Solar Conquest v0.97e

[TKF]

Bigger space... might actualy be an idea...

It would be cool if the space was bigger, but I'm not a fan of mega sized universe maps. I've played Galactic Conquest and it was to big to be fun imo. But I'm pleased with the current map. Somewhat bigger would be nice though....



I can't wait for the next version! Win / lose condition would spice the map up and some fixes.


Some problems / suggestions

• You get message like "insufficent gold", when it's really about crystals credits. This confuse noobs to think it's credits. Edit the gameplay constant texts to make the map more polished.
  
• Also some planets the HQ is to far away from the crystal. On Umosara, you only need 3-4 workers, while on some planet you need 6 to maximize the crystal income from your mainbase.
  
• Maybe add more stuff for the Shield final tier tech; perhaps make it cost 6000 and give the space ships some mana and mana shield like ability when researched? Perhaps about 30% of their current hp in mana? Just a suggestion.
  
• Also currently it doesn't pay off to play with 2 players on the same planet. We got pwned from a player who had the planet for himself and we with our weak ships couldn't defeat his huge fleet of better ships. Then he raped us with Vanyas before we could do anything.....
  
• Therefore I suggest that the economic center have ANOTHER 6 food limit tech (it can cost 2000 or something) so being 2 on same planet while planet mates could have a chance against the uber leet solo player. (Seriously playing at my best to be the fastest doesn't help when a pro solo player is as fast as me, also my teammate was pretty pro)

 

[powereater]

Major problems:
-the game turns into a "decisive battle" kind of map, which usally means and very long build up and a very short actuall battle. who ever get's into space first (me ) tends to win the game. with little to no chance for the other players for success.(so bigger map or cheaper defense or even slower ships
-the most populer way to force others into submission i've seen is using the vanya and bombard you opponents back to the stone age. THERE IS NO REASONABLE DEFENSE to this attack. the vanya cost 2k, the plantary defense laser thing cost 2k, but at a much later tech level, they also fire slowly and get 1hit-koed by the missile. either some kind of shielding system needs to be in place (i suggest the kind used in supreme commander maps) or reduce the damage the missiles do, or make the huge laser around the same tech as the vanya, but cheaper (more range might be good 2)
-once again, you're pretty much done if you get trapped on your planet, make it impossible to increase income (but really slowly) in your own planet
-nice cheap defense makes the game last longer and forces other players to develop better strategy
Minor issues:
-medic rushes forward when you attack... give them attackpower of 1 and the same range as marines will make them stay with the group
-combat engiuneers stronger than marine but cost the same and have abilities
-the only armour vs infentry unit is the recon, and it's not good at it's job as it should be. somekind of walker desgined espically for armour vs infentry would go well.
-specialist loses their cloak after doing stuff, you send them to bomb something and that's 700 worth of investment gone.
-drop should be easier, i like the landing beacon system but it gets frustrating at times
-zerg needs to reproduce faster, not nessceraly stronger.
-more towers in space, some kind of fortress thing like the one that the pirates have would go well

otherwise, this map is REVOLUTIONARY in space gaming, i've yet to see a map as good as this, nor as fun. sorry for very poor spelling and grammer. i find no major problems with space, jsut balencing issues.

 

[Spartan327]

i didnt mean get rid of them i meant cutting them so that there are more planetss, there r currently 5 planets then there would be ten

 

[DarkKnight]

But that would make planetary warfare, and half of the techtree and half of the game useless =/

 

[callex]

Its very unlikely that there will be any new planets; the game triggers are not very flexible and adding a new planet can't be done without a massive amount of trigger editing.

Expanding the space area using a custom editor isn't totally out of the question though - It will take some time but there might be a larger space area in the distant future.

 

[TKF]

I think the cyborg is quite overpowered. I had a game where i fought against an opponent with army of those. It wiped out my enourmous ground armada. Also with medics it's unstoppable. Maybe remove the cybrogs ability from healing from medics?

