Battle for Orion

[Moderator]

17:46, 13th Sep 2008
Rui: The map has been around for some time, and the comments tell me people like it and that this map is acceptable.
Approved!

 

[SUPER-SPIRITbomber]

Sounds great. Gonna download now. XD

 

[syc]

just played it but my vision does not expand. so when a unit strays mor than 1/3 of the screen from my planet he is lost.

 

[slith]

Yeah, you need to explore first with your probes.

 

[syc]

ok because other units give the impression that they might do so but don't. After playing with no fog of war, it was quite detailed. I like it overall. If you need help let me know. I have tones of models of ships here and a few in the works.

 

[slith]

Well with pleasure!

I have to say my main problem is size, it very fast gets heavy with all those custom models. What kind of models have you got?

I am working on an update, I may change the vision of units so you don't loose units, that may be annoying in the end. If you find any other bug, or balancing trouble, tell me.

PS: Btw, how do you get your map to be looked upon by a mod? I would really love to see the "pending" disappear ^^"

 

[Sir.Laggalot]

I've been messing around with your map, and I wanted to say, it's freaking awesome. I love the technology chains, and the different things you can get from upgrading each. I also absolutely love that they are actually grounded in the real world.
I wanted to list some things I think are especially awesome, and some I think you need to improve (With the hopes of some things getting changed, but ultimately it's up to you).

Awesome
1. The technology chains are beautiful. They are well founded, and make sense.
2. The ships, planets, and stars are beautiful! They look good, and at the same time don't crowd the screen for attention.
3. The differing types of propulsion are amazing and work well too.

Could use improving
1. Ally system: I couldn't find it, so I suspect it doesn't exist. I think there should be a command to ally, or at the very least, a game option which allows allies. (I could just be slow and missed it.)
2. I understand the need for slow ships, but I think that the turn speed of some should be increase, or if you can, when they're in warp have their turn speed increased. I noticed that capital ships will zip along (with the proper upgrades) while in warp, but will take decades to turn even a little bit.
3. The Warp Impeder, (I think), needs to have its cost decreased or its area of effect increased. Also if you can attach a visible barrier (for the player who owns it) so he can see where it affects, or give it an ability to show its affect area (a couple TDs do this with attack ranges, so you can build smart).
4. I'd like to see more planetary defenses (maybe some built ones) and the cheap little planet defenses seem to be extremely weak to the splash damage. (The planet is hit and it kills all the defenses after a few hits)

Thank you for this awesome map. I look forward to future updates.
(I don't yet know how to do it, (currently trying to figure it out). But if you remove all the units from the normal game, that you don't use, including all those abilities, it should reduce the size of the map.)

 

[slith]

Thank you very much for this feedback!

I have been working on a few updates, as you can see on version 1.2, but here are more precise answers for you improvement advices:

1. I'ts fixed. It's now a simple chat command system, with hints in the quests about it. I will try improving it, mostly with peace treaty time limit and the possibility of exchanging technologies if I can manage it.

2. Unluckily, the weak point of capital ships is their slow turn speed. I will still look with my beta-testers if it has to be increased. Thanks for the feedback anyway. As for increased turning speed when using warp, it's beyound my knowledge in both GUI and JASS.

3. After what you said, I decided to reduce the construction time of the hyperspace inhibitor, and I made this ability that reveals the area of effect of the building. I hope you will find it allright.

4. For now, I am working on a new system for planetary defenses. I will try to finish it soon, but be sure it will feature many new defensive structures for planets.

That's all for now, I hope you will enjoy this new version.

 

[Sir.Laggalot]

Thanks for the great map, and the update. I'll check it out immediately.

<Quick Edit>
(I haven't tried the new version yet, so if you fixed this then ignore this.)
When you equip ships with additional weapon systems their movement is slowed, (this is ok). But mass driver seems to have a whole lot more of a slowing affect, and some ships aren't even able to move after picking up one. Fully equipped ships are almost motionless.
Possible fixes I thought up...
1. Instead of slowing, reduce the unit's acceleration (this is more realistic and will add a lumbering feel to the heavy ships)
2. Reduce the slowing affect some (Just to be more forgiving)
3. Have the miniaturization research reduce the affect of the slow.

I think 1. is the best solution (if possible) it would also make stars more dangerous if a fully accelerated ship is fully loaded up. (trying to stop or turn but without the ability to do so quickly), and combining 1 with 3 would also be cool, and it would still be realistic, (Also it supports teching rather than massing).

There were a couple more problems I have remembered while typing this...

