Anyways, the lore in this map doesn't matter, what does matter is extensive gameplay that expands the replayability of the game.
Since you did say you want it so players can basically "respawn" as a fresh new civilian on death, it essentially means:
The game doesn't end.
The game runs on a clock, ends when the clock stops and whether survivors escapes or not.
But what if, you can escape as many time as you want and this adds onto your score card?
Say, you can help a group of survivors escape, this nets you points, which can unlock new "ideas" for your characters. Saving groups of characters will net you bonus points, but is harder to do. Saving yourself by successfully escaping, nets you normal points.
Upon escape, you have a choice of continuing the game as another civilian, typically restarting the game.
The differences is that the civilian spawns gets randomized, but with your unlocked points, you can essentially "choose some preference" in the creation of your character.
Say:
Newbies = Start off as a new civilian, no "perks" enabled.
Once you gained enough points, you can use it to buy perks, to equip it onto your next civilian.
Perks basically are "attributes/skills/enhancements" that is suppose to make your survivor unique. Survivors can bring up to 3 unique sets of perks at one time for one civilian, certain perks can not be used with other perks, thus disabling them. Other civilians you meet may be created with a random perk.
The idea is straight out from fallout, but typically, every perks may have a disadvantage. Some may give items, some don't. Some has specific spawns, while others are randomized.
Like:
Athletic - You move faster and can dodge attacks, but you aren't as strong.
Muscular - You are stronger but slower.
Pizza Delivery Boy - You know your way around the area (outer map advantage), you are more vulnerable to damage.
Thief - Your stealthier and can avoid detection more effectively.
Criminal - You lose less sanity in general, but other civilians doesn't trust you.
Negotiator - You prefer to convince rather than violence, you are less effective at combat, but npc civilians trust you more.
Firefighter - You can break down barricades more effectively, and charge into danger. More resistant to fire, but more vulnerable to the infection. May spawn at a Fire Station.
Police Officer - You can use firearms effectively, but vulnerable to infection. May spawn at a Police Station.
Scientist - You are very intelligent and can craft a variety of medications, but you are also vulnerable to damage.
Engineer - You can craft and repair items and build barricades with ease, but you are weaker in combat.
Well they aren't exactly up to par with the lore, so I could simplify them to fit in SC2 lore:
Cybernetic limbs - Being part machine and part man makes you resistant to infections and you are more efficient with actions.
Military Training - Having trained in the ways of combat, you are more effective with firearms and melee weapons.
Just cause you think you make sense, doesn't mean others have to agree to it.
Also, re-read your posts, and think about it from the community's perspective.
Hitting someone with a huge block of text and have occasional swearing, it's insulting to people who have to read through it.
Also, you did say "I'm not directly" which mean you ARE indirectly, which is still insulting him, since your directing it TOWARDS his position.
Your basically saying:
"Your ideas are stupid so you should change it to *this* and *this* and *this*".
The website showcases IDEAS, they don't have to be completed and highly polished works. Seriously.
It can also showcase many other different things that don't relate to SC2... So, yup, your the biased one.
Like they send in elite forces to scout and analyze their foes, and they'll essentially move through a infested area, killing zerg units, but will avoid heavily infested areas. Survivors who come across them unfortunately, will be attacked since the Protoss shows no mercy to possible "infected" while purging a planet.
After a while, a possible "purging" might occur at a location, where they'll send in a purifier and it'll inflict huge damage to heavily infested areas...
But that also means buildings in the vicinity will turn into danger zones and can "possibly" damage all survivors within them if they don't escape.
After the purging starts, better find someplace to hide, the zerg dislikes being disturbed by a large force, so they send air forces to destroy it... And then it gets reinfected again...
This makes the game filled with more environmental situations and gives you a feeling of changes...
Other possible scenarios:
- Band of survivors starts appearing, but these are no normal survivors. Psychopaths appears in the game as possible threats to zombies and humans alike. Kill them though, and you'll loot them of their scavenged goods.
- Giant "queens" appears and starts infesting a area with creep tumors, this spawns more zombies and creeps. They can also spawn after the protoss purging to re-infest.
In Starcraft lore, they technically can use small arms, but little information is on those.
Other than that, rifles, flamethrower, and such are quite plentiful (in military areas that is).
In a urban environment, where soldiers died fighting, maybe there are guns, but most of em are destroyed in the battle.