 

[Discohydra]

Yes, The cyborg should be balanced because,

You can get "Final Tier Techs" too early in the game, Final weapons are meant to be unanswerable, but this shouldn't be the case here, due to how early in the game you can get said "Final Tier techs", they shouldn't be unbalanced to the point that they end the game. You have the medic's heal the cyborgs only up to 10-25% HP, or remove their ability to be healed, they should also be considered mechanical if you choose to do either option.

 

[jakeyizle]

Great map, enjoyed, etc. Just a few suggestions (read last couple of pages and didn't see these).

- Better unit grouping. (It's really annoying to have a lot of ships, just for it to be a giant pain to move them. But if that's a big problem, maybe a unit limit?)

- Give medics an attack, and lower their movement speed a tiny bit. (Not having an attack makes attack-move not work. So if they're grouped with marines, and you attack-move, they just run in and not heal. They also seem to be faster than marines, which is a bit of an annoyance)

- Better ping system (It sucks that when you're in a planet, or in space, the pings don't help at all. I freak out a lot, thinking that someone made a warp portal into my base just to realize that one of my asteroid miners found a pirate. Maybe have it state where the attack is? Like, "North sector" for space, or "Planet South Sector" or whatever.

- Improve end-tier synergy (Maybe I'm just bad/uncreative, but it just doesn't seem that end tiers have a lot of synergy. It would help with the imbalance of 2 people on 1 planet vs 1 person on 1 planet.

A Crystal-Currency exchange system would be nice, but it needs to be inefficient. One game, I had <100 crystal at any given time, but over 100,000 currency!

 

[DarkKnight]

Cyborgs should have special healers, a healer that can ONLY heal cyborgs, and is quite in-efficient about it...

 

[Ersichamar]

This game is awesome. I love you.
I think there should be more final-tier techs primarily for ground warfare.

I like biological warfare, but, of all things, there should be ways to make it stronger for late-game.

 

[Thick_Armor]

Fantastic game. The best space battle game I've played yet, mainly down to it's diversity. Never seen a space game that also has ground warfare done in such an interesting way.
My only wish is that it were a little more popular, it can take some time to fill up when I host it, but I'm sure that will change one day soon. 4.9/5, because I know it's a beta and don't wanna give it a 5 just yet ^^

 

[Discohydra]

In the change log, can the said "ground based shield generator, shield against orbital bombardment?

 

[callex]

Glad people are liking it ^^

The ground-based shield generator gives a huge armor bonus to units within its area of effect and stops all interplanetary nukes/orbital bombardments that hit the shield directly.

 

[Thick_Armor]

Yeah, Diso it does.
There is this bug where if you are upgrading and press Esc to zoom out to space view it will cancel the upgrade (well, kind of a bug but more of a mistake). Also, it is possible for people to send interplanetary nukes at each other through the borders of the planets, if that makes sense.
On top of that i think that asteroid miners should follow refinery ships around untill it comes within a certain radius of asteroids (maybe 200-300 yards?), it's a little annoying when they just fly about like a badly scripted scout ship.
I think that's everything so far.

 

[TKF]

Glad people are liking it ^^

The ground-based shield generator gives a huge armor bonus to units within its area of effect and stops all interplanetary nukes/orbital bombardments that hit the shield directly.

Ehm,... lol. So it doesn't completely protect the units beneath the shield? What about making the shield generator take the damage when the units take damage? The unit get full hp (unless it was instantly killed), and the shield takes the damage equivalent of the damage caused on unit in form of mana loss on the shield. (you can use custom unit value in the triggers, it saves variables) The shield itself could be very vulnerable for direct attacks, since it only lose hp when directly attacked, but otherwise it loses only mana. (You use a trigger which shows how much damage a unit which has a shield buff, including structures. If the shield run out of mana then it overloads and explodes)

When hit by bombardments, the shield could nullify the bombardments. Nukes draw instead some mana on the shield generator and does not appear.

Well just a plump suggestion. I'm not forcing you....


________________


I'm wondering you can add some game modes which can give the game some variations....