1. The best (It seems) way to win is, collect a lot of planets (for income) then mass fighter drones. The zero food cost and low actual cost make them easy to mass.
2. When there are massed fighters in combat there is a huge amount of delay (for host as well). I am 99% sure that the reason for this is your Fighter movement trigger. I believe that the game takes so much time telling the drones what to do it is left without the time to process player's commands.
3. When trying to move fighters away from something they are attacking they seem to ignore my orders, some times, choosing instead to move to their set locations.

I hope this issues can be fixed and that my ideas have helped.

 

[Sir.Laggalot]

I think I know of a way to make the turn rate faster while warping (I attached what I think would work, though I haven't tried it yet).

Another bug.
If you are stupid enough to (me) build your research centers too near the sun, they can get destroyed (not sure if it died before it finished, or after) by the star's damage aura. This is ok, but then you can't build them again, which isn't.
A fix would be to have a trigger check to see if they have them/have them enabled, if they don't have them, and don't have them enabled then it can enable them. To keep lag down, you could attach this to a command, or have it go off every 30 seconds.

(Also, I wanted to ask if it would be more convenient for me to post my findings somewhere else, or if you're ok with me putting them all here.)

 

[slith]

It's ok if you post them all here. Noone else seems interested anyway ^^

For the speed bug, it should have been fixed in the 1.2 update. And don't forget about update 1.2.1, it has lots of alliance bugs removed.

Update 1.2.2: the research station bug should be removed, or I haven't understood it.

 

[Sir.Laggalot]

Did my warping turn speed fix work?

Also, I wanted to ask about something, purely from a balancing standpoint. Is there a reason that Brown has such a good starting point? He has a Barren planet, a Terraformed planet, and a forest moon all right next to him. This seems like a really nice start, is this unintentional, or what?

(Your fix for research buildings works, now if one dies, you just have to start building a building and it becomes possible to build it again.)

 

[Sir.Laggalot]

The inhibitor ship version doesn't have the ability to show aoe.

 

[slith]

That's cool the fixing work, though I am working on a new system for research.

Anyway, for the brown, I removed one of the moon, to make it a bit less powerfull, but his position is not that perfect. First he is between dark green and Gray's zone of expansion and he can't colonize anything without fighting those 2 first (he is stuck in the corner). So anyway, Earth has now its moon, wich it had not. If you still find brown overpowered, tell me, I will try balancing it more.

I did not saw any attachment to your post, so I couldn't look at your idea. Are you sure you attached it? Or is it my firefox bugging?

Anywaym for the inhibitor ship, I will add it, but remembre that when it's active, no ship can enter or leave hyperspace, including yours. So it's not at all like the building.

 

[Sir.Laggalot]

Wow I'm retarded, yea I forgot to attach it. Here it is.

I'll take a look at the map again. (I just noticed Browns because I found that base (there was no brown). I thought I'd found a hidden jackpot.

Crap add one line to that code:
(Ability being cast) Equal to Warp Shielding


You would of course replace the "Warp Shielding" with the actual buff and ability you use

This would change the turn rate of the ships when they use the ability, and... damn

Put an else statement and have it turn their speed back down.

START a unit uses an ability
IF the ability is Warp AND
IF the unit is one of the chosen ships
ELSE do nothing
IF they now have the buff Warp
change turn rate up
ELSE change turn rate down


I hope that makes sense (I do programing, and I've just started doing War3 programing). I am 90% sure that you can do it.

 

[Sir.Laggalot]

Now that getting better with triggers, and now that I know how to directly attach triggers, I'll give the turn speed trigger another try.
Please let me know if this works out right (change any numbers to what they should be and the unit type to what it should be.

Trigger

• Untitled Trigger 001
  • Events
    • Unit - A unit Finishes casting an ability
  • Conditions
    • (Ability being cast) Equal to Warp
    • And - All (Conditions) are true
      • Conditions
        • (Unit-type of (Triggering unit)) Equal to The-ship-types-here
  • Actions
    • If (All Conditions are True) then do (Then Actions) else do (Else Actions)
      • If - Conditions
        • ((Triggering unit) has buff Warp) Equal to True
      • Then - Actions
        • Animation - Change (Triggering unit) turn speed to 0.80
      • Else - Actions
        • Animation - Change (Triggering unit) turn speed to 0.40

You could put some if then statements in here and make one trigger for all the ship's turn speed increases if you wanted.

 

[slith]

The only trouble is that warp works on with the defend ability, and that defend doesn't seem to add buffs to the unit. Or at least, as far as I have tried.

I am working on a completly new version, with changed system for all but progress is slow. Still, if you find any bug, tell me so I can change them.

