New Colony Game

[CK9]

Hey lev, I sent the files of to plym to see if he could write a .dll for it.  Only type he'd be able to write is for m-player (he doesn't know how to do the CCC (Computer Controlled Colony)).

[Leviathan]

AI coding takes a lot, player coding is just placing the bases.

He can post threads in programing forum if he needs help.

Or place the bases/units/mines like you want and someone else can do the AI coding, donno.

This aint realy the thread for this, i take it your talking the map you have made?

[(¥BD£)Sorcer]

you come apon one of your old bases and its totaly trashed to top it off a plymoth ai has settled in next to it and is mooching off the abandoned base take it over and rebuild. you enter the map with a repair vehicle. go under the cover of darkness, repair what you need to surprise them with defenses. dig in and build up the base.


this is my new project

i like this much!!!! add this to the colony game!!!

[Hooman]

Haxtor was working on that. I think it was playable the last time I saw it, but not quite finished and polished. Maybe he'll tell us if he ever finished it?
 

[instigator]

Well was it ever finished?
 

[BlackBox]

By what I gather, probably not.

[Eddy-B]

I might still pick up this idea, i have thought about it earlier.
As people that read the Outpost : Renegades forum know, my (single player) missions can access old bases built by the player himself, and use that info to create such a take-over & rebuild scenario... It may be inserted into Renegades in a later mission.

[instigator]

Eddy
Yeah that would be cool. I really wish I could help. Do you need help on coding or C++? I know someone (an acquaintance anyway) who spends night and day modding games. Mabye he could help...

[PUNK_FOX]

What do you want from a new single player Colony Game mission?
What sort of objectives? Similar to current ones or very differnt? or both?
Quick to complete or very long ?

And what idea's do people have for new Colony Games?
Post ideas.
We want to make a mission that everyone will enjoy.

Make a new single player Colony Game mission using the following:

start off with six convecs that have:
-1 Structure F.
-1 Common Ore S.
-1 Tokamak
-1 Agridome
-1 Command Center
-1 Standard Lab

Three Cargo Trucks with 1000 common metal in each one.

Two Cargo trucks with 1000 food in both of them.
 
1 Earthworker
1 Robo-surveyor
1 Robo Miner
1 Robo Dozer
5 Lynx's/Microwaves

After everything is built in the area u desired, start research wat is needed.

After 100 clicks, an enemy Lynx starts coming in 2 attack u. for every 100 clicks, your enemy sends in an extra Lynx's.

100 clicks= 1 Lynx
200 clicks= 2 Lynx's
300 clicks= 4 Lynx's
400 clicks= 8 Lynx's
500 clicks= 16 Lynx's

Ya get it? (thumbsup)

Is this a good single player Colony Game mission or wat?  

[TH300]

sounds easy.

One won't really need to build additional lynxes before mark 300. And by then most people usually have a decent defense up with high metal production, especially under such generous starting conditions.

A Standard Lab from the beginning is not needed, as well as 5 trucks. 3 are more than enough, and more fun.
 

[Sirbomber]

100 clicks= 1 Lynx
200 clicks= 2 Lynx's
300 clicks= 4 Lynx's
400 clicks= 8 Lynx's
500 clicks= 16 Lynx's

That sounds about as much fun as watching my screensaver for an hour.
By mark 200 I'd already have Thor's Tigers.

[BlackBox]

Yeah, the timing needs to be sped up.. unless of course you mean game TICKS... in which case, ouch, pain starting off. (100 ticks = 1 mark, so that would be a lynx every mark)

What would be the objective?

[Vexhare]

To live through like.... 10000 marks would be insane
 

[lordly_dragon]

when you said a click is it a mouse button click?

[Exile]

My idea for a map was Plymonth has a totally massive base kinda like on the mission 11 for eden you free allied cargo trucks from a small plymonth outpost(gets harder of course if on normal fewer units) once you kill them you free the trapt cargo trucks they return to the AI's base and it goes active at this point you are also given structure kits to start a base probably where you freed the trucks once your CC is finished the plymotnh AI goes active and starts sending very larges armys at you(not at first of course but later i'm thinking 50+ units) what'cha think of this idea?

