5p, Srv, 'dangerzone'

[Sirbomber]

1.)the storyline
you can say that the mother colony has betrayed you and you chose to leave them. then ironically they create the blight as you are evacuating.

That's not irony, though it is suspiciously convenient timing.

Of course, this is coming from somebody who helped make a map where a meteor just happens to destroy the Advanced Lab that causes the Blight to be released.

[evecolonycamander]

Of course, this is coming from somebody who helped make a map where a meteor just happens to destroy the Advanced Lab that causes the Blight to be released.
 

which map?

[Flashy]

i have two ideas...
1.)the storyline
you can say that the mother colony has betrayed you and you chose to leave them. then ironically they create the blight as you are evacuating.

2.)the crash glitch
check the ET code. i think that my be what caused it from what you have explained on IRC

About 1:
Yes, I thought about something like this. In this mission you're the surviving research team from the science base(where the blight starts). And because the council doesn't want the other colonists to panic because of the blight, they want keep that accident a secret. And because the scientists know too much, they have to.... die.

About 2:
Why do you think the ET code is responsible?

[Hidiot]

Um... 5 players... each with ~50 colonists to start... a team of 250 scientists is an absurd number, I'm sorry. Even a team of 50 is a lot, considering how all your researches are staffed by 18 or less scientists, including some rather advanced ones.

It's ecc, you can't trust him with technical things most of the time.
It's simple logic that a function that activates based on some conditions WILL NOT try to execute and thus cause a crash without being triggered. That, and Evacuation Transport - related code has been tested and it works.

[Flashy]

I use InitPlayerResources(-1) for initial resources. The number of scientists is 13, so 5*13 is 65 scientists. It's still a big number, but we don't know how many scientists are needed to "research" the blight. And it was a base, so a number of workers were needed, and don't forget the other topics they researched, for example nuclear ground-space missiles, the space program, solar power, the rlv and the military database. Even scientists need a break, so they did shift work.

[evecolonycamander]

the reason for so many could be that the scientists would be
A.)having family's
B.)part of the entire lower colony
C.)the people who have found out about the program
D.)All of the above?
as to why i think the ET is responsible, i don't, it was a wild guess

[Hidiot]

Be realistic, all the people allegedly came from the lower colony, which is very small. Children wouldn't be let in a research colony, and you only need a few workers.

It's not a feasible story, sorry.

[Flashy]

The problem is i didn't have the time to add more buildings to this base. And children can't be avoided if a few workers "get bored"

[evecolonycamander]

well why not add more buildings
make the colony cross shaped. that way all of the buildings can connect to each respective CC
i just got another idea. why not be able to trade ore. you could do this by typeing
/give common ### player
/give rare ### player
or something like that
another stupid idea!
can you by any chance send a group of ETs into enemy territory and wipe them out?

[Sirbomber]

Finally played it.  Thoroughly unimpressed.

Right from the get-go I knew I was in for trouble.  Our starting units were, well, just that:  a single-file row of units.  I was especially concerned that I was literally one tile away from a potential enemy.  If we were using Initial Vehicles, what was stopping him from self-destructing some of those extra units to wipe out the ConVec with my Command Center?  I also didn't like how that hostile Laser Guard Post was just barely out of range.  I'd also like to know the purpose of starting with a CC, RCC, and Agridome for a "base".  Either give us a full-fledged base to evacuate from or give us nothing at all.

Disasters were WAY too frequent.  By the time I'd gotten the message about the vortex on my CC at mark 70ish it had already taken out my base thanks to the 17 warnings about meteors/quakes/storms/lava all over the map.  Make them less frequent but more powerful, and stick to weak disasters until later on.  There's no need to be throwing a vortex out that early.

Though I didn't see much of it, the AI was disappointing.  I couldn't help but feel there wasn't much thought put into unit placement as there are random patrols of (overpowered) attack units.  And what's with that collection of Geothermal Plants in the middle of nowhere?

Gonna give it a second run now and let you know more as I get to actually play the game.

[Arklon]

Just playtested it. Twice. Some thoughts:
- "Warning: meteor approaching. Warning: electrical storm detected. Warning: meteor approaching. Warning: vortex detected. Warning: volcanic eruption detected. Warning: meteor approaching. Warning: meteor approaching. Warning: seismic event detected. [...]" throughout the whole game. Way too many disasters, and throwing in vortexes at the start is bad. Sirbomber got owned at the start of the first playtest due to a random vortex.
- At least one of the lava flows goes on tiles that it wouldn't in any Dynamix mission (gray rock/black rock transition tiles). This caused Sirbomber's common ore to get raped unexpectedly.
- The first objective says to destroy the AI CC, but don't build a starship yet. So, the objectives are to not win yet? Also, why only destroy that one CC, when the AI has another in the same base? Not to mention the other CC's the AI builds elsewhere on the map.
- "Flashy detected microbe growth" Please, no self-insertation...
- 95% of the mining beacons are 1 bars. Kinda hard to work with that when you also have to deal with disaster spam, overpowered AI units, trying to find wreckage in obscure locations on such a huge map, and defending yourself, all at the same time.