So maybe, survivors can also craft guns together like this, after finding unbroken parts to assemble them.
Example:
Instead of making items with "barrel, trigger, etc." you can just craft them out of "Gun Part" items that stacks.
Say making a gun requires a # of said gun parts, and maybe experience or skills.
Or being able to upgrade a refinery into a automated refinery[campaign unit], which slowly automatically mines 20% more gas off of it, but at a slower rate (thus you need to protect it). Once it expires, it automatically salvages.
Maybe how it works is, you can turn a depleted refinery into a automated refinery, but if you do that whilst the gas is at 0, it'll start a countdown of 120 seconds, and be able to draw the last bits of gas, but it'll expire when the timer hits 0 and both the refinery and vespene geyser gets removed.
Junk/Asteroid collisions are possible, and rare. Gives a random amount of supplies, gas, and minerals.
And having "remnants" of zealot units can work too... Maybe tiny hidden robotics bases that has sentries, stalkers, immortals and maybe even a colossus.
As of now, whenever you start the game, massive lag hits you.
Can you adjust the unit spawning so it happens over time, within 60 seconds from the beginning of the game? Limit to about 10 units per second or something so it doesn't take a massive load on the player's computers (because even in a fog of war)...
You definitely need a modeler and a animator to do this, otherwise I suggest you study a bit of 3d modeling and animation so you can modify your civilians to do simple poses or animations for using weapons.
Too bad you can't half rig marine skeletons onto a civilian and have them play that animation when firing a gun.
All the more fun because you get to have fun with every little detail... Not see a mass of pixelated blurriness attacking your base in 15 minutes.
And mappers aren't able to making maps last 30+ minutes in the first place is because of the lack of detail or fine contents found in older maps...
Like unique or interesting "systems" or "interfaces" from SC1 can be implemented into SC2 as a new fun way to make players curious.
Of course, SC2 basically turns mapping/modding into a full time job...
SC2 isn't meant to be faster to entertain players. You want the truth? Blizzard wants to entertain audiences who watches SC2 matches, so it's developed for their "E-sports"... Too bad no one takes it seriously because they tried to overstep their boundary in gaming. People want to play it for fun, not to rush, not to mass, but simply for fun, in their own way. Blizzard is the one who sets those rules, thus ending up ruining some of the original SC aspects.
Blizzard develops games, not clown around for an audience.
-
I say for this map, it would be better for the mapper to create better terrains, so players don't exactly know which is the best spot for a base, when you could have unique functions or features built right into the map.
Maybe it'll be fun if this gets put into a mod, so it works on any custom maps, although maps would need specific regions set first...
If this mod works on a epic sized map, it'll be interesting, but the unit count is way too large. Maybe the larger the map, the smaller the waves, but longer and more harder to explore?
Gates:
The planet WAS a powerful Terran Colony, so you need remnants of doodads that showed that a area housed a hanger full of random high yield items, obviously large gates to seal this building is a must, and zerg can't spawn within it until the seal is broken.
Maybe call them "vaults"...
Is it possible to "randomly" modify terrain with preset terrain blocks so you can modify how the area looks each time?
Mineral patches:
Needs to be modified so they don't randomly scatter and dot the maps, it should be within "groups" of patches that has a suitable amount and scatters within one level of the cliff, so you don't see minerals on top of cliffs and is unreachable.
Example: 1 Mineral patch can cover 45x45 grid and consists of 49 mineral units, randomly set within that grid, having 40120 randomly set minerals each, to a max of 300600 per group. Might be too complex though, but gives players better areas to prepare larger resources gathering, rather than working on one mineral unit at a time.
Item/Structure Spawns:
Again, having factories, science vessles, minerals, gas, etc. stuck on top of unreachable cliffs are no fun, turn those cliffs into "unspawnable" areas by placing regions onto them.
I'm more of the SC1 Map player, where you actually play on a map longer than 1 hour.
Seriously, the pacing has sped up a ton where mappers must make a map that takes no more than 30 minutes.
To add to the new version of stranded on kydon:
- Noticed there's objectives now, but they don't do much other than giving tips...
- Difficulty modes...
Objectives should give you a point for each one that's completed, and you can redeem these points to customize your SCV... Or Upgrade turrets?
By doing this, you make your map re-playable, so players will continue to try to unlock things.
Maybe you can use banks to save data, so players can do loadouts?
