Desert Strike version Square Alpha Demo
Desert Strike version Square is based on DS version Queen by Queen-Gambit for SC1. Every effort is being taken to make this game an excellent one that will remain a favorite for years to come.
The version available here is a demo while Bnet is down. The game is recommended for 6 players, but in this 1 player version I've implemented some very simplistic AI so that you can get the feel for the map so that when Bnet is back up, I can pwn you :P.
This map features: Updated UI:
- Booms are used via a clean dialog interface called the boom menu. (None of this archaic "move the unit to the beacon")
- Players can be banned via a similar interface.
- Camera control is possible, and sounds are retained at a greater camera distance.
- Building tooltips state plainly what each structure adds to a spawn. (None of this archaic unit name changing)
- Clean Leaderboard with vital game information.
- Tips available (press F12) to help new players understand what to do.
Game Mechanics:
- 45 second timer
- 1 player from each team spawns each time the timer expires.
- Income of 9 minerals/1.25 seconds
- Building on vespene geysers increases your income by 2 per 1.25 seconds. This also pauses your economy for 20 seconds, which increases with each vespene geyser claimed.
- Excellent unit AI. Tanks siege/unsiege when appropriate. Infestors use fungal growth, spawn infested terrans, and even occasionally use neural parasite (It is awesome when you get a battlecruiser, thor, collosus, etc!!). Stalkers blink back to avoid being front line defenders. Medivacs attempt to stay a safe distance behind the front line while still healing. The mothership stays as far back as it can while still cloaking the front line. Marines and Marauders use their stim packs the first time they enter combat. The list goes on, and the AI usually satisfies you that your units aren't just mindlessly attacking to the enemy base.
Please provide feedback! You can post on the forums or email me at [email protected].
Enjoy!
--
Changelog
--
Comments
-
_ForgeUser4549218 Owner
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted Sep 23, 2010ok i came from a game and found there is an exploit in the teleport i have tested and able to duplicate it. Using teleport you can get yourself out of the build area and build a mineral free wall or get into other teams(if you spawn on bottom, can't do this part if on top) build area and block building space with same mineral free buildings. The way i did it on top was teleport on edge of build area till i found a spot that allowed me to leave build area. on bottom if i put a building right up against the expansion wall i used a hatchery and teleported to an area with no pathable area i could then walk right on to battle zone or to any other players build area. A solution would be either to shrink the teleport zone or make a larger region on battle area that applies the effect to remove build allowance. I can set-up a quick demo if needed for proof.
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted Aug 28, 2010Towards the end of the game there are just way toom any units on the map. Why don't you implement something where after some certain time has passed all units are 5 times as poweful but spawn at 1/5th the rate. So if I had 5 barracks instead of getting ten marines I would get 2, but they would be 5x as powerful. This would just cut down the amount of units you have on the map but not the total amount of damage output. The units are just more concentrated. Thsi will screw up how some things work, especially splasj damge but I think it will be worth it in the long run.
I think the game is really fun and the best balanced TUG game out there, but its too alggy towards the end.
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted Jul 17, 2010why cant i play toss i always play as a terran or zerg got boring after 4 matches
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted Jun 24, 2010I'm glad you like it. Its a real honor to have you comment on it. Now, if only Nightraider would get on and tell me that I've made the world a better place, I could die in peace. :P
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted Jun 24, 2010this looks great! Can't wait to play the version Square Alpha! I was gonna make this map on sc2 but apparently there are many versions like yours. I hope creativity will still be fresh in the hands of better map makers like yourself. I love how u maintained the slanted battlefield nice lol.
I am actually still evolving the version on Starcraft 1. Msg me if u like to play, Ive developed some fun new challenges and improvements. Examples: -Build area gets bigger when u build 4 and 6 gas. (instead of must having all gases to get the rest of the area) - Players playing can have custom rules like enabling/disabling specials and silo. - Torrasque is now a time bomb (so that terrans cannot medic heal it anymore) - Boom require 500 minerals - 16 New useable spells acquired when building new gases - enabled to have all races once u build all gases (its more of an extra fun eye-candy, doesn't really have an effect late-game)
message me if your interested in hearing more
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted Jun 24, 2010Thats a legitimate strategy. by spending so much on cannons, you fail to build units, so you need to make sure you build cannons strategically. I may increase their cost or balance them in some other way, but building a cannon at the enemy silo is a valid strat.
