Author Topic: Fractured Alliance (Survivor, 5P)  (Read 16550 times)

Offline Sirbomber

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Fractured Alliance (Survivor, 5P)
« on: December 02, 2015, 10:16:43 PM »
Quote from: The story so far...
They betrayed you.

After the disaster that released the Blight, the warring colonies realized the futility of their petty differences and, in the face of extinction, banded together to ensure the survival of the species.  Like your forebears on Earth, you and your allies constructed a massive starship to evacuate the doomed world.  Computer projections showed the ship would be capable of carrying 75% of the adult population from each colony, with special considerations taken so that no child would be left behind.  Most were content with this, and those that would remain behind accepted their sacrifice.

One of the allies, however, did not accept this.  The renegades considered themselves more worthy of survival than any other colony, and, mere weeks before the launch date, attempted to commandeer the starship for themselves, dooming hundreds more to die.  Through bravery and much sacrifice, the starship was secured and the renegades defeated, but in the end it was all for nothing.  The renegades had been planning this uprising from the beginning, and had secretly planted a bomb on the ship early in its construction.  Humanity's best hope for survival is now a field of twisted debris orbiting the planet.

Unfortunately, with the Blight rapidly approaching and the planned evacuation starship destroyed, a hasty terrestrial evacuation was needed, and the renegades were able to escape during the ensuing chaos, but not before hacking into your systems and deleting most of your research data.

Now, you and the survivors have evacuated to the last habitable stretch of land on the planet, only to find the renegades are here, waiting for you, and well entrenched.  You are outnumbered; most of your people died during the uprising and the chaos of the evacuation.  You are outgunned; with your research data gone you have no means to defend yourself.  And to make matters worse, you're barely two steps ahead of the Blight.

But you still have your allies.  Together, you will overcome the odds.  You will survive.  You will build a new starship and save humanity from extinction.

But first, you will have your revenge.

Surprise!  Right when you least expect it, I show up with a brand-new multiplayer map!  And just in time for Christmas and the New Year, too.  This is, of course, a Survivor-type map, and it takes place on a variant of Fractures (a Land Rush map designed for 6 players).  Now we have a lot of youngsters around here now who might not know what that means, so let me explain real quick.

Survivor is a Space Race variant multiplayer game.  Generally they're played cooperatively; you and the people you're playing with are working together against the Blight and occasionally an AI opponent.  The objective is to complete the starship and evacuate 200 colonists to orbit before the entire planet is infected.  However, Survivor is heavily inspired by the campaign, and in general you're playing an entire campaign with your friends in one multiplayer session!  This means you start with next to nothing and have to evacuate and relocate your colony from time to time, so be prepared!

Now here's something most of you will be excited about: this map comes with an AI opponent!  Now, you might be familiar with some multiplayer AIs like on Peacekeeper, La Corrida, or some of the older Survivor maps.  Maybe they attack you once or twice a game, if you're lucky.  If you're not, they're just speedbumps for you to plow through.  This AI is not like those AIs.  This AI personally hates you, and wants you dead at all costs.  You get a brief period at the start of the match to settle down and build up; after that the attacks come.  These attacks are constant; these attacks are brutal; and they will not stop, ever until you and your allies are dead.  The AI has a massive lead on you in both technology and infrastructure, and worst of all it starts the game with access to EMP Missiles and is not afraid to use them.  The AI is more of a threat to you than the Blight ever was (not that you won't be dealing with that, too), so make sure to aggressively pursue weapons technology and be constantly pumping out combat units.  This is not for people looking for a fun "comp stomp"; you need to bring your A-game or you're going to lose quickly.