How this would work:
Having experienced players with good stuff from the beginning of the game isn't good, so...
Make it so with the points you gain, you can use them to unlock "skills" on a custom skill tree for your SCV.
Then while playing in game, you can upgrade and customize your SCV via "skill" tree, but only if you spend Minerals and Gas to get them.
Example:
Each upgrade costs 10 points to unlock on the tree, depending on how well you managed to get them.
HP+ (Increases hitpoints by 10/15/25) (Costs 75m 25g to upgrade, increases by 25m each time)
EN+ (Increases energy by 10/15/25) (Costs 75m 25g to upgrade, increases by 25m each time)
Atk+ (Increases melee damage by 5) (Costs 100m 50g to upgrade)
Shot+ (Increases shooting damage by 5) (Costs 100m 50g to upgrade)
Def+ (Increases armor by 3) (Costs 150m to upgrade)
For example, to get all 3 HP+ unlocked, you need 30 points.
Once they are unlocked, they can be upgraded in any game session.
Possible other upgrades:
- Protoss Shields (Requires Protoss Tech) (Costs 75m 75g to give your SCV 25 shields) (Shield 1/s regen out of battle for 5 seconds)
- Protoss Psicutter (Requires Protoss Tech) (Costs 150m 100g) (Increases attack speed by 25% and damage by 10) (Gathering Speed +50%)
- Zerg Regeneration (Requires ?Zerg? Tech) (Cost 100m 100g) (Allows health to regenerate outside of battle) (1hp/s when out of battle for 5 seconds, not incap)
- Engine Upgrade (Costs 150m) (Increases speed of scv by 20% [+0.2])
- Emergency Power (Costs 200m 100g) (Enables self repair out of incapitation by spending 2 supply)
As a bonus, these points can also be used to unlock upgrades for the current structures... It basically works in the same idea, but you can pay extra to upgrade barricades, normal turrets, perdition turrets, missile turrets, siege tanks, and more.
Structures can only be upgraded once, and cost a small fee. Salvaging will give 75% of the new structure's value back.
Barrier -> Spiked Barrier (deals 5 damage to attackers and +50hp) (cost 10 minerals and 10 gas)
Sentry Gun Turrets -> Dual Sentry Gun Turrets (shoots 2 shots at once and +50hp) (cost 40 minerals to upgrade)
Missile Turrets -> Salvo Missile Turrets (Shoots ground to air AoE missiles every few shots [Campaign upgrade] and +50hp) (cost 20 minerals 20 gas to upgrade)
For hazardous environments, I think dangerous plants can be one.
Like you wouldn't need to add many zombies to spawn, just have a area that is "infested" and pose a risk to players who aren't equipped with a suit that can nullify the infection.
The infested area basically have stuff, like eggs, and zerg plants. These can be hostile to the player, like if the player move too sudden or attacked the egg.
Of course, a full fledge zombie spawning from the egg is a bad idea, so make them weaker but deadly "zombies" that has the same effect as a broodling.
They inflict the same damage, but they move faster but dies very fast as soon as they pop out of their eggs/cocoons. Only triggered when your very close or when you attack it, it only lives for 2 seconds.
Zerg Plants basically are environmental triggers that have a slim chance of occurring if you happen to touch or brush by them. It basically entangles or shoot out spores at the player, trying to stop or poison the player.
As for tools, I think your essentially tools can be used to destroy these minor inconveniences, but they can't be used as weapons to kill zombies.
You can basically use a makeshift-flamethrower to kill plants and eggs, etc. You could make certain tools or items very useful... Like pesticide spray can harm small zerg critters that lives in the infested areas, chemical agents that can kill small living organisms such as plants...
As for bosses, they needs to be more important in the storyline, like bosses should be unique and interesting, should match with the game style.
Maybe they can take form of special zombies (not like l4d) that specialized in tracking survivors, basically not linked to the zerg overmind, they are a individual specie.
Speaking of overmind, it would be interesting if you can put a overmind in your map. It makes sense for one to be on a infested planet.
Story is very very important. Especially if you can include "documents" that can be scattered throughout the map. Players can learn about secrets and possibly new clues to beat enemies or finding a way through, with the use of these documents.
When your going to implement the HP system, try to do it in a fun but short way:
Survivors have 100 hp, 0 defense. Able to regenerate "some" health if they are not afflicted with any statuses. Health regeneration is slower if the survivor keeps moving. Survivors can lose "max" health if they get wounded, which is a script that runs and knows that a survivor's max health is always 100, but can have a debuff that lowers max health by a fixed amount.
