Hello there from SA creator

Ice4smaster
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Hello there from SA creator

Post by Ice4smaster »

Hello there!

I found your site by chance, after i came across a youtube video records of my map, Star Armada, just watched the last video ( which is not listed ) and listening to the issues you came across. Obv, the map is work in progress, work on it almost every day for many months, and alone cant see as much things as a well populated team can, like your last 4v4 game.

I chose to release my mod so I can get feedback, negative and positive alike, but mainly constructive ones.

Biggest complains you have had are the money trade bug, i like to make a use of this as would add to the game depth, but guess for now no other option but to eliminate it so none can use it.

2nd was the Voidray and it's insane prismatic beam, I already tone it down with quite a few knots it's standard damage, from 20+3 / 40+6 / 60+9 down to 10+2 / 20+4 / 30+6 and allow it to "spike" agin with an active ability only, Void ment to be the protoss sniper answer to the Terran Mass Drive artillery of the Dreadnought.

Also working on the descriptions for the Protoss, as obv, the Protoss side is not finished, like the Terran is, which preatty much recive balance adjustments now, but no new abilities or alike.

The next patch I intend to upload this weekend, but may delayed to early next week, have to see, but the Followings planned to be in it ( current patch log and it's changing as i working on it ):
Changes & fix

General
-Descriptions Fixed for Terran Spawn Units ( fighters and cruisers more to come)
-Flagship Dock and Flagship Stargate Building Animations corrected when ship canceled
-Adjusting weapon mechanisms
-View Range of Flagships increased to 20
-Resource Trade Dissabled
-Fighters pack buy revert to individual build
-Tutorial update, Scavanger and Raven added

Terran
-Dreadnought
-Gauss Cannon Fire Arc set to 240 Degree Forward orianted
-Plasma Cannon Fire Arc set to 240 Degree Forward orianted
-Mass Drive Ability Cost scale adjusted, Start values remain 500 HP / 75 Energy per shot, scale is, Range up ( +125/50 ) Damage ( +10/5 )
-Mass Drive change to reduce solo Mass Drive snipe efficency and enforce team work ( Dreadnought + Scavanger )
-Mass Drive Damage been increased from +75 to +125 to counter balance self damage
-Battlecruiser
-Gauss Cannon Fire Arc set to 240 Degree Forward orianted
-Plasma Cannon Fire Arc set to 240 Degree Forward orianted
-Advance Defensive Matrix now recive bonuses directly from shield upgrades
-Advance Defensive Matrix durration increases by +0.5 sec / shield upgrade
-Advance Defensive Matrix Shield amount increases by +150 shield / shield upgrade ( with normal +100 this nets to +250 )
-Yamato Cannon now cause self damage when fired and range is upgraded, 0 at lvl 0 range upgrade, each range adds +500 self damage
-Yamato Cannon now Targets area instead of Unit, need more skill to hit a distant target on the move, also able to fire into fog of war
-Yamato Ability, once bought, reduce max life with 1500 HP ( Animation / model correction later )
-Yamato Prepair time reduced from 3 sec to 1.5 sec
-Yamato Projectile speed increased from 20 to 30
-Yamato upgrade no longer increases cooldown to counter balance the damage at firing it

Protoss
-Elite Void Cruiser
-New Ability added, Immortality Shield
-Start Shield Armour adjusted to 3
-Particle Disruptor now standard weapon at start
-Particle Disruptor Fire Arc set to 240 Degree Backwards orianted
-Prismatic Beam Damage upgrades scaled down from 3/6/9 to 2/4/6 start damage now 10/20/30
-Prismatic Beam random times removed
-Prismatic Beam now have a minimum range of 1
-Plasma Lance upgrade added
-Singularity upgrade added
-Carrier
-Particle Disruptor Fire Arc set to 240 Degree Backwards orianted
-Singularity upgrade added
-Planet Cracker Beam Ability added ( needs some polish up but works )
-Mothership
-Description for ship selection Added
-Start Shield Armour adjusted to 3
-Sanctuary Shield shield bonus now +200 / shield upgrades to allied units inside the field
-Plasma Shield Shockwave no longer damages allies
-Plasma Shield Shockwave now recive +500 damage bonus from Shield Capacitor Upgrades
-Plasma Shield Shockwave ability now displayed on the mothership
-Singularity upgrade added
-Mass Reacall Prepair time reduced to 5 sec

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Ricky_Honejasi
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Re: Hello there from SA creator

Post by Ricky_Honejasi »

For those having no clue what's going, he's referring to those FFS videos about his Star Armada map from my Youtube channel :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQlW0_WsMy4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_asvUQ5nFbw (2nd game, the unlisted video)

Anyway, back to Ice4smaster.