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted Jun 24, 2010Thinking back to my experiences with the game in Bnet, I did this one strat once as protoss which involved building a pylon, then forge, the sending my probe to the enemy's silo and spamming cannons around the silo. This made early game incredibly easy, as nothing can really beat photon cannons early game :S. This, the bunker and the spine crawler could be abused through this "tactic". Maybe you could make it so that you can only build on your side of the map?
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted Jun 23, 2010Ya know, I don't know why it happens. I'm not sure the pausing/unpausing was necessary. If you ever tried it, you could pause, and then it wouldn't actually pause for a while. Also, it didn't happen every time.
I think what was happening was that one person was taking longer to load camera information than others, so the map would load, but the game wouldn't start for an extra 10-30 seconds.
Honestly, I'm puzzled. When Bnet gets back up, this is definitely one of those things I plan on trying to figure out, but if anyone has any thoughts, I'd love to hear them.
And, nope, you're the first to bring it up. Thanks for doing so.
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted Jun 23, 2010I've got a question for when playing this game. I played it on Bnet before the beta went down, and there seemed to always be horrendous lag at the very start of the game until one person (the host, I think) paused and unpaused the game. Is this intentional? Because sometimes people would quit while it was lagging badly, and I never knew what to think of the lag.
(sorry if this has already been brought up)
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted Jun 16, 2010@ZiplockSC2: Thanks for your feedback! I appreciate hearing what you've noticed and look forward to seeing what you have to say about the Bnet version! :D
Actually, no matter how many people are playing, that's as choppy as it gets, due to the fact that only 1 person spawns at a time. Without reducing the units too much, I'm trying to implement creative solutions to reduce lag. I've come up with some clever things that I prefer to keep as trade secrets (since most of them are situationally applicable only to my game), but obviously nothing fixes it entirely. I'm also open to suggestions. I've had some pretty clever suggestions, many of which have helped.
Also, since I've gotten a few responses of people who are interested in improved AI, when I'm done digging up the cement in my basement, I'll put some time into improving the AI in several ways. I'll implement boom usage, a larger variety of buildings, and maaaaybe refinery building. Eventually (but probably not this week), I may make the AI decide what buildings to produce (with some element of randomness) based on what its fighting against. I.e. it only makes 2 bajillion hellions if you've got 2 bajillion marines :P
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted Jun 16, 2010Very fun game !, it gets kinda choppy towards the end, and that's just with 1v1, I can't imagine when 4 people will fight 4 other people. You may want to consider reducing the amount of units on the battlefield.
I had a great time playing it a few times. Like others said, the current AI is pretty... predictable as far as building (hellions... more hellions, marines, MORE HELLIONS!)
Great job, I am looking forward to the final release!
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted Jun 16, 2010To both of you: Thanks for the feedback! I look forward to hearing more thoughts, especially when Bnet is back up, and you have opponents that have a broader thought pattern :P
@PigsEatBacon: If you had only gateways, I have absolutely no idea why there would be any stalkers or sentries. Wish I could see a replay of that so I could give you an answer. I'll look into the coding and see if there is something glaringly out of place that might cause that.
@Ultraling: 1) Hellions. Lol. Yeah, the AI I made, as I said before, is very simplistic. It builds nothing but marines and hellions. Sure it builds them in an organized fashion (which is really good in DS) but they don't build anything else. I've never seen anyone use an "all Hellion" strategy on Bnet, and frankly, i don't think it'd end up being all that successful. A few engineering bays are all you need to combat a mass of marines. I'm certainly not going to balance anything based on games against the AI. However, now that you've mentioned it, I'll keep my eyes out for hellion balance when Bnet is back up.
2) I'm not sure why unit pathing would be messed up by building somewhere on the map. They should be able to get around it. Again, I wish I could see a replay of this so I could figure out whats going on... Actually, i suppose there is one spot on the map that i can imagine causing pathing issues. I use it as a method for reducing processing. When units are made, they are sent to a spot directly behind the Desert Fortress as a means of getting them moving, which enables the rest of the processing without being a massive logical load on its own. I suppose building there could cause problems. I may end up making it an unbuildable area, just to enable the continued use of the point as a lag reducer.
3) You didn't read the tip on booms did you? Isn't there one? Booms only kill units on your half of the combat field. They cannot be used offensively. The reason that booms worked in your first game and not your second is because you were losing the first and winning the second. :P
4) Every time the economy is frozen, it adds 20 seconds * the number of geysers you have built to the economy freeze clock. The reason you had strange numbers is because you built a geyser while your economy was still down, and the added time DOES stack. You built your first 3 individually (20,40,60) and then with 11 seconds left to go, you probably blew up their silo and decided to build another, adding 80, giving you 91 total. Or something like that.