Typical zombies would have 100 hp, 5 defense. If they attack a player, they should do minor but "bleeding damage". Basically make the zombie's attack do 5 (15 to biological) so they can chip off healths off of barricades, and do good damage on surviviors. Bleeding "debuff" is what these zombies are good at doing, and they have a 15% chance of inflicting bleeding on you, of which it does 1 damage every 5 seconds, for 1 minute, and your health can't regenerate at that time until you use treatments or bandages.
The aspect of killing zombies... Maybe certain weapons will have certain effects and a degree of damage to the zombies. Angle of attacks can be VERY important, as zombies can have a "slow turning" speed to go along with it's AI, meaning a smart player can circle it and smack it on the back of the head. Problem is, there is usually more than one zombies, so it's not safe to think your a pro and you'll sprint and whack every zombies on the back of the head with your crowbar.
Weapons should have a weak default damage, with a high damage to specific value.
Crowbar for example, should be:
12 (44 to structures, 22 to light) With attack speed of 0.6 hit per second.
Flamethrower:
4 (12 to biological, 10 to structures) With attack speed of 0.8 hit per second. Hits 3 times.
The zombies are tough and sturdy, but they have the same health. They regenerate health similarly to roaches.
So if your going to incorporate bosses, make them have the same idea: same health, but higher defense to handle being hit, and regenerates just as well.
Zombies and mutant monsters in movies and games, they are tough because of their regenerative and defensive abilities, not because they have a HUGE vitality. Immortal characters in games and movies is because they nullify your damage with their huge defenses or super high regeneration.
0
In the editor, by default everyone makes maps, it's much easier than modding.
But straight to the question? What mods?
The editor enables you to make them, but information surrounding the existence and possibly usage of mods is still not there...
You basically play "maps" if you play online, but what determines your selection of mods?
Is it something that's enabled by overriding it before entering the game client, thus rewriting the game?
Or is it a function you can select in-game to tweak melee maps to some kind of custom settings?
If that is all, then I will be surely disappointed in the system.
0
People are going offtopic.
Anyways, the lore in this map doesn't matter, what does matter is extensive gameplay that expands the replayability of the game.
Since you did say you want it so players can basically "respawn" as a fresh new civilian on death, it essentially means:
But what if, you can escape as many time as you want and this adds onto your score card?
Say, you can help a group of survivors escape, this nets you points, which can unlock new "ideas" for your characters. Saving groups of characters will net you bonus points, but is harder to do. Saving yourself by successfully escaping, nets you normal points.
Upon escape, you have a choice of continuing the game as another civilian, typically restarting the game.
The differences is that the civilian spawns gets randomized, but with your unlocked points, you can essentially "choose some preference" in the creation of your character.
Say:
Newbies = Start off as a new civilian, no "perks" enabled.
Once you gained enough points, you can use it to buy perks, to equip it onto your next civilian.
Perks basically are "attributes/skills/enhancements" that is suppose to make your survivor unique. Survivors can bring up to 3 unique sets of perks at one time for one civilian, certain perks can not be used with other perks, thus disabling them. Other civilians you meet may be created with a random perk.
The idea is straight out from fallout, but typically, every perks may have a disadvantage. Some may give items, some don't. Some has specific spawns, while others are randomized.
Like:
Athletic - You move faster and can dodge attacks, but you aren't as strong.
Muscular - You are stronger but slower.
Pizza Delivery Boy - You know your way around the area (outer map advantage), you are more vulnerable to damage.
Thief - Your stealthier and can avoid detection more effectively.
Criminal - You lose less sanity in general, but other civilians doesn't trust you.
Negotiator - You prefer to convince rather than violence, you are less effective at combat, but npc civilians trust you more.
Firefighter - You can break down barricades more effectively, and charge into danger. More resistant to fire, but more vulnerable to the infection. May spawn at a Fire Station.
Police Officer - You can use firearms effectively, but vulnerable to infection. May spawn at a Police Station.
Scientist - You are very intelligent and can craft a variety of medications, but you are also vulnerable to damage.
Engineer - You can craft and repair items and build barricades with ease, but you are weaker in combat.
