it's the solar power plant from Fallout New Vegas, Helios One. Amazing what you can do with the built-in doodads, huh? Consider this my contest entry if you want, but I don't expect you to include it seeing how long ago I made it. Still waiting on my prize from the last contest I won! lol....
After looking at the map itself, I think this will probably be as far as my contributions go. Map's a little too small for my liking and I'm not at all a fan of maps I can't make mazes in.
Tower Defense Classic has a stat tracking system implemented on a per player basis, I haven't added functionality for a "high score" list yet. I'm willing to contribute pieces from my map to the project, but I don't think I'm going to have the time to dedicate myself to it. I'll gladly participate in any discussion sessions you want to set up over IRC or something though. Would be great to have a bunch of us get together and build a feature list.
Typically for something like this I would need to see the terrain setup to get a better idea of how to do a pathing system. But, the basic spawn loop I use for Tower Defense Classic is extremely flexible and extensible (hell, I've already adapted it for 8 game modes), so I'm gonna throw mine in for this project. Now, I've never participated in one of these Trigger Exercises before, so do you want a video demonstrating it in action or something? Might be a bit difficult to do with my shitty computer but I can whip up a map later this week to show it off.
But as for the spawn loop, here you go:
Global Variables:
Map - Integer: # of Maps
Lives - Integer: 25 (Array for # of maps)
Level - Integer: 0 (Array for # of maps)
Wave Size - Integer: 25 (or Array [Levels])
Enemy Type - Unit Type Array: [Levels]
Command - Ability Command Array [2]: Move / Attack Move
Order - Integer: 1 / 2
Units In Wave - Unit Group (Array for # of maps)
Attack Wave - Unit Group (Array for # of maps)
Spawn Area - Region Array: [# of Spawns] [Maps]
Spawn Group - Unit Group Array: [# of Spawns] [Maps]
Intermission - Boolean: False
Intermission Timer - Timer
Intermission Duration - Real: 30
Intermission Timer Window - Timer Window
Lives Spent - Boolean: False
Game Difficulty - Real: 1.0 (Set from vote dialog, .5, .75, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, 3.0)
EventsLocalVariables#ofUnitstoMake=0<Integer>Result=0.0<Real>TimeCounter=0<Integer>ConditionsLivesSpent==falseActionsVariable-SetIntermission=false-------CalculatehowmanyUnitstoSpawnVariable-SetResult=(Real(WaveSize[Level]))
Variable - Modify Result: * 4.0
Variable - Modify Result: * Game Difficulty
Variable - Modify Result: / 4.0
Variable - Set # of Units to Make = (Integer((Round(Result))))
Player Group - Pick each player in (All players) and do (Actions)
Actions
UI - Show help for Enemy Type[Level] for player (Picked player)
General - If (Conditions) then do multiple (Actions)
If Then Else
General - Else if (Conditions) then do (Actions)
Else If
Game Mode == 1
Then
01 - Classic(# of Units to Make)
Action Definition: 01 - Classic
Options:ActionReturnType:(None)ParametersUnitstoSpawn=0<Integer>GrammarText:01-Classic(UnitstoSpawn)HintText:(None)CustomScriptCodeLocalVariablesActionsGeneral-Pickeachintegerfrom1to4,anddo(Actions)ActionsUnit-CreateUnitstoSpawnEnemyType[Level] for player 15 at (Center of Spawn Areas[(Pickedinteger)]) using default facing (No Options)
Unit Group - Add all units in (Last created units) to Units in Wave
General - If (Conditions) then do (Actions) else do (Actions)
If
(Enemy Type[Level] has Heroic attribute) == true
Then
Variable - Set Order = 2
Unit Group - Add all units in (Last created units) to Attack Wave
Unit Group - Add all units in (Last created units) to Spawn Group[(Pickedinteger)]
Else
Variable - Set Order = 1
Unit Group - Add all units in (Last created units) to Spawn Group[(Pickedinteger)]
Unit - Order all units in Spawn Group[(Pickedinteger)] to (Command[Order] targeting Destination[(Pickedinteger)]) (Replace Existing Orders)
General - Wait 5.0 Real Time seconds
UI - Clears all current tip alerts for (All players)
There was a lot of extra hooks I had to remove from all of those and I didn't update them for use with multiple maps, but it should be pretty easy to figure out how to modify the code to use the multi-map variables I defined at the beginning. Overall though, you just loop through each map and each spawn zone in each map and that's what gets units spawning. If you want each map running on a separate clock, then you just put the intermission variables into an array to keep time per map. Play around with it and I'm sure you can do a vast array of things with this simple structure.
