SC2Mapster

v0.5 Released

Patchnotes:

- Waves should now work past the first one in games with more than one player. Sadly I can only test the maps out in single player.
- The overall difficulty has been slightly increased, fully upgraded waves were too easy to handle.
- End of wave bonus changed to 10 + 10 per wave. It will probably be increased later, and individual kills will reward less.
- Guild House can now again rally workers. It was mistakenly removed in the previous patch.
- Basic Tower can now be upgraded to level 2.
- All enemy wave upgrades now cost both minerals and vespene gas. The gas cost is currently set at 10 for everything, for testing purposes.
- All upgrade costs and research time now scale the same. This is for testing purposes.
- A bug where the bottom team showed lower bounty reported from kills. The bug was for the display, the correct amount was always given.
- Basic Tower level 2, and Machine Gun Tower level 2 now refund the correct amount.
- Workers now harvest 2 minerals instead of 1 at a time. This is a temporary fix until I get the proper upgrades implemented.

Let me know what you think. I'd appreciate balance issues at this stage, as well as map layout. If you don't want to post here, I check the in-game reviews regularly.

v0.4 Released

v0.4 Patchnotes:

- Most waves now have stripped shields, normalized speeds, fixed models, and don't let attached external weaponry attack anything in range automatically. There's still lots of work to be done with the waves.
- I've worked hard on the wave system, there are fewer bugs now.
- I reduced the overall difficulty so it'd be easier to test things out.
- Added T1 Damage 1-5 upgrades, the cost is rank*100 crystals.
- The T1 Range 1-5 upgrades now cost rank*100 crystals.
- Assimilators have been added to each player. By creating workers, you can collect vespene gas, which is used to upgrade the other teams waves.
- Upgrade Worker Speed Level 1-5 added. Each adds 0.5 speed, to a total of +2.5 at level 5.
- Added command -creep, which displays the recorded number of creep each player has on the map at the time (used for debugging).

Let me know what you think. I'd appreciate balance issues at this stage, as well as map layout. If you wish to report bugs, feel free, but don't focus too much on it since I'm already aware of so many.

Patchnotes for the upcoming version:

v0.6:

- Missile Tower can now be upgraded to level 2.

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Known issues:

- (fixed) The spawn wave-trigger doesn't take team2 into account.
- Kills aren't being updated on the leaderboard for Team2 in the first wave, but they are recorded.
- When 4 players vote at the start, it automatically sets the difficulty at 80% (Very Easy).
- Scaling and tuning is so far virtually untouched, and as a result a complete mess.
- Speed Boost doesn't work yet.
- +amount on enemy spawns has no cap.
- Inserting an AI makes things harder for the AI's teammate.


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Feel free to try the map out ( Raph's Tower Defense BETA ), and return with your feedback. Right now it might be close to pointless in reporting bugs, since I'm already aware on so many that needs to be fixed, but if you have comments on concept and design, layout, tactical freedom (or restrictions), and other more broader perspectives, please let me know.

Introduction

Hi there.

I've been wanting to do a TD for SC2 for a long time, but never really got around to do it, until recently. Mostly because I had a concept in mind, but with no real idea how the end product would look like. That recently changed, after lots of trial-and-error with a pen and paper. Art work has never been my thing (map layout, etc), but I've always considered myself apt at system design.

Raph's Tower Defense BETA

Basic description

It's a mix of a Tower Defense/Maul and a Tug of War, where you play 2v2 and the goal is to outlast the other team. TD's/Mauls and ToW's have always felt a bit too Macro-centric to my liking, so I've added some micromanagement elements (that are optional), in order to appease a larger audience. The concept is a bit like rock-paper-scissors, but a bit more intricate. The idea is to survive longer than the opposing team. Every player have their own spawn of waves they have to handle. It they leak, their team mate can try to clean them up. The aim is that no two games are alike.

The Concept

A more in-depth description

You can build different towers that have (minor) strengths and weaknesses over different types of waves, and if you play it good you'll have excess resources. You can dump them in your base (that I for now have named Guild House), to either upgrade your towers (tier by tier), or construct a worker to harvest minerals in order to increase your income over time, or they can harvest vespene gas, which you use for offensive upgrades. By offensive upgrades, I mean you make the enemys waves stronger. More armor, more units spawning, higher speed, more health, and so on.