Well they aren't exactly up to par with the lore, so I could simplify them to fit in SC2 lore:
0
@Carsonjudd: Go
Just cause you think you make sense, doesn't mean others have to agree to it.
Also, re-read your posts, and think about it from the community's perspective.
Hitting someone with a huge block of text and have occasional swearing, it's insulting to people who have to read through it.
Also, you did say "I'm not directly" which mean you ARE indirectly, which is still insulting him, since your directing it TOWARDS his position.
Your basically saying: "Your ideas are stupid so you should change it to *this* and *this* and *this*".
The website showcases IDEAS, they don't have to be completed and highly polished works. Seriously. It can also showcase many other different things that don't relate to SC2... So, yup, your the biased one.
0
Any chances for "protoss purges" to occur?
Like they send in elite forces to scout and analyze their foes, and they'll essentially move through a infested area, killing zerg units, but will avoid heavily infested areas. Survivors who come across them unfortunately, will be attacked since the Protoss shows no mercy to possible "infected" while purging a planet.
After a while, a possible "purging" might occur at a location, where they'll send in a purifier and it'll inflict huge damage to heavily infested areas...
But that also means buildings in the vicinity will turn into danger zones and can "possibly" damage all survivors within them if they don't escape.
After the purging starts, better find someplace to hide, the zerg dislikes being disturbed by a large force, so they send air forces to destroy it... And then it gets reinfected again...
This makes the game filled with more environmental situations and gives you a feeling of changes...
Other possible scenarios:
- Band of survivors starts appearing, but these are no normal survivors. Psychopaths appears in the game as possible threats to zombies and humans alike. Kill them though, and you'll loot them of their scavenged goods.
- Giant "queens" appears and starts infesting a area with creep tumors, this spawns more zombies and creeps. They can also spawn after the protoss purging to re-infest.
0
And failed identification will result in them turning into "scrap metal" which can be used in other crafting and possible repairing and barricading?
1
Need more balancing... The moment a single kerrigan pops up, your defenses goes bye bye with her 150 damage shots.
Kind of makes little sense when weaponry takes her health down to 1, but some reason she can't die at all.
1
@scmapcritic: Go
You seriously must have a powerful PC to handle all that lag when Kerrigan appears with the huge waves.
0
In Starcraft lore, they technically can use small arms, but little information is on those. Other than that, rifles, flamethrower, and such are quite plentiful (in military areas that is).
In a urban environment, where soldiers died fighting, maybe there are guns, but most of em are destroyed in the battle.
So maybe, survivors can also craft guns together like this, after finding unbroken parts to assemble them.
Example:
Instead of making items with "barrel, trigger, etc." you can just craft them out of "Gun Part" items that stacks. Say making a gun requires a # of said gun parts, and maybe experience or skills.
Then you'll have to craft ammo... Somehow...
1
Or being able to upgrade a refinery into a automated refinery[campaign unit], which slowly automatically mines 20% more gas off of it, but at a slower rate (thus you need to protect it). Once it expires, it automatically salvages.
Maybe how it works is, you can turn a depleted refinery into a automated refinery, but if you do that whilst the gas is at 0, it'll start a countdown of 120 seconds, and be able to draw the last bits of gas, but it'll expire when the timer hits 0 and both the refinery and vespene geyser gets removed.
Junk/Asteroid collisions are possible, and rare. Gives a random amount of supplies, gas, and minerals.
And having "remnants" of zealot units can work too... Maybe tiny hidden robotics bases that has sentries, stalkers, immortals and maybe even a colossus.
1
Ah right, it's important for a new post for this:
As of now, whenever you start the game, massive lag hits you. Can you adjust the unit spawning so it happens over time, within 60 seconds from the beginning of the game? Limit to about 10 units per second or something so it doesn't take a massive load on the player's computers (because even in a fog of war)...
0
You definitely need a modeler and a animator to do this, otherwise I suggest you study a bit of 3d modeling and animation so you can modify your civilians to do simple poses or animations for using weapons.
Too bad you can't half rig marine skeletons onto a civilian and have them play that animation when firing a gun.
1
All the more fun because you get to have fun with every little detail... Not see a mass of pixelated blurriness attacking your base in 15 minutes.
And mappers aren't able to making maps last 30+ minutes in the first place is because of the lack of detail or fine contents found in older maps... Like unique or interesting "systems" or "interfaces" from SC1 can be implemented into SC2 as a new fun way to make players curious.