 

[callex]

Great map! The technology tree is very deep leading to a great variety among the ships/technologies of each player. One thing I might suggest is a slight increase in planet size; some of the ships are actually larger than the planets hehe.
Its a very fun game overall, I look forward to any new versions.

 

[Colt556]

I dled it, cuz it sounded awsome, and so far it is. But one thing REALLY makes me not wanna play it. The command bar is pure black, except for icons and the minimap. Black on black does NOT work, so if you could throw a real texture on the command bar, this map would be perfect. Also, I only played as red, but on the right side of quests it kept repeating "Democracy bonuses" and the other democracy thing, over and over and over, cept at the very bottem where it went off on a tangent about holy things.

 

[slith]

All these things have been changed in the new version. The black command bars too, though I am not sure about that. I would really love to find some Gui that would look space-like, but there isn't any for now on the Hive. Hope this new version will be good! It's still a "Beta", so if you find any bug, please, tell me.

 

[Sir.Laggalot]

I'll check it out tonight.

 

[Colt556]

I played it more in depth and I must say, it's an awsome map. However I do have some problems with it.

1: Ship models, there are TONS of good models out there, but you re-use the same ones over and over again. I had three differant Millenium Falcon's in my fleet, and the like. So some diversity would be nice.

1A: A suggestion for the battleship, use one of those awsome Battlestar models, a giant Falcon just doesn't give it the Battleship feeling.

2: EVERY ship uses warp, none of them use teleportation, or hyperspace, they all use warp. Now maybe I'm missing something, but the fact that I can't make my own sort of custome empire by teching what I want kinda defeats the purpose.

Those two things are the major ones, number 2 is what really bothers me though. I want more customization but going through and teching everything, I find that you can't just focus on anything. You have to like, get every single type of tech to get ion beams or something. I can't like, focus on projectile weaponry and teleportation, or lasers and hyperspace. I have to basicly get it all, which is annoying.

So giving us the ability to go down certain paths would greatly help this map, so one race may be the trekies with their beam weapons and warp fields, and another may be SW, with their lasers and hyperdrive. Adds diversity, and diversity is allways fun.

Edit: Ok, I found out hyperspace is just teleportion, and you give it to your ships via an item. Still, I'd much rather it be an ability, sorta like warp. But eh, spose it'd be hard to make the same ship have a differant set of abilities XD, but it's allways an idea.

 

[TM-Magic]

Good shit, I have a few suggestions tho.

Take out Time Altering, it lags a lot and is highly annoying
Work with armor types and counters a bit more, I don't like seeing 1 ship type dominating the game. (In my game I used carriers and destroyed anything my opponents threw at me)
Rely less on items, what I saw was everything depending on the items. I think it was anti-matter and that burst one for fighters that were highly effective.

Otherwise very good work, good models and details and the terrain was amazing. I rated 4/5 on a tough scale. GJ.

 

[slith]

- For models, be sure I would gladly use all models of the Hives, but I can't for size reasons. It's already max size for Lan, so I am kinda screwed. I am working on using same textures for a few ships in order to gain a few ko, but I won't be able to use big models like the battlestar's one.

- For your point 2, Colt, you did miss something ^^. Basically, every type of transportation is different. Hyperspace requires the item and energy but is instantanous. Warp is direct but has disavantages like the unability to fire while under it. As for Teleportation, to use it you need to build Jump Gates, in order to create teleportation tunnels. Each is unique, like all abilities, that's the point about customization. you customize by researching techs, and each is different, not just like shielding wich is for now the same but require only different techs.

- You have to go one path, you can't research everything. You can't research good fission reactors and propulsion and do the same with fusion, ion and antimatter reactors. So you have got to choose wich technologies you devellop and choose your ships depending on that. If you managed to research all technologies, you must have cheated or played it for veeeeery long ^^

- Time altering lags? Damn, I should change that then, that's bad for it was funny ^^

- Armor types and weapon types do change. Have you ever tried destroying a frigate with an anti-fighter weapon? As for Carriers, they can easily be destroyed by mass gunships (like the Stinger, the Thor or the corsairs). It costs 4 times less money to build a small fleet of these gunships that will blast your ship than a carrier costs. You adversaries were not very clever ^^.

- For items, it's the way I used to make capital ships customs. They are useless without equipments, you basically custom build them. They are nearly nothing without them.

 

[TM-Magic]

Armor types and weapon types do change. Have you ever tried destroying a frigate with an anti-fighter weapon? As for Carriers, they can easily be destroyed by mass gunships (like the Stinger, the Thor or the corsairs). It costs 4 times less money to build a small fleet of these gunships that will blast your ship than a carrier costs. You adversaries were not very clever ^^.