[Boar]

I would like some massive sacale colony games, builers that have huge objective lists, like max out you tech, send off a crap load of stuff in to space, and also have a larg colonist base to boot (like 1000 or something) Of course you could use world maps for this also, if the world map where to have continets you could (dont know if it is possible) have ceritan weather/geological condiations on the, each having positives and negatives, and with a larg population to win you may have to expand and learn to adapt you cities to these conditions.  

[Psudomorph]

I would like some massive sacale colony games, builers that have huge objective lists, like max out you tech, send off a crap load of stuff in to space, and also have a larg colonist base to boot (like 1000 or something) Of course you could use world maps for this also, if the world map where to have continets you could (dont know if it is possible) have ceritan weather/geological condiations on the, each having positives and negatives, and with a larg population to win you may have to expand and learn to adapt you cities to these conditions.

Interesting idea, like one part of the map would be primarilly a quake-prone place, another would suffer from vortexes etc.?

First I assume you mean to make "continents" by varying the type of terrain in different places, since outpost 2 doesn't exactly support any type of "water" that could separate them. The whole planet in Outpost 2 is essentially one big continent. The best you could do would probably be to separate different areas with relatively impassable mountains, valleys, lava flows, or other geology.
Once the areas are separated however, I think it would be feasible to make them each have a unique type of disaster.

Lets see...
Electrical storms would probably be the least threatening. A colony built in such a place would simply need a large team of repair units on hand. Plymoth spiders would be an advantage.

Quakes could damage many buildings at once, and maybe destroy some. Ideally the best way to deal with that would be a spread out base with some important structures like the CC and Structure Factory duplicated on opposite sides. Again spiders would be a great help.

For Vortexes I am envisioning a colony on wide open desert, with few obstacles to slow down the wind, either that or landforms arranged in such a way as to channel and concentrate the wind. I can't really see anybody wanting to settle in vortex country, but if you did, you would definitely need a very spread out base, with many of your important buildings duplicated far apart, and be prepared to rebuild them when they get destroyed. It would not be a pleasant place to live.

I can definitely see the development of some strategies for living in regions where you know what kind of disaster you are prone to.

The only problem I forsee with a colony game of that scale is the inherent limits of the game.
First of all there is the sharp limit on map size. If there is any way to create maps larger than the ones already used in Outpost 2, then I haven't heard of it, and I have a sneaking suspicion that 256x512 wouldn't be enough.

Second there is the structure and unit limit. I don't know what they are exactly, but I know that you can reach them pretty quickly in long colony games, especially if you have more than one colony at once. For that reason, spreading to other colonies on other continents would be counterproductive because there would be so many unnecessarily duplicated structures. If it is even possible for a colony to support 1000 people, it would probably be best done by a single large colony rather than multiple small ones.

For that reason, people will tend to choose a continent and stick with it. I can't really think of a way to force people to settle on multiple continents, unless you make it a specific objective, and even then I don't know if the game could properly check for it.

All in all it is a good idea and one that I would love to try out, but it seems to me to be just a little too big for Outpost2. If anyone else thinks it can be done though, more power to them, and good luck.

[Hooman]

I think it could be done, but like you've mentioned, I don't really feel the disasters are balanced well enough to warrant disaster specifica areas. The only way the storms would be foreboding, is if there were many more of them. I think if you had 3 storms floating over your base at all times, it'd make them a little more serious. The other problem with disasters is that they are inherently unfair. Unless you push them late enough into the game, or make sure early ones aren't near the colony, people can always get unlucky and have their CC plowed near the start. It's quite annoying having to keep restarting a level.

I believe bigger maps are quite possible, but the map file size starts to grow quite fast. Considering you only usually play on a very small portion, it's sort of questionable if it's worth it. Especially since the minimap becomes much less useful on large maps. I wouldn't mind seeing a few larger maps though.

The unit limit is probably the bigger issue, but I don't think it's that much of an issue. I usually only reach it if I'm doing something silly.

[Galciv12]

I dont know if this has already been suggested, but perhaps maybe like a deathmatch mode:

 all techs reserached
 all bases prebuilt to the fullest (no defenses though)
 and almost unlimited resources

 that would create (hopefully) like huge battles and cool stuff like that.
 that would be so cool to play (thumbsup)  

[Flameoftheabyss]

that would create (hopefully) like huge battles and cool stuff like that.
that would be so cool to play

I think that would probably result in (very short) EMP Missile/Supernova wars.


