Microbe Wall

[goduranus]

I've seen the microbe wall in the units tutorial, but i don't see it in any scenairos or colony games? is it not implemented?

[Hooman]

It's not researchable in colony games. At least not without using a modified tech file. It can be researched by Eden in the campaign, but only in the later levels. It doesn't actually stop the blight, just slows it down. It also seems to be fairly expensive to build a wall of any decent size or thickness, so they don't really seem to be used as far as I can tell. They cost rare ore to build.

It does have kind of a cool factor to it, and could be fun to toy around with in a colony game, but the only colony game with blight in it, is a plymouth level, so you don't get the walls anyways. You can always try making your own though. It could be fun.
 

[Nightmare24148]

Ah yeah thanks for awnsering a side question of mine - if Blight walls STOPPED Blight or just kinda temporarily stopped it - I didn't wanna test .

[Psudomorph]

Hmm... It occurs to me that if Microbe Walls could be altered to actually *Stop* the blight, it might add a new element to multiplayer games.

Envision something like this:


This area is protected from the blight by lava flows (blight can't pass lava), and by an enhanced microbe wall several tiles thick.

The colony in the south is ready to launch a starship and escape the planet, but the colony in the north is not.

It would be in the interest of the southern colony to destroy the Microbe Wall and let the blight consume their rival while they escape. It is in the interest of the northern colony to prevent this.

There might be some potential for interesting strategies and gameplay in a situation like that.

(Also, since walls can't be built adjacent to lava, you would essentially only have the walls that you started out with. You could rebuild them to a limited extent, but if the enemy destroys a wall segment right next to lava, it is gone forever.)

[Hooman]

Yes, that could be an interesting form of play. I thought of something similar to this when I found blight moved super fast on what appeared to be bulldozed terrain. I don't remember what I was experimenting with anymore, but I was thinking, you could sneak bulldoze a path to their base during the night, and it would consume their base come day.
 

[Combine Crusier]

Arggg. Why doesn't Plymouth steal the research an use the EMP missile tech. to blast the **** out of the approaching blight!

[Sirbomber]

Hmm... It occurs to me that if Microbe Walls could be altered to actually *Stop* the blight, it might add a new element to multiplayer games.

Just set the Blight Wall's HP to an incredibly high number (9999999999999999999999 for exmaple) so that even if it does take damage (from Blight or weapons fire) the damage will just wrap around to (above) full health long before it even comes close to death.  The only way to kill it would be having an Earthworker dismantle the wall, though.

And CC: EMP Missiles do nothing to stop the Blight.  And if you gave Plymouth Microbe Walls (which they lack the technology to build anyways) what would you give to Eden to balance the techtree out?

Edit: P.S. The Survivor maps use Microbe Walls.  If you play as Eden anyways.
[size=0]It was a perfect opportunity to advertise them, and I couldn't resist...[/size]

[Hooman]

Walls don't actually use hitpoints internally. At least not in the way you're suggesting. Think about the extra memory overhead if each wall was stored as a unit. The number of units is already quite limited and a wall of any decent size would overwhelm that.

Walls are actually destroyed probabilistically. Depending on the strength of the weapon (with bonuses for certain weapons like laser and microwave), and some random value, it determines whether or not the wall is destroyed by the hit. I believe it uses the walls max HP as set in the sheets file in comparison to the damage done to determine the probability. There is no actual amount of hitpoints stored with each wall tile though. It doesn't keep track of current hitpoints so there can't be any "wrap around" effect.

I don't know if the blight works in a similar manner. It could use the spread speed in place of the weapon damage, or maybe just use fixed probabilities. I don't think I looked into that part.

[Sirbomber]

There is no actual amount of hitpoints stored with each wall tile though. It doesn't keep track of current hitpoints so there can't be any "wrap around" effect.

Maybe. But it still makes walls that can resist Blight at maximum spread speed for eternity with only one layer.

[BlackBox]

I think as far as damage calculation to a wall is concerned, it tells how far damaged a wall is (since there are 3 stages of damage graphically) by looking at the 'style' data in the map file (which specifies what graphics to use for tubes, walls, etc) and looking at what state the wall is in by what graphic is set (Since it doesn't store hit points for the wall).

Speaking of walls not being a unit, it does bring up an interesting point, as there is a unit info record for walls and possibly tubes (and in OP2, unit info objects are used to produce units of their type). I can't remember if the unit creation function for the wall actually does anything -- it might range from setting a tile to that of a wall graphic and setting the bit that indicates that it's a wall, to doing nothing (relying on other code to create the wall and handle logic for damage to the wall, etc). The object might simply be there for the data that is stored in the spreadsheets (since when the sheets are loaded, there must be a unit info record for each line of data in the sheet).

[Hooman]

Yes, it does go through stages. The damage and random numbers are used to determine when it progresses to the next stage of damage. It's also done in such a way that the probability of damaging the wall is never zero, but the probability will be very small if the wall has a high max hitpoints. Weapons fire will only cause this to happen for regular walls. Lava and Microbewalls are just destroyed or not destroyed by weapons fire. There is no successive damage. I'll post details in the programming forum sometime, but I'd like to look into how lava and blight affect lava and microbe walls first.

Oh, and the UnitTypeInfo for walls does indeed try to create a Unit if you call it. It's just never called. Wall construction is handled by other sections of code.

[Combine Crusier]

I'm not saying you should give Plymouth microbe walls, I'm saying why can't they use the isotope by retrofitting their EMP missile designs and giving it an isotopic warhead!

[Psudomorph]

I'm not saying you should give Plymouth microbe walls, I'm saying why can't they use the isotope by retrofitting their EMP missile designs and giving it an isotopic warhead!

They could, but it would ultimately fail for the same reason microbe walls do. The blight travels primarily underground, and therefore any surface effect, be it wall, or material spread from a missile, cannot hold it back for very long. Realistically even if walls/missiles block its progress on the surface, it would continue to expand underground, and eventually you would have random patches of blight popping up behind or within whatever defense you use.

The only way I can think of for microbe wall technology to work would be for the entire colony to be build on top of a huge plate of the stuff, but even then, things like mining would be impossible.

[Flameoftheabyss]

This area is protected from the blight by lava flows (blight can't pass lava), and by an enhanced microbe wall several tiles thick.

The colony in the south is ready to launch a starship and escape the planet, but the colony in the north is not.

It would be in the interest of the southern colony to destroy the Microbe Wall and let the blight consume their rival while they escape. It is in the interest of the northern colony to prevent this.

There might be some potential for interesting strategies and gameplay in a situation like that.

(Also, since walls can't be built adjacent to lava, you would essentially only have the walls that you started out with. You could rebuild them to a limited extent, but if the enemy destroys a wall segment right next to lava, it is gone forever.)

I got an idea to add:
What if the lava is made to 'dry up' after a certain mark?

[Mez]

I got an idea to add:
What if the lava is made to 'dry up' after a certain mark?

Its lava, it kind of takes a while...

If you want to read the discussion we had on cooling lava, various bridges we could build across it, read this topic in the Genesis forum.

http://forum.outpostuniverse.net/index.php?showtopic=3634