There are no scheduled boss waves. Instead they're optional, and triggered by the opposing team. The bosses have different types of auras, examples are +life, +speed, invisibility field, and so on. It's all about harvesting that vespene gas, and sending the right hero with the right wave, at the right time to make your opponents life a living hell. For instance, if you notice that your opponents mass those fast-shooting (and low damage per shot) towers, waiting for a high-armored wave to send a hero with a +armor aura will really make your opponent sweat!

There are more things that seperate this TD over others, but I don't really want to get into them until it's time to implement them. On the subject of own upgrades, the idea is that you upgrade generic stuff like range, damage and so on in your base on a tier-by-tier basis, and you upgrade individual towers for effects (like wider splash, extra attacks, and so on).

The current state of the map

It just got to the point where it's playable. Bugs exist, most towers are implemented, but not all, and most towers lack upgrades. All waves are in the game, but they're not properly tuned (hp, shields, armor, speed, etc). There's also a serious lack of tower upgrades in your base, right now there's only a range upgrade for the tier 1 towers. Enemy wave upgrades are lackluster as well, right now +armor and +amount is the only two implemented.

The basics are in, the base is already there, I just need to keep building upwards by adding more stuff and tweaking the numbers. I also want to make a quick tutorial for the map when things are starting to smell finished. There's lots to implement still, but I've reached the point where I'd love to get some feedback and thoughts on things. Single player mode will be implemented, right now it's roughly tuned to work if you want to try it alone.

Raph's Tower Defense BETA. Try it out, let me know what you think. It's still an early work in progress. I have high ambitions for it, and the development will take a long time. I've just gotten started. I would particularly like to get feedback on the map layout, and how it can be improved (or completely changed).

Thank you.

@Deadzergling: Go

If I had the will, I'd try different combinations to see what was needed to arrive at the .62. Worth noting though, 4 players have 4 AI ingame (helps with triggers, or bad map layout causing issues otherwise, take your pick). This would exclude the player 0, if it's counted or not. My experience level of RTS mapping is... well, about ten hours. Maybe twelve. Spend hundreds of hours doing Counter Strike maps though, and thousands doing web programming.

I have a new question. Run Trigger vs Send Generic Event. I noticed if I use Run Trigger, it works as I'd expect. But for some reason I used Send Generic Event when I expanded on my triggers, and noticed it also worked as I'd expect. Both runs a specified trigger. But now that I'm typing the question, I realize the difference is that Send Generic Event can be "caught" by multiple triggers listening to the same phrase?

@Deadzergling: Go

Thank you for the reply. var +=, var /=, etc aren't confusing (veteran in PHP), it's just how the SC2 trigger editor phrased it that was utterly confusing. Note it wasn't "var += ..." but "var = (+ ..." that confused me, especially when I started adding more brackets in the main ones, and all starting with a sign.

I get the logic from your script, I solved it by using a bad practice (that usually solves problems!). I wanted to add and divide in the same equation, which I do fluently in PHP. This lead to my issues (because of the bad phrasing in the editor). I simply added local variables, and did the calculations one at a time, until I got the real I was looking for. It was a surprisingly simple approach.

I published the game, went into the lobby and went AFK for about 10 minutes. In that time 3 people had joined the lobby, the map launched, and I was sitting at the vote screen when I got back. Watching the replay the other three players had voted 0.9, 0.9, and 1.0. I voted 0.8. I calculate the average to 0.9 ( (health of unit to be spawned * 0.9) = 90% health), but the game calculated it to 62%. The strange part is that the values are between 0.8 and 1.2, I don't understand how it went all the way down to 0.62. I guess I simply have to bugtest the map thoroughly. Do Computers count into the player group?

@Projekton: Go

This one is math oriented. I feel restricted with the drag-and-drop type of deal in the Trigger editor, if you know programming this is what I'm trying to achieve:

$average_value = (($value1 + $value2 + $value3 + $value4) / $amount_of_players);

Where $amount_of_players = 1-4 (so if you get it, it's the average of four variables). The $value<number> variables start at 0, and only an active player can add a (real) value to it. One player may add 0.9 (real) to $value3, the average would be 0.9 ( 0+0+0.9+0 / 1). It'll work the same way with more players. In case you're wondering about the context, it's a vote at the start of a map that determines the health of enemy creep (a tower defense map), where I will simply set the health * $average_value.