I'll try and get a working multi-map example done later this week, for now lunch and job hunting is in order.
Today I won't be around much until later in the evening. I'll send you a PM with some of the other things I came up with Barbasol.
One thing other thing I want to mention is the play style I've got in mind. Mainly what I'm imagining for this race is heavy heavy harassment and resource manipulation. Overall they wouldn't be focused on big battles because most of the units would be designed for hit and run missions and resource denying. Most of the biological ground units work in this regard, while some of the more expensive late game units are there to help balance that inability to fight big battles one on one. Most of their defenses come in the form of stealthiness and being hard to catch. Playing on that orbital drop theme, the race's ultimate or nuke would be in the form of an orbital ion cannon capable of quickly taking out key units and structures in short bursts.
Anyways, for now I've gotta go bring home my girlfriend from college for spring break. I'll be back in a few hours. Hope you don't feel like I'm completely re-writing your design here, I kinda feel bad because I'm sort of doing just that. >.<
Reading over what you've already got planned out, I came up with a few ideas that may help give your race a unique feel.
So far it seems you want to have a lot of focus on flying units and structures, as your race has to be very mobile. In addition to that, being pirates, their primary source of income seems to be stealing and scrapping whatever they can. Pirates don't have strong financial backing, centralized leadership, nor unified research and development. In many cases of pirate attacks, their main advantage comes in the element of surprise, exploiting their target's weaknesses, and commandeering the equipment of the enemy.
All this in mind, let's look at some options:
First off, give them a mobile command center. Not only will it make relocating and expanding easier, combined with flying gatherers, you now have the ability to steal enemy resources as a harassment option. Early game, most races don't have a quick response to air, and by using your new Piracy strategy, they now have to adjust their strategy in response. Mid-game, you can expand on this mechanic with a collection vessel. This unit wouldn't be able to construct additional gatherers, but would give gatherers a highly mobile drop off point. Additionally, by making this unit a transport, you can now fly it around the map, full of gatherers, to set up an expansion or steal from your opponents.
But let's back up. What else can we do with the command center? Well first let's address some issues balancing a flying main structure. In order to be a viable drop-off point, not to mention vulnerable to ground units, give this ship an anchor. The anchor keeps the command center in place, close to the resource nodes so you can gather them efficiently. When destroyed by enemy forces or when retracted for relocation, the command center will drift when idle, making it an unfit landing location for gatherers. It will then take time and resources to build a new anchor, thus giving a balanced disruption to resource gathering.
Now, more on the gatherers. Don't make them a worker in the traditional sense. Their primary purpose should be as the name I've used implies. In that regard, they don't have any form of self defense, other than the fact that they can only be targeted by anti-air units, and they can't build structures. In an emergency though, such as when your command center gets destroyed, they have a distress beacon with which they can call in a new command center from orbit. Without a command center or a collection vessel nearby, they'll quickly run out of fuel and become practically immobile.
So what about building construction? How about a dedicated queen like unit, or perhaps beacons to call in structures from orbit? Both ideas are quite viable. Let's take a look at the command center again for a moment. In addition to producing workers, let's give it a larva-train like ability to call in new structures from orbit, using a gatherer as a calldown beacon. Now for that queen unit, a pretty simple solution comes to mind: the collection vessel. With it, you can also call in new structures away from your main base.
Wow, that's a lot already! And it's only 3 of your units! Let's recap:
- Flying Command Center: Must be anchored to be a resource drop off, produces gatherers and collection vessels, calls in other structures from orbit.
- Gatherers: flying units that collect resources, quick when fueled, nearly immobile when stranded, acts as a signal beacon that calls in structures.
- Collection Vessels: Mobile resource drop off points, can call in basic structures, transports gatherers over long-distances.
That only covers part of the theme mechanics. I'm barely even started here, but it's 5am and I'm yawning too much to keep typing tonight. If you want the rest of what I've come up with, you'll have to contact me via PM or on IRC (sn: Saeris). I'm always in the mapster channel, though not always awake, though you can typically reach me during the PST afternoon hours.