I armed my carriers with corsairs, a couple anti fighter items and that antimatter weapon ( think its antimatter, I forget, its the last one that does a ton to capital ships) Even vs a sizable corsair fleet, it was unmatched. Your probably right, but my main concern are the items.

For items, it's the way I used to make capital ships customs. They are useless without equipments, you basically custom build them. They are nearly nothing without them.

I understand the importance of custom fitting the capital ships, its cool, but what I'm saying is a carrier is the best standing capital ship because it can hold the same items as any other, has the same abilities as any other, and in addition to that, can hold fighters. I don't see any real reason to get a mothership over a carrier when ur prepairing for war. The items make the match, not the ship, I want to see a little more destinction between ships.

What I'm saying is, keep the items, make them perhaps slightly less powerful, and give certain ships more hp and others more dmg or barrage or something.

 

[slith]

Yeah you are right on that, I have allways wanted to make ships more "special" but never actually done it ^^. Next version will put important changes to each of them, I hope. If you have ideas about special capital ships you would like to see, just give them, I will try doing them with the new updates that will also feature a new technology branch.

 

[Sir.Laggalot]

Make a ship with a larger weapon capacity, (Give it a backpack ability to give it more than 6 slots).

Make more weapons that can be mounted

A warp ship, (Dark Summoning ability) pulls other ships to it. (uses lots of power).

 

[TM-Magic]

I'd have to agree with sir.laggalot, have some capital ships have more or less slots. Also make the items a bit less powerful or attack slower. I noticed when I played, when I equiped the carriers with items and fighters, I'd have trouble with lag while warping them in and deploying fighters because the laser attacked fast enough or something that I coudln't even bring my fighters out until it was too late. It seemed the battle would last 1 big laggy screen. What I mean is, I'd have a fleet of 8 or more carriers, then all of a sudden just 2 and no opponent. Maybe a way to auto-deploy fighters?

Oh, the other thing is, how big the ships are. Its annoying trying to control things so huge, and its not very porportional seeing as 1 carrier is about 4x the size of earth. Maybe lengthen the time for building such huge ships too (only slightly).

Maybe some unique abilities for each ship? Cloaking, critical strike, evasion, bash, poison? (given spacey names that work of course) Kamakazi?

I know I'm being very general, I'm hoping u get the gist, if you need me to explain and give some good examples/descriptions lemme know. I trust your creative enough to come up with some.

 

[Colt556]

Well Slith, if you're using Hyperspace as an FTL drive (From BSG, it teleports them via wormholes :O) and NOT as hyperspace (If you were using it as hyperspace, you'd be traveling same as warp), then I recomend renaming it and giving all ships the blink ability. I'd much rather have my ships inherently be able to jump when I get the tech, rather then wasting an items slot. Especially for frigs, who only have one slot that could be put to better use.

P.S. You can still fight while using warp, I loaded up a cruiser with guns and warped, but forgot to get out of warp but all the guns still fired and killed all the pirates.

 

[slith]

- Yeah the attack of items during warp still works, it's a bug I can't manage to stop.

- For hyperspace, sorry guy, but the use of hyperspace physically includes entering another space (the hyperspace), to travel, wich basically would be like taking a shortcut in space. The ship would disappear from normal space doing so. As for making it an ability for the vessel and not an item, I thought of that, but most ships don't have slots for abilities anymore. I could change the shielding double thing for that, but still, Hyperspace is powerful, having to install it on ship seemed like a good way to balance it. I will change it for frigates as I am going to add a few other items for them but I am not sure capital ships should have it directly. Maybe warp core would also become an item for them, to balance all of it.

- For more weapons, I am working on it, as well as reducing the size of capital ships.

- Auto-deploy fighters could be done. Would you find cool if when the carrier drops out of hyperspace or out of warp, it would automatically deploy it's fighters? Or do you prefer if it deploys only when the carrier attacks another ship? (that would be hard to do because then you won't be able to reload your fighters for repairs during the fight so it would have to be like "Is it a first attack or not?")

- I might reduce a bit the firepower of items, but the cost of a capital ship is quiet big, mostly if I increase a bit its construction time. So capital ships are becoming more like big fat ship with lots of hp but not much use except that ^. I guess it's not that bad, hope the gameplay will still be fun.

 

[TM-Magic]

Capitial ships need a decent, individial attack built in so that they are all different. Maybe some that are strong vs other capitals, some vs frigates and some vs fighters? Actually maybe you even want an extra class of capitals that require more tech/higher cost. Then have them have extra slots for items.

