Among the Stars

[Moderator]

12:13, 9th Oct 2008
VGsatomi: Approved. although this map is not as in-depth as other space-themed altered melee maps like this, non-complexity could be seen as a good thing since it lowers the learning curve for the map. I do question the balancing a bit, as one player has immediate excess to more habitable planets then the other.

 

[Supermj]

very interesting. I hope it continues to become better! It truly is a good idea.

 

[DrazharLn]

I playtested this map for you.
It looks like it could be very good and plays well, I couldn't find any bugs as such. However I found that the humans are forced into being able to use one move, the instakill ability. My ships quickly became invincible, except against that, because of their high regen.
Also, do the aliens really only have one ship? Or are there others I didn't work out how to build?
I think both sides would benefit from a reworked tech tree. Another peeve is that the game ends after 20min. Why? At least let us fight the invaders.

Overall: a good game concept spoilt by a few [hopefully] easy to change things.

 

[BlargIAmDead]

Supermj:

I'm not planning on coming back to this map for a long time, but if I do, I'll let you know.

Drazhar:

I'm not sure which "instakill" ability you're referring to. Is it the "Particle Beam"?

The Symphylids really do have only one capital ship (plus the drones, if you count them as non-capital ships). Since their whole style of gameplay is based on sacrificing expendable units, I didn't think they needed more than one kind.

Did you have any suggestions for the "reworked" tech tree?

The game is supposed to end after about 35 minutes, not 20. Has anyone else had this problem?

 

[DrazharLn]

Yep, the particle beam was the ability I was talking about.
For the techtree, I don't know, I only played as Symphilids anyways. But I found that my ships quickly became invincible against the humans. So maybe tone down the regen bonuses.
Also, is there any way for the symphilids to detect the Varanid Monitors?

I can't think of anything else off the top of my head, I'm pretty busy in a project of my own at the minute, so its sapping my creativity

Draz

 

[ChaosBlade_DC]

Well I played on lan against my brother, he erased the mankind. I had nothing left, but the scoreboard still said I have 4 planets. Also the Symphlids are way stronger than the human. They're faster and their ships are owning mine with ease + they mass them along. Also the play system is kind of boring cause there is no much varity. And ending the game after time is pretty lame, you should at least give them the possiblity to choose if they want that timer or not. Until this is made better 2/5

 

[BlargIAmDead]

When you say that the Symph ships are faster, do you mean their attack speed, or their movement speed? Also, when you say something like "owning" or "stronger", is this because they're too fast, or because there are too many of them, or because of the regeneration problem Drazhar mentioned?

The scoreboard issue is strange. Is anybody else having this problem?

 

[ChaosBlade_DC]

With faster I mean they only need one ship, they mass it along and expand way faster than the humans. With owning I mean their rigged high regeneration, even the battlecarrier wasnt able to kill at least one of them. Also it seems like terraforming of barren planets is faster if they do it.

 

[BlargIAmDead]

You're right; the Symphylids are based around the "rush" concept, so they build everything faster, including terraformed planets. And that's the reason why they only have one kind of ship, but it can be built very quickly and in large numbers -- what I assume you mean by "massing along".

The Human battlecruiser should be a match for them, though, especially if it's fully upgraded. Obviously a lone ship of any kind is going to be destroyed, but one or two cruisers backed up by a few carriers should be able to wreck anything that the Symphs can throw at you. (That was the idea, anyway.)

If I do come back to this map, I'll definitely lower the Symphylid regeneration rate. There also seem to be some complaints about the timer; I thought it made the game more of a challenge, but nobody seems to be reacting to it well, so I'll probably drop that too.

 

[ChaosBlade_DC]

In this version when the symphlid isnt a complete retard he will kill the human before he will get the Battlecruiser, this is the problem

 

[BlargIAmDead]

Thank you, ChaosBlade, you made that clear in your previous posts.

Does anyone have input on the timer or scoreboard problems?

 

[andreasaspenberg]

i found a bug in the victory conditions. i destroyed everthing the enemy had but i still couldnt win.

 

[BlargIAmDead]

Oh, hi there!

I've been very busy since I first posted this map, but I'm glad there's still some interest in it! I might decide to do a major overhaul and re-post it; everybody seems to like the concept, but the execution was flawed as all get-out.