Now, here are some special rules to keep in mind!
  • You start with a fully-loaded evacuation convoy, but the Blight is very close to you!  You need to move quickly if you want to get out of this mess alive.
  • You need enough Evacuation Transports for your population at all times (25 colonists/Transport).  If at any time you have no structures and not enough Transports, the colonists that you don't have space for will die immediately.
  • You also need to have food loaded into your Cargo Trucks when you evacuate!  If you have no Agridomes left alive, your food storage will be emptied and will come from whatever food you have stored in your trucks.  As soon as you rebuild an Agridome though, these trucks will automatically be emptied, so at least you don't have to micromanage that.
  • Aside from the starting area, mining beacons are invisible.  You will need to use a Scout to reveal them (just drive around until you find them), or launch an EDWARD Satellite to instantly reveal all mining beacons on the map.
  • The day/night cycle and disasters are always on and can't be disabled.  The toggles in the multiplayer lobby instead control whether the AI player gets extra "help".  Turning these settings on (recommended!) will add two AI-controlled outposts near your start location, which will harass you in conjunction with the attacks from the "main" AI colony.
  • The AI's difficulty scales with the number of players.  So just because you have a full house of 5 human players doesn't mean you're going to have an easy time!
  • Be very careful around the Blight!  Vehicles can enter infected terrain, but doing so is a death sentence.  Spending too much time in or attempting to leave the infected area will cause the vehicle to either self-destruct, or to become infected and start attacking anything that gets in range!
  • Don't get too complacent!  I've packed in plenty of nasty surprises that I'm not going to tell you about, so be prepared for anything!
Fractured Alliance is now included in the OPU Unofficial Update.  Download it here!
« Last Edit: July 21, 2022, 07:17:20 AM by Sirbomber »
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Offline dave_erald

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Re: Fractured Alliance (Survivor, 5P)
« Reply #1 on: December 02, 2015, 11:23:20 PM »
Ambitious. I like it.

By which I mean I'm down to play, I should probably cut my multiplayer teeth on something else first though.



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Offline Hooman

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Re: Fractured Alliance (Survivor, 5P)
« Reply #2 on: December 03, 2015, 09:20:35 AM »
Very exciting sounding. But then you say it's not quite ready yet! Gah! Are you trying to kill us?  >:( Wait, yes, you are. Death by blight. Blight and AI.

Offline Sirbomber

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Re: Fractured Alliance (Survivor, 5P)
« Reply #3 on: December 03, 2015, 09:42:56 PM »
Just trying to build hype ahead of time.  But yes, I am trying to kill you all.  I feed on your despair.
"As usual, colonist opinion is split between those who think the plague is a good idea, and those who are dying from it." - Outpost Evening Star

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Offline Hooman

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Re: Fractured Alliance (Survivor, 5P)
« Reply #4 on: December 04, 2015, 02:07:36 AM »
It's just that I find it amusing that you of all people is trying to build hype.

Offline Sirbomber

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Re: Fractured Alliance (Survivor, 5P)
« Reply #5 on: December 04, 2015, 03:57:59 PM »
Hey, I don't mind hype.  I just think it should be saved until a project is nearing completion, especially given the track record around here.  :P

Just had a successful test without any crashes.  I got a few screenshots, too:

An evacuation in progress.  You'll note that we bring along quite a bit more than the campaign tells you is necessary!  You'll also note the presence of an armed escort.  This is absolutely a necessity.  Things got hectic so I wasn't able to get a screenshot of it, but our evacuation convoy actually got ambushed a few minutes after I took this!  I lost my Command Center, an Evacuation Transport full of people, and 1/4 of my food (and nearly starved because of it).  Make sure to cover your flanks when you're relocating!


AI attack in progress!  Another Command Center kit was graciously donated to me, and apparently the AI took exception to this...


Payback!  The AI's base is well-defended and it took all 3 of working together to win this fight.


So there's just a few things left to take care of before I'm ready to release this.  Sometimes the game fails to load due to the random ore generation, and there's one late-game crash I'm still trying to track down (edit: maybe this has been fixed!); once I have both of those issues taken care of there's just a few more balance issues to iron out.
« Last Edit: December 04, 2015, 05:43:17 PM by Sirbomber »
"As usual, colonist opinion is split between those who think the plague is a good idea, and those who are dying from it." - Outpost Evening Star

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Offline Hooman

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Re: Fractured Alliance (Survivor, 5P)
« Reply #6 on: December 04, 2015, 08:47:08 PM »
You're going to share the source code, right? :)

Offline Sirbomber

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Re: Fractured Alliance (Survivor, 5P)
« Reply #7 on: December 05, 2015, 12:01:37 AM »
Probably not.  My copy of the SDK is so heavily modified I doubt anyone else would be able to get this to compile as it is anyways, so it's a moot point.  I might be willing to offer certain pieces to specific individuals on request, though.
"As usual, colonist opinion is split between those who think the plague is a good idea, and those who are dying from it." - Outpost Evening Star

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Offline Hooman

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Re: Fractured Alliance (Survivor, 5P)
« Reply #8 on: December 05, 2015, 07:57:13 AM »
You're just afraid people will discover your easter eggs, aren't you?  ::)

You know, the people who play it probably won't even look. And the people who look probably aren't likely to play it.