You didn't have to make two exact threads about it and I deleted the second one.

Did you fixed the issue which an allied ship can shot down their main base? If not, that is still a critical issue in my book as any troll player might abuse it to ruin games.

While the original complain about the Void Ray was it reached insane high ranges (ex : 30-36 when other ship types are likely to be 13-16), I guess a damage reduction could help. We will have to see.

As a side thing, you might want to use a spelling corrector. While I tend to be relatively tolerant of typos and such, your map can be harshly judged by some players due this. Some players can consider that if there are too many typos, the map is probably of bad quality thus it shouldn't be played.
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Ricky_Honejasi
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Re: Hello there from SA creator

Post by Ricky_Honejasi »

On a side note, did you upload the new version on NA? The last version according to the map's details over Battle.net is September 29.
Ice4smaster
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Re: Hello there from SA creator

Post by Ice4smaster »

I haven't upload the newest patch yet, still working on it, have remade the nuclear missile, and just made the animations for the Carrier Planet Cracker Beam attack ( Yamato equivalent ) currently playing around with the numbers for this ability as well the interceptors also gotta quickly do some descriptions for the protoss so you guys have an idea what to use and how, tonight, around 7 PM London time the new patch be alive.

Also there are tutorial videos who interested:
Tutorial 1 Basics + Battlecruiser
Tutorial 2 Dreadnought
Tutorial 3 Black Ops Raven
Tutorial 4 Scavanger

As for the double posting soz, didnt realise first needs the approval ^^;
Ice4smaster
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Re: Hello there from SA creator

Post by Ice4smaster »

I hate VR beam, lol, gonna look into it now.
And the turning on target by click, i try to achive that with a hidden dummy weapon added to the ships at slot 0 With the only sole propose to turn your ship if use attack command.

Other changes in my mind from regular players are
-Quicker way to finish, I need a kill count victory condition
-More waves, yes they asking for more mass fleet massacre lol

Beside these ones, any suggestions?
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Ricky_Honejasi
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Re: Hello there from SA creator

Post by Ricky_Honejasi »

Ice4smaster wrote:Other changes in my mind from regular players are
-Quicker way to finish, I need a kill count victory condition
-More waves, yes they asking for more mass fleet massacre lol

Beside these ones, any suggestions?
A kill count victory might feel a very artificial and forced way to end the game. Personally, I might be more tempted to suggest ships take 45 seconds to rebuild if only to give the enemy team time to push or to deal important damage to the enemy main base.

Right now, many ships only take 10 seconds to rebuild so if a player got too much money, they can die, rebuild, die, rebuild which make defense easier.

Obviously, any first ship should only take 10 second or so to build then any rebuild ship takes 45 seconds after.
Ice4smaster
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Re: Hello there from SA creator

Post by Ice4smaster »

Working on a newer quick patch, likely be on tonight, VR should be better now, the keep channeling option i think was the reason the beam shot all across the map.

Also tried the Dummy weapon for targeting, for now no luck with it, doesnt turn the ship fully in the direction of the target, but gonna experiment with it for a while.

And the VR weapon ability ideas are the following. Beam Modes, so like an Swiss Army knife, and 1 ability for range snipe. Can use range boost and 1 of the beam modes combined.
-Orange Beam ( Armour pircing beam ) low damage
-Blue Beam ( Normal beam ) moderate damage
-Purple Beam ( Energy Burner ) High / Mid / Low damage based on target energy percentage

Thats on paper the plan =)
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Re: Hello there from SA creator

Post by UntamedLoli »

Making the fleet waves more threatening as time goes on would probably help the game not last as long. Upgrades/abilities, new/different units spawning, etc. As it stands its kind of hard for anything short of players to do anything meaningful to the bases.
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Ice4smaster
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Re: Hello there from SA creator

Post by Ice4smaster »

I assume referring to the side waves, they can be threatening but true, after 1.5 hour currently, i can make them more challenging, no problem there, though other players been upset when it was "to strong"

It's possible to take on the base, but as currently is, requires skills, proper team work and timing, lemme quote a post i made the other day :]
Out Tank Towers ( most basic ): 1-2 ships from your fleet goes heavily into armour and life upgrades to tank up the damage while the rest can poor there fire power safer on the towers.