Good luck with creating a custom race! It'll be difficult, but it's entirely possible. You've got a good idea going here already, and it should be pretty easy to start fleshing it out with existing units and structures. Don't get hung up on creating art assets right now, you'll want to change them a million times over, and when you decide some idea you had for a unit didn't work, you'd just end up scrapping whatever art you made for it in the first place. Always try to nail function down before polishing it, that philosophy will get you far in game design.
Wow, already a lot of requests here! I've only got a few to add, but the main two are easy to implement and should have been done for retail launch.
- More editor tooltips, in PLAIN ENGLISH. ie: "Damage dealt by the unit when being scaled." Tooltips like these are difficult to interpret. Someone new to the editor would assume this means to increase damage by a %, but that would really be Damage Fraction, another attribute that isn't properly explained. Every editable value should have a tooltip, there's no excuse for this.
- We should be able to drag and drop Requirement Nodes. It's really frustrating when editing requirements that I can't move them around.
- The Actor Events panel contains a lot of information with very little explanation. If actor events are supposed to behave similar to triggers, then the editor should be similar to the trigger editor, it's much easier to work with.
- Fix the numerous problems listed here with Dialogs, then go and scrap all of it and fucking redo it to be more like HTML/CSS. Dialogs are incredibly difficult to set up because of all the guesstimating involved. All dialog items should have meaningful alignments, including the ability to center text.
- If you can't fix dialogs, at least fix Leaderboards and Timer Windows so that they can be anchored in different locations on the screen, without having their anchor points tied exclusively to one corner. What's the point in moving a Leaderboard if it's size is based on a percentage of screen size? Moving it to an absolute position would still allow for it to render off-screen.
The more I write up things that need fixing, the more I think up. So just tell them to hire me. =P I'll work for rent/utilities+food. I'm very easy to please!
I'd really like to partake in this contest, though being that winter break just started and I've been bogged down with work these past few weeks, I'm having trouble finding time to even get on IRC much less time to develop a new map. Hopefully I'll be able to submit something to this contest, but, so far it's not looking like I'll have the time.
This will definitely help all of us out until Blizzard makes some improvements to their dialog system. I still find it stupid that they didn't design dialogs to be more like modern HTML/CSS, which is far easier to understand and edit. Maybe they'll do something like that some day. Thanks for the map though, I'll be using it a bunch for upcoming projects.
Yea Rodrigo you're much better off just using a list of words of specific topics, that way you have a theme to rotate between kinda like how you were swapping out words before. If you have any questions about the meaning of a word.... well one you can just Google it and see it's definition on Dictionary.com or see what it means on Urban Dictionary (which is a site that primarily lists slang and alternate meanings of words and phrases). Don't rely on what someone else gives you, you might not get another chance like this. Thanks for letting us know what's up though.
That's not my point Bounty. Even with the seemingly arbitrarily placed doodads throughout your map, they provide very minimal cover. When I say your map could benefit from being less wide open, I mean adding in more hallways, buildings to hide behind (or hide in), etc. I don't know if your system allows for shooting up and down, but catwalks and rooftops would be excellent terrain additions as well. There are numerous maps over a http://www.TF2maps.net which you could get ideas from. As your map stands right now, it's too easy for you to be hit by 3 or more people at once. And where that's good in a twitchy game like Unreal Tournament, SC2 is inherently slower, thus players will have a harder time reacting to multiple opponents in a wide open space.
Looks great, though gameplay seems to be far too chaotic. It's probably because the terrain is so wide open and even the bits you can use for cover are only effectively a line of sight blocker. The map could really benefit from some more tight quarters terrain.
I'm quite curious to learn how you managed to get movement to be so lag free! You better post a tutorial on how to do it at some point! Otherwise, can't wait to go and play it when I get the chance.
This one probably won't be an entry, but I thought I'd post my progress for it here as well. Converting another legacy map, Twisted Fate. I'm making a few changes to the scenery from the old one (SC2 doesn't have Tar lakes unfortunately) and I might go and add some different mechanics too it, such as the scrap yards I spoke over earlier. That, or possibly neutral Towns which can provide you with free repairs or are infest-able to provide a steady stream of zombies. We'll see how it goes.
Judges: I'll leave it up to you whether or not to include this one in the voting.
So after working on Ashrigo I decided to try converting another, this time Highland Denizens, another 4 player map. I'll keep this post updated with the progress on that map. Here's the original and my version, and the latest build of the map itself. I think I can call this one pretty much done until I can get more play testing in. It's published on US as well, so go give it a play.