Game mode suggestions:

• Must be chosen in the first 60 seconds by red player.
• -
• Team modes could be..... (Only 1 can be picked)
• ...Planet alliances (players on each planet are allied and have trade alliance, diplomacy locked)
• ...No alliances (Diplomacy disabled and trade tech removed)
• ...Evil vs Good (2 teams, random picked)
• -
• Custom modes could be..... (all can be picked)
• ...High Income (All incomes doubled, also minerals)
• ...Advanced Civilization (You start with the basic techs researched, including space travel)
• ...Space Only (Only marines and medics on ground, much less defenses)
• ...Ground Only (You can only build scouts in space without attacks, satellites, trade docks)
• ...No Pirates (There is no pirate ships or base)
• -
• Red player has full access to these commands, however if a different player write it, a vote could appear and if more than 50% of the present players type the same mode (red have absolute veto if he want to use that), that mode is chosen (must be done within 60 sec of game start)
• Suggestion: Players that surrender, automatically gives all his units to the selected player and his resources.

sry for 1000 suggestions ^^

_________

@Thick_Armor
I tried to send nukes though border edges, but I couldn't reproduce that bug

 

[DarkKnight]

All alliances, not realy fitting the name and the game, ground only, you should add a transport to the space units to engage other planets.

 

[TKF]

BUG: I got planetary shield generators, but they didn't stop bombardment at all. I got owned by 36 vanyas when they bombarded my planet to death.


______________


Also the planets terrains must be balanced imo. On the desert planet you can go around the rebels and taking mid at the end. While on some planets you must take mid before you can cross the map. Terrain balancing must be made to make it fair among all other planets.

 

[TKF]

THE BIG LIST


BUG: You cannot move any ships to the top left corner in space. They explode!
BUG: Slow victory!
BUG: Credits shows up as lumber when you send credits to allies

BALANCE ISSUE: Cyborgs have slightly too high armor. Perhaps armor type to titanium or/and reduce armor values. Change into iron golem cuz marine model doesn't fit it.

TERRAIN: Terrain needs to be somewhat adjusted to make it more fair. Currently the Croturnal is the most imba planet, and Novan is a very suckage planet imo!


__________________

Add much more economic techs.


Here are some suggestions to make the economic center more important in late game.... I'll be happy if you implement some

• Economy - Baby Boom ; 90 crystals 4500 gold (6+ food, requires birth tech)
• Economy - Super Frequencies ; 3000 gold (double effects of mineral regenerators, Requires mineral regenerator tech)
• Economy - Stock Exchange ; 80 crystals 4000 gold (adds a bigger chance to gain double credit income pr income cycle, requires market fluctuation)
• Economy - Bounty Hunter ; 50 crystals 2500 gold (Increases your bounty gained when killing with 20%)
  Economy - Super Crystal Mining (Final Tier) ; 150 crystals 4500 gold (Workers extract 2 minerals instead of 1, asteroid miners extract 4 minerals instead of 2, you gain 15 free crystals pr income cycle, requires Super Frequencies)
  Economy - Free Market Economics (Final Tier) ; 350 crystals 13000 gold (Always get double credit income pr cycle, requires Stock Exchange tech)
• Economy - Crystal Trading ; 40 crystals 1500 gold (Trade docks does also provides mineral income when you have trade alliances, requires trade tech)
• Economy - Banking ; 80 crystals 4000 gold (You gain 1% interest of your total gold you have pr income cycle)
• Economy - Advanced Targeting Computers ; 60 crystals 2500 gold (All ships, turrets and ground vehicles and space defense has 100 more attack range)
• Economy - Stealth Trading ; 40 minerals 2000 gold (Equips your trade docks with stealth, requires stealth tech)
• Economy - Miniaturization ; 70 crystals 2500 gold (Makes the production of space ships 40% faster)
• Economy - Empire Control ; 120 crystals 3000 gold (Increases your maximim food limit to 200, provides 3+ food, requires Stock Exchange and Baby Boom)
• Economy - Resource Marketing ; 25 crystal 1000 gold (Unlocks resource swap ability on your trade docks and allows you to sell minerals to for credits and sell credits for minerals, requires trade tech)

I have 1 question: Does several trade docks stack?

 

[DarkKnight]

# Economy - Advanced Targeting Computers ; 60 crystals 2500 gold (All ships, turrets and ground vehicles and space defense has 100 more attack range)
# Economy - Stealth Trading ; 40 minerals 2000 gold (Equips your trade docks with stealth, requires stealth tech)

Does that have to do with Economic? Further, nice suggestions.

