Lunar Special Forces Battle.net release 3.2
Currently at Battle.net Release 3.2
A new Special Forces map based on Special Forces 2 by Crayon and others, this map includes new Terran and Protoss heroes. It has some new features as well, including Drop Pod reinforcements for AI ally, new upgrades for both AI and players, and more powerful Zerg static defenses that upgrade throughout the game.
Changes so far:
Release 3.2
- Large number of balance changes and a few bug fixes, focusing mainly on adjusting the difficulty scaling.
Release 2.6
- Added a difficulty voting system that gives Zerg a certain number of stacks of a damage/health buffing aura.
- Added a Terran Hero - The Reaper. Has a Flame Burst ability that damages nearby enemies when used, currently has no visual effects :(. I'm so bad with actors.
- You now start with just a hero, not another unit as well.
Release 2.5
- Adjusted some air unit prices.
- Added some failsafe unit spawning regions/triggers to prevent sniping of bases that aren't spawning units yet.
- Fixed zerg static defense upgrades.
- Added new game mode: No Fly Zone Mode - No Special Forces Air Units Allowed.
- Refined voting system (I think, needs multiplayer testing).
Release 2.4
- Fixed Upgrades for Players 2-6 (sorry!)
- Fixed Zerg temporary hatchery damage upgrades.
Release 2.3
- Fixed Orbital Command.
Release 2.2
- Completely revamped upgrades based on suggestions again.
- All units are bought on either the Nexus or the Command Center/Orbital Command
- You get a hero at the start. If this hero dies you are defeated.
- Spine crawlers and all bosses except the zergling ones are detectors now.
- Many many other changes (can't remember all of them).
Release 1.4
- Fixed Vespene Costs for Special Upgrades.
Release 1.3
- Increased Stalker rate of fire and bonus to armored units.
- Fixed bunker salvage to return full price.
- Fixed some pathing issues.
- Fixed Spawn in the middle buttons.
Release 1.0
- Upgrades are now trained through a dialog system.
- Weapon/Armor upgrades have 5 levels instead of 25, each costing 5 times as much and providing 5 times as much benefit.
- Many other changes I can't remember.
- Try it out on Battle.net!
v16:
- Added Mode voting (Normal/Double/Triple Income) Warning: Double and especially triple income are far far easier. Play normal for the biggest challenge.
- Modified Marauder splash radius slightly (it could only splash on closely packed zerglings before, changed radius from 0.5 to 0.75).
- Visual changes, hopefully better but let me know if you like it more or less than before.
- Added 250mm Cannon scaling with Vehicle weapon upgrades (starts at 1500 over 6 seconds, +25 per upgrade)
v15:
- Archon splash damage reduced (at most 70% of single target damage, decreases further from epicenter, down from 100%), single target damage unchanged so far.
- Colossus base damage reduced by 5 per beam (can reduce more, we'll see how it goes).
- Zealot base damage -7 per swing, HP and shields both reduced by 250.
- Zergling bosses spawn less quickly in the first area.
- The zerg now gain temporary buffs from hatcheries left unkilled for too long. Kill the hatchery to remove the buff. Area directly around each hatchery providing buffs is revealed and a number above it shows how many upgrades it has accumulated. When you kill the hatchery the reveal and number along with the buffs are removed.
- Void Ray replaced with Phoenix for now (it's easier to balance the phoenix anyway in my opinion; the void ray had a difficult time getting charged on anything except bosses so I probably put the damage far too high to compensate).
v14:
- Hydra Boss does more damage than previously to armored units (making it actually do damage to fully upgraded units).
- Ultralisk boss damage increased (especially to armored).
- Final Hive HP greatly increased.
- Lava Bridge removed, left the distance such that you can blink to the island.
- Decreased Zergling Boss HP, reduced damage slightly.
- Increased Zealot HP, shields, attack speed, and base/upgraded damage.
v13:
- Added 5 new bosses, some spawn periodically so be ready.
- Changed all +energy upgrades to be more useful.
- Limited non-boss zerg spawning to 150 (can change if needed).
- Added zerg unit counter.
- Sentry/ghost attacks ignore armor (needed for one boss).
- Increased nuke build time to 50 seconds.
- Increased Overseer HP
- Once you kill the rocks opening up the middle of the map, you can choose to spawn either in the base or in the middle.