Out Range Towers: If have long range weaponry in your fleet, just simply out range the towers and take non of there damage while focus them down

Spell Spike Damage: Can be risky if ships not durable enough, but you can rush in and nuke, yamato, planet cracker, missile pod the towers in matter of seconds

Energy Denial: With energy denial you can drain the towers energy, make there weapons much slower at firing, Currently it's the EMP does this but there will be an dedicated energy denial for the Protoss too, and so for the zerg
If you go with a combo of this, it's the best, tank in-front, soak up damage, 1 support ship with a energy denial handicap a tower while the others spike damage with spells and weapon, if timed well, you pound a tower from full health to star dust in 10-15, and can do your retreat by the time the other team arrives back to defend, you all go home with a nice sum of resource bounty just take 1 tower, even if 1 or 2 get killed in the process ;)
Ice4smaster
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Re: Hello there from SA creator

Post by Ice4smaster »

I need 1 TON of redbull please :cry:

Yesterday we had a closed test with Def with the new VR, the weapons work good now, graphics made, what left to do is integrate the upgrades and ability upgrades related to these weapons.

Void Energy Beam:
-Damage 15/30/60 + 3/6/12 per upgrades
-Energy usage massive
-Weak agents Armour, Armour 3x effect on it
-Energy Draining Weapon

Ionised Rift Beam:
-Damage 10/20/40 ( +50%/+100%/+200% VS Shields ) +2/4/6 per upgrades
-Energy usage high/normal
-Standard Armour effect
-Anti Shield weapon

Gamma Ray Beam:
-Damage 5/10/20 ( +100%/+200%/+400% VS Biological ) +1/2/4 per upgrades
-Energy usage normal
-bypass armour
-Anti Biological, Anti Armour

So yeah, a Swiss knife comming up :happy:
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Re: Hello there from SA creator

Post by Ricky_Honejasi »

If the armor will react that different to the different void ray weapons, I strongly suggest you put those differences on the void rays' weapons' tooltips (which are visible to all players).

A simple tooltip could be "Armor 3x as strong vs weapon." or "Ignores standard armor.".

Otherwise, players can go very wtf in cases like : "I am using the (Void Energy) beam at 50 damage, my enemy got 30 armor but I only do 1 damage each time, what the hell?"
Ice4smaster
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Re: Hello there from SA creator

Post by Ice4smaster »

New patch is online on EU, soon it will be online on NA as well :]
Ice4smaster
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Re: Hello there from SA creator

Post by Ice4smaster »

Ricky_Honejasi wrote:If the armor will react that different to the different void ray weapons, I strongly suggest you put those differences on the void rays' weapons' tooltips (which are visible to all players).

A simple tooltip could be "Armor 3x as strong vs weapon." or "Ignores standard armor.".

Otherwise, players can go very wtf in cases like : "I am using the (Void Energy) beam at 50 damage, my enemy got 30 armor but I only do 1 damage each time, what the hell?"
Alright, will have to add that quantified then, for now there is a hint at the ability punches, Saying, Void Energy beam for example: " Installs Void Energy Beam on your Flagship, this is an anti energy, anti non-armoured beam mode" but yes, do not say it by numbers yet as it's likely be changing more as brand new and need some tweaking on numbers

Also as changes, i have added Hold button to the ships agen ( should work with H hotkey it's right under the stop button at the command card possition ) Also have added the ship salvage to all ships now and the automated station.

Automated station Gas extraction amount increased, but it's more limited of how many you can place down by your population.

Scavanger got buffed on it's missiles, start range now 14 ( can out kite enemy if no range upgrades involved ) and fire rate is 6 sec instead of 10 sec as was, so bit more potent for combat then was

Mothership got some more nerf, less HP, Sanctuary shield now grants 2x shield armour not 10x, also made so shield impacts durring this spell occur 90% times at the large shield wall, not at the middile, at the mothership.
Ice4smaster
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Re: Hello there from SA creator

Post by Ice4smaster »

New patch this weekend as well comming up, will post a patch note when it's ready.
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Re: Hello there from SA creator

Post by Ricky_Honejasi »

So from my last game, the Heavy Carrier definitively need a direct icon to enable/disable auto-cast rebuilding interceptors rather than going into a sub-menu to enable/disable the only icon which cannot be accessible in all situations.

The main reason is during the game, there was an enemy BC with heavy armor and I do notice the Carrier is made for anti-fighter and anti-unarmored play but not vs heavy-armored enemy ships. Thus, I decide to get the Yamato Gun equivalent for the Carrier so I can actually pack some punch.

However, 75% of the time, I wanted to disable the interceptor rebuilding's auto-cast so it stops eating my energy (75/intereceptor with 40 max and a max energy of 1400 or so) so I can actually shoot this "Yamato Gun" but I couldn't. Thus, it remade my interceptors near-instantly which were useless for the encounter in progress and I couldn't shoot the much needed "Yamato Gun" as I was always too low on energy.
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