 

[lief1]

it benefits your economy by giving trace ships a safer trip.
... and the obvious reason money = science, science = technology.

 

[callex]

Hmm, the top-left corner of the map contain the sun, which is why units explode. I might make a visibility modifier so that players can see this though. The victory condition is supposed to trigger every 60 seconds, and whenever a player leaves with defeat. It doesn't seem to trigger properly when they leave so it just waits for the 60 seconds to expire. I'll look into it.

Economy techs and unit balancing is on the to-do list, but right now I've been experimenting with an AI - and it may take some time. The stock AI editor for wc3 only manages to build a home base before bugging (cant handle attacks/expansions) so I'm having to trigger these bits manually. Because of the AI's pathfinding on the ground, I'm going to simplify some of the terrains so that each player has equal access to expansions and more room for base building etc.

Trade ports don't stack, the number of trade alliances determines the number of trade vessels.

Thanks a lot for the economy suggestions though, I haven't actually come up with an upgrade list so quite a few of these will be used ^^.

 

[Eleandor]

You don't tech for "baby boom", that's something that just *happens*. I'd suggest to replace it by Medical researches (in addition to +6 max food, it may also augment the HP of all your organic units). Maybe split it up into several smaller and faster researches such as:

"Bio-nano-technology": +5 Max HP to all organic units, +3 max food. Unlocks a new unittype perhaps
"Implant Augmentation": +5 Max HP to all organic units, an additional +5 for cyborgs. +3 max food.

"Miniaturization" sounds like a pre-requisite to many computer-related technologies. There are no cyborgs without miniaturization, for example.

 

[Thick_Armor]

Just played another game and there is a lag problem that has ruined my games of it (because of people leaving) twice! I'm quite sure it's some kind of memory leak because at one point in the game everyone could be playing fine then suddenly start complaining about massive lag (as in CPU strain, not delay). Another possibility is the absolutely massive amount of units players have later in game. Perhaps a unit cap? Making units more powerful and thus less numerous.

 

[callex]

Yea, CPU lagg is a difficult thing to test for because I dont usually experience it on my pc. I recently fixed some big memory leaks whilst AI testing though in one of the older triggers, so perhaps the new version will run smoother.

 

[R3LAP5E]

i wouldnt mind a unit cap
force people to use more strategy
instead of massing 10000 units and using attack move

 

[DarkKnight]

Actualy, massing 10000 units is also a strategy XD.

 

[R3LAP5E]

Actualy, massing 10000 units is also a strategy XD.

nobody said it wasn't.. its just the only one people seem to use. which im sure causes a lot of the lag

 

[lief1]

What you need to add is a "armada" triangle. And list it some were. Or say what ships counter, what ships.

 

[DarkKnight]

Why list it? ^^.

 

[lief1]

for newer players and forgetful players.

 

[Thick_Armor]

One more ting!
Not sure if it's just me, but cyborgs are a little overpowered. About 10 of them took down an entire fleet of dark energy ships by themselves... Kind of annoying. Ion storms should be deployable on a planet. Oh yeah and ofcourse, you cannot see all of the upgrades in the technology centre, perhaps add another page?

 

[Eleandor]

Your group enum's are still leaking. You should use Group Utils (wc3c.net)

 

[callex]

The cyborgs will be nerfed for the next version, although it might take a while because i'm currently adding an AI (its proving to be a very difficult task)

Yea I've been noticing a lot of memory leaks in the older triggers. I know a lot more about memory leaks now so I can go back and re-do all of the bad triggers.

 

[Eleandor]

A map of this scale really needs to be as efficient as possible, so you should use jass, including systems such as a grouping recycler...

 

[callex]

Yea its kinda turned into a nasty blend of GUI and Jass (I've been using jass looping and Getlocalplayer a lot) which kinda makes things difficult. The reason i'm so reluctant to leave Gui is because I'd have to learn all of the functions again which would hamper progress quite a bit. I suppose I'll have to give real scripting a go eventually, especially now that I've hit the 250 trigger mark; it's really taking its toll on map performance...