- Added a trigger for the final fight if you get too close to the hive (both so you can kill the hive and so it's harder to cheese)
- No unit costs over 3 supply now (we'll see how it goes).
v12:
- Medivac Heal rebalanced: Heal rate decreased to 15 hp per tick from 30. Relative energy regen rate decreased. The tooltip is now accurate. Medivacs now have 1000 energy (up from 200), 2.8125 energy regen (up from 1), and use 1 energy per 3 health instead of 1 energy per 30 health. This means it costs 500 energy to heal a Marauder to full (1500 hp). It'll take around 177 game seconds to get back to 500 energy again, assuming no healing is done. Overall this has made them heal more slowly and regain energy more slowly.
- Infested Terrans now deal less base damage but when fully upgraded are unchanged (30 from 50 unupgraded, 75 upgraded).
v11:
- Fixed Protoss Ground weapon upgrade prices.
- Reduced Fungal Growth duration to 4 seconds from 8.
- Reduced Neural Parasite range from 7 to 4.
- (poor zerg, getting nerfed into oblivion :D)
v10:
- Difficulty Scaling added based on active players in the game.
- With 5 or 6 players there is no change.
- With 3 or 4 players the first zerg upgrade wave is disabled.
- With 2 players the first two zerg upgrade waves are disabled.
- With 1 player the first three zerg upgrade waves are disabled and you start with 1500 minerals.
v9:
- Infestors will autocast Fungal Growth on Biological units and Neural Parasite on Mechanical Units. Lowered number of infestors spawning slightly.
- Added Overseers to the waves, they autocast Infested Terrans now as well.
v8:
- Psi Storm and Snipe scale with upgrades.
- Added clock so you can see how long until the next day (and zerg upgrades)
- Changed day length to 240 seconds from 300.
- Rebalanced upgrade costs in anticipation of multiplayer (cheaper now in most cases).
- Limited Protoss to 10 shield upgrades.
- Completely changed the upgrade system, each upgrade level has its own upgrade now, with a maxlevel of 1. Blizzard's limitations on the number of upgrade buttons on one command card forced me to spread the upgrades out a bit.
- Most upgrade buildings have more upgrades on a second page now.
- Terran air upgrades were moved to the starport.
- Many tooltip and hotkey fixes.
v7:
- Changed Marauder drops to Stalker drops.
- Added Deep Disruptors upgrade to Forge, increases Immortal range by 1.
- Added Overcharge upgrade to Forge, increases Archon Range by 1.
- Added/fixed Jotun Boosters upgrade at Armory, increases Viking Range by 2.
- Limited Supply to 75 per player.
- Increased Ultralisk base damage and upgraded HP
- Increased Kerrigan's upgraded HP
v6:
- Changed Zerg upgrades: -Upgrades occur every 300 (game time) seconds, coinciding with midnight on the map. -Armor only upgrades to 25 max now, introduced HP upgrades that increase zerg units' max HP by 50 or more during the upgrade periods.
- Changed Hardened Shield on the Immortal to reduce incoming damage to 100 while shields are up.
- Added a Heal pad in the middle.
- I have HP upgrades ready to implement for Protoss/Terran if necessary, however I'm waiting to see if it's actually needed first. Everything except the final fight is easily solo-able at the moment, and probably someone who knew what they were doing could beat the final fight solo as is.
- Edited repair costs for all Special Forces hero units, they no longer require vespene gas.
v5:
- Now localized with Xhatix's tool (thanks!)
- Added Day/Night Cycle (every 300 seconds, may change later depending on feedback)
v4:
- Decreased player armor/weapon upgrades max level to 25 and increased their prices.
- Fixed Krazy Kerrigan attack animation
- Increased Krazy Kerrigan health.
- Added checks in the wave start triggers to make sure the building is alive before spawning units from it.
- Fixed a few trigger problems I'd missed.
v3:
- Reduced Void Ray upgrade damage
- Fixed roach armor level not increasing
- Fixed zerg armor upgrades
- Changed lighting to nighttime theme
v2:
- Increased zerg armor upgrades significantly. (needs testing)
- Increased zerg damage upgrades slightly.
- Decreased protoss shield recharge slightly.
- Fixed some enemy spawn triggers (probably more to fix here still).
- Fixed a couple small texture issues.