Of course, SC2 basically turns mapping/modding into a full time job...
SC2 isn't meant to be faster to entertain players. You want the truth? Blizzard wants to entertain audiences who watches SC2 matches, so it's developed for their "E-sports"... Too bad no one takes it seriously because they tried to overstep their boundary in gaming. People want to play it for fun, not to rush, not to mass, but simply for fun, in their own way. Blizzard is the one who sets those rules, thus ending up ruining some of the original SC aspects.
Blizzard develops games, not clown around for an audience.
-I say for this map, it would be better for the mapper to create better terrains, so players don't exactly know which is the best spot for a base, when you could have unique functions or features built right into the map.
Maybe it'll be fun if this gets put into a mod, so it works on any custom maps, although maps would need specific regions set first...
If this mod works on a epic sized map, it'll be interesting, but the unit count is way too large. Maybe the larger the map, the smaller the waves, but longer and more harder to explore?
Gates:
The planet WAS a powerful Terran Colony, so you need remnants of doodads that showed that a area housed a hanger full of random high yield items, obviously large gates to seal this building is a must, and zerg can't spawn within it until the seal is broken.
Maybe call them "vaults"...
Is it possible to "randomly" modify terrain with preset terrain blocks so you can modify how the area looks each time?
Mineral patches:
Needs to be modified so they don't randomly scatter and dot the maps, it should be within "groups" of patches that has a suitable amount and scatters within one level of the cliff, so you don't see minerals on top of cliffs and is unreachable.
Example: 1 Mineral patch can cover 45x45 grid and consists of 49 mineral units, randomly set within that grid, having 40120 randomly set minerals each, to a max of 300600 per group. Might be too complex though, but gives players better areas to prepare larger resources gathering, rather than working on one mineral unit at a time.
Item/Structure Spawns:
Again, having factories, science vessles, minerals, gas, etc. stuck on top of unreachable cliffs are no fun, turn those cliffs into "unspawnable" areas by placing regions onto them.
1
I'm more of the SC1 Map player, where you actually play on a map longer than 1 hour. Seriously, the pacing has sped up a ton where mappers must make a map that takes no more than 30 minutes.
1
To add to the new version of stranded on kydon:
- Noticed there's objectives now, but they don't do much other than giving tips...
- Difficulty modes...
Objectives should give you a point for each one that's completed, and you can redeem these points to customize your SCV... Or Upgrade turrets?
By doing this, you make your map re-playable, so players will continue to try to unlock things.
Maybe you can use banks to save data, so players can do loadouts?
How this would work:
Having experienced players with good stuff from the beginning of the game isn't good, so...
Make it so with the points you gain, you can use them to unlock "skills" on a custom skill tree for your SCV.
Then while playing in game, you can upgrade and customize your SCV via "skill" tree, but only if you spend Minerals and Gas to get them.
Example:
Each upgrade costs 10 points to unlock on the tree, depending on how well you managed to get them.
HP+ (Increases hitpoints by 10/15/25) (Costs 75m 25g to upgrade, increases by 25m each time)
EN+ (Increases energy by 10/15/25) (Costs 75m 25g to upgrade, increases by 25m each time)
Atk+ (Increases melee damage by 5) (Costs 100m 50g to upgrade)
Shot+ (Increases shooting damage by 5) (Costs 100m 50g to upgrade)
Def+ (Increases armor by 3) (Costs 150m to upgrade)
For example, to get all 3 HP+ unlocked, you need 30 points. Once they are unlocked, they can be upgraded in any game session.
Possible other upgrades:
- Protoss Shields (Requires Protoss Tech) (Costs 75m 75g to give your SCV 25 shields) (Shield 1/s regen out of battle for 5 seconds)
- Protoss Psicutter (Requires Protoss Tech) (Costs 150m 100g) (Increases attack speed by 25% and damage by 10) (Gathering Speed +50%)
- Zerg Regeneration (Requires ?Zerg? Tech) (Cost 100m 100g) (Allows health to regenerate outside of battle) (1hp/s when out of battle for 5 seconds, not incap)
- Engine Upgrade (Costs 150m) (Increases speed of scv by 20% [+0.2])
- Emergency Power (Costs 200m 100g) (Enables self repair out of incapitation by spending 2 supply)
As a bonus, these points can also be used to unlock upgrades for the current structures... It basically works in the same idea, but you can pay extra to upgrade barricades, normal turrets, perdition turrets, missile turrets, siege tanks, and more.