And I doubt there are that many modifications to the SDK. There isn't a whole lot of point to modifying the core SDK, and certainly not in ways that lead to compatibility issues. At most I would expect a few extensions to non core components.

Offline Sirbomber

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Re: Fractured Alliance (Survivor, 5P)
« Reply #9 on: December 05, 2015, 10:19:13 AM »
Alright fine, but on one condition:
I need proof that you, Hooman, have played through it at least once, before I release the source.

:P
"As usual, colonist opinion is split between those who think the plague is a good idea, and those who are dying from it." - Outpost Evening Star

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Offline dave_erald

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Re: Fractured Alliance (Survivor, 5P)
« Reply #10 on: December 05, 2015, 11:23:06 AM »
Hurry up damn it...
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Offline Hooman

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Re: Fractured Alliance (Survivor, 5P)
« Reply #11 on: December 06, 2015, 02:35:30 AM »
 :o

... can I disassemble it first?  ;)

Offline Vagabond

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Re: Fractured Alliance (Survivor, 5P)
« Reply #12 on: December 06, 2015, 07:17:42 AM »
Sirbomber,

Perhaps you can set a target release date and we can plan a game day to test it out. 

I wouldn't mind trying it out.

Offline Sirbomber

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Re: Fractured Alliance (Survivor, 5P)
« Reply #13 on: December 09, 2015, 09:39:39 PM »
This coming Friday (December 11, 2015); starting at 6:00 PM Eastern Time and going until people stop playing!
"As usual, colonist opinion is split between those who think the plague is a good idea, and those who are dying from it." - Outpost Evening Star

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Offline Hooman

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Re: Fractured Alliance (Survivor, 5P)
« Reply #14 on: January 03, 2016, 06:45:26 AM »
So..., source code?  :D

Downloadable package? Assurance that it's been released somewhere? Bugs?

Offline Sirbomber

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Re: Fractured Alliance (Survivor, 5P)
« Reply #15 on: January 03, 2016, 10:06:05 AM »
OPU was down a lot at the time so I posted it on NTCS.  We had quite a successful game day/launch event.
arklon.outpost2.net/other/Fractured_Alliance_v1.rar
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Offline Vagabond

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Re: Fractured Alliance (Survivor, 5P)
« Reply #16 on: January 15, 2016, 04:28:06 PM »
My brother and I have played this map a couple of times. It is really well done. We lost about 3 times before making serious progress towards defeating the main AI. We engaged the main base in the center and then tried sending in some supernovas from the western entrance. I was impressed the computer was smart enough to send over an EMP lynx with spiders and successfully reprogrammed them.

Unfortunately, the game crashed right after that. Windows offered up a debugger, and gave me this message, not sure if it means anything though as I cannot understand it.

Unhandled exception at 0x06F94300 in Outpost2.exe: 0xC0000005: Access violation writing location 0x00000001.

Also, twice the game crashed when initializing the level and syncing the computers right before starting gameplay. Just restarted the program and it worked fine after that though.

Offline Hooman

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Re: Fractured Alliance (Survivor, 5P)
« Reply #17 on: January 15, 2016, 05:48:07 PM »
I love it when people post crash addresses.  :)

Unfortunately that address doesn't appear to be in code segment of Outpost 2, nor does it appear to be in the code segment of the level DLL. Most curious. The write location looks like a typical array access through a null pointer.

Some interesting strings in that level Sirbomber.

Offline Sirbomber

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Re: Fractured Alliance (Survivor, 5P)
« Reply #18 on: January 15, 2016, 07:15:56 PM »
Now Hooman, if you want a look at the level's internals, you know the terms and conditions.  No sneaking around!
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Offline Sirbomber

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Re: Fractured Alliance (Survivor, 5P)
« Reply #19 on: January 16, 2017, 04:53:24 PM »
This mission has been updated.  The balance has been improved and the game should no longer crash.  Also note that the techtree has been updated in a few ways, but the most important change is that the Advanced Lab is no longer available from Research Training Programs.  A new technology, Hazardous Research Facility, now unlocks the Advanced Lab.  Several techs have been moved from the Advanced Lab to the Standard Lab to accommodate this change.