 

[Eleandor]

Better start now than when it's too late

Newgen also includes TESH, a function highlighter and also a function finder. With the function finder you can look up a function. Most functions also have very intuitive naming. For example: CreateUnit() creates a new unit.

You could always *hire* someone who is advanced with jass / vjass...

 

[syltman]

Is there a clan or anything for this? It's incredible hard to get a game up on Wc3

 

[TKF]

Is there a clan or anything for this? It's incredible hard to get a game up on Wc3

Unfortunately no. Very few plays this map regulary. It's only being hosted about once pr hour on average. Also it would be an challenge to create an Solar Conquest clan...


I'm waiting for the next version

 

[callex]

Yea I may have hit a brick-wall with this AI, although it's reasonably functional so-far, it's very inefficient and causes stuttering and memory leaks. I think I might get someone to look at what I've gotten so far and find ways to optimise and de-leak it. I don't want to go further without knowing it will actually work when it's done ><.

 

[TKF]

A small notice. When you repair structures you pay of A LOT of crytstals. Towers costs 5 crystals but when you repair them you spend much more than 5 crystals. Give all structures and units correct repair values.


Edit_

Using transport from starport seem to cause massive lagg for a strange reason.

 

[TKF]

After the great 1.24 blizzard plague this map survived the pest


May the solar conquest greatly increase in popularity


____________

Tranports from starports is causing lagg. So does the asteroid miners.

 

[XX_Noob]

I really like this map, but there is one thing that bothers me a lot, if you forexample decide to fight your opponent on your planet, you wont advance into space alot, and two other players on another planet allies and they get to you and destroy before the war has ended.

 

[lief1]

All ships that cannot land on a planet should be able to bombard it from space.

 

[XX_Noob]

To be honest, I think that only transporters should land on planets and no bombardment, unless bombardment was part of a final tier.

 

[ance77]

Epic map, epic game... i love your Map...love the system... However u need to reduce the game length, its very hard to encourage new people to try to play the game considering the game need massive teching which needed to be learned (glad u mention what we unlock for teching this n that)... 1. Cutting down researches ( currently there r too many researches) i personally feel there is no need for an infantry research or the vehicle research... We should be able to hire the most basic infantry/vehicles without teching... 2. Short mode.. increasing all currency / mineral gain.... No creeps in Center points except in the middle.. Or watever way jus cut the game length ^^ i am sure you can figure it out...

Balance:
You need to balance the planet terrain, there r some planets where u can capture all the 3 cps without capturing the middle cp thus giving them advantage ( i am sure other ppl already mentioned it)...
there is no advantage we get if we choose to atk the other player on our same planet.. rather we lose a good amount of resources and time n we end up getting to space much later than other ppl who allied or own the goddamn planet to himself... How about if we destroy his command center we get their resources and maybe take control of their army??

Anyway thx for the great game callex... I have fun with friends on LAN...keep up the good work!

 

[TKF]

All ships that cannot land on a planet should be able to bombard it from space.

That would be very imba and unfair. It's enough that vanya can bombard. But there could be 1 more ship having that ability, but that's enough.

Could be fun with 1 more dark class ship, like
this

or

this (xD)

Also when a new version arrives with the fix of the shield gen properly deflecting bombardements it would be more balanced. Currently the shield generator only removes nukes. It's been a very long time ago since the last update...

 

[lief1]

Ya, fix the shield generate then add more bombardment. But I made my comment using logic, I just can't see why a ship can't fire it's lasers randomly onto a enemy planet.

 

[XX_Noob]

Meh, I think planets should serve a lot bigger role, now its just ally your planets ally so you can get to space fast, take the mines in space and you won, I think the amount of resources in space should be reduced a lot, otherwise there is not even a point in battling your enemy at your planet, and adding bombardment will just make planets totally useless and enforce ally with the other player of your planet.

 

[DarkKnight]

Well, lazers wouldn't work as bombartment (scientific reason) becouse the chance of the atmosphere disturbing the lazer beam, is higher than the chance of it being disturbed by space alone, though I don't know if this is true XD (that's why I'm talking about chances)

 

[Eleandor]

That's poop what you just said