5) I've only had 1 game that stalemated of the 100 or so games that I played. Since then, I've taken measures to reduce the likelihood of that, so I think stalemating will be unlikely. I will continue to look into ways of reducing lag and end-game stalemating. One of the features of Desert Strike that reduces stalemating is the Ultimate abilities, which, when used well late in the game, push the game to a quicker finish.
Elaborate AI: Well, since you guys have enjoyed it enough and you'd be interested, i can make some small improvements on the AI, and with time, all the small improvements may become a fully featured AI system. I'll try to get another version with a slightly more diverse AI in about a week.
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted Jun 16, 2010I really had fun playing this and was wishing I could play it on b.net. :) Because my games were with your AI and not actual players, it was difficult to get to try everything out. I believe I found a few bugs, imbalances, and/or design flaws. They may or may not be applicable to online games but these are the beefs I had while playing against the AI.
1. Hellions! The AI built lots and lots of Engineering Bays, which results in him spawning up to 100+ Hellions per wave. This is a tad bothersome, considering they spawn x3-5 per Engy and only cost 300, while a Barracks produces a similar number of Marines (which get roasted by Hellions) and a Barracks costs 330. I had great unit composition in my first round but the AI had so many freaking Hellions that my units would get stuck in the middle of the map fighting an infinite horde of Hellions, which just got worse because their numbers were always increasing. :l Air units didn't help a lot because they don't ignore the Hellions, they sit there and fight them. My second match against the AI was amusing because I massed Hellions since they hindered me so much last game and skipped the Marines, since they were cheaper and superior anyway. I ended up winning easy. I don't like that currently this map revolves around Hellion masses and less focus on unit composition. They need a nerf.
2. Unit Pathing. I had no idea where to build on my first round so I placed stuff near the Nexus. This broke unit pathing and I often had lots of units getting stuck on their way across the map. This can likely be abused in a live game as a griefing mechanic.
3. Booms. There's only one for each player and you can claim their charge if there is nobody in that slot or they leave. I like that idea. But what I didn't like was the booms themselves. For some reason, all my second game's Booms killed 0 units (I don't know what kind of algorithm you're using for this). Sometimes it killed 98, 63, or 30 in my first game. Which was fine. But why 0? Is that intentional? I don't think people would appreciate an ability so limited to fail them. If so, then it would be a good idea to add a restock ability or cooldown for Booms. If Booming enemy units makes the difference between win/lose, like when they're attacking your Nexus or you are making a big push, and it killed nothing, people would be frustrated.
4. Economy Freezes. It works when you destroy a silo. However, when I was building a Refinery, the times increased in an odd manner. I had 20, 40, 60, 91, then an 80 second freeze. Huh? I thought there was a pattern. :F
5. The End Game and Stalemates. Have you got anything to combat this? It's very possible that by the end of the game, there are so many units spawning between each wave that it takes them far longer than the respawn timer to kill each other, resulting in an endless battle in one section of the map, with neither side gaining ground. Perhaps this may only happen in 1v1's, but it's happening.
Overall, I really liked the map. It was a great play even though it's just an Alpha build. You may not plan on making an elaborate AI for this but you showed me that it's possible. It would not be a bad feature to have...
Cheers. :)
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted Jun 16, 2010Thanks for answers. Although im confused of one thing. I build 5 gateways (which is like 15 zealots?) and then when it is time to spawn, there is like a few stalker or sentries. I never build a cybernetics or forge. Im thinking maybe there was an ally that i could not see.
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted Jun 16, 2010Oh yeah. As far as the observer building goes, I've got two answers for why it costs more than the immortals:
1) You usually only need 1 of them. The Terran Raven costs 780 (plus command center). The Zerg Overseer is practically a given, as it comes with the lair and hive. So the observer is somewhere in between.
2) Balancing is still going on, so this may change.
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted Jun 16, 2010I am actually working on making it so the game is less likely to lag, so knowing that its lagging is important. When does it lag for you? Note: I don't plan on supporting the AI version, so if its the way the AI works thats causing it to lag, I'm probably gonna leave it alone for now.
Static time filter is a remake of the mothership's time bomb that starts at your Desert Fortress and moves its way out a little past the center of the field, slowing enemy units that enter its range. I had some trouble getting it to work, but thought I had fixed it. Is it not showing up?
Thanks for the feedback.
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted Jun 15, 2010love it. although it is lagging (im not asking you to fix it). although why does the observer building cost mroe than the immortal???? and what is the static time filter for? also, how about creating a difficulty? hope this does not stress you out :3...