Get the latest version here!
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Offline Vagabond

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Re: Fractured Alliance (Survivor, 5P)
« Reply #20 on: January 18, 2017, 01:24:40 PM »
Sirbomber,

Thanks for posting. I look forward to playing the patched version, but probably won't have to time/ability to do so until mid February. I'm curious to see how the tech tree affects that game balance.

I realized you are updating the tech tree survtech, which is used in several scenarios, including Forsaken World, which is in the official build for Outpost 2. But older scenarios like Caught in the Crossfire that use survtech were not updated.

So I see the following happening:

1. Player One downloads Caught in the Crossfire only.
2. Player Two downloads both Caught in the Crossfire and Fractured Alliance (with the newer tech tree).
3. The two players decide to play a match of Caught in the Crossfire. Partway through the game I image it will crash because they do not have the same version of survtech. The players will have no idea what caused the crash since Outpost 2 will give a vague and not useful crash report.

I think it may be better if you bundle all of the scenarios together in one post that are using survtech in a single download. Then all the individual forum pages for each scenario can just link to the bundled download forum post. This way, everyone will get the same copy of the tech tree when downloading the newest copy. A warning could be added to the post telling players that they need to play with the newest version of survtech or the game will likely crash. Otherwise, I think it would be difficult for the players to spot the tech tree as what is causing the problem.

Also, we should consider standardizing how the tech trees enter the official version of Outpost 2. Right now Forsaken World is included in the official download. This means if I download Fractured Alliance and then want to play the stock scenario Forsaken world with someone who has not downloaded Fractured Alliance, it will fail. In fact, I think maybe this is what was happening to me earlier when Forsaken World was crashing before Arklon fixed it.

To prevent this, perhaps we should name survtech differently in the non official build of Outpost 2. Perhaps survtechBeta.txt or something. Then when a new version of Outpost 2 is released, the copy of survtech in the official build can be updated to include any tech updates made on survtechBeta. The downside to this is that in the interm between releases, scenarios in the official build would not benefit from new changes to survtechBeta. I think this is a small price to pay though in keeping the game crashes from tech tree mismatches from happening.

Scenarios currently using survtech:
 * Caught in the Crossfire
 * Darkest Hour
 * Forsaken World
 * Fractured Alliance
 * Judgment Day

Anyways, we should probably split this conversation into a different post if it is going to get lengthy since I do not want to sidetrack off of Fractured Alliance too far. I wanted to place it hear so others are aware of the potential problem though when downloading Fracture Alliance.


EDIT: I pulled the note out of the wiki about Fractured Alliance being bugged, since it doesn't apply any more as well.
« Last Edit: January 18, 2017, 01:27:59 PM by Vagabond »

Offline Sirbomber

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Re: Fractured Alliance (Survivor, 5P)
« Reply #21 on: January 18, 2017, 09:57:11 PM »
Trust me Vagabond, we're well aware of the Survtech dependency hell. :P
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Offline leeor_net

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Re: Fractured Alliance (Survivor, 5P)
« Reply #22 on: January 19, 2017, 10:11:25 AM »
Would it make sense to just call it version 2 with a 'v2' tag and go from there?

Offline Sirbomber

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Re: Fractured Alliance (Survivor, 5P)
« Reply #23 on: January 19, 2017, 04:09:41 PM »
It'd be more accurate to call it version 83 I think...  Regardless, I'm not concerned about this, especially if a new download package is in the works that will include all the most up-to-date files.  Besides, I think there's plans for a more permanent solution to the problems we have sharing maps.
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Offline Vagabond

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Re: Fractured Alliance (Survivor, 5P)
« Reply #24 on: March 15, 2017, 09:02:15 PM »
I recently played through a 2 player game of Fractured Alliance. We lost the first round and won the second. Everything worked as advertised, including the new tech tree. No crashes when destroying the enemy's base.

Thanks for making such a great scenario.