As far as the fighter deployment, I'd have to say automatically when the ship attacks, so that if your under a suprise attack, they will still deploy to defend. Idk how weapons will be, but in the version I played, your carrier ship was dead before you could even move your screen to it, let alone deploy fighters.

 

[slith]

Here is a new version with new capital ships and weapons. There may be a few bugs, tell me if there is.

 

[General01]

I've just played this, and I must say, i'm pretty impressed with the systems you've put in. Nice work ;D. A couple of minor points, however...
-The Voyager class probe is capable of FTL before you actually research any of the FTL technologies, which is not good for keeping the stellar night at bay. Personally, I think that even the starting probe is too fast and can see too far, but meh.
-Hydrogen gas giant is spelt with an S
-The lava planet in the Alpha Centauri system is impossible to colonize: the suns burn the planet itself even if you get a colony ship in.

And a couple of suggestions: Why not remove all shield/FTL technologies from ships altogether, and have them purchase their shield/FTL from a workshop: Possibly using a triggered consumable item that adds the appropriate ability. That way, picking and choosing how your fleet functions will be much.. cleaner.

 

[slith]

Thanks a lot for the comments!

Sorry for the spelling, my mother tongue is not english, so I tend to do that kind of stupid mistakes ^^. Will change it now, as well as look upon the lava planet, it seems to me like a bug. There are some planets that cannot be colonized on purpose, but this one is just on the limit so it's kinda a trap.

Probes only job is their line of sight. Wouldn't they be useless with reduced one? As for the voyager's speed, I should indeed reduce it.

 

[lief1]

the time altering is bugged you can lose your research things with it!!!

 

[slith]

Ooooops... That is a bug... Fixing it right now.

 

[lief1]

when you activate the debug mode theirs no point in the message it sends as you can't host this online.

 

[slith]

Now you can. Version updated, with those bugs removed. Sorry for all these, now it's really playable ^^.

 

[zt2211]

Say, is this map based off of the ancient DOS game known as Masters of Orion? That game was truly a forgotten masterpiece. I'll have to try out this map!

 

[slith]

It was one of my many inspirations. I don't feel up to the comparison but a few systems might remind you of it ^^.

Edit: Just a graphical change with research

 

[duarchist]

Awesome map, I've had a lot of fun playing. However: when I buy an item for a ship the ship suddenly can't move. Capital ships are rendered useless. Fix?

 

[Sir.Laggalot]

It seems as though Hyperspace Inhibitors continue to work even after death, that should be fixed.

The hyperspace animation is cool, (for the Assassin ship) but, it comes after the ship actually moves, so it looks kinda weird.

Typos
Accelerated Growth upgrade (chimical)
Space Biosphere building (ingeneers)

I'm loving the new techs and bio system.

One complaint. Antimatter frigs have no actual offensive crafts, if you go antimatter focused, you're left with two support ships and a carrier. Each route should have some of each.

 

[kids711]

Very nice game~..

I liked it specially the Time Machine..

I builded soo many time machine and i altered time.

MY HOMEWORLD WAS CAPTURED !!!!!!!!!!!

*sorry for caps*

Anyway.

5/5~

 

[Darkgamma]

So good! Tons of researches, innovative thinking, good races, not good spelling at parts. Try to implement a bit more color, not just plain old cold. Purple or violet can go fairly well.

 

[CupOjoe]

The time machine is a MASSIVE game ruiner. It's not that it can't be destroyed it's just that the second anyone builds it, any sense of balance the game had is removed.

I can handle somebody building a super weapon and killing me, but not a superweapon that takes away some of my units, gives me some of his units, uncaptures my homeworld and gives it to some random guy, gets rid of everyone's crystal and UNDOES tech that we spend FOREVER trying to get to.

The game's techtree is kind of retarded. You can barely get anything done unless you own half the map or play as red and activated debug mode. Your tech tree basically makes Solar Conquest look conservative, especially when about 3 quarters of it is pointless because all you need to do is research time incursions, spam fighter drones, spam time machines and then basically win by default because you'll have forced everyone into ragequitting.

So in the end, the map has potential to be good but you need to get rid of the time machine and get rid of the >9000 tech tree. Or at least make everything in the tech tree do something, rather than just having one useless research that enables you to get another useless research before you get the one piece of research that actually DOES something.

3/5

 

[Vampiro320]

It's quite an impressive map, with lots of creative ideas. I'm sure you spent some good time on it. 4/5

 

[Lord_Kenneth]

Just out of curiosity, did you base this map off of the old game Master of Orion, or did you just come up with this all from scratch?