[Sirbomber]

- 95% of the mining beacons are 1 bars. Kinda hard to work with that when you also have to deal with disaster spam, overpowered AI units, trying to find wreckage in obscure locations on such a huge map, and defending yourself, all at the same time.

Not to mention the "random" beacons never work in anyone's favor.  In our second game there were no mines in sight.  Arklon literally had to go around the world to find a decent mine (two bar) and I was "fortunate" enough to build where an AI attack group decided to spawn.

And yeah, the wreckage idea is pretty bad.  Make it optional, but helpful if found.  Mandatory = game-ruiner.

[evecolonycamander]

why dose a rare/common always appear right next to the blight under the enemy CC

[Hidiot]

The disasters are manageable. Sort of... It's an around the world map, so any disaster still only has a slight chance to hit right in your base. Due to randomness, it may still happen.

The starting "base" is more like a little help for the player move further away (assuming they have where to go).

The map is supposed to be more of a co-op map than anything. That would explain why there are so many 1-bars. And also why there are only 3 wreckage locations. Some of the players go for the star ship, while the others focus on combat. (Then again, assuming you get one of the better base sites, one player can still do all that.)

The AI is simply overpowered. I'd add that it only attacks the closest target. I would rather see it send attack parties to each player.

The specific CC I guess is supposed to be (currently nonexistent) story-related.


This, of course, is how I can see a bit of justification, even if it's shaky. That's not to say that I deny the points made above.

[Flashy]

can you by any chance send a group of ETs into enemy territory and wipe them out?

You mean by stealing their colonists? No, that's not possible. You can only load an ET at your own CC's

I was especially concerned that I was literally one tile away from a potential enemy.
[...]
I couldn't help but feel there wasn't much thought put into unit placement as there are random patrols of (overpowered) attack units. And what's with that collection of Geothermal Plants in the middle of nowhere?

You reminded me to ally the players.
And what do you mean with the unit placement thing? Could you specify where you would put your units as the AI? And what do you have against overpowered units? Do you rather like to see weaker units? About the geothermal plants: To get more energy.

- The first objective says to destroy the AI CC, but don't build a starship yet. So, the objectives are to not win yet?

Not exactly. The objectives are not to loose yet. After all, the original outpost 2 story proves that the planet hasn't enough resources for 2 (or more) starships. And if the starship is shot down....

Not to mention the "random" beacons never work in anyone's favor. In our second game there were no mines in sight
[...]
And yeah, the wreckage idea is pretty bad. Make it optional, but helpful if found.

Yes, you're right. Nature doesn't work in everyone's favor. If you don't like the b(e)acon placement, just restart. And what about that: low/medium resources: no change. high resources: You get the wreckage for free.

B(e)acon, yummy.

[evecolonycamander]

you DON'T get the wreckage for free. i played with Zhall last night with high resources, no disasters, and 12 initial units, v0.14.3. and i could NOT find the wreckage(i searched 3 of the possible spots) and i had researched EVERY thing. i think this is a major glitch. also what i meant by sending a group of ETs in was to use them to self destruct at there CC. i found out you cant.

uhh... what dose "colonists found" mean?
edit: this was before the update

[Flashy]

I know that you don't get the wreckage for free, it was a suggestion. And each of the wreckages has 3 different possible spots. A little help: Wreckage 1, 2 of 3 possible locations: location 1) x=36 y=171 location 2) x=490 y=226
And if you found colonists, scan the building with an ET and the ET gets filled.

[evecolonycamander]

And if you found colonists, scan the building with an ET and the ET gets filled.

that is what i thought. unfortunately Zhall killed them

[Sirbomber]

And what do you mean with the unit placement thing? Could you specify where you would put your units as the AI? And what do you have against overpowered units? Do you rather like to see weaker units? About the geothermal plants: To get more energy.

Try to put the player's starting vehicles in some kind of interesting layout or pattern.  Spread them out, especially from the other players (even if they are supposed to be allies; you should be close to the other players but not that close).

As for the AI, I guess my complaint is why are there convoys of attack units dedicated to patrolling the open desert?  It really only makes sense as some kind of difficulty barrier to prevent the players from moving too far too early.  But from a realistic standpoint, it doesn't make sense.  No human would decide to have their precious combat units defend open terrain.  It'd be a waste.  Not to mention patrolling units have a tendency to get separated from each other, making them easy to pick off (especially if the other units in their convoy don't rush to help them).

About the overpowered units, it's not that I mind a good challenge.  But look at Caught in the Crossfire.  The AI starts with Tigers equipped with powerful weapons.  But they're all on permanent guard duty.  If you want the AI to start with Thor's Hammer, then keep them inside the base.  There's no need to throw them at a player that doesn't even have a Laser Guard Post.

And yes, I know Geothermal Power Plants produce lots of power.  But why are they there, so far from the AI's base?  There are four of them; that's a pretty tempting target for anyone who knows what they're doing, and they're lightly defended if I remember correctly.  I'm guessing this was done so players could weaken the AI before assaulting their main base, but it just seems jarring for some reason.



Oh, and about the random beacons, "if you don't like it restart" doesn't cut it.  You need to code some kind of "safety net" to ensure there's at least one common ore mine per player in the lower (safer) part of the map.

And while you're at it, make the Blight faster.  I don't think it even got to our start "base" before we were done.

[Flashy]

1)Try to put the player's starting vehicles in some kind of interesting layout or pattern.  Spread them out, especially from the other players (even if they are supposed to be allies; you should be close to the other players but not that close).

2)As for the AI, I guess my complaint is why are there convoys of attack units dedicated to patrolling the open desert?
[...]
3)There's no need to throw them at a player that doesn't even have a Laser Guard Post.

4)And yes, I know Geothermal Power Plants produce lots of power.  But why are they there, so far from the AI's base?
[...]
5)You need to code some kind of "safety net" to ensure there's at least one common ore mine per player in the lower (safer) part of the map.

6)And while you're at it, make the Blight faster.  I don't think it even got to our start "base" before we were done.

1)I'll do the starting vehicles thing, but i decided to work on the mission mechanics first.
2)These patrolling units defend an important piece of open desert, there are good mining beacons and the precious light towers. And the lava is a good wall against the blight.
3)The first attack groups are emp and laser lynx, the second one rail gun, emp, acid, etc panther, the AI only starts to attack with thors hammer tiger at attacklevel 3 or higher. attacklevel 3 starts with 2 players at mark 1500 and with more at mark 1000.Attacklevel 4 starts when you destroy the target cc.
4)Why not? The AI rebuilds it everytimes. They serve as 'backup' in case that the player destroys too many power plants.
5)Safety net? OK, i wanted to create a few beacons on the mountains.
6)Faster blight, I wanted to do that but i don't know which value is best.

[Hidiot]

Experiment.

Level 4 attacks are never going to start anyway, since once half the AI base is crippled, it will only take a little while for the Evac Transport to move out and then the AI is probably going to be finished off, or the game will end in victory anyway.

Will you create more attack groups for each attack wave? Of course, sending them out to different players.

Those geothermal plants are not backup. If players attack, they will probably leave half the AI base intact, and the AI will still have power. If players want to finish the AI off, they will just send a little force to blow those geothermal plants and then clear out the rest of the AI base.

The geothermal plants would be backups if they were in the mountains with some more serious defenses.

Two of those important buildings can be accessed by dodging the patrols, as you already know.

[Flashy]

Post 1)

1)Level 4 attacks are never going to start anyway, since once half the AI base is crippled

2)Those geothermal plants are not backup. If players attack, they will probably leave half the AI base intact, and the AI will still have power.

3)Two of those important buildings can be accessed by dodging the patrols, as you already know.

1) Level 4 attacks get launched from the outpost. (Yes, I know that the player destroys it most of the time at first)

2) I know. But it's never bad to have some additional power plants around. They don't hurt anyone, do they?

3) Yes, but the people who don't know about that won't try to get there. See Sirbomber's post. And dodging the patrols gets more difficult the longer you wait. If you don't have scouts it takes a little while to build a base, research, build a vehicle factory, go there, and do your thing.
~~~~~~~~~
Post 2)
All possible wreckage locations are now marked with debris

[Hidiot]

Suggestion: Mark inaccessible terrain with impassible cell types.

Personally, I think we should do that to all maps.

[evecolonycamander]

i just remembered some thing from when i played with the .txt files
when a thors fires at a moving target like a scout it SOMETIMES fires past 12 squares away. that leads to a crash. mabie a thors(lynx) of yours shot a scout wile BOTH where moving away. so the end result would be that the thors compensates and fires AHEAD of the target so as to hit it. ow before you put me down for being wrong test it your self. edit the multitek file or make a new test.dll

[Sirbomber]

Suggestion: Mark inaccessible terrain with impassible cell types.

Personally, I think we should do that to all maps.

He's using AtW, so why?  What purpose does it serve, other than to waste his time by replacing all of the celltypes?  And what if he changes his mind later and decides to open up the previously unreachable area?  Then he has to redo the celltypes all over again.

As for doing that to all maps: No.  That's just stupid.

Edit: ECC, what you basically just said was "I made random edits to the sheets and OP2 crashed."  That's really not helpful in debugging unmodded OP2.