I've tried numerous ways of implementing it, but the main things I'm distracted by, is that Arithmetic Multiple (real) ends up looking like this at the start:

Set $average_value = (/ <- that sign there confuses me.

Should it be like this:

$average_value = (/ ($amount_of_players, $value1, $value2, $value3, $value4))

or like this:

$average_value = (+ ($value1, $value2, $value3, $value4, ($variable / $amount_of_players)))

Where $variable is... something that has to be there, don't know what. I just can't formulate it the way I want it.

I'm utterly confused. Hopefully this didn't end up too long a post.

Worked perfectly. I just cloned the Terran Weapon Upgrade 1 and renamed it and the abilities it was linked to, and with the Weapon Upgrade 2 I just duplicated it for my level 2 range, and then I duplicated the level 2 range, renamed to level 3, fixed the Basic: Requirements+ field, duplicated it and did the level 4. Finally I duplicated the Terran Weapon Upgrade 3, and did the same as I did the Terran Weapon 1 -> My Range Upgrade 1, but for my level 5.

Tested in-game, worked perfectly (once I removed/changed the Armory requirement for level 2 and onwards). This was for the Requirement tab only, I did have to make 5 separate buttons and name them accordingly, and make the actual upgrades, and link them to the building that handled them (though I had already done that prior, so it was just toot the horn and drive).

Thanks for the help DrSuperEvil.

@DrSuperEvil: Go

Well, I found it. Trying to figure out how to follow your instructions for a few hours ended up with nothing. I then stumbled upon an unrelated youtube tutorial, and it hit me. I've been browsing the Requirement Node tab, but there was also a Requirement tab. In that tab I found what you were describing. I'm now going to test around and experiment, since stuff suddenly makes sense there. I'll let you know how it turns out, in case someone a few years from now stumbles upon the same problem, googles, and comes to this page, or if I simply have follow up questions.

Thanks a lot for the help so far!

@DrSuperEvil: Go

Thanks for the reply. You say "under both use and show", where is that? And Basic - Requirement - Node Link, I can find none of those 3 anywhere. On *any* node that I click on, I see:

• And+
• Editor Comment
• Editor Description
• Editor Name
• Editor Prefix
• Editor Suffix
• Flags
• Node Tooltip.

Though now that I typed it, I noticed the level1 are And+ at the top, and the level2 and level3 upgrades don't have that, but a Equals+ field after Editor Suffix. I'm starting to see a pattern (comparisons between the nodes), though I'm still unclear how I can make that logic into action. I can see how you'd set a requirement that you must be cleared to use the level2 upgrade for instance, but I've no idea how I go about setting that flag. Are they handled automatically? I'm confused, but let me give the logic a shot again.

I put CountUpgrade QueuedOrBetter on the level1 so I can know when to remove the level1 and show the level2 button, and I show CountUpgrade CompleteOnly to know when you can press it. I then do the same for level2, and for level3 I just need to know when to remove the button, so I only put either a QueuedOrBetter or CompleteOnly (both work, depending on when you want it to dissapear?).

If I'm correct with the above, the important question I have is do I have to link other nodes to these nodes?

And about the last thing you wrote, I don't know the technical jargong in the Starcraft 2 Editor/Map making community, but what you're describing is a variable (the value can change, it varies = variable). A constant is something that doesn't change (the value is constant). Like the name of a map is a constant, but a units placement in it is (usually) variable.

And a big thank you for the help so far, I truly appreciate it.

Quote from DrSuperEvil: Go

So you are not using one single upgrade with 5 levels?

In that case you need to make it that the logic of the requirement returns false if the upgrade is queued or better. The next button then needs to be shown

You need to make the button disappear when queued or better. Under tree mode for the requirement editor the State field sets the flags. Right click a node to add a node to the logic tree of that node. Just use completed, there is no complete only.

With level 3 you need to hide it after the lvl 3 is queued or better.

Most upgrade requirements compare using an equals node to a constant with 0 for the tech to be researched and 1 for ones that need to already be researched. They use queued or better for hiding and completed for showing.