Here's a video from the first version, and part of why I increased the difficulty a decent amount in v2.
I just wonder how i can play downloaded SC2 maps on SC2??
I have downloaded 10x SC2 maps but i don't know where i need to save them :/
Can't found any info about that
Would love to play the map without the heroes but will also play it again if they stay in. Your Choice :)
Cheers,
Koronis
The largest problem has been medium difficulty after some players die. You are eventually facing ever increasing upgraded zerg that do double damage, so the 2000 damage hydralisk boss becomes 4000 damage, 40 damage zerglings with 500 hp do 80 damage instead, etc. It literally becomes impossible.
I just played it twice more and yes, on Very Easy with many players they can just run out and rape everything until the hatchery bosses. However I still watched two players get instagibbed by the Queen and Hydralisk boss.
The biggest problems are
I realize balance is hard but right now the map is fucked up and the game's "flow" is non-existent. You either rape everything super early or die to the super-zerg when your hero can't even kill some zerglings because they have 600 hp.
Try playing solo on medium see how far you make it.
If the map is intended to play on "very easy" then you should make that Medium. Medium is the baseline, the average.
P.S. One player had four reapers by clicking the dialog fast or something. P.P.S. I saw in the latest that yeah the DT was buffed and the reaper nerfed a little which seemed to even things up some. P.P.P.S. Take another look at Crayon's original version, I thought it was more fun, despite having some major flaws.
@SCmapcritic I'll try to respond to as many of your problems as I can. First off, I'll explain why upgrades moved to a dialog system, and it wasn't my first choice. The last patch from Blizzard completely broke my upgrade system, and maybe due to my lack of experience/skill with the editor, I was unable to salvage the original. I ended up starting from scratch with upgrades, and even then I couldn't get upgrades on buildings to work without the game actually crashing upon buying various upgrades.
If I were to remake the map completely from scratch, I could go back to upgrades on buildings. I doubt I'll remake THIS map from scratch, but I may very well end up making a new and similar map, and if I do I'll definitely attempt to get the upgrades on buildings.
===== A lot of the changes I've made over time have been due to complaints that the map was too easy (especially early on, farm upgrades before moving out and there's no risk, it was said). ===== I definitely understand your problems with the capped upgrades and auto-zerg upgrades. I'm just trying to let people choose how difficult they want their map to be. I think the real problem may lie in not making the easiest settings easy enough.
I was actually moving away from an armor system and towards a health increase system because of the problems that can come from very upgraded armor (some units doing essentially no damage while others are relatively unaffected). I'm not sure health upgrades are ideal, but they do increase the time your units have to live.
I made the hero units larger than maybe was necessary because I didn't want them getting lost in with all the other units, but I can shrink them down a bit.
At some point (I don't remember which version exactly) I did change Reaper attack speed to 0.2, and I may very well slow it down even more. I'm trying to take it one step at a time so I don't swing too far in the other direction. I also recently increased the DT damage a bit. DTs are definitely riskier due to being melee units, and honestly I think there might be just a few too many Overseers flying overhead, rendering cloak essentially useless most of the time.
I kinda designed the Death Blossom just for the fun of it, and as an experiment on creating abilities. I think it's fun, but it's true that since you can't use it very often it diminishes the enjoyment a bit. I may try to balance it for much more frequent use.
As far as trouble moving out, I haven't had too much trouble with 6 players moving out and killing things, but I'm curious if you're having trouble solo or with 6 players. Also I haven't personally tested the harder difficulties much, as I'm not really that good at my own map. I put them in for those who want them, but they're not my thing.
I really should put up boss tutorials. I've been meaning to do that for some time now but other things have taken priority. That first boss isn't too bad if you use the right units. That said, the DT is completely incapable of participating in the Queen Hydralisk fight, and that maybe needs to be changed.
Here's how that boss works: Ranged attack - slow attack speed, ridiculously high damage, the ranged attack is reduced heavily by armor. Melee attack: fast attack speed, even higher damage, regular armor reduction. In other words, if you put 3 immortals up front with some ranged attackers behind them the boss might kill one immortal before it dies, if it's lucky. If you stun the boss with Thors you might not lose any units, depending on how well you time the 250mm cannons. As I said though, I think hero units shouldn't feel like they need to hide in the base or else you lose, so I'll be making some changes to bosses that prevent heroes from being useful.