I guess I will forward my question to here, since there seems to be no response on the "How to make a Legacy Map" guide.
I am looking at recreating the map Full Circle for this contest, but there are some issues with the original map that I wanted to correct. first of all, I want to swap where the main and the nat are in the map (not change the cliff placement, but put the main on the high ground like is common in SC2 maps) and to also add a 3rd in addition to the middle expos (which will become gold). How much of the map are we able to change to still qualify for this contest, especially in the case of a map like Full Circle which has a lot of potential if it wasn't for some of the obvious flaws?
I would assume it's fine to change things up a bit. As long the map looks pretty much the same I don't see a problem with it. In SC1 cliffs were only useful for ranged units and flying units, but now with jumping and cliff walking, obviously some liberties need to be taken with cliffs. No matter which way you look at it, the gameplay is going to be a lot different between the two games. Just try to adapt it as best you can while maintaining the look and layout of the classic map.
0
Nice to see that suggestion I made months ago on IRC finally got put up as a contest. Here's the one I did that made me think of it in the first place, it's the solar power plant from Fallout New Vegas, Helios One. Amazing what you can do with the built-in doodads, huh? Consider this my contest entry if you want, but I don't expect you to include it seeing how long ago I made it. Still waiting on my prize from the last contest I won! lol....
0
@b0ne123: Go
After looking at the map itself, I think this will probably be as far as my contributions go. Map's a little too small for my liking and I'm not at all a fan of maps I can't make mazes in.
0
Tower Defense Classic has a stat tracking system implemented on a per player basis, I haven't added functionality for a "high score" list yet. I'm willing to contribute pieces from my map to the project, but I don't think I'm going to have the time to dedicate myself to it. I'll gladly participate in any discussion sessions you want to set up over IRC or something though. Would be great to have a bunch of us get together and build a feature list.
0
Typically for something like this I would need to see the terrain setup to get a better idea of how to do a pathing system. But, the basic spawn loop I use for Tower Defense Classic is extremely flexible and extensible (hell, I've already adapted it for 8 game modes), so I'm gonna throw mine in for this project. Now, I've never participated in one of these Trigger Exercises before, so do you want a video demonstrating it in action or something? Might be a bit difficult to do with my shitty computer but I can whip up a map later this week to show it off.
But as for the spawn loop, here you go:
Global Variables:
Map - Integer: # of Maps
Lives - Integer: 25 (Array for # of maps)
Level - Integer: 0 (Array for # of maps)
Wave Size - Integer: 25 (or Array [Levels])
Enemy Type - Unit Type Array: [Levels]
Command - Ability Command Array [2]: Move / Attack Move
Order - Integer: 1 / 2
Units In Wave - Unit Group (Array for # of maps)
Attack Wave - Unit Group (Array for # of maps)
Spawn Area - Region Array: [# of Spawns] [Maps]
Spawn Group - Unit Group Array: [# of Spawns] [Maps]
Intermission - Boolean: False
Intermission Timer - Timer
Intermission Duration - Real: 30
Intermission Timer Window - Timer Window
Lives Spent - Boolean: False
Game Difficulty - Real: 1.0 (Set from vote dialog, .5, .75, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, 3.0)
Triggers:
Start New Level
Run Level
Action Definition: 01 - Classic
End Level
Intermission
Update Lives
There was a lot of extra hooks I had to remove from all of those and I didn't update them for use with multiple maps, but it should be pretty easy to figure out how to modify the code to use the multi-map variables I defined at the beginning. Overall though, you just loop through each map and each spawn zone in each map and that's what gets units spawning. If you want each map running on a separate clock, then you just put the intermission variables into an array to keep time per map. Play around with it and I'm sure you can do a vast array of things with this simple structure.
I'll try and get a working multi-map example done later this week, for now lunch and job hunting is in order.
0
0
0
Wow, already a lot of requests here! I've only got a few to add, but the main two are easy to implement and should have been done for retail launch.
- More editor tooltips, in PLAIN ENGLISH. ie: "Damage dealt by the unit when being scaled." Tooltips like these are difficult to interpret. Someone new to the editor would assume this means to increase damage by a %, but that would really be Damage Fraction, another attribute that isn't properly explained. Every editable value should have a tooltip, there's no excuse for this.