Structures can only be upgraded once, and cost a small fee. Salvaging will give 75% of the new structure's value back.
Barrier -> Spiked Barrier (deals 5 damage to attackers and +50hp) (cost 10 minerals and 10 gas)
Sentry Gun Turrets -> Dual Sentry Gun Turrets (shoots 2 shots at once and +50hp) (cost 40 minerals to upgrade)
Missile Turrets -> Salvo Missile Turrets (Shoots ground to air AoE missiles every few shots [Campaign upgrade] and +50hp) (cost 20 minerals 20 gas to upgrade)
All structure upgrades includes +1 armor.
etc...
-Btw, no one ever built a Betha Cannon before?
0
For hazardous environments, I think dangerous plants can be one.
Like you wouldn't need to add many zombies to spawn, just have a area that is "infested" and pose a risk to players who aren't equipped with a suit that can nullify the infection.
The infested area basically have stuff, like eggs, and zerg plants. These can be hostile to the player, like if the player move too sudden or attacked the egg.
Of course, a full fledge zombie spawning from the egg is a bad idea, so make them weaker but deadly "zombies" that has the same effect as a broodling.
They inflict the same damage, but they move faster but dies very fast as soon as they pop out of their eggs/cocoons. Only triggered when your very close or when you attack it, it only lives for 2 seconds.
Zerg Plants basically are environmental triggers that have a slim chance of occurring if you happen to touch or brush by them. It basically entangles or shoot out spores at the player, trying to stop or poison the player.
As for tools, I think your essentially tools can be used to destroy these minor inconveniences, but they can't be used as weapons to kill zombies.
You can basically use a makeshift-flamethrower to kill plants and eggs, etc. You could make certain tools or items very useful... Like pesticide spray can harm small zerg critters that lives in the infested areas, chemical agents that can kill small living organisms such as plants...
As for bosses, they needs to be more important in the storyline, like bosses should be unique and interesting, should match with the game style.
Maybe they can take form of special zombies (not like l4d) that specialized in tracking survivors, basically not linked to the zerg overmind, they are a individual specie.
Speaking of overmind, it would be interesting if you can put a overmind in your map. It makes sense for one to be on a infested planet.
Story is very very important. Especially if you can include "documents" that can be scattered throughout the map. Players can learn about secrets and possibly new clues to beat enemies or finding a way through, with the use of these documents.
When your going to implement the HP system, try to do it in a fun but short way:
Survivors have 100 hp, 0 defense. Able to regenerate "some" health if they are not afflicted with any statuses. Health regeneration is slower if the survivor keeps moving. Survivors can lose "max" health if they get wounded, which is a script that runs and knows that a survivor's max health is always 100, but can have a debuff that lowers max health by a fixed amount.
Typical zombies would have 100 hp, 5 defense. If they attack a player, they should do minor but "bleeding damage". Basically make the zombie's attack do 5 (15 to biological) so they can chip off healths off of barricades, and do good damage on surviviors. Bleeding "debuff" is what these zombies are good at doing, and they have a 15% chance of inflicting bleeding on you, of which it does 1 damage every 5 seconds, for 1 minute, and your health can't regenerate at that time until you use treatments or bandages.
The aspect of killing zombies... Maybe certain weapons will have certain effects and a degree of damage to the zombies. Angle of attacks can be VERY important, as zombies can have a "slow turning" speed to go along with it's AI, meaning a smart player can circle it and smack it on the back of the head. Problem is, there is usually more than one zombies, so it's not safe to think your a pro and you'll sprint and whack every zombies on the back of the head with your crowbar.
Weapons should have a weak default damage, with a high damage to specific value.
Crowbar for example, should be:
12 (44 to structures, 22 to light) With attack speed of 0.6 hit per second.
Flamethrower:
4 (12 to biological, 10 to structures) With attack speed of 0.8 hit per second. Hits 3 times.
The zombies are tough and sturdy, but they have the same health. They regenerate health similarly to roaches.
So if your going to incorporate bosses, make them have the same idea: same health, but higher defense to handle being hit, and regenerates just as well.
Zombies and mutant monsters in movies and games, they are tough because of their regenerative and defensive abilities, not because they have a HUGE vitality. Immortal characters in games and movies is because they nullify your damage with their huge defenses or super high regeneration.