To sum up, I don't think I can please everyone with one map. Some think the map's too easy, and some think it's too hard. The only thing I can really think to do is work on a separate map that addresses the problems you have with it. I don't think it'd be right to completely change this map now, as there may or may not be people who enjoy this version. If I can, I'll start another map soon.
This is going to be a little rough so know that I am merely criticizing the map, not you as a developer.
This map has become progressively worse over time. Each iteration of the game is less fun than the previous.
Problems
Prior to 2.6
2.6
Suggestions
Anyway those are my thoughts, I appreciate your work on the map because Crayon abandoned it, and it is a good concept with a lot of promise, I just think it has been going in the wrong direction.
Thanks and best of luck.
:D nice 2.6 is awesome the reaper owns but the armor upgrade doesn't apply to him so he is kinda weak in late game :(
Hey mate, here's the aura:
Link Removed: http://download557.mediafire.com/xmx5nnngetig/inq2y1mnftnnmny/Aura_Example.SC2Map
very nice new version :D you worked hard for it :P but here are some ideas: If the hero is the last stand unit you should add some more abilities and a more powerfull or faster attack. Also I found a Lol thing : If you upgrade the command center no units are displayed :)) so you cant buy anymore The Dark Templar should be the protoss hero and the Reaper should be terran hero
From me you get a 9 out of 10 even if its a beta :P
great jobs
Yea the new version had some bugs, I'll have fixes coming in a minute. I was afraid to put in DTs as there isn't really that much detection, and I hadn't put reapers in cause they seemed like they weren't as useful, but I'll definitely put in Reapers if people want them.
just played the new version but there are no special forces reapers and dark templars :( that's sad
Bugs: First I want to say that if I have 1 vespen gas I cant buy upgrades that require it only if i have 2 or more :( Umm.. the spawn in base and spawn in middle doesn't work because the spawn in middle button doesn't show
:D Good luck in fixing them and making new things :P
Looks like the new beta phase broke the map, so I'll be fixing it over the next day or two, depending on how much actually broke. Have to completely redo upgrades and unit damage for starters, but we'll see.
Wow, such improvements! I haven't played since V10 and I decided to give your updates a try and I'm really impressed.
I noticed I was almost able to push out in the beginning then was pushed back into the main until I could mass a decent force to knock out the first hatch, this made for a pretty damn exciting beginning of the game. I really like the hatchery buff mechanic.
The problem I ran into was that once I pushed out into the middle and it revealed the 4-5 new hatches I was overpowered! I managed to kill the baneling hatch pretty easily and had a good struggle killing the ultra hatch, but then when I moved north and destroyed the rocks I just got overrun. This may have something to do with the fact that I lost a lot of units to the baneling boss and ultra boss and was never able to really recover, once the northern hatch buffs got to about 3-4 I couldn't really hold my own against the mutas/ling bosses/lings. I feel like if my upgrades could have gone above 25 I might have had a chance because it was taking me like 3-4 marine shots to kill a ling or something crazy. I used exclusively marine/marauder the whole game.
Edit: I just realized I forgot to upgrade combat shield that game so I'm sure that would have helped a lot.
Edit 2: Yeah, it's a bit easier when you don't lose half your army to the baneling boss :)
Also, I do like the visual changes, the map seems brighter and therefore easier to play! Unless I'm just making shit up haha.
Gonna give it another try. This map is damn fun. Good work! Looking forward to see where it goes from here!
Yea most of my complaints just stem from solo play, I'm sure multiplayer will be much more streamlined.
It's an awesome map (I'm still replaying it!)
It would be cool if your starting unit could be a hero unit with a unique spell or something like that.
Sorry, it was ok on my resolution so I didn't think about it too much. I'll disable it by default in the next version.
the zerg unit counter is on my mineral number
so i just turn it off through triggers but i can't do this to every version so please replace it
and by the way the easyest way to win is go mass ghost. : they are invisible, unless if there is a spore crawler, and they ignore the enemy armor so u can kill queens with only one fully upgraded ghost in cloaked mode
I think what I'm going to have to do is have a mode select at the start. Maybe select between normal, double, and triple income modes. I'll see if I can get a system in for voting for modes in the multiplayer version, though that could have its downsides.