- We should be able to drag and drop Requirement Nodes. It's really frustrating when editing requirements that I can't move them around.
- The Actor Events panel contains a lot of information with very little explanation. If actor events are supposed to behave similar to triggers, then the editor should be similar to the trigger editor, it's much easier to work with.
- Fix the numerous problems listed here with Dialogs, then go and scrap all of it and fucking redo it to be more like HTML/CSS. Dialogs are incredibly difficult to set up because of all the guesstimating involved. All dialog items should have meaningful alignments, including the ability to center text.
- If you can't fix dialogs, at least fix Leaderboards and Timer Windows so that they can be anchored in different locations on the screen, without having their anchor points tied exclusively to one corner. What's the point in moving a Leaderboard if it's size is based on a percentage of screen size? Moving it to an absolute position would still allow for it to render off-screen.
The more I write up things that need fixing, the more I think up. So just tell them to hire me. =P I'll work for rent/utilities+food. I'm very easy to please!
0
I'd really like to partake in this contest, though being that winter break just started and I've been bogged down with work these past few weeks, I'm having trouble finding time to even get on IRC much less time to develop a new map. Hopefully I'll be able to submit something to this contest, but, so far it's not looking like I'll have the time.
0
This will definitely help all of us out until Blizzard makes some improvements to their dialog system. I still find it stupid that they didn't design dialogs to be more like modern HTML/CSS, which is far easier to understand and edit. Maybe they'll do something like that some day. Thanks for the map though, I'll be using it a bunch for upcoming projects.
0
@RodrigoAlves: Go
Whore: Whore, Prostitute, Tramp, Hooker, Slut, etc...
Monger: Trader, Seller, etc...
Whoremonger = Pimp, hustler, etc...
Yea Rodrigo you're much better off just using a list of words of specific topics, that way you have a theme to rotate between kinda like how you were swapping out words before. If you have any questions about the meaning of a word.... well one you can just Google it and see it's definition on Dictionary.com or see what it means on Urban Dictionary (which is a site that primarily lists slang and alternate meanings of words and phrases). Don't rely on what someone else gives you, you might not get another chance like this. Thanks for letting us know what's up though.
0
@Bounty_98: Go
That's not my point Bounty. Even with the seemingly arbitrarily placed doodads throughout your map, they provide very minimal cover. When I say your map could benefit from being less wide open, I mean adding in more hallways, buildings to hide behind (or hide in), etc. I don't know if your system allows for shooting up and down, but catwalks and rooftops would be excellent terrain additions as well. There are numerous maps over a http://www.TF2maps.net which you could get ideas from. As your map stands right now, it's too easy for you to be hit by 3 or more people at once. And where that's good in a twitchy game like Unreal Tournament, SC2 is inherently slower, thus players will have a harder time reacting to multiple opponents in a wide open space.
0
@Bounty_98: Go
Looks great, though gameplay seems to be far too chaotic. It's probably because the terrain is so wide open and even the bits you can use for cover are only effectively a line of sight blocker. The map could really benefit from some more tight quarters terrain.
I'm quite curious to learn how you managed to get movement to be so lag free! You better post a tutorial on how to do it at some point! Otherwise, can't wait to go and play it when I get the chance.
0
This one probably won't be an entry, but I thought I'd post my progress for it here as well. Converting another legacy map, Twisted Fate. I'm making a few changes to the scenery from the old one (SC2 doesn't have Tar lakes unfortunately) and I might go and add some different mechanics too it, such as the scrap yards I spoke over earlier. That, or possibly neutral Towns which can provide you with free repairs or are infest-able to provide a steady stream of zombies. We'll see how it goes.
Judges: I'll leave it up to you whether or not to include this one in the voting.
0
So after working on Ashrigo I decided to try converting another, this time Highland Denizens, another 4 player map. I'll keep this post updated with the progress on that map. Here's the original and my version, and the latest build of the map itself. I think I can call this one pretty much done until I can get more play testing in. It's published on US as well, so go give it a play.
0
I would assume it's fine to change things up a bit. As long the map looks pretty much the same I don't see a problem with it. In SC1 cliffs were only useful for ranged units and flying units, but now with jumping and cliff walking, obviously some liberties need to be taken with cliffs. No matter which way you look at it, the gameplay is going to be a lot different between the two games. Just try to adapt it as best you can while maintaining the look and layout of the classic map.