On the first question, that is correct. Right now I have one button for the 5 upgrades, but I'm trying to switch to one button per upgrade (like Blizzard does, I assume this is the way if you want to change weapon/armor icons and escalate the cost for the different levels)

By queued or "better", you mean queued or... "fully executed"? So I make a node that is queued or better on the rank1, I take it. Then what? How do I link an action to it? Do I link an action-type node to it to execute showing level2 button (if that's possible)? I'm down with the logic behind what I need to do, I'm just iffy on how I actually do it (which is how I found nodes in the first place, didn't even know the existed). If I had a Editor: Requirements+ field on the right side of the upgrades I could probably tinker it out, or add dependencies. To me, right now, Requirement nodes are just a bunch of post-it notes stuck on the wall in random order, all with the word "Post-It Note" on them, and somehow it's supposed to be rules and conditions for something that can only be interpreted the wrong way.

Probably a game breaking question, what's the Requirement Editor? I searched around without finding any button for it, nor did I find it in any menu. I have a list, a tree view of my selection below it, and the Fields to the right (in the Data editor). If there's an editor for requirement nodes that I've missed, it would make sense why it's so complete nonsense to me.

And lastly, and I apologize if I come off wrong, but why make comparisons with a constant? It will always return the same result.

Thank you for the reply. I have much better luck with the Triggers, since it at least to some extent mirrors actual programming. The nodes are just utterly confusing. It's an intricate web of major confusement.

Lets work on a a smaller scale so I can grasp the concept. I want to mirror the way the Terran Infantry Armor Level 1-3 works. How would I link all the stuff together? I make 3 separate buttons, and 3 upgrades, link them to each other, add them to the build thingy that I link to the building. In the command card of said building I put the three buttons on the same location, just like Blizzard has done with theirs.

And now time for the nodes.

Level 1 It does not require anything, as the button is already there. I do want it to disappear when used though. So I put a CountUpgrade(this ability,CompleteOnly) to get a flag that turns true when I've researched the Level 1 upgrade? How do I access this flag?

Level 2 I set the same thing as above, CountUpgrade(level1 ability, CompleteOnly). It is checked automatically? And then I do another but for the level 2 ability.

Level 3 Since there's no button after this one, I don't need to send a message to the level above. I just add a CountUpgrade(level2 ability, CompleOnly)?

And that'll work? I ask before I dive into it, since I haven't worked with it before, I expect it to take at least an hour to figure out, and then if it doesn't work it's still not a guarantee I implemented it correctly. That's why I turn to the forums, since I'd rather use that hour effective time on other areas of the map that needs some desperate love. :)

edit: When reading my post I realized that I only included ways to make buttons appear, but not disappear. So I just do double what I did, but how do I tell these doubles it means to make buttons disappear? (As I said, the nodes makes no sense to me which makes me go idiot-mode).

I'm trying to implement a Range upgrade similar to the ones you see in melee maps for damage and armor. I've already a custom building for it, and I've successfully managed to implement it in-game, meaning it upgrades the range of the specified affected units, and adheres to the maximum "stacks" specified in the Data editor. However, after the ceiling is hit ( hitting the button five times = +5 range), I can still mash the button, queue it, lose the resources, but not get an upgrade. The button never disappeared either.

So about four hours ago I decided to just follow the Armor Upgrade 1, Armor Upgrade 2, Armor Upgrade 3-path (though 5 levels instead of 3) of the melee maps. But then I discovered "Requirement Nodes", and these make no sense. I've been unable to find any guide or tutorial that explains how they operate, and just watching the Upgrade-path for the melee maps it's daunting how one upgrade is linked to one node, that is linked to two separate nodes, that in turn are linked to others. It's a random web of nonsense rules, phrased like... I don't know what. The Event+ field was alien at start, but this is a whole new level of alien. Any text I've found online was written pre-1.5 (and almost all in 2010), on vaguely related issues that didn't help me.

Now, four hours later, I'm here asking for your help. Is there any guide, or anyone who can explain how the "network" of nodes should look like for what I described? I wouldn't mind reading up on them and do it myself if no guides are available, so either one works. I just can't find any myself.