Anyway, what about a map in which you have to defend your base, and the terrain is terrible in a way that it's hard to build anything at all - lots of cliffs etc., and very mazy and narrow and your buildings are scattered all over the map. Maybe have plenty of storms too, since it's not lethal but still annoying (or maybe short, anemic quakes).
The computer will send troops to try sabotage your scattered buildings in all sorts of ways and directions (and routes, since it's supposed to be mazy), and maybe even sneak in Earthworkers to cut your tube connections if you're not careful enough.
The objective can be to survive long enough, or maybe to collect enough resources, or perhaps get a good unit/structure win/loss ratio by ore value?

[Psudomorph]

Anyway, what about a map in which you have to defend your base, and the terrain is terrible in a way that it's hard to build anything at all - lots of cliffs etc., and very mazy and narrow and your buildings are scattered all over the map.

I find something very appealing about that. For some reason it always struck me as too easy to be able to build a huge lump of a colony and conceivably never have to use earthworkers at all. There is really no incentive to spread buildings out as far as I can see, Except in areas where you have heavy vehicle traffic.

Speaking of vehicles, the auto-navigation would be virtually impossible. Based on what I have seen of how units behave, anything maze-like would quickly render their navigation systems useless, even with an RCC. You would have to control all vehicles with waypoints if you wanted them to reach their destination in anything less than 10x the normal time it should take.

[Flameoftheabyss]

Oh, pathing problems...
Well, I guess the maze could be made to be not too confusing for the AI?
Probably would need a lot of testing for that.
Or could Outpost 2's pathing algorithm be upgraded to use more resources for better results?

[Hooman]

You could program in set waypoints for the AI, so it only uses pathfinding to get between the waypoints. Just keep those shorter paths fairly simple. Sort of a hierarchial path finding method, where the level/DLL designer designs the upper level functions. Mind you, that does somewhat limit the AIs useful movement between certain set points. But if you're setting the waypoints to work specifically with a given map, it shouldn't be too hard to set them manually.

[Psudomorph]

An interesting thought just occurred to me. What if the enemy (Not you, just the AI) has the ability to sort of "air drop" their attack squadrons. That is, they launch a rocket from their spaceport (assuming it is on the map), the rocket reenters at a specific (semi-random) location, all units/buildings in a small radius of the landing are destroyed (to avoid overlapping), and an attack group spawns in that place.

Granted that Air Drops could be a game-ruining feature if they were used by players against each other (as evidenced by the repeated shooting down of "Air Unit" threads all over the forum), but it might provide an interesting strategical element for this particular AI on this particular map, while simultaneously eliminating some of the pathfinding the enemy would have to do to reach your base.

In keeping with the spread out nature of the map, it would be impossible to fortify a small area with unstoppable forces, rather the player would have to concentrate on fast and flexible forces, because there are no real "front lines" to be defended.

There are a few programming elements that I don't know are possible, and it might come out looking a little choppy at times, but overall I think a pretty believable effect could be achieved.

Additional points:
>I suggest it be Plymoth as the defender (player) for two reasons.
__1: They seem more behaviorally inclined to dig into an inhospitable area and use ____the natural terrain for defense (live in harmony with planet).
__2: They have fewer LOS weapons, so their arsenal is better suited to the situation.
__3: It seems more believable for an Eden RLV to land troops than a Plymoth ____missile.
__4: We wouldn't introduce the problem of a meteor defense stopping the RLVs.
__5: Full disclosure: Plymoth is my favorite colony.

>Maybe the landing RLV could leave some wreckage or rubble behind.
>There should be some unofficial limit to the amount of weight a rocket can carry, not a programmed one, but just a rule of thumb by the map programmer not to load an RLV with 30 tigers. I'm thinking something like 4 tigers OR 6 panthers OR 8 lynx, but the ratios can always be fine-tuned.
>Eden could build multiple spaceports and launch multiple rockets, either to send attack waves from several directions at once, or land the all in one place to make larger waves.
> The locations of landing sites would probably have to be hard-coded to make sure the rockets didn't land in bad places, but this also seems true of the attack waves in normal games, and those still manage to present a challenge. In general the more sites specified as possible landing positions, the more unpredictable it would be for the player.
> If Eden is on the map, destroying/disabling their spaceports would have to stop the attacks.

[Quantum]

Put in lots of ore three bar at mark 200 let AI come in with light force at mark 450 let AI come in with medium force and at mark 600 let the